The loan will be utilised in several developmental projects that Nepal wants to undertake. Nayanima Basu reports.
'An ardent advocate of nuclear disarmament, Obama may even be secretly heaving a sigh of relief that the NSG is unlikely to reach unanimity of opinion on India's candidature,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
It is for the companies and the industry to ascertain where they want to run with the US-India civilian nuclear agreements reached by Washington and New Delhi, says United States Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Biswal. Aziz Haniffa reports for Rediff.com from Washington, DC
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India and the United Kingdom are economically made for each other.
From France to Canada, from Japan to South Korea, all of Modi's barbs came in front of an NRI audience. Over the last one year, with 19 foreign visits, Modi has tried to use diplomacy as a PR event and foreign policy as a means to shore up his image back at home, says Shehzad Poonawalla.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has brought Hindi into vogue in the external affairs ministry and managed a diplomatic coup by inviting SAARC leaders, including Nawaz Sharif, to New Delhi for his swearing-in. Sheela Bhatt's impressions of the Indian prime minister's first day in office.
'Foreign policy-making cannot be shifted out of Delhi and the regional satraps, who do not have a national perspective, should not be allowed to dominate foreign policy. But regional inputs should be integral to foreign policy-making at every step of the way,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday thanked France and wrapped up his first visit to Paris that saw the two nations elevate their strategic ties to a new level as they agreed on a deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets and decided to move ahead with the log-jammed Jaitapur nuclear project.
Narendra Modi's promise to allow states a bigger say in strategising and building foreign policy is unexceptionable, says TP Sreenivasan.
'Those who follow the workings of the establishment believe that Indian diplomacy has managed more by the individual flair and brilliance of a few individuals than its systemic strength or organisational excellence.'
'This is a US-India effort and it is not necessarily to counterweight anyone.'
India has no compelling reason to grant his request for asylum but was unduly inhibited in raising its voice against the United States' extensive and vulgar intrusion into the privacy of its institutions and citizens, says Shyam Saran
'Today the Chinese think they can slap India, and there will be no consequences.' 'They must be made to feel the consequences through any and all means,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
As the context of Panchsheel has changed, it is all the more essential that India and China need to reinvent and redefine Panchsheel for a new world order taking into account globalisation, and mutual economic interdependence. The new Panchsheel, in order to be relevant, needs to shed its binary approach of west verses the east recognising the seamlessness of global frontiers, which globalisation has brought in, says Rup Narayan Das.
'When George Bush Senior decided in 1992 that India and the United States must start talking in this-now-changed world, who would have thought that 10, 15 years down the road, we will start looking at each other as strategic partners?'
India and Japan are natural partners at sea, and Narendra Modi's recent visit underlined the need to keep the association going
Natwar Singh's book is un-illuminating, largely self-justificatory, often contradictory, and at times tendentious. He is too preoccupied with depicting himself as a victim of the Congress party's machinations, says Praful Bidwai.
'There cannot be any compromise on that. After all, all instrumentalities of the State have been made to serve it. Why was the Constitution made? It was made to serve the cause of India.'
'Modi has said he has been made the PM of India not to do small things but big things. What bigger thing can there be than to have peace with Pakistan and in the neighbourhood?'
'Pakistan's capacity to carry a normal relationship with India doesn't exist.' 'The relationship with Pakistan is less important than several others.'
'It was a mission undertaken in darkness in every sense -- literally, because Afghanistan had no electricity at that time; and, metaphorically because Delhi historically dealt only with the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and the foreign ministry's vast archives had nothing to offer on the culture and politics of the northern tribes in the Hindu Kush.'
'I have never seen anybody disliked more as prime minister than Modi.' 'What is interesting is in his prime ministership, no matter whatever happens in any corner of India, Modi is blamed for it.' 'Modi has not suspended any Constitutional liberties. No Opposition leader has been put in jail... Modi is not Hitler.'
'Modi's investment in the relationship with Washington is the biggest deliverable of this visit. He means business and that's fantastic!'
