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.
In a blunt attack on Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday accused it of creating "nuisance" and "constantly" troubling India by promoting terrorism.
'The book has immense value because it reveals the inner workings of the think-tank which appears to provide facts and insights to Modi, though he himself takes the final decisions and articulates them in his characteristic rhetorical style,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Because of the treaty, no big dams or power projects can be built by India on Jhelum, Indus or Chenab.
Amid souring ties, the president visited Beijing for three days. On his return to India, a hope of better ties has arisen, says senior correspondent R Rajagopalan, who travelled with Pranab Mukherjee to the Asian superpower.
Modi also made a call for European Union unity and said India would play a positive role in enhancing that through Germany.
With Beijing having had a profound rethink on India's admission as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the tectonic plates of the geopolitics of a massive swathe of the planet stretching from the Asia-Pacific to West Asia are dramatically shifting. That grating noise in the Central Asian steppes will be heard far and wide -- as far as North America, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Here's the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to the United States Congress.
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.
Modi is the first foreign leader to be invited to the palace by the Crown Prince, who appreciated the role played by Indian workers in the development of UAE as a modern nation, ministry of external affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted.
India hopes to bridge gap with US to buffer against a Paris agreement that restricts country's developmental space.
Facing attacks back home over the issue of intolerance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said India's diversity was the country's "strength and pride" and underlined the importance of peaceful co-existence.
'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.
Ramdev's Patanjali is a low-cost, low-margin business that gets away with pretty much what it wants because wily old Ramdev knows how to get around all politicians, says Vir Sanghvi.
'The past year has yielded extraordinary results in the strategic, commercial, and people-to-people components of the India-United States partnership, US Ambassador to India Richard Rahul Verma tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
'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.
The success of Anil Ambani's ambitious defence plan will depend partly on whether he can persuade government officials and international partners that he can build sophisticated equipment and partly on whether the PM can get India's notoriously slow procurement process to work, say Paritosh Bansal, Sanjeev Miglani and Promit Mukherjee.
Russian firms expand their footprint in India. And take bigger steps to do business with India's private sector.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Myanmar is aimed at transforming the arch of Bay of Bengal into the Circle of Southeast Asia, says Anirban Ganguly.
'The Modi-Xi and Modi-Obama meetings, with an interval of just 12 days, are juxtaposed superbly at a crucial point in the prime minister's life. Can Modi carve out a win-win situation with the superpower and the emerging superpower at the same time?'
'We are encouraged by what the prime minister said recently on these issues... We will keep a close eye on these issues. They are very important and as are other elements of our human rights and religious freedom.' 'So, absolutely, we'll keep a focus on them.'
The prime minister made the reference about the functioning of the Parliament against the backdrop of the virtual washout of its Monsoon session over various issues.
'By lifting his visit to vibrant new functional and emotional planes, Modi saved it from looking like a mere obligatory give-and-take. This is no mean achievement. With his penchant for execution, he must fast track action on the proposals agreed upon, so that the fine print matches the hype,' says B S Raghavan.
Silicon Valley can be replicated, but this will only be achieved so long as fresh talent is welcomed by both our countries - a move that will surely spark a billion ideas and discoveries.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Do Modi's foreign visits actually serve India or they nothing more than expensive tools for domestic positioning and image-building, asks Shehzad Poonawalla.
Read the full transcript of President Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday at the US Capitol in Washington.
'India is going to maintain its ties to China, India is going to develop a strong relationship with the United States. It means that India is going to have the flexibility to pick and choose its friends.' 'That's traditional Indian foreign policy, and it's smart.' Former US ambassador to India Frank Wisner, one of America's sharpest minds on South Asia, tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com what Washington can expect from Narendra Modi's visit.
'Clearly, from the Indian viewpoint, the US retrenchment from Asia cannot be happening as good news.' 'The abandonment of the US' pivot to Asia exposes the US-Indian partnership to be a mere transactional relationship,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
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