'What he has done has really been to give his time to go outside India, to reach out to governments, important countries, to meet world leaders. And I am sure when he is meeting them, he is not only presenting a Tata group message, he is presenting an India message. Therefore, he has become a kind of quasi-ambassador for us which is, of course, why the government values and respects him so much as well.' Top corporate lawyer Zia Mody assesses Ratan Tata's legacy.
'We should be mindful that the religious minority community in one country is the majority in another (and) so treatment of the minority community in our respective countries will be an important variable in our relationship'
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said his party would oppose the Centre's move to bring a bill in Parliament to amend the 1995 law governing Waqf boards, and accused the BJP of trying to snatch the rights of Muslims.
The Democrats, especially the Biden administration, wanted to deliver a sharper message to Mr Modi than would be possible in a formal summit setting. So, why not get the most prominent Democrat in decades to deliver it?, explains Shekhar Gupta.
India should encourage the second coming of SAARC with climate change as an urgent agenda and keeping Indian security concerns in mind as the subtext, suggest Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil Athale (retd).
'The dominance of her party also meant that the institutions became lopsided -- whether it was the bureaucracy or the courts or the military.' 'She centralised power to the extent that you would see her representatives or her party office bearers having overly represented in these institutions.' 'That perhaps would have been the biggest blunder that she committed.'
'Religion and extremism is going to be a big force, a very important force, in Bangladesh's politics.'
Foreign Heads of State and governments on Friday congratulated Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on his party's victory in the Lok Sabha polls and said they were looking forward to working with him.
'At this moment you cannot give her asylum because if you do, then you are directing public anger against India.'
'Are we supposed to look the other way as Islamists go on a rampage against Hindus and the Hasina government pay lip service to secularism?' A revealing excerpt from Avishek Biswas and Deep Halder's book, Being Hindu In Bangladesh: The Untold Story.
At the heart of the disagreement is a 1,000-acre land parcel, part of the 3,400 acres owned by the family in Vikhroli, a northeastern suburb of Mumbai.
This is possibly the first time Hasina's daughter will be by her mother's side during an official visit to close neighbour and ally India, and analysts believe this to be significant in many ways.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi left behind a "thirsty" and "frustrated" Bangladesh as the two countries could not reach an accord on the Teesta river water sharing issue during his visit to Dhaka, Chinese official media said on Monday.
Water is going to be a central part of the government's 2024 election campaign. And Gajendra Singh Shekhawat's work will be crucial for it.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, the chairperson of country's largest bank SBI, has been named as the most-powerful woman in business in India by Fortune magazine.
Chastened by the Kargil conflict, Pervez Musharraf will be remembered for gradually lowering the profile of terrorism and seeking a realistically negotiated settlement to the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, notes Ambassador G Parthasarathy, who served as India's high commissioner to Pakistan when Musharraf seized power in a coup in October 1999.
The known unknowns in Prime Minister Modi's Saudi visit assume great significance, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Corporate leaders said a stable government at the Centre will help boost infrastructure spend, address agricultural distress, and encouraging employment.
'While Piyush Goel, Dharmendra Pradhan, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and a clutch of former bureaucrats including R K Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri and K J Alphons are loyal BJP members, none of them fit the mould of party apparatchiks.' 'In fact, many of the latter kind have been shown the door or have been given reduced charges.' 'That goes to show the prime minister's comfort level in dealing with professionals and administrators and the trust he reposes in them,' says Shreekant Sambrani.
Several Bangladeshis are "anti-India" due to New Delhi's close ties with the ruling Awami League, a key advisor to opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party chief Khaleda Zia has said while asking the Indian government to build relations with the people of Bangladesh and not with any political party.
Like their international peers, Indian CEOs too have a significant portion of their incomes coming from stock options and performance-linked bonuses
To consider Pervez Musharraf a real force for peace is an absurdity, declares Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Muslim voters in the Old City in Lucknow know the decisive value of their votes, but are wary that their votes are divided, and that, they fear, will only help Narendra Modi. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com speaks to Muslim voters in the land of tehzeeb and gauges their apprehensions about a Modi sarkar.
Describing Bangladesh as an 'exceptional neighbour', India on Friday said Modi's 'historic' visit there from Saturday will help the two countries.
Not many people in Bangladesh are talking about the Teesta issue.
'When we have a terrorist outfit in a neighbouring nation, we need to do whatever we can to neutralise that threat,' says Ramananda Sengupta.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday met former Bangladesh President Hussain Ershad's wife and opposition Jatiya Party leader Roshan Ershad before leaving for Delhi at the end of her three-day visit to Dhaka.
'Pakistan's negativism should be seen as the reason for India losing interest in SAARC.'
The Tata Sons controversy has raised governance concerns. Arun Duggal and Mohandas Pai on the role of independent directors in such conflict situations.
'Of all the PMs of India, I had the closest relationships with Morarji and Rajiv.' Mark Tully, the most famous foreign correspondent in India, remembers some encounters with prime ministers, dictators and militants.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will undertake a three-day visit to Bangladesh from June 25 during which she is likely to meet the top leadership of that country.
'Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is sincere about maintaining religious harmony in the country.' 'But for mysterious reasons, it does not reach the grassroots activists of her party.'
The modern world will not accommodate bigotry of the sort India is showing the world today, argues Aakar Patel.
B S Prakash takes a tongue-in-cheek look at what India's neighbours think about the proposal of a SAARC satellite.
'Under the more strident Modi version of Hindutva, Nehru has almost become a contemporary political figure.' 'The ruling party knows that without total erasure and distortion of Nehru, their fantasies will always be wobbly.'
'The BJP will get the lion's share of the Opposition vote. I would give the Congress-Left around 15 per cent.'
Will the next generation possess an even more internationalist outlook, and lose their Indian identities entirely? Will they continue to believe in a larger role for business in society and go beyond the boardroom to truly understand the Indian consumer, ask Geoffrey Jones & Vinay Sridhar of Harvard Business School.
'Some of his decisions were not so good, but his intentions were always guided by a deep national interest.'
In the changed circumstances and attitudes in Britain, we must let bygones be bygones, argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The ruling Awami League-led grand alliance has won 288 seats in the 300-member Parliament, Election Commission secretary Helaluddin Ahmed said.
