Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily has suggested pricking the ballooning oil bill with everything from a street theatre campaign encouraging lower fuel use, to shutting fuel stations, to increasing imports from Iran.
'The response to terror is not always reciprocal terror, nor is launching a conventional response the best response.' 'The best response is to make the sponsor pay a price he cannot afford,' says former RA&W chief Vikram Sood.
'China is likely to help Pakistan in keeping the fire burning in J&K to bleed India for its own interests.' A fascinating excerpt from Lieutenant General K Himalay Singh's Making of a General: A Himalayan Echo.
'In our media and general population the idea of 'strong posture' was successfully sold by Modi. This is now a liability for him, as he has discovered,' says Aakar Patel.
Just like China wants Trump to lose the US presidential poll, it may want Modi to lose the Lok Sabha polls. So months before the 2024 elections, China may take possession of an important area, say one of the Char Dhams, warns Sanjeev Nayyar.
The question really is whether the US can be persuaded to embark on a path of calibrated and stronger sanctions on Pakistan.
'The Modi government's greatest blunder is to exploit sensitive external relations in its domestic politics,' says Shekhar Gupta.
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'.
"We've vetting very, very strongly. Very, very strongly. But we need help, and we need help by getting that executive order passed," he said.
Trade sanctions on Russia by Europe and the US offer an opportunity for India, but the devaluation of the rouble may play spoilsport
India looks less equal to China than 5 years ago, the strategic alliance with the US is hobbled by trade, and Pakistan is looking anything but chastened by Balakot. What has gone wrong? asks Shekhar Gupta.
One has to wonder what is so wrong with the European Union.
'If you invest your entire capital in talks, you cannot abruptly change gear and decide on war.'
The US foreign and security policy establishment, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, apprehends that Trump may compel them to exorcise the 'unipolar predicament', and bring foreign and security policies to reflect the desires and priorities of the American public.
Two former senior United States diplomats, with more than 60 years experience in South Asia between them, have exhorted Washington to establish communication with Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi sooner than later.
As Xi is due to arrive in Goa on Saturday to take part in the BRICS Summit, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said the relations between India and China made "great headway" despite some "disputes" but there was no change in in Beijing's stand on the issues of NSG and Azhar.
'The diplomat's arrest has led to a major diplomatic spat, the likes of which I have not seen in my nearly three decades of covering the US-India relationship, says Aziz Haniffa. 'The knee-jerk reaction by the powers-that-be in Delhi was myopic to say the least.'
If elected, Hillary Clinton would become the first women president of the US.
Global disinflation has finally caught up with India's high-cost economy.
'The military aim in a future conflict, if it can't be avoided, should be to cause maximum damage to the adversary's war waging capability and capture limited amount of territory as a bargaining counter,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he regretted causing pain to people by not choosing the "right words" sometimes and uttering "wrong thing" even as his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton termed the statement as a mere "well-written phrase".
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is unelectable and would make the country less safe, US Vice President Joe Biden said as he launched an unprecedented scathing attack to prevent the real estate billionaire to enter the White House next January.
Rajeev Srinivasan on the disastrous after-effects of a made-up spying incident
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To no one's surprise, the first question directed at Indian Ambassador to the United States Dr S Jaishankar -- at the end of his first public address since he assumed his duties in December -- was about the controversial Devyani Khobragade episode.
With Beijing having had a profound rethink on India's admission as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the tectonic plates of the geopolitics of a massive swathe of the planet stretching from the Asia-Pacific to West Asia are dramatically shifting. That grating noise in the Central Asian steppes will be heard far and wide -- as far as North America, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Even if such a thing happens, it will not prolong for many days like Doklam did.' 'That is because both the leaders do not want it.'
Here are some of the best photos from around the world in the month gone by...
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The past record of attacks by the Americans has been such that it would take a monumental task for them to get the rest of the world to believe in at attack on Syria. As such, in history books, this would seem another attempt by the US to emboss its unilateralism over the world and nothing else beyond it, says Sriram Balasubramanian.
Excerpts from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at the Combined Commanders Conference on board the INS Vikramaditya at sea, off the coast of Kochi.
Read the full transcript of President Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday at the US Capitol in Washington.
'The military in Pakistan is capable and self critical, but intelligence is stuffed full of lifers who resist change, which is why career soldiers in Pakistan try with all their might not to be transferred into the ISI.'
Two US warships fired at least 50 cruise missiles at the Ash Shai'rat airfield in Homs province in western Syria, from where the US administration believes Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad fired the chemical weapons against his own people, media reports said.
Countries in the region like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Maldives face serious existential threats from a mix of terrorist groups active in the region and elsewhere
In his penultimate State of the Union address, Barack Obama said that the economy is improving.
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