'It is to be fervently hoped that a person as rational and brilliant as Hamid Ansari will not be allowed to wilt and simply wither away.'
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.
'The high court notice could go some way in easing the vitiated civil-military relationship, and the trust deficit between civil servants and the military.'
Government has told the Delhi high court that Devyani Khobragade obtained US and Indian passports for her two daughters in violation of law.
Nirmala Sitharaman's elevation not only to full Cabinet minister but also pitchforking her to the elite Cabinet Committee on Security group with the defence portfolio is undoubtedly the biggest takeaway from Sunday's reshuffle, says Rajeev Sharma.
Upset over the Devyani Khobragade episode, India on Wednesday raised with the United States its concerns over "trafficking" visas issued to family members of Sangita Richard, the absconding maid of the Indian diplomat whose arrest had triggered a row between the two countries.
Indian employees of the United States embassy and consulates in India are being grossly underpaid in comparison to their American counterparts working in these missions, according to information made available to the government.
"Something will happen", said External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Sunday on the prospects of an early resolution of the stand-off arising out of the arrest of senior diplomat Devyani Khobragade in the United States.
Ajit Doval is now India's all-powerful security boss. This concentration of power disrupts our layered security system. Will it not weaken whatever remains of the power and authority of the home, defence and finance ministers? asks Shekhar Gupta.
The chairman of the committee, A K Mathur, sought abolishment of the two-year edge accorded to the IAS officers for empanelment, compared to other services, saying it was an 'archaic concept'.
The 7th CPC places the Indian Police Service (and, almost in passing, the Indian Forest Service) on a level with the Indian Administrative Service, leaving the military out in the cold.
In a sudden development, S Jaishankar, India's Ambassador to the United States, was on Wednesday night appointed Foreign Secretary, replacing Sujatha Singh whose tenure has been abruptly 'curtailed" by nearly 8 months.
The military will now demand further pay and promotion parity with civilians
'My heart weeps for Vajpayee, the prince among poets, the king among politicians and the emperor among statesmen,' says Sudhir Bisht.
'There is no danger of the suggestion being accepted in a hurry, as we are still discussing the design of an IFS tie and trainee officers are still taught how to handle forks and knives.'
Mr T V R Shenoy, who contributed columns to Rediff.com from its birth, passed into the ages on Tuesday evening. As we grieve and mourning his passing, Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar bids adieu to an unusual human being, a sage for our times.
16,933 candidates have qualified UPSC's civil services preliminary examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission, the results of which were declared in a record 50-day time.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar's worldview sets him apart
A political war of words erupted on Thursday over the sudden removal of Sujatha Singh
She had got 849th rank in the 2014 civil services exam and was allotted the Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise).
Vice President Hamid Ansari, a former diplomat himself, explains his sense of India and the world. Nikhil Lakshman, traveling with Vice President Ansari to Peru and Cuba, listens in.
Chidambaram said it was a 'despicable slur' on the six secretaries of the government.
A special Air India flight carrying 46 Indian nurses set free by Sunni militants ISIS in strife-torn Iraq and 137 others arrived in Mumbai on Saturday. The flight carrying 183 Indian nationals from Erbil landed in Mumbai at 8:43 am.
Forty six Indian nurses initially stranded at a hospital in Tikrit and later moved to Mosul have been freed by the fighters of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
In the book, 'Where Borders Bleed: An Insider's Account of Indo-Pak Relations', Rajiv Dogra says that a judge had told him of this.
The central government has decided to retain the civil services aptitude test and set the qualifying limit at minimum 35 per cent.
'We could quibble with each other whether there were 25 terrorists killed or 250 killed.' 'The message is more that India undertook such an aerial attack and this attack has actually changed the paradigm.' 'The change in paradigm is that India has shown by the surgical strike in 2016 and the aerial strike of 2019 that we will not just sit back and tolerate terrorism which killed so many of our people.' 'We will hit back and by hitting back we will raise the costs of such activities.'
Former Union Minister and the Congress candidate for the Mayiladuthurai Lok Sabha seat, Mani Shankar Aiyar strongly believes that the good work done by him as an MP for the constituency over the past two decades will fetch him a comfortable victory in the upcoming polls.
'I am in mortal danger not personally, but politically,' Mani Shankar Aiyar tells Anjali Puri.
The MEA asserted that Arunachal Pradesh was territorially intergal and inalienable to India.
The United States has said it is focused on moving forward its relationship with India and asserted that the legal procedure against diplomat Devyani Khobragade is separate from the diplomatic process.
'The Communist rule in Tripura was exceptional while it lasted for a quarter century in giving good governance.' 'The chief minister himself was the paragon of virtues in his dedication in public life.' 'But all that still didn't add up when the BJP's dream merchants came up with their famous 'development agenda'.' 'One thing that emerges indisputably in the Tripura election results is that needs and aspirations more or less narrow down to one little word -- jobs,' says M K Bhadrakumar.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Tuesday said his ministry is contemplating a plan to have people from industry on-board to facilitate on issues relating to economic diplomacy.
'Dr Khobragade is now a Counsellor without any specific work responsibility at the PMI. There is not going to be any work for her at the mission at least for now. This is an interim measure to help her so she can get diplomatic immunity and get over this situation.'
'I say Modi was India's last chance.' 'Because the kind of work this government has done -- I'm talking about physical delivery -- is fantastic, like no time in our history.'
With Donald Trump the appeal has to be to his business instincts in which his personal interests seem to play a significant role, says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
'The first 55 years of Natwar Singh's life give a fascinating narrative of our diplomacy,' says Ambassador B S Prakash after reading One Life is Not Enough.
Former RA&W chief A S Dulat, who served as Atalji's adviser on Kashmir, gives us an insider's glimpse of a prime minister he has hailed as the 'greatest after Nehru'.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances