Although India's share in the world toy trade has marginally improved, it still lags behind China's. Toys are not China's main item of export, but about two-thirds of the toys sold globally are from China. The world exported toys worth $73.2 billion in 2021: China accounted for 66.2 per cent, or $48.5 billion of that, out of which mainland China made up $46.1 billion and Hong Kong $2.4 billion.
Amidst the fanfare over Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's plans to celebrate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's birth anniversary in Kolkata on January 23, his daughter Anita Bose-Pfaff has said that the organisation's ideology and the nationalist leader's ideas of secularism and inclusiveness are 'poles apart and do not coincide'.
'When armies start attacking with clubs and batons, then at some point this can take an escalatory spiral and spin out of control.'
"We value our partnership with India, and we've been increasing it and doing a lot more, over time. They have the same security challenge, primary security challenger that we do, and it's real on their northern border," Admiral John Christopher Aquilino, commander of United States Indo-Pacific Command, told members of the House Armed Services Committee during a hearing on Indo-Pacific National Security Challenges.
'No Cold War should be reignited and no Ukraine-style crisis should be repeated in Asia'
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China believes that state-to-state interactions should be in line with the trend of the time which is peace and development rather than exclusivity.
India needs to take note of China's assertiveness in implementing its national security law as also its recently exhibited sensitivity to criticism of Xi Jinping by the Indian media, says former senior R&AW officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
Indian policymakers are almost alone, alongside the United States, in seeking a hard and multi-sectoral global decoupling from China in the expectation that it will boost their economies, observes Mihir S Sharma.
'Is China's intention not clear?' 'Do we still think that if we are nice to China, it will be good to us?'
'I don't want my life to be a rat race. I want it to be an adventure.
Speed skating - Swings wins mass start, brings first Belgian Winter gold in 74 years.
Here's a collection of some of the best photos from around the world shot in the last 24 hours.
The resolution condemns additional Chinese provocations, including China's use of military force to change the status quo along the Line of Actual Control, construction of villages in contested areas, publication of maps with Mandarin-language names for cities and features in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, and expansion of Beijing's territorial claims in Bhutan.
"This trip will advance the Biden-Harris administration's rock-solid commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in Washington, DC on Wednesday.
Domestically, Indians are exploring popular beach destinations, the hills of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and the North-Eastern region as well.
Deputy director for the People's Liberation Army Office for International Military Cooperation Major General Huang Xueping held a video conference with his US counterpart Michael Chase last week.
"The intelligence community and the rest of the government are still looking at this. There's not been a definitive conclusion, so it's difficult for me to say, nor should I feel like I should have to defend press reporting about a possible preliminary indication here," National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told reporters at a daily White House news conference.
After the Russian aviation sector was hit by crippling Western sanctions for war against Ukraine, China refused to supply Russia with aircraft parts.
World champion P V Sindhu was beaten 18-21, 12-21 by Chinese Taipei's Tai Tzu-Ying in the semi-finals of the Olympics badminton and will play for the bronze medal now.
A suspected Chinese spy balloon, said to be the size of three buses, was spotted over the United States' airspace, the Pentagon has said, a development that has further strained the already tense bilateral ties as Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday abruptly postponed his key visit to Beijing.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday left for the Uzbek city of Samarkand to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit that will also see the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iran's Ebrahim Raisi among other top world leaders.
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a PIL seeking a direction to all the states to frame rules for menstrual pain leave for female students and working women at their respective workplace, observing that the issue falls under the policy domain of the government.
The global health agency has asked Chinese health officials to share data on genetic sequencing, hospitalisations, deaths and vaccinations.
Mumbai-based Indian Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ISMC) and Singapore-headquartered IGSS Ventures have one strategy in common: They have told the government in their application for semiconductor fabrication plants that they will export the bulk of the chips they make in India in the initial five or 10 years. The third applicant, Vedanta-Foxconn, which is also building a fab plant, has said it will concentrate on the needs of consumer electronics and mobile device markets, and earmark 80 per cent of output for domestic consumption, but has not specified its customers. Finding a viable domestic market could well be the biggest challenge for India's renewed tryst with semiconductors. Fab plants do not sell directly to end users but to intermediary chip design companies - such as Qualcomm or MediaTek.
Sindhu will play her opening match on Sunday, while B Sai Praneeth and the men's pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy will be in action on Saturday.
India and Japan on Thursday agreed to enhance military exercises and defence cooperation as the two countries emphasised that the bilateral special strategic and global partnership plays a crucial role in ensuring a free, open and rules-based Indo-Pacific, amidst China's aggressive behaviour in the region.
Beijing will be intently watching Washington's response for any hint of weakness. Xi Jinping, who feels China has a limited window of strategic opportunity, will be emboldened to take additional initiatives in the Indo-Pacific and specifically against India and Taiwan, warns Jayadeva Ranade, the former senior RA&W officer and China expert.
The incident involving the 400-metre long Ever Given operated by Taiwan's Evergreen Marine Corp has caused a bottleneck in the vital trade artery connecting the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, with more than 300 ships waiting to enter or complete their journey through the canal.
Hsieh Su-wei became the first Taiwanese player to win a grand slam title when she and Peng Shuai beat Ashleigh Barty and Casey Dellacqua 7-6(1), 6-1 in the Wimbledon women's doubles final on Saturday.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made a clear break with the past on UK-China relations as he declared that the "so-called golden era" of bilateral ties is over in the face of the "systemic challenge" posed by the Chinese regime to British values and interests.
'Xi is keen that the remaining three territories still outside the Chinese ambit -- Taiwan, Arunachal Pradesh, and the Senkaku Islands in the East Sea -- be absorbed by the Communist regime by the time the centenary of the revolution rolls around in 2049.'
Blinken will also attend a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Quad grouping and will hold bilateral talks with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar in Delhi.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to travel to India on September 5 on a three-day official visit during which defence cooperation and regional stability are likely to be the focus of her talks with Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, an official said on Monday.
China is expected to boost its nuclear arsenal after President Xi Jinping's remarks at the key Congress of the ruling Communist Party in Beijing for the first time that Beijing will establish strong strategic deterrence, experts have said.
Taking advantage of the Russia-Ukraine war, China has been conducting military drills on its far north-eastern border, raising expert concerns that Beijing could be considering a push into Russian territory.
Chinese golfers told to pull out of Taiwan event
Addressing the centenary celebrations of the Communist Party of China at the historic Tiananmen Square, Xi in over an hour-long address also said that integrating Taiwan with the Chinese mainland is a historic mission of the ruling party.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning went on the offensive saying "we do not believe the entry restriction measures some countries have taken against China are science-based".
'It was more than ego.' 'It carried with it a sincere belief that he was the quintessence of the country, that the country's destiny was irrevocably intertwined with his destiny.' An excerpt from T J S George's The Dismantling of India: In 35 Portraits.
'If the Russian forces do capture Kyiv and set up some sort of provisional government, they might run into an insurgency, for which the geography is just right, it could prove costly for them.' 'In that event, the whole exercise could turn out to be counter-productive -- and costly in both foreign policy and domestic terms.'
