Three experts on cyber security, digital forensics, networks and hardware were roped in by the Supreme Court on Wednesday to "enquire, investigate and determine" whether Pegasus spyware was used for snooping on citizens and their probe would be monitored by former apex court judge R V Raveendran.
'Indian diplomacy in West Asia under the present government has been a success story -- and with Saudi Arabia in particular,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Abbas seeks India's role in peace process as PM Modi visits Palestine.
Opposition parties on Monday staged a walkout in the Rajya Sabha after their demand for a resolution on Gaza was not accepted.
'Clearly, from the Indian viewpoint, the US retrenchment from Asia cannot be happening as good news.' 'The abandonment of the US' pivot to Asia exposes the US-Indian partnership to be a mere transactional relationship,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
The office of the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara on Sunday, October 19, in papers filed with the US District Court in Manhattan strongly argued in favour of immunity for Prime Mimister Narendra Modi in a pending lawsuit against Modi that has been brought by an organisation based in the United States.
India cannot afford to be complacent about a possible Pakistan resort to military options across the LoC, warns Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
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.
Will private firms really boost Make in India in the defence sector? Ajai Shukla seeks answers.
Modi has debunked the uncontested wisdom of foreign and strategic policy remaining unchanged and running on a broad national consensus. This is clearly seen in his unhesitating embrace of the US and the clear hardening shift in India's stance on Pakistan, says Shekhar Gupta.
New Delhi must clearly demonstrate to Beijing that China will pay a price for its relentless strategic undermining of India, says Ajai Shukla.
'The biggest takeaway is that the US-India relationship, which has sputtered a bit in recent months, enjoyed a big boost.'
Indians must remember that Pakistanis hate losing to India, at war or in cricket, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
Modi's visit is aimed at commemorating 25 years of establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
'It is in electronics that the gap between where we are and where we need to be is most obvious and most persistent.' 'It is not only a national security issue, but also a commercial issue,' argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
He was ready even to take on Germany's collective guilt over the Holocaust
To the extent the nuclear race in West Asia is slowed down by the Iran nuclear deal, the world as a whole has reason to be happy, says Virendra Kapoor.
'If deterrence through India's conventional superiority is to be established now, then India will have to escalate to a point where its greater resources make the difference.' 'This is, to put it mildly, both difficult and dangerous and thus inadvisable,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
'It appears that Prime Minister Modi has to undo 50 years of State monopoly in the defence sector during which public undertakings like HAL or DRDO monopolised defence production and development with disastrous consequences.'
Negotiating a sustainable compromise with Iran is not getting any easier, and this delay might not yield the desired result of bringing Tehran's nuclear programme under stringent limits, says Claude Smadja
A lot of the terrorism that is affecting Pakistan is really a blowback of the Pakistani state's policy of using jihadist groups as instruments of state policy. And unlike some other countries with similar policies, Pakistan doesn't have the benefit of the political and social space for pulling back from the disastrous course, says Sushant Sareen.
'Mr Trump is too capricious to be trusted,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
United States Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to India on June 23 to co-chair the 4th India-US strategic dialogue, his spokesperson said on Wednesday.
"We have diplomatic ties with both nations. Any discourteous reference can impact our relations with them," says External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj
"At my core I think we're going to be OK," Obama said.
It is easy to foretell that negotiating a comprehensive and final agreement on the Iran nuclear issue is by no means an easy task. It involves hard negotiations, but the hardest step has been taken, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, who was among the first group of foreigners to visit the the top-secret Arak plant hidden behind barren mountains south of Tehran.
From planning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's foreign trips to playing a key role in the Jammu and Kashmir elections, former RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav is become increasingly important in the BJP
'I am no longer surprised by how cynical university students generally are about American motives. America, no matter who the President, what the circumstances will act like a bully, is their collective belief,' says Ambassador B S Prakash after a recent interaction with students.
'They don't have a political strategy so they are going to try to deal with it purely as a law and order problem.' 'They will try to use the same strategy they have repeatedly used since 2014 in Kashmir.' 'Mr Modi has landed in a situation where he faces the possible prospect of not only being unable to Indianise Kashmir, but his actions may end up making the rest of India a virtual carbon copy of Kashmir.'
The French government has rejected Indian negotiators' demand for a 50 per cent offset clause citing sharp cost escalation but offered to participate in 'Make in India' projects to carry forward the talks for 36 Rafale fighter jets that have hit turbulence.
'Having been an air warrior myself for three decades, I am sure the IAF has all the info in place to be divulged at the right time,' says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
The Rafale will surely be flying in Indian skies next year. But the way the BJP government has botched this will cast a shadow on defence acquisitions in the years to come.
'If the US intention was to use the FATF platform to isolate Pakistan and impose sanctions against it, that is not going to work when influential countries such as Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia will not lend support to the US campaign,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Akayed Ullah had no criminal record back home, a police official said, even as Dhaka vowed "zero tolerance" against terrorism.
Aseem Chhabra is impressed by Rima Das's Bulbul Can Sing, Ritesh Batra's Photograph and eight other outstanding films.
'We should hit Pakistan, continue to prepare for surgical strikes, continue to punish Pakistani posts in the proximity of the LoC and we should start adopting counter terrorist measures.' 'That should be India's action without escalating it to a full-fledged war.'
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the United States against any unilateral military stike on Syria, saying it would trigger a new wave of terrorism, result in the collapse of the United Nations and claim more innocent victims as the conflict could spread beyond Syria's borders.
The central government has drafted a law to restrict wombs for hire, and there is much to be said on all sides.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated that the 'Make in India' programme would be a success because of the three Ds namely demographic dividend, democracy and demand during the interactive session at the Facebook headquarters in California on Sunday.
29 years ago this August, Pakistan's dictator, the general who made jihad part of Pakistani State policy, died in a mysterious air crash. Did the KGB, the then USSR's dreaded espionage agency, assassinate Zia-ul Haq? Was India's RA&W responsible for blowing Zia's military aircraft out of the skies? Was it Zia's many enemies in Pakistan's military? Was it a box of mangoes as Mohammad Hanif speculated in his fascinating novel about Zia's death? Or was the assassin someone else?
