'Clearly, there is a wide gap between the stated intentions of China's top leadership to improve relations with India and the PLA's aggressive border management,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Carter has said India's designation as a 'major defence partner' would allow the US to cooperate with it --
Gross refining margins may decline sequentially but improving petro-chem margins will boost earnings
He underlined that Lok Sabha election results in India show that the Modi government kept alive and strengthened the 'expectation of change' in the country.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will meet with United States President Barack Obama at the White House next month, where the two leaders will chart a course seeking enhanced bilateral ties and defence cooperation between the two countries, US officials have said. Dr Singh will visit the White House on September 27.
'If we could break through this symbolic barrier of sanctions and a dysfunctional relationship, we could do anything.'
'Our equations with China require engagement and not confrontation; its interfaces with Pakistan and with some other South Asian neighbours also add to the complexities,' says Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
'Over the last two decades, the India-French relationship has grown steadily, no major political difference having darkened the sky between Paris and Delhi,' says Claude Arpi.
Describing the unprecedented second visit of US President Barack Obama to India as "game changing" the White House has said the Obama-Modi meeting would "elevate the nature of the relationship" between the two largest democracies of the world.
'It is in electronics that the gap between where we are and where we need to be is most obvious and most persistent.' 'It is not only a national security issue, but also a commercial issue,' argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
The Indo-US defence relationship may now get personal attention with strong India-backer Ashton Carter today being nominated by President Barack Obama for the key post of the defence secretary.
Priority right now, the defence minister said, is to restore normalcy.
'It's not as if power demand is falling. It's that generation has outpaced demand.'
His Germany visit, which he described as a "new chapter" in bilateral relations, will begin with a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel at her country retreat of Schloss Meseberg.
Since the 1984 national elections, no party has won a clear majority in the lower house of Parliament, a US intelligence report has observed. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
'Devyani -- she is a public servant and her personal life has already received far too much attention -- and her ambitious father now need to retreat to the background so that wiser diplomatic heads restore sanity to India-US relations as India prepares for parliamentary elections,' says Ambassador K C Singh.
With the continuing stand-off in Ladakh casting a shadow over the Sino-India talks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday raised 'serious concerns' over the repeated incidents along the border and sought an early settlement of the boundary question.
The two countries also decided to expand trade and commercial ties holding that there are opportunities to exploit untapped economic potential in the two countries.
'This is the first time that the Americans have agreed to refer to "cross-border terrorist attacks" in a joint statement.' 'No wonder Pakistan has called the joint statement "singularly unhelpful" and has blasted it, and its all-weather friend China has applauded Pakistan's frontline role in combating terrorism,' points out former foreign secretary Ambassador Kanwal Sibal.
President Pranab Mukherjee's recent visit to the Pacific Island nation is path-breaking, but much more needs to be done, says Dr Rahul Mishra.
'The world wants India to succeed. It also worries now that India over-promises and under-delivers,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'We have a common way of looking at the world, a common way of thinking, and a common set of values that predispose us to be partners. And our interests overlap greatly,' Dr Ashton B Carter, America's next defence secretary, told Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
Over 15 years, with seven per cent growth, the Indian economy will be three times bigger.
The PM will pay a two-day visit to Japan from October 28-29 to hold the annual India-Japan summit with Abe. The focus of the visit will be to further expand cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, carry out joint infrastructure projects in third countries and further boost ties key sectors like defence and trade.
In perhaps the first major conference on the United States-India strategic partnership in the aftermath of the Khobragade controversy that plunged the bilateral relationship in a downward spiral and is now in the process of being resurrected, the undeniable consensus among the panelists and participants was that much ballyhooed strategic convergence between Washington and New Delhi has dissipated.
It's a packed 5-nation, 9-day, visit for Prime Minister Modi as he heads to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, apart from Ufa in Russia.
If India takes care of the economic investments, then it will open up the space to dampen or circumvent some of the political burdens
Walter Lohman, director of Asian Studies Centre at the Washington, DC and former policy aide to Senator John McCain, said India's role in America's effort to maintain its commitment to ensuring the peace, security, prosperity, and freedom in East Asia was relatively minor.
