Funding challenges are not limited to just one think tank. Several scholars say that access for conducting research and getting foreign funds has become a major hurdle for think tanks, with the government raising many questions regarding such inflows. As a result, many think tanks are keeping a low profile and becoming less prolific.
'India Inc has been afraid to criticise the government of the day for many years now, and it is perhaps unfair to blame the current one alone,' says Shyamal Majumdar.
'It will be a repeated folly to ever think that China will not attack us.'
But there is no serious threat because the NDA government has a decisive majority.
The first no-confidence motion was moved against Jawaharlal Nehru in August 1963 by J B Kripalani.
'This is a historic juncture when the US is in great need of an alliance with India to strengthen its hands in the fierce struggle with China in the Asian theatre,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Nitish Kumar government has the support of 132 MLAs.
When China protested strongly over the August decision on J&K -- not once but twice -- we ignored it. And to compound matters, we simply turned our back and walked over to the 'Quad' alliance with the US, upgrading it to ministerial level, and thereafter began following the American footfalls on Taiwan and COVID-19 to taunt and humiliate Beijing, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
"He (Modi) is not a chowkidar (watchman), but bhagidar (partner, of capitalists)," Rahul Gandhi charged.
Not to say that India couldn't have handled the situation better, but on average, it didn't do anywhere near as badly as the naysayers make it out argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
"Trust is something that has been missing from both sides (Delhi and Srinagar). Successive prime ministers -- Jawaharlal Nehru, Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee -- made promises but the trust deficit has persisted," he added.
Most of India's reserves for war in the mountains have been sucked in by the standoff with China. A large part of India's airpower has also similarly been committed on the eastern border. By moving these reserves to the China border, India has been weakened vis-a-vis Pakistan. All in all, the nightmare scenario for India of a two-front war may well come true, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
World leaders said they were looking forward to working with Joe Biden, as they welcomed the 46th President of the United States with praise and took parting shots at his predecessor Donald Trump.
'The root of the Kashmir problem lies in Partition. To solve the issue, we have to begin from there and settle it forever.'
'Please do not threaten us with street violence.' 'Do you have some humanity left in you?'
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma late Wednesday night on the sidelines of ASEAN ministerial meet in Singapore. The leaders had a 'very good' meeting during which Rice appreciated India's 'resolve to go ahead with the historic nuclear deal', highly-placed sources told PTI.
Will Empire strike back to prevent a game changing election result, asks T P Sreenivasan.
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.
Unless controlled and contained, given the untested belief that the north Indian labour support and follow the Hindutva kind of political ideology, there is a potential in terms of ideological clashes with their Dravidian brethren in the local neighbourhoods, and it all escalating into violence, especially during election time, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Hindutva doesn't teach you to stab someone in the back.'
'It is not a matter of fixing the military problem up there in the Himalayas and the retreat of the two militaries.' 'India has to find a way to correct the racist and very patronising views of India in the Chinese mind.'
The Congress has been reduced from 440 seats in the Lok Sabha to 44 seats due its 'arrogance' but it is still not ready to introspect or correct itself, he said.
'Our party cadre does not want her in the party.'
The Indian authorities have to reconfirm that Prabhakaran is dead. It may require seeking assistance from Interpol and also involve the re-opening of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, and more so, the investigations, formally or otherwise, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
They are trying to better the country's education system.
Reaching out to the youth of the Kashmir Valley, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday spelled out initiatives for peace and development, and assured they will not inherit the problems faced by their parents and grandparents.
By 2022, there is a plan to make an mRNA-technology vaccine, for which it has tied up with Canadian firm Providence Therapeutics.
'US-Indian relations will become an important part of Trump's diplomacy,' says Global Times.
As trends for the Jharkhand assembly elections showed the Congress-Jharkhand Mukti Morcha alliance ahead of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the Nationalist Congress Party on Monday said people of Jharkhand have demolished the "arrogance" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the saffron party president Amit Shah.
BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari filed his nomination on Friday from the Nandigram seat against his mentor-turned-adversary Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, and said he was '100 per cent' confident of his victory.
'If the government was serious about co-opting the corporate sector meaningfully in the fight against COVID-19, it could have specified activities beyond cheque-writing,' notes Kanika Datta.
'If the Singh government was characterised by policy paralysis, this one is afflicted by hyperactivism, sans a roadmap,' says Yogendra Yadav.
Shahid Jameel, recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, also said that the country had already reached community transmission a long time ago.
Most exit polls on Sunday forecast another term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with some of them projecting that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance will get more than 300 seats to comfortably cross the majority mark of 272 in the Lok Sabha.
There seems to be no "closure" for B S Yediyurappa, the Bharatiya Janata Party's "comeback man" in Karnataka, as he could never complete a full term in office, despite becoming the chief minister four times, surmounting odds. It's also too early to write a political obituary of the 78-year old Lingayat strongman and the 24X7 politician, the face of the party in the state for decades.
Modi knows how to turn Gujarati pride into an emotive issue at election time and a Gujarati President would have its own electoral resonance and significance, note Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
Modi said the wave in favour of the BJP was stronger this time than in 2014.
It is an ode to his politics that believed in building bridges across social or political divides that he was one of the most liked state leaders among the upper castes even as he drew his support mostly from Dalits, a group which at times shared antagonistic relations with the more prosperous communities due to a number of social and political reasons.
In Aurangabad, Shiv Sena bagged 29 seats, BJP 22 while the MIM, who made its debut, bagged 25 seats.
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