Here's a glimpse of all that happened around the world last week, in 13 images.
The following is the full text of US President Donald Trump's first address to a joint session of the Congress on February 28, as prepared for delivery and released by the White House press office.
Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party has claimed a stunning victory in the election.
"At my core I think we're going to be OK," Obama said.
'It is important to destroy, to undermine, to debunk the narrative of ISIS,' Olivier Roy -- one of the world's leading experts on radical Islam -- tells Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel in an exclusive interview.
'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.
Expressing deep concern over sudden spurt in hate crimes against ethnic and religious minorities, several top lawmakers have asked President-elect Donald Trump to rescind his recent appointment of Stephen K Bannon as his chief strategist.
'Modi's visit is path breaking in the sense that India has come out of the closet and is prepared to deal with Israel openly and in a host of fields, military as well as civilian,' says P R Kumaraswamy, one of India's leading experts on the Middle-East, currently in Israel.
'Islam insists on sameness, which is fine but can run the danger to jihad against those who are not the same.' 'Brahminical Hinduism insists on difference, which is fine but can run the danger of an oppressive internal hierarchy: Caste oppression, for instance.' 'In actual fact, humans need both sameness and difference to exist.'
The Vermont Senator and Texas senator are closing in on the lead that their competitors - Clinton and Trump hold.
Israeli jets on Tuesday pounded 50 Hamas targets on the Gaza Strip injuring at least 17 Palestinians as part of a military offensive code-named 'Protective Edge' after a barrage of rockets hit southern Israel amid escalating tensions in the region.
"South Asian studies" academics in the US would do well to introspect how they wittingly or unwittingly become part of Pakistan's proxy war in wielding influence over academics and policy, says Sankrant Sanu.
The key to every Daniel Day-Lewis performance was a big theme and a thousand details. And in the final phase of his acting career, says Sreehari Nair, America became his big theme, and the details... well, he just popped them out like waffles.
Kainchi, near Nainital, attracts devotees from near and far, 42 years after the death of its spiritual leader, Neem Karoli Baba.
Incoming US President Donald Trump has assembled a core team that is -- not surprisingly -- overwhelmingly white and male.
'This can lift us out of confusion, misery, melancholy and failure, and indeed guide us when it is contacted.' 'For us to ignite our spirituality, we need to look inward and transcend our egos. We need to recognize, connect with and integrate the eternal spirit within,' says A P J Abdul Kalam in his latest book, Transcendence.
Read the full transcript of President Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday at the US Capitol in Washington.
'Hinduism is not a religion, but a way of life, a philosophy.'
'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
