Although the pact would focus mainly on the Pacific and the South China Sea region, any action designed to deter China with or without New Delhi's active participation is a welcome move, notes Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
In Tripura, the challenge for the chief minister is less from the alliance partners and more from his own party, the BJP.
In a conversation with Kaushik Basu, professor in the Cornell University in the United States and India's former chief economic advisor, Gandhi said he is all for internal democracy in the Congress, which fought for India's independence, gave the country its Constitution and stood for equality.
A 1985-batch IAS officer with a reputation for industriousness, Murmu is currently special secretary in the revenue department.
The 39-year-old was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate from Ranchi after the agency conducted multi-city raids against him, Singhal, her businessman husband Abhishek Jha and others, on May 6.
Why did the department and his colleagues not stop this 'rogue' officer from implicating an innocent man while the entire nation was watching for weeks? The answer is they either approved, or disapproved and refused to intervene or they didn't care, notes Aakar Patel.
Anshu Prakash was allegedly assaulted during a meeting at Kejriwal's official residence on February 19. The police said the chief minister was present when the alleged assault took place.
'Would you want to bring kids into a world that could run out of drinking water before they reach adulthood?'
Addressing a press conference a day after the CBI raid against him, Sisodia expressed apprehension that the agency or the Enforcement Directorate (ED) may arrest him in the next 3-4 days, while Chief Minister Kejriwal, who has been aggressively taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party in Modi's home state, announced on Twitter that he will be touring Gujarat with Sisodia from Monday.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him to withdraw the Centre's order recalling Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, and said her government 'is not releasing' the top bureaucrat.
'The time has come to substitute the present Constitutional set-up with an alternative democratic framework,' argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
What these elections prove beyond any doubt (if ever there was one) that Modi's hold over public mind and Shah's mastery of election management are unparalleled. It doesn't seem likely that they will be matched any time soon in the Indian political scene, reaffirms Shreekant Sambrani.
The finance minister is ready to present a second financial package. The Centre has ruled out a mega stimulus and will rely on targeted, incremental packages. Industry is clamouring for a bailout, the liquidity upheaval in capital markets is nowhere close to being sorted out, and all budgetary forecasts now stand irrelevant, reports Arup Roychoudhury.
Arun Narayan and Musafir Baitha, both officials of Bihar legislative council have been suspended for questioning the 'sushashan'(good governance) of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on social networking site Facebook. Narayan and Baitha never imagined that their views on Facebook would put them in trouble.
'A bit of foresight would have helped.' 'Isn't it common sense that this is sowing and wedding season?' 'The plan is indeed unquestionably revolutionary, but better preparedness could have avoided such teething troubles.'
Aseem Chhabra presents his list of 10 international films that mattered to him, stories that he connected with and characters that gave him a better understanding of the human condition.
'The deaths of the children in the Gambia would batter India's reputation as the developing world's pharmacy.'
'How can we tolerate such high-handedness?'
'Modi and the BJP don't want Delhi to function.' 'The LG is like a puppet of the BJP.'
The social media should be used for the welfare of the people and not for self-praise, Modi told bureaucrats.
The perception is rapidly gaining ground that though the chief minister is from the Shiv Sena, the government is being run by the NCP.
The Government also defended the President's decision to enforce a state of emergency, that had given him sweeping authority to act in the interests of public security and preserving public order, including suspending any laws, authorising detentions and seizing property, saying it was declared after attempts were made to attack the President's Office and other public property.
'It seems unlikely that a recruit will make a useful contribution as member of a combat unit.'
The ED also told the special court that Christian Michel had spoken about 'the son of the Italian lady' and how he is going to become the 'next prime minister of the country'.
Gowri Ramnarayan explores the world of Kalki Krishnamurthy whose magnificent novel Ponniyin Selvan has inspired Mani Ratnam's latest film PS I.
'Modiji did not say anything so that there was no influence. He endured all this silently'
'He always used to say, 'I have taken up this post to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and I will do it during the time I am here'.'
Against the backdrop of the Lok Sabha results, a much larger scale of desertion was anticipated from the TMC. 'It seems, people don't believe that the ship is sinking.'
In all this, the political establishment -- and especially the finance ministry -- appears the weakest link, and worse still, the possible reason for the political backing to Narain and Ramkrishna that emboldened them to defy all the sentinels -- the independent board, the auditors, top management persons like the chief compliance officer, the company secretary, and unbelievably the super-regulator Sebi, observes V Ranganathan.
'If you want Aatma Nirbhar, your policies should favour self-reliance, but your policies do not help the idea.' 'How are we going to be self-reliant if you make things difficult for us?'
'It is not the chief minister who would have rung up and told the local police station to botch up the case.' 'No chief minister or chief secretary or DGP would like a case like this happening in their state.'
Though the mandate is seen largely an outcome of Banerjee's welfare schemes, she has promised to industrialise at a faster pace, or so read the manifesto.
Gandhi accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of bringing back the idea of a 'king of India' that was 'smashed in 1947" and targeted the PM saying that the 'idea of a king is back.."
On legal front, Wankhede, who the NCB asserted has an impeccable service record, failed to get any relief related to an affidavit on the sensational extortion claims made by the independent witness, Prabhakar Sail, with a special court saying it cannot pass a blanket order barring courts from taking cognisance of the document.
Zakia Jafri, the wife of slain Congress leader Ehsan Jafri who was killed at Gulberg society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002 during the violence, has challenged the SIT's clean chit to 64 persons including Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat chief minister during the 2002 riots in the state.
'The sole objective is to harass me, silence me.'
The 2G judgment suggests many bureaucrats have poor application, inadequate interest and are unwilling to be active participants in the policy process, says Babu Jacob.
'In politics, not everything is spoken and there are a lot of messaging done very discreetly.'
Top officials of the environment ministry, Delhi Development Authority and municipal commissioners also stayed away from the deliberations.
'Let them put their house in order first.' 'Let the RBI first rectify themselves.'
