United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that he had a productive meeting with visiting External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar during which they discussed the bilateral ties, COVID-19 relief efforts, India-China border situation and Afghanistan and vowed to work together to address areas of shared concern.
The agreement would divert China's attention and keep them busy in the Pacific theatre, probably resulting in a reduction in threat perception in our area of interest in the Indian Ocean, notes Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Amid the growing queues of ambulances waiting for patients to be admitted with ventilators and oxygen, only time will tell if the state government has lost the plot or not.
Apart from Sardesai, the chief minister's son Aaditya Thackeray, who is an MLA from Worli in Mumbai and head of the Yuva Sena, was also present at the meeting held at the state secretariat on Monday.
'There will be much for President Trump and Prime Minister Modi to discuss including growing Chinese military cooperation with Pakistan, which heralds a new attempt by China and Pakistan to neutralise India's influence in its Indian Ocean neighbourhood,' notes Ambassador G Parthasarathy.
The United States is planning to use the services of an Indian satellite to get quicker weather information in war-torn Afghanistan, crucial for the movement of its military assets, the Pentagon has said.
Noting that the country was on track to have the largest economy by 2050, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake said, "India is a rising giant whose influence is being felt not only in the Indian Ocean, but in the Americas, in Africa, West Asia, and in Central Asia."
'2020 will show whether India's troubled domestic economic and political house reveals a mismatch in their strategic association or whether closer strategic ties are yet possible,' says Anita Inder Singh.
The sale of 10 AGM-84L Harpoon Block II air-launched missiles is estimated to cost $92 million (Rs 699 crore), while 16 MK 54 All Up Round Lightweight Torpedoes and three MK 54 Exercise Torpedoes are estimated to cost $63 million (Rs 478.8 crore), the Defence Security Cooperation Agency said on Monday in two separate notifications to the Congress.
India has sent a letter of request to the United States seeking to purchase patrol drones for protection and vigilance of its maritime assets in the Indian Ocean, sources said.
More than India's alignment with the Quad, India's defence cooperation and partnership with the USA is of critical importance, notes Rup Narayan Das.
'While many Chinese policy makers dismiss the political, economic and technological component of US-India relations, they express caution on the defence-related ties which also happens to be a major driver in US-India relations,' explains China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju on Saturday donated a month's salary over and above Prime Minister Narendra Modi's directive to all BJP MPs to contribute Rs one crore from MPLAD funds in the country's fight against COVID-19 pandemic.
The rover, Zhurong, named after a god of fire and war in Chinese mythology, landed at the pre-selected area in Utopia Planitia on Mars, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
From Covid to climate change, Shankar Acharya's look at some of the trends and events that might shape 2022.
President Trump, in a move that could have implications on India's energy security, on Monday decided not to grant sanctions exemptions to any oil customers of Iran, further squeezing Tehran's top export commodity.
Pompeo will travel to India, Sri Lanka, Japan and South Korea from June 24 to 30. His four-nation is aimed at deepening US partnerships in the strategic Indo-Pacific region.
China is all set to send on Thursday the first three crew members to its under-construction space station which is expected to be Beijing's eye in the sky and will rival the ageing International Space Station (ISS).
This was the first major request of arms sale purchase by India after Obama designated New Delhi as a major 'strategic defence partner'.
There is no conceivable reason for any big power to put road blocks on the path of an India-Pakistan normalisation process, asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Esper also highlighted the 'increased' military cooperation with India and called it as 'one of the most important defence relationships of the 21th century'.
A 16 nation survey reveals that even West Europeans viewed China more favourably than the US. Only India and Poland were more upbeat about the United States.
The Obama administration has christened his vision of Indo-US ties that has overcome the "hesitations of history" and working for the betterment of the global good as "Modi Doctrine".
Fires are still burning at the site of the two massive explosions some 36 hours after the blasts as another 6,200 people were evacuated to prevent further casualties.
Polls opened at 7 am local time and would close at 5 pm with some 12,845 polling stations being set up throughout the country for 15.9 million voters, who will choose a successor to President Maithripala Sirisina.
'Movement of naval forces at sea is often more than just perfunctory deployment -- reading the messages that they send is important,' alerts Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
With the situation in Ladakh tense and no resolution in sight the trigger to take the India-US relationship to a transformational one is already there, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'India appears to have stood its ground on strategic autonomy by resisting US pressure on Russia, China and Iran, but succumbed to the temptation to walk into a tighter embrace in defence cooperation, a high priority of the Trump administration,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Evacuation' has been key to disaster management in Odisha. The aim is to achieve zero casualty.
China's President Xi Jinping congratulated scientists on the complete success of the Chang'e-5 mission.
'Second-class citizenship would have been meaningless to a Hindu in the Mughal empire.'
The year 2016 was officially the Earth's warmest since record-keeping began in the 1880s, the World Meteorological Organization announced on Wednesday.
Since 2016, when India was officially recognised in US law as a 'major defence partner', Washington has purposefully upgraded the defence relationship.
'Our strategy should be to 'hold the line' in the north on the Sino-Indian land frontier, but maintain and, if possible, enlarge India's current edge in the maritime south.'
The United States is committed to ensuring India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a top American diplomat said on Wednesday, expressing "regret" that his government was unsuccessful in making it a member of the grouping at its pleanary in Seoul last week.
It will not be to India's advantage to create misperceptions that it is bandwagoning with some Anglo-American project for regime change in Myanmar, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The issues around trade gaps, especially around steel and aluminium tariffs imposed by the US, will be addressed separately.
This is the first time North Korea has fired what is thought to be a ballistic weapon over Japan.
Announcing the visit from June 25, the external affairs ministry on Monday said the Modi-Trump discussions will provide a new direction for deeper bilateral engagement.
'Of all the areas that define the future for a strong US-India partnership, none is more important than our defence and security ties.'
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