'There is a vision in the Budget, and the vision is to take India from a largely agrarian, rural economy into a fast-track digitalised economy.'
'China's opaque defence allocation processes are shrouded in mystery and have triggered security dilemmas among its neighbours and others,' notes China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
Indians at large harbour a notion that their country is cherrypicking out of the American basket of goodies, but the policymakers in Delhi and the political leadership are well aware that it can only be a pipe dream since a military alliance with a superpower is a profound irrevocable commitment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Shah said that the people of the country will decide about the principal opposition party to BJP in the 2024 polls and they have not given this label to any party.
'One must remember that a dragon has a forked tongue,' warns Vivek Gumaste.
Top losers in the Sensex pack included M&M, SBI, Yes Bank, Asian Paints, HDFC, Tata Steel and L&T, shedding up to 2.55 per cent. The broader NSE Nifty settled 79.80 points, or 0.72 per cent, down at 10,996.10.
'Wherever in the world there is political instability, those countries are beset with severe crises today. But India is in a much better position than the rest of the world due to the decisions taken by my government in the national interest,' President Droupadi Murmu said in her address to both Houses of Parliament.
Terrorism has to be fought at its root of origination. Today we are just removing cobwebs but not killing the spider, asserts counter-insurgency expert Brigadier Narender Kumar (retd).
'India will come increasingly in the US crosshairs if it insists on maintaining its strategic autonomy, warns Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
In a powerful signal to New Delhi that the United States is a reliable defense partner, Senators Mark Warner and John Cornyn introduced US-India Defense Technology and Partnership Act in Senate
The IAF chief also said Pakistan has become a pawn of Chinese policy and its dependence on China would increase further in future. He said India needs to understand the interplay of some major events in its vicinity that would impact the security scenario of the region.
'Imagine taking care of a patient who is infected with Covid. A human nurse is unable to do that due to fear of infection. The robot can do that task, while it is controlled or supervised by the human nurse. So the robot becomes an extension of the nurse.'
If India signs the deal, it would be the second customer of the prized missile system after China which had struck a $3 billion contract last year.
'The bigger challenge and dilemma for Pakistan would be if the US and Saudi Arabia go full throttle against Iran and enforce regime change in Tehran.' 'That would be bad news for Pakistan, especially with the current instability in Balochistan,' notes Brigadier Narender Kumar (retd).
Here's the full text of President's Ram Nath Kovind's address to the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament on the first of Budget Session 2022.
The India-Japan 2+2 dialogue added strategic heft to the special relationship in the wake of growing Chinese assertiveness on regional affairs, points out Dr Rajaram Panda.
Without periodic booster shots to display of strength, how is this government what it aims to be? There was also the landscape of prosperity pictured; the in-season affair with 'amrit' stretched to a longer residence in 'Amrit Kaal', notes Shyam G Menon.
'China's growing nexus with Pakistan and the two countries' unresolved territorial disputes with India continue to pose a formidable national security threat to India,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
As the United States and China joust for supremacy, India might remain on the sidelines with its limited resources.
Jewellery stores remained deserted as buyers deferred their non-essential purchases awaiting softness in gold prices.
'One of the great assets that India has is its enormous intellectual content, enormous intellectual developmental content, and some of the things we need to be working on are unmanned systems, for example, the enormous opportunities for us to jointly partner and develop -- not simply sell our equipment to India -- but actually partner and develop in areas like drones, areas like advanced aircraft and even areas around certain missile systems, where we can have a win-win.'
'Who are these people on the streets?' 'They are youth and students who were hoodwinked, bluffed by Modi for the last seven years, with a promise of 2 crore jobs every year.' 'And Mamata sings the same tune.' 'But the youth can see that as long as there is Mamata or Modi, there is no hope.'
The start-up mentors debated if they could drive the price further down, but feared an even lower price would raise doubts about its quality, as was the case with the Tata Nano, reports Amrita Singh.
'In the Mahabharat, when faced by an enemy, Yudhishtir, the eldest Pandav, had quipped that 'When it comes to external enemies, we are 105, (100 Kauravs and 5 Pandavs)'.' 'It is time modern politicians heed this ancient wisdom,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The world does not care about the tension on our border.' 'India has to emerge as a strong economic power.' 'Respect comes when the world sees a country with a direction and leadership that has a vision,' points out Ramesh Menon.
'What are the circumstances at that time? Had you thought Modi will come after Vajpayee?'
India needs to spread irrigation and do so against a backdrop of rising water scarcity and depleting groundwater resources
Pakistan's 'approach is one of getting even, an eye for an eye, or death by a thousand cuts.' 'The entire effort is to be the equal of India. Unfortunately, the reality is that this can never be the case.' 'India will always be the bigger, economically stronger, technologically more self-reliant country.' 'Therein, lies the dilemma Pakistan faces which leads it to perennial enmity with India,' notes Ambassador Gautam Bambawale in the Air Marshal Y V Malse Memorial Lecture 2019.
A substantial fluctuation is likely because for a long period gold has moved in a narrow range of $ 50-60 and at higher levels short positions were built.
'The Kashmir issue has become internationalised after nearly half a century.' 'India, not Pakistan, has done so pro-actively,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Drones are of course, remotely controlled and modern ships are also chip-driven.
In this lockdown, no matter how many similarities the memory dredges up from past events and associations, there is one thing that has no precedent: The isolation that it has imposed on people, reports Arundhuti Dasgupta.
As the government faces a difficult choice in keeping up with the rest of the world in AI development while making sure it does not add to unemployment, it has set up a task force to draw up a policy for the accelerated deployment of AI
Backing India's concerns over the slow pace of progress in the 26/11 case in Pakistan, United States President Barack Obama on Thursday asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif why the trial of Mumbai attackers has not started.
A raise in the I-T exemption limit has been sought by many.
'We're going to see a defence relationship that really takes off -- now that India is a major defence partner of the US, the sky is the limit for arms sales.' 'The economic partnership will lag behind the security relationship, but the meeting and joint statement give cause to believe that it will progress more robustly than many of us would have expected.'
Ms Banerjee's triumphal declaration of having attracted investments worth Rs 2.43 lakh crore at the summit, are numbers that no one but she and the enigmatic state finance minister Amit Mitra believe, points out Kanika Datta.
The jury is still out on whether the Obama-Sharif summit managed to repair the trust deficit and mutual suspicions. But if pleasantries and cordiality was the measure of this summit, it receives a resounding A+ grade, says Aziz Haniffa
'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.
