May said Britain and the US must "lead together" again and play their role in safeguarding global security even as she welcomed the rise of democratic allies like India.
China remains the elephant in the room and has to be tamed, which the United States alone is unable to do and therefore calls allies to come on board.
'New Delhi showed itself willing -- at least for a period -- to tolerate the risk of conflict and to withstand Beijing's implicit and explicit threats.' 'But it also continued to try to cut some kind of deal with China to reduce tensions.'
Does Mrs Donald Trump realise that her immediate predecessor, Michelle Obama, is not the only hard act to follow, wonders Kanika Datta.
'If we play our cards right, we may even benefit from the competition between the US and China as seen from increased investment from each of these countries into India.' 'The size of our market gives us an important lever of power which we shall have to play adroitly and intelligently,' points out Ambassador Gautam Bambawale -- who served as India's envoy to China -- in the Professor V M Dandekar Memorial Lecture 2019, delivered on March 8, 2019 in Pune.
The Trump administration terminated India's designation as a beneficiary developing nation under the Generalized System of Preferences in June.
With the signing of the pact, the Quad grouping of India, Japan, Australia and the US is set to gain more heft now, notes Dr Rajaram Panda.
'Modi, with his sharply honed political savvy and undoubted grasp of international affairs, is a past master at taking the measure of world leaders.' 'He would be the last person to think of the unpredictable and not too well-regarded Trump as the mediator,' says B S Raghavan.
Aziz Haniffa, who has covered every Indian Prime Minister's visit to the US since Rajiv Gandhi in 1985, gives us a peek into what's happening in Washington, DC on the eve of the Modi-Trump summit.
Kim Yong Chol delivered a letter from the North Korean leader to Trump.
China is on the lookout for investment pastures where its money is welcome, safe and earns a decent return. India also needs vast investment - about $1 trillion over the next 10-15 years - in infrastructure, green energy, transportation and heavy industry, says Ravi Bhoothalingam.
'If I had not been elected President of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea,' Trump said.
Panagariya urged the government to undertake labour law reforms and make land acquisition more flexible to attract the multinationals.
Trump said that America's relationship with Russia 'may be at an all-time low', but he hoped that it would have been wonderful if the two countries could get along.
Modi, who was in Osaka, laid special emphasis on building a disaster resilient future.
The elephant in the room will permeate the conversations, predicts Rup Narayan Das.
The Japanese prime minister's visit to the memorial in Hawaii, the spot that was bombed 75 years ago, shows that it is possible for two powerful former enemies to transcend recriminatory impulses, observes Rajaram Panda.
There is a sense of relief in Beijing that Modi will be at the helm of affairs in Delhi at a critical juncture in the geopolitics of the region, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Blinken visit indicated that the Biden administration is still somewhat tentative about the specifics of its relations with India, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, who has served multiple stints at India's embassy in Washington, DC.
As India and the United States are set to begin negotiations on two transformational deals -- Security of Supply Arrangement (SOSA) and Reciprocal Defence Procurement Agreement (RDP) -- the Pentagon has said that the defence industries of the two nations will come together once the negotiations conclude.
'Modi's first foreign trip at the very outset of his second term as PM reinforces a growing impression that this regional tour underscores a shift in emphasis in India's foreign policy that was traditionally focused on the northern tier of countries to the Indian Ocean rim,' explains Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology sought hospital care in November 2019, weeks before Beijing disclosed the COVID-19 pandemic, a United States media report said, citing a previously undisclosed American intelligence document that could add weight to growing calls for a full scale probe of whether the coronavirus may have escaped from China's top bio lab.
'The intrusion in Chumar, during and beyond the Chinese president's visit, is unprecedented and has qualitatively changed the tone of the India-China relationship,' says Jayadeva Ranade, a member of the National Security Advisory Board.
The prime minister will have a tight schedule in the Philippines as besides attending the 15th ASEAN-India summit and 12th East Asia summit on November 14, he will have a series of other engagements including bilateral meetings with several leaders.
'No one knows Pak and understands Pak better than China,' Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.
Presence of terror safe havens in Pakistan, aggressive Chinese behaviour and the Afghanistan situation dominated last month's meeting between James Mattis and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval
'No matter how severe sanctions the UN security council imposes on North Korea, the impact of the sanctions would depend on how faithfully they are enforced by China,' says Dr Rajaram Panda.
'It's the first-ever US presidential visit which is specially planned for India.' 'The standalone visit itself has achieved something already. Don't underestimate it.' Sheela Bhatt gives us an exclusive glimpse of what the Modi government hopes to achieve from Trump's visit.
China on Thursday blocked another bid by the United States, France and the United Kingdom to list Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief and Pathankot terror attack mastermind Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the United Nations, saying it has rejected the move as "there is no consensus".
Stricter regulations in US forces industry to look at these countries with a market size of $300 billion
Nancy Pelosi's gritty refusal to backtrack on her plans to visit Taiwan is part of who she is.
The Chinese Communist Party's all important 19th Party Congress is just months away, and President Xi Jinping finds himself confronting unlikely challenges to his pre-eminent position, says former RA&W officer and China watcher Jayadeva Ranade.
The Chabahar port, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, 'can be the first significant footfall in an Indian variant of the 'Belt and Road' initiative.'
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi will be the chief guest at this year's Republic Day celebrations.
'In the past the US has been reluctant to name Pakistan directly in an US-India joint statement.'
'... to Imran Khan, that there's not going to be any mediation of any meaningful sort given his (Modi's) special relationship with Trump.'
'Is Xi's China stable?'
'No one can say whether the regime will fall all at once or if its leaders are devising a new solid and competitive -- anything but democratic -- model.' A fascinating excerpt from Francois Bougon's Inside The Mind of Xi Jinping.
Earlier, Modi met Jinping seperately and the two leaders concurred there had been a perceptible improvement in bilateral relations.
'The domination of American foreign policy by the military poses some hidden dangers for us.' 'We must factor in that the Pakistani military and the US military have close ties going back three generations.' 'Pakistan will find sympathetic ears in the Pentagon against India as the bogey man.' 'This will be further milked to the maximum by raising the ante in Kashmir through its proxies,' warns Colonel Anil A Athale.
'If, as appears to be the case, India is on way to 'mending fences' with China, and China is equally desirous to 'reset' the relationship, this could be a self-reflexive moment in India's positioning vis-a-vis not just the Dalai Lama, but also the Tibetan issue and China as a whole,' points out China expert Alka Acharya.
