Russia and China have a broad consensus today on almost all core issues related to global strategic stability, which is unprecedented in modern history, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Chengdu Airlines said the ARJ21 has a lower cost per seat than similar models of Airbus and Boeing models.
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.
'We failed as a country because those who should have been there to say goodbye did not show up.'
'China any day would prefer to team up with India and dump Pakistan once the resolution of the border dispute becomes an accomplished fact.'
The 2.3 million strong People's Liberation Army, the world's largest, adopts a more aggressive posture with massive structural revamp.
'Given the present force levels, India cannot fight and win.' 'India can't hope to terminate the conflict on India's terms and impose the nation's will upon the adversaries,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Radio Free Europe reported that the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a Chinese-led development bank, suspended all business with Russia and Belarus on March 3.
China on Wednesday announced a 12.2 per cent increase in its defence budget taking the military spending for this year to $132 billion, far above India's $36 billion.
A day after the nearly 13-hour meeting, the two sides in a joint statement on Saturday reaffirmed that such a resolution would help restore peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh and facilitate progress in bilateral relations.
'Clarifying that modernisation of national defence and armed forces should be completed by 2035, Xi Jinping asserted the goal is to make the People's Liberation Army a "world class force" that "can fight and win" by 2050,' points out former RAW officer Jayadeva Ranade.
'If an 'informal meeting' with Xi Jinping materialises before the SCO summit in June, that itself could be regarded as a significant breakthrough in India-China relations,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'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.
Come December, India may have to re-evaluate purchases of Russian oil if a price cap on crude oil proposed by the US and the European Union (EU) comes into effect. That impacts nearly a quarter of India's oil purchases that come at a discount, helping limit marketing losses for India's state refiners and enabling New Delhi to manage inflation by freezing pump prices of motor fuels. In September, India imported 1 million barrels a day or 24 per cent of its overall imports from Russia, which became the biggest supplier of oil to India.
"There are multiple reasons for the current food crisis, primarily because of recent cyclones in Bangladesh and Myanmar, which destroyed the entire rice crops in these countries, also exporters of rice. Now they have to import rice instead of exporting it," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said during the deliberations on the issue at the ministerial meet in Yekaterinburg (Russia).
India spent USD 63.9 billion on its military in 2017, an increase of 5.5 per cent compared with 2016 and of 45 per cent since 2008.
China will open up service sectors such as education, finance and culture for FDI to remain an attractive destination for overseas investment.
Dai Bingguo, who served as the China's boundary negotiator with India from 2003 to 2013, told Chinese media, "If the Indian side takes care of China's concerns in the eastern sector of their border, the Chinese side will respond accordingly and address India's concerns elsewhere."
According to reports, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping as Head of State of a country with which the UK has diplomatic relations.
'Relations between India and Japan are robust and devoid of either shadow of history or any irritant.' 'In fact, there is plenty of warmth and goodwill earned over history. There are no negatives but only opportunities,' notes Dr Rajaram Panda.
Jaishankar said that India and Russia have a long-standing relationship that has certainly served New Delhi's interests well.
Even as Pakistan continues to urge the international community to accept its membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, highly placed sources in the United States who are involved with the tracking of nuclear commerce have claimed that Islamabad is still selling nuclear materials to North Korea.
The responsibility for peace in Ukraine now rests in the hands of the two principal belligerents, Russia and the US, and the prime victim of this great power rivalry, Ukraine, points out Nitin Desai.
Riled by calls from United Nations Human Rights body and some Western countries to address the recurring self immolations in Tibet protesting Chinese rule, Beijing on Monday slammed them saying foreign nations should stop interfering in its "domestic affairs".
India is now much ahead of other large railway networks in the world in terms of electrification -- with the US at just 1 per cent, China at 72 per cent and Europe at 60 per cent.
A new book reproduces original Chinese maps that contradict Chinese propaganda. The book reveals Chinese intelligence admissions that Beijing never maintained any army base, customs office or other government function in the disputed area until 1983.
China's closer and enhanced relationship with Pakistan is putting considerable strain in India-China relations, says former RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade.
In his remarks, Admiral Singh complimented his force for continuously maintaining 'peak combat-readiness' and 'high tempo' of operations over the past few months, they said.
The Kerala Story is among a long list of films that invited bans and censorship.
The two sides also decided on early operationalisation of the proposed hotline between the two armies as part of the confidence building measures, the defence ministry said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang displayed a photograph of Indian 'incursion' into Donglong area.
India's nuclear strategy, which has traditionally focused on Pakistan, now appears to place increased emphasis on China, the two experts claimed.
'In India, China's capacities to conduct new types of warfare is critically underestimated,' says Claude Arpi.
Australia will join the United States in a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday, as other allies weighed similar moves to protest China's human rights record.
The study by an international team led by scientists at the UK's Newcastle University is the first global assessment of areas at greatest risk of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF). Published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday, it estimates that 15 million people around the world are at risk from flooding caused by glacial lakes.
There seems to be a desire for opacity when it comes to confronting China, points out Aakar Patel.
With Western corporations, including Microsoft, AWS and Oracle, shutting down their operations in Russia, the rest of the world has become acutely aware of its dependence on a clutch of technology service providers.
Indian officials said Doval's visit will be rescheduled as he is preoccupied with the handling of the Pathankot incident.
'How can any religion have anything to do with terrorism? How was Islam equated with terrorism? And once that happens, how does a man in the western country differentiate between a moderate Muslim and a radical Muslim'
'We should not allow ourselves to be surprised in any manner in future on the border.'
