'Soft power is the power really to win friends and influence people with the strength of your ideas.' 'India's greatest soft power is being India itself. A nation of varied beliefs, states, creeds, castes, languages and yet embodying that spirit of unity in diversity.'
'India was in no position to wage another war in 1965, having suffered a morale-shattering defeat in 1962. The three services were in the middle of a modernisation and expansion phase and therefore not fully trained or battle-ready.'
Dr Manmohan Singh would be faced with very few choices in Beijing given the Chinese conceived notions of the world today and India's low place in their calculus, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
In his penultimate State of the Union address, Barack Obama said that the economy is improving.
How about topping your meal with a sweet wine? Here is a beginner's guide to dessert wines.
Prime Minster Narendra Modi's op-ed in the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeines talks about development, New Age India and his 'Make in India' campaign. Here's the complete text of the column.
'Our policy seems to be to give away part of J&K, even though we are entitled to the entire state.' 'The Congress has done so, and the BJP is following the same policy.' 'No one is applying their mind to the legal position.' 'Kashmir is not a part of Pakistan under its own constitution.'
When Rediff.com's Archana Masih and Rajesh Karkera set course from the foothills of the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea, they could not think of a better place to begin their journey than the stately campus that has given India some of its greatest military heroes.
Nayan Khanolkar, Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016, tells Rediff.com's Divya Nair his story.
Jaswant speak of his new book India At Risk, Mistakes, Misconceptions and Misadventures of Security Policy and explains to Sheela Bhatt why India is at risk.
'An America at war with itself, groaning under a mounting debt, with woolly-headed economic policies of a neophyte president who is more feared and suspected among the comity of nations does not augur well for the world.' 'It would be well justified in asking,' says Shreekant Sambrani, '"Is this how you expect to make America great again, Mr President?"'
India's Muslims need to assert their educational and economic upliftment and political empowerment rather than be provoked by communal remarks, says Mohammad Sajjad, reflecting on the Malda riot.
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.
'It was impossible to please everyone with Amy Winehouse's story because it is complicated and dark. Everyone has his or her own version of what was going on and I found myself caught in the middle of it.'
'For a long time Pakistan dreamt that India would break up and that it would be the predominant power in the region,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The roots of the problem lies in the alienation of the tribals. Extreme sensitivity is required to tackle the issues involved. Rough and ready methods of using force may prove counterproductive in the long run, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
'The real test will be in defence-related deals, for instance the Javelin anti-tank missile: Is the US willing to co-develop something with India, on terms that will support the 'Make in India' initiative? Is there defence technology transfer? Or will it dump old junk on India?' asks Rajeev Srinivasan.
Moving ahead with their new mantra -- Chalein Saath Saath: Forward Together We Go -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United States President Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed to deepen cooperation in every sector for the benefit of global stability and people's livelihoods over the next ten years.
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