'The world may be desirous of peace, but not Kim Jong-un.' 'Should we then accept the old adage that to maintain peace, we should be prepared for war?' asks Rajaram Panda.
'Xi Jinping is keen that the second Trump-Kim summit happens soonest.' 'Kim is reported to have told Xi that he expects to achieve a result from a second summit that the international community would welcome,' points out Dr Rajaram Panda.
'It is a testing time for our foreign policy which may involve a certain element of taking risks, assessing costs, and expecting failures,' asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
US President Trump's announcement came after the North Korean leader warned that Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions.
'Why do we continue giving them money when we know of all the bad things they are doing?'
The government on Tuesday cleared nine fresh proposals for setting up special economic zones, most of which are related to IT and ITES, followed by the bio-technology sector.
The US needs to do three things to help the newly elected Nawaz Sharif government in Pakistan, says Stanley A Weiss
In an interview Wisden editor Scyld Berry said consolidating the importance of Test cricket, the longest and ultimately most satisfying form of the game, was paramount.
"Under different scenarios, we see the impact of higher crude prices ranging from $25 billion to a maximum of $50 billion on the oil import bill. The increase in the oil import bill will also affect the current account deficit," economic affairs secretary S C Garg said in a conference on Friday.
'The US appears to think that Pakistan is highly vulnerable today due to its economic crisis and one more turn of the screw may bring about desired results,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Keeps open the option to make payments in yen or yuan in the face of sanctions
'As matters stand, Russia and Saudi Arabia, two of the world's biggest oil producers, are set for a hard landing as they didn't diversify their economies as much as they should have when the oil prices were booming.'
India has been eyeing deeper energy ties with Iran and has already lined up $20 billion as investment in oil and gas as well as in petrochemical and fertiliser sectors there.
The Governor had submitted his report to the Public Accounts Committee and put the blame on 'overall economic downturn'
Construction companies will make money building detention centres. Information technology companies will make money on the enumeration of the CAA, NRC and NPR, notes Devangshu Datta.
The US is not going to be able to mount a concerted 'Western strategy' against China or Russia in the present international milieu, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Two projects in Iran, which India is to execute involving major financial commitments on its part, are of particular significance for Indian steel.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a dangerous phenomenon, but the terrorist organisation can not be defeated by air strikes alone, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said.
'Listing Masood Azhar as a 'global terrorist' was done with Islamabad and Imran Khan's concurrence.' 'It was not prompted by the so-called 'Wuhan spirit'.' 'The relationship between the two 'iron brothers' has not been dented,' points out former RA&W officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
If purists are surprised as to why and how people are not demanding prohibition or not talking about past promises, both in the election manifestos five years back and even those made to the courts, the answer lies in how the state has been evolving and changing these past few years, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'No commercial bank will be allowed to fail. There is nothing to worry about.'
Since 2016, when India was officially recognised in US law as a 'major defence partner', Washington has purposefully upgraded the defence relationship.
The US, he said, rejects any Chinese claim to waters beyond a 12-nautical mile territorial sea derived from islands it claims in the Spratly Islands (without prejudice to other states' sovereignty claims over such islands).
A substantial expected increase in the Treasury Bill floatation could also contribute to a tightening liquidity situation, the report said. These included a 0.50 per cent cut in cash reserve ratio with effect from January 17, a 1 per cent reduction in the reverse repo rate with immediate effect and a slashing of the repo rate by 1 per cent from 6.5 per cent to 5.5 per cent.
'The logical step is to challenge the very legitimacy of the Chinese claim over Tibet,' recommends Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd).
'The onus is now on China to explain to the world why it feels Pakistan should accompany India on the question of NSG Membership!! China's not so covert help for Pakistan's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes will stand exposed,' says former ambassador G Parthasarathy.
The state has allowed industrial units in special economic zones (SEZs) to lay off workers without government's sanction, regardless of the number of workers
In the Russian president's eyes, it sends a message of defiance to the world and his own people which fits his favoured storyline: Russia is succeeding despite Western efforts to hold it back.
Gokhale's visit for bilateral consultations is taking place amid renewed optimism that the vexed issue of listing of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammed chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the United Nations, which has been stalled by China, is headed for a resolution in the coming weeks
'If Rao had, in fact, given a word to President Clinton in 1994 that India would not test, he would not have encouraged Vajpayee to test. The note, said to have been handed over to Vajpayee by Rao with the words, 'Now is the time to accomplish my unfinished task' may not have been a reference to nuclear tests at all,' says T P Sreenivasan.
Sensex lost 76 points to end at 25,589 while Nifty shed 23 points to end at 7,649.
Protectionism and a rollback of regulation. Defusion of tensions with Russia and a lowering of geo-political risks. Looser fiscal policy and tighter monetary policy. At least Donald Trump can't be faulted for not trying something different where existing policies have disappointed, says T T Ram Mohan.
Is North Korea really dismantling its nuclear programme? Rajaram Panda explains the many challenges to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula.
'In the time I have been an Indiawallah, I have seen three US Presidential visits to India, nuclear sanctions, nuclear cooperation, a border conflict with Pakistan, the growth of IT services, a government losing a confidence vote, and so much more,' Rick Rossow, the new Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy Studies tells Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa.
The list, according to media reports, also features reducing ties with Iran and closing a Turkish military base.
India has slammed the "indifference" of some UNSC towards restraining terrorists, saying it has questioned the Security Council's ability to combat terrorism.
For two decades after his release in exchange for passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999, Azhar has since been the darling of Pakistan's external snooping agency Inter-Services Intelligence.
'The one aspect which no Indian military thinker would wish to see emerge is a LoC type of posture at the LAC.' 'The LoC is manned for 750 km and terrorist infiltration has led to the creation of a virtual fortress along its entire length.' 'Something mirroring this at the LAC is going to be expensive although deployment everywhere is not warranted there.' 'However, given the complete trust deficit, there appear few alternatives,' notes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Prime Minister Modi told President Xi that he has made efforts to improve ties with Islamabad but these efforts have been "derailed".
