'Nehru was an idealist, he was certainly a visionary in one way, but Mao Zedong was not. Mao Zedong was a very down-to-earth strategist. He wanted to take Tibet, to take the plateau, to take the rivers, to take the minerals.'
Pakistan's Foreign Office has refuted media reports suggesting that its efforts to facilitate peace talks between the US and Iran have stalled, calling the reports baseless and speculative.
Trump's outburst comes amid escalating tensions between the US and its northern neighbour, following recent remarks by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.
R Praggnanandhaa leads a fearless new generation at the Candidates 2026 as veterans face a shifting chess landscape ahead of a world title clash.
The LPG squeeze on India's restaurant sector is the quotidian face of a deeper crisis.
It may now be time to question the price India is paying for Israel's disregard of the serious undermining of India's energy security, asserts former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
US President Donald Trump indicated the possibility of further military operations against Iran's Kharg Island, a key oil export hub, claiming previous strikes had significantly damaged its infrastructure.
'Was the five-day pause ever meant to hold, or was it simply another instrument of signaling, of positioning, of buying time in a war where even the pauses are tactical?' asks Prem Panicker in his must read daily blog on the Gulf War.
Today's situation in the Shaksgam Valley is the consequence of what happened in Gilgit in 1947. But is India ready to militarily get back its territories? asks Claude Arpi.
Russia and China on Saturday condemned the United States airstrikes on Venezuela and the capture of its president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
India has gained the least since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and was penalised the most, while the US, China and the European Union emerged as the biggest beneficiaries from the war.
'We need to give Pakistan something serious to think about on its eastern front -- that is the only way to actually help Afghanistan right now.'
'Our diplomacy should have been focused on preventing war and avoiding the inevitable disruptions it would cause, posing a real risk to India's growth story,' asserts former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
India should resist knee-jerk responses to tariff volatility in the US and instead use the current geopolitical churn to build manufacturing scale at home, former G20 Sherpa and former chief executive officer of NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant said on Wednesday.
Amid escalating tensions with Iran, President Trump is urging nations dependent on Middle Eastern oil to deploy warships to the Strait of Hormuz to safeguard critical global energy supplies.
'Without ground troops the US will not be able to oust the Iranian Islamic regime. Political change does not happen just by using bombs or planes.'
Fight on toward goals that keep receding, or exit with most objectives unmet. Trump is agitated, his poll numbers falling below the Plimsoll line, his base fractured between those who back the war and those who remember that he campaigned on ending them.
'No, India and China were not about to go to all-out war over a few rocks of Galwan.' 'The full picture of what went on at the highest level between two heads of State will not be known for a very, very long time and rightly so,' points out Colonel Anil A Athale, former head of the history division, ministry of defence.
Israel and the United States had a plan. Iran punched back. And now the Gulf is reeling, the world is beginning to feel the pain and, as on date, no one in Washington or Tel Aviv appears willing to admit that the punch has landed, notes Prem Panicker, continuing his must-read blog on the war in the Middle East.
'When a technology is this fundamental, a country should have its own version of it, rather than relying on whether someone else chooses to build it for you.'
'As the PLA higher command is almost dismantled and instability spreads, India needs to be prepared for any eventuality,' cautions China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
If Xi Jinping can establish control over the PLA Ground Force, relations between India and China will settle down to an even keel. The next few weeks will show whether Xi has finally succeeded in gaining control over the PLA Ground Force. That could bring about the substantive shift in India-China relations that both our leaders have been working for, observes Ambassador Prabhat Shukla.
The well-fought defensive battles in Aksai Chin and eastern Arunachal, in remote and forbidding locations such as Galwan, Rezang La, Gurung Hill and Walong, effectively halted Chinese advances not once but twice during the campaign. These engagements, fought with grit and without adequate support, were not immediately known to the world in 1962, points out Dr Kumar.
The Indian and Chinese militaries held a fresh round of high-level military talks focusing on maintaining peace and security along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.
Restoring weighted tax deductions and adopting a petty patents regime can foster firm-level innovative activity critical for competitiveness, points out Nagesh Kumar.
'There is a lot of euphoria in the country after a trade agreement is signed. But it is an illusion for us. What is more important is making it real.'
India should simultaneously prioritise domestic exploration and production of more oil and gas in the country, and ensure we retain diversified suppliers for imports, points out former foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai.
The new US national security strategy signals a retreat from global dominance while reaffirming continuity in India's role in Indo-Pacific security and Quad cooperation, points out former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
The US government, under President Trump, justifies the intervention as a security necessity rather than a resource grab. The primary official reasons include: narco-terrorism charges, national security and migration crisis.
'Many senior Bangladeshis feel Bangladesh will fall into anarchy if the Jamaat becomes an important part of a future government or has disproportionate influence in the government.'
'The tools of warfare are changing. The MoD must deepen its engagement with technology thinkers that can present compelling visions of where warfare may be heading.'
ilver continues to outperform the yellow metal, with the gold-to-silver price ratio declining to its lowest level since 2013. The ratio fell to around 57 on Wednesday in the international market, from a five-year high of 100.8 at the end of April 2025.
The 2025 US National Security Strategy marks a major pullback, with America turning backward and effectively allowing China greater dominance in Asia. while long-time partners like India are left to face an increasingly unstable global order largely on their own, observes Rajeev Srinivasan.
Trade analyst Girish Wankhede puts together a curated list of the 25 biggest hits in the first 25 years of the century.
'However, we must implement a tit-for-tat approach -- reciprocating their conduct with precision.' 'If they demonstrate respect, we respond accordingly. If they adopt hostile positions, we mirror that hostility with equal intensity.'
For decades, the Siliguri Corridor was treated as a geographical vulnerability to be quietly managed. Today, it has emerged as a focal point of eastern geopolitics.
On August 5, 1953, Jawaharlal Nehru sent a strange note to the foreign secretary. It is worth mentioning because it was symptomatic of the lack of knowledge about Western Tibet in India and in South Block in particular, notes Claude Arpi.
Dhurandhar does not ask audiences to cheer blindly, notes Kumar Abhishek. It asks them to see how power operates in grey zones, and at moral cost.
Bolton slammed Trump's tariff policy, asserting that it has "shredded" decades of Western efforts to align India away from its Cold War ties with the then Soviet Union (Russia) and address the growing threat from China.
India emerged from the war militarily bruised and strategically altered. The United States, under the guise of friendship, had succeeded in achieving what open alignment never could: The psychological and political repositioning of India within the Cold War order, points out Dr Kumar.
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