'The Indian gung-ho leadership may like to think about it, there should never ever be a doubt in anyone's mind, friend or foe, that Pakistan's operationally ready nuclear capability enables every Pakistani leader the liberty, the dignity and the courage to look straight into the Indian eye and never blink.'
'Bharat is a name that is 7000 years old.' 'We are not saying the name of the country should be changed from India to Bharat; we only recommended that the stress should be on Bharat.'
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Following the party's sweep of assembly elections in three Hindi heartland states against the odds, the BJP's brain trust is now busy game-planning as to how it can improve on its 2019 Lok Sabha election tally of 303 seats.
Big-power rivalries in the Central Asian region have catapulted Pakistan into a key role in the US's regional strategy more than at any time, says M K Bhadrakumar.
The challenge for the RBI in 2024 is likely to be less about containing elevated inflation and more about curbing excessive financial market exuberance and a 'problem of plenty', notes Sajjid Chinoy, Chief India Economist JP Morgan.
As of now, Azad couldn't be in the BJP leadership's calculus. The BJP has been trying to drill into the J&K electorate that this time around the UT would most certainly have a Hindu chief minister, explains Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
With the 2024 Lok Sabha elections less than eight months away, the SP is experimenting with yet another template of combining a soft Hindutva tenor with its time-tested Muslim-Yadav combination to reclaim its lost political capital vis-a-vis the BJP.
India is increasingly a willing participant in the evolving US' Indo-Pacific strategy. While these developments are related to the perception of a growing Chinese security challenge, their implications for India's much-vaunted strategic autonomy should be a matter of deeper and closer reflection, asserts former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
Navy chief Admiral R Hari Kumar on Monday flagged concerns over growing geo-political power play in the Indo-Pacific, and noted that the US-China rivalry in the region is likely to be a "marathon".
Former RBI governor D Subbarao has suggested that the government should come up with a 10-year road map for privatisation of all Public Sector Banks (PSBs) as it would provide much needed predictability to stakeholders. Subbarao further said that the big bang approach to privatisation of state-owned banks is not desirable but at the same time the issue should not be put on the back burner. "Ideally, we should have a road map, maybe over a 10 year timeframe, to privatise all PSBs. "That will give much needed predictability to all stakeholders," he told PTI.
Medical seats for under-graduates and post-graduates remaining vacant in the NEET era, together with the Centre 'freezing' the number of medical colleges and seats in (Dravidian) Tamil Nadu and the launch of the PM's 'Vishwakarma Scheme' for the nation's craftsmen, are all seen as a bid to further reverse the state's progressive socio-economic agenda of and its achievements of the past hundred-plus years, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
To threaten China and Pakistan, and then to sharply cut back on military funding, bespeaks a remarkable trust in Beijing and Islamabad that is not borne out by anything they say or do, notes Ajai Shukla.
The status of the current submarine force level is alarming and we need to address the threat perceptions expeditiously. Critical decisions pertaining to national security cannot be delayed any further due to the rapidly changing maritime threat perceptions and growing strategic importance of the Indian Ocean region, asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
'Washington appears to be playing the long game, and making the argument to India that over the longer term, Russia -- sanctioned, cash-strapped, isolated by the West -- will no longer be a viable defence partner for India'
Four years after he left Bihar to move to Rashtrapati Bhavan, President Ram Nath Kovind returned to Patna to address the inaugural event at the centenary celebration of the Bihar legislative assembly building.
The diplomat made the remarks replying to lawmakers' questions on New Delhi abstaining from several UN vote on Russian aggression against Ukraine.
'The expulsion of Kashmiri Pandits -- and all other non-Muslims -- is its clear objective.'
Army Chief Gen MM Naravane on Wednesday described as 'highly regrettable' the December 4 firing incident in Nagaland's Mon district in which 14 civilians were killed and said 'appropriate action,' as required to uphold the law of the land, would be taken based on the investigation.
'Modi looks to be an effective, result-oriented, purposeful leader, focused on bringing greatness and glory to the nation.'
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So it is best for his critics to give up their sniping and supplement his efforts,' asserts B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant who served three prime ministers.
The political-electoral calculus favours spending thousands of crores on vanity projects like Sardar Patel's statue and the Central Vista over building up our military to handle the confrontations and conflicts that loom large, points out Ajai Shukla.
In an address at a virtual seminar, General Rawat said the situation along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh remained tense and that India's posturing has been "unambiguous".
On this Teachers Day, I once again bow my head as I remember all the teachers who had taught me in school, college, military academy, army courses and so on. But Ms Shantha Potty Aunty, this one more head bow is specially for you, admirably says Colonel K Thammayya Udupa (retd).
Use these tips to crack the IIT-JEE effortlessly.
Utilise time at hand to hone new skills the way Isaac Newton did when he was sent home by Trinity college during the Great Plague of London, IIT-Gandhinagar has told its students.
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.
'Frankly, India has no role to play.' 'This is a showdown between the US and NATO on one hand and Russia on the other.' 'That said, the outcome of this titanic struggle in Central Europe will remould the world order and affect India profoundly,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
American analysts and their camp followers in India are talking absolute rubbish when they try to establish that India is facing a Hobson's choice in regard of Donbass, called upon to take sides between Russia and the West, asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Although the Malabar is a routine exercise which has been carried out for several years now, security experts attach a lot of traction to it in view of China's assertive behaviour in the South China Sea, observes Rup Narayan Das.
Unless the Taliban goofs up in a big way, which seems highly unlikely, we are looking at a regime that will be around for quite a long while and present a level of governance that the puppets of the richest and most advanced countries failed to provide, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Pakistan is making efforts at multiple levels for the Taliban government to have a soft landing, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Throughout the nearly 20-year US-led war, State sponsorship from Pakistan has been a constant.'
'Naidu understands electoral calculus, that the regional parties are yet to gain confidence in Rahul as a vote-catcher,' points out R Rajagopalan.
Pakistan's close ties with China and its lack of democracy and disregard for human rights will not be overlooked, said Haqqani, who currently is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute think-tank in Washington.
The flawed Indian policy toward Afghanistan is missing the woods for the trees. The Modi government doesn't have a 'big picture', observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, who played a stellar role in beginning India's systemic dealings in Afghanistan in 1994.
Former Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran, while delivering the Second Annual K Subrahmanyam Memorial Lecture, speaks on what India needs to know about China's world view. The concluding part of the two-part series.
United States President Barack Obama has issued the toughest warning to his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, saying the use of chemical or biological weapons by Damascus would be a 'red line' that would change his calculus significantly and provoke a foreign military intervention.
There are both similarities and differences between euro-zone public debt today and mortgage-backed securities in 2007.
Pakistan is once again becoming a frontline State in big-power rivalry. But this time around, Pakistan stands to gain out of its geography, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Hawa' is the public discourse that transforms electoral issues and caste calculus into the hard numbers on the EVM machine, says Shivam Vij. The hawa plays a critical role in influencing the fluctuating voter, the fence sitter, who is often the small caste group not mobilised by any political party, or the small but significant number of voters within caste blocks who doesn't vote with the community.
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