Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects and believes it could acquire atomic bombs "at will", the BBC reported on Thursday.
China's state media on Tuesday defended Pakistan's nuclear record, saying it was A Q Khan who was responsible for atomic proliferation which was not backed by the government and argued that any exemption to India for Nuclear Suppliers Group entry should also be given to Pakistan.
The Korean summit, laden with symbolism in everything from the choice of location to the mango mousse for dessert, could just be the first round in a continuing dialogue, says Dr Rajaram Panda.
The strategic pacts were inked after the summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe during which they also discussed international and regional issues of mutual importance including UN security reforms.
Swaraj said there is scope to do a lot more and this would be an important element of their deliberations.
'Indira Gandhi proved herself a great war leader, but failed as a statesman,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Ensuring through diplomatic means and in conjunction with strategic partners that India will not be required to fight a simultaneous two-front war with China and Pakistan.' Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd) lists what India must have in its national security strategy.
'The talks held in Bangkok, virtually on Indian terms, is an event where Pakistan seems to have blinked first.'
Russia and the US began second round of negotiations on securing Syria's chemical arsenal, hoping the high-stakes talks would lead to broader peace efforts, even as Damascus submitted application to UN for joining the chemical weapons convention.
'If religious scholars and preachers declare suicide attacks as un-Islamic and decree that suicide bombers will be denied an Islamic burial and funeral rites, it may dissuade some would-be terrorists who dream of an afterlife in heaven,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The sudden proximity between India and US has, in the eyes of many, sidelined China. This is not the case, argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The agreement was reached in intensive negotiations between contact groups that Obama and Modi had set up in September.
Condemning terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, US President Barack Obama and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday said that no country's territory should be used to destabilise its neighbours.
Experts tell Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that a Modi government may be Asia oriented, but the US will remain a deep influence. Aziz Haniffa reports
'A three generation US-Pakistan relationship is not likely to be snapped any time soon. All this presents an irritant to an India that wishes to concentrate on economic development,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The target for all our counter-terror operations ought to be Pakistani Punjab's population,' argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'There are major implications for India. Though there was a transparently thin attempt to project the troop reduction as intended to promote peace, the downsizing is actually part of plans to streamline and strengthen the PLA, capable of defending China's national interests at home and abroad,' says Jayadev Ranade.
'Children should be brought up connected to our culture and should be introduced to characters from our mythologies. What is this Baa Baa Black Sheep?'
'Despite almost $30 billion of funding since 2001, all the US reaps today is unmitigated hostility of a Pakistan emboldened to flaunt its China card.' 'How can the US give credence to any offers from Pakistan, which has trotted out the standard alibi of non-State actors time and again, including dreaded terror outfits being out of State control, Pakistan itself being a victim and so forth?'
'Imagine for a moment that the Coast Guard was unable to stop the vessel and it reached Porbandar with its cargo/personnel and targeted the event at which the prime minister was present,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Young IFS officers today would take it for granted that they represent a major country with strengths and capabilities.' 'They will be aware that India is seen as one of the 10 significant countries in the world and therefore their voice will be heard whether on climate change or regime change,' says Ambassador B S Prakash.
In recent years India-Japan relations have acquired rich economic content and strategic intents. Although the bilateral trade at $18 billion between the two countries is not very impressive and leaves much to be desired, the economic engagement between the two countries is both qualitatively and quantitatively noteworthy. India-Japan defence cooperation, however, has generated a lot interest among the strategic community in the context of rise of China. There has been a lot of speculation about India-Japan strategic partnership to hedge China, says Rup Narayan Das.
'Your constant reiteration on the lack of religious freedom in India has sown doubts about the kind of information that you are being fed and based on which you seem to be making adverse references to India and its tradition of religious tolerance.'
'When George Bush Senior decided in 1992 that India and the United States must start talking in this-now-changed world, who would have thought that 10, 15 years down the road, we will start looking at each other as strategic partners?'
NSA Menon's wisdom says that the idea to be superpower is not really desirable, it is better to be different. Sheela Bhatt reports.
'Political meetings will be a mere side show; the main show is economic investment and the business partnership. The success of Modi's US visit will be judged on the basis of India's ability to attract American investment and setting up of manufacturing in India to give jobs to millions,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The government must make clear once and for all that promotions in the Indian Army are not the right of individuals, but a privilege given in accordance with role and function.'
How will the return of a majority government at the Centre, the new India-US friendship and the Mangalyaan triumph change India?
'A collapsing Pakistan may well unleash its nuclear weapons as the last throw of the dice. With a nuclear arsenal of over 50 bombs, even a regional nuclear exchange can devastate the world.'
India needs to have a re-look of whole gamut of its relations with major powers and also prepare for a more turbulent neighbourhood. But such is the tyranny of Indian status quo mindset that any talk of re-look at nuclear doctrine or foreign relations is treated as blasphemy, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
The choice before the next government is not between being a soft State and a tough State; it is between being a smart State and a dumb State, says former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
'No amount of economic measures or prosperity in Kashmir will make any dent in the situation there. The average Kashmiri understands the Pakistani game and is unlikely to prefer Pakistan over India. But the Pakistanis have made clever use of religious symbols and slogans to force religious-minded Kashmiris to support them. India has failed to counter this posturing by the separatists,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Thousands of people have lost their lives and thousands more displaced in the violence in South Sudan. The United Nations mission and humanitarian agencies are under strain to protect camps and to provide internally displaced persons with water, food and other emergency relief. What flared up as a political conflict in South Sudan is now assuming an ethnic character.
'India-US relations seem to have soured when the US expected India to not only balance China in the Asia-Pacific, but also make concessions to Pakistan as a price for US technological help,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'It was China's rise that caused the New Cold War in Asia as it prompted the United States to rebalance its forces in Asia to experiment with engagement and containment at the same time,' says T P Sreenivasan.
'Pluralism is a fundamental fact of Indian life,' Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) tells members of the US Congress. 'Indians created a secular/plural State because that is what the majority believes in and not the other way round.'
'Three security challenges could emerge shortly. The possibility (almost bordering on certainty) is as certain as the fact that night follows day: A terrorist attack by a Pakistan-based group. Chinese intrusion on the border.Communal tension/riots.' Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) explains what the Modi Sarkar needs to be prepared for.
'A participant in many rounds of the border talks with China once told me that China seemed not interested in resolving the border issue as it wanted to keep it as a ready excuse to intervene in the sub-continent,' says Colonel (retd) Anil A Athale.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif continues his exhortation for US mediation in Kashmir, and harks back to his meeting with former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when the latter had agreed to a resolution of Kashmir imbroglio; senior us officials assert there is 'absolutely no change in us policy' that Kashmir has to be resolved bilaterally. Aziz Haniffa reports.
'Vietnam has become an adjective as well as a verb -- the Americans, for instance, were driven by the passion to do a 'Vietnam' on the Soviet Union when that country invaded Afghanistan in 1979.'
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