The start of Indian lobbying in the US can be traced back to Pakistan's anti-India lobbying. Policy wonk Ashok Sharma documents this journey and its catalytic role in transforming the US-India relationship.
oaring crime gave Venezuela the horrific title of being one of the most violent countries on earth. Inflation ran into tens of thousands per cent, impoverishing nearly all of the country's 31 million people.' Yet, says Radha Roy Biswas, she sees hope for the beleaguered nation where she spent her childhood years.
The decision of the 11-judge bench was unanimous, ICJ President Ronny Abraham said.
'She has to get the funds, cut through bureaucratic flab, speed up modernisation, ensure planned acquisitions stick to timelines, make organisational changes and ensure the military is capable of performing the task that it is given,' says Brigadier S K Chatterjee (retd).
Voters in Sri Lanka's Tamil majority Northern Province on Saturday began voting in the first local elections in 25 years to elect a council to govern the former war zone, four years after the military defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after decades of bloody civil war.
Former Indian Army chief General V K Singh on Saturday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and claimed that it was the only "nationalist" party in India.
'For a man who had just received news of his daughter's kidnapping, he showed no sign of anxiety or agitation.' 'Here is a cool customer, I thought to myself.' 'The only thing he said was, 'I would not have been so anxious had they kidnapped my son'.' 'He told me that his daughter Rubaiya, who was a medical intern, was returning home from the hospital in a minibus when it was stopped close to the Mufti's house.' 'She was taken by four armed militants.' A gripping excerpt from Moosa Raza's Kashmir: Land Of Regrets.
The post mandate comments that 'darkness has descended on India' shows the kind of opposition Modi has to overcome. It is this aspirational India that is attempting to throw away shackles of Macualayism. Make no mistake it is a tectonic shift and a beginning of the end of Maculayan mindset that has 'ruled' India for close to 60 years, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
Maldives on Tuesday voiced its 'hurt' at Prime Minister Modi not visiting it
'Much of the Socialism that we attribute to him actually came during Indira Gandhi's time,' says M J Akbar who believes that Nehru's convictions helped shape modern India.
Palestinians, who protested massively along the Gaza border clashed with Israeli forces.
India's freedom, its rambling but working Constitution, its parliamentary democracy, its lumbering administrative machinery all have many a father, but its greatest claim to fame, especially today, that of being a modern state, is due to but one person: Its first and longest-serving prime minister, Nehru, says Shreekant Sambrani.
The govt is also criticised for its choice of Khawar Qureshi, who represented Pakistan's case before the ICJ.
'The onus is now on China to explain to the world why it feels Pakistan should accompany India on the question of NSG Membership!! China's not so covert help for Pakistan's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes will stand exposed,' says former ambassador G Parthasarathy.
Barack Obama and Raul Castro vowed to set aside their differences in pursuit of what the US president called a "new day" for the relationship between the neighbours.
'Diplomatic engagement will continue even as India keeps all its options open with respect to discretely targeting the Pakistani military and its terrorist proxies.'
Stepping up its attempts to internationalise the Kashmir issue, Pakistan has written to the UN chief on the security situation along the LoC and the International Border with India and sought the world body's intervention in resolving the issue.
'The biggest takeaway is that the US-India relationship, which has sputtered a bit in recent months, enjoyed a big boost.'
At the hearing while India demanded the immediate suspension of the former navy officer's death sentence, Islamabad accused it of using the world body as a stage for "political theatre" through a "misconceived" plea.
The International Court of Justice was last a battleground for India and Pakistan nearly 18 years ago.
'What we have heard from the Sri Lankans is their desire to have a foreign policy that allows Sri Lanka to best advance its own interests rather than a foreign policy that relied solely on one relationship.' 'We think this is an attitude that makes a lot of sense. India and Sri Lanka have many areas of shared interests, and it's certainly welcomed by us to see that deepening of those ties.'
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Modi government must push reforms at a fast pace to restore growth.
Bangladesh handing over to India top ULFA leader Anup Chetia was a reflection of close bilateral ties particularly in security areas, the country's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said in Dhaka on Thursday as he hoped New Delhi will return a wanted Bangladeshi national jailed in West Bengal.
India and China have not ruled out a Modi-Xi meeting during the summit.
Pakistan Opposition leader Imran Khan's supporters chanting 'Go Nawaz go' on Monday cut off the city from the rest of the country by blocking all major roads during their anti-Government protests even as negotiators from the two sides met to defuse the crisis and make the dialogue process more result-oriented.
'The surge of Saudi nationalism is the last thing Washington wants,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Today, the target of this rage are the weaker sections of society -- Muslims, Dalits, liberal thinkers/writers who challenge its ideology. But tomorrow, it could be anyone stepping out of a pub; reading a book or watching a movie by an artist considered an anti-Hindu/anti-national,' says Durba Dhyani.
'Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi be able to continue political engagement with Pakistan against the inevitable upsurge of negative and hostile public sentiment?'
A very delayed and subdued reaction, at a time when the non-aligned world had expected a big country like India to come out in support of rights and justice. It was yet another example of the mealy mouthed approach that has come to define Indian foreign policy, says Seema Mustafa.
A Chinese high court on Friday rejected the appeal of disgraced Communist Party leader Bo Xilai and upheld his life sentence for bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power in the country's biggest political scandal.
Imagine being a part of a country, but being discriminated against by the majority community and atrocities being committed against you by the state. This is the deplorable conditions that the Rohingyas of Myanmar live in where they are cut off from their livelihoods and sources of income, unable to access markets, hospitals and schools, and have little or no access to relief aid. In order to understand the situation and the genesis of the tragedy unfolding, Rediff.com's Archana Masih speaks to Ambassador Vijay Nambiar, the United Nations' Chef de Cabinet (Chief of Staff), who had served a long stint with the UN in New York on the issue.
Members in Rajya Sabha on Monday voiced concern over violence in Kishtwar area of Jammu and Kashmir with Opposition saying the country's "sovereignty and integrity" was at stake and the matter should not be dismissed as an inter-community clash.
NSA Menon's wisdom says that the idea to be superpower is not really desirable, it is better to be different. Sheela Bhatt reports.
If you don't have power in a game you are masters of, the world will walk all over you, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says improving ties with India is "my favourite subject" even as he once again sought America's intervention in the Kashmir issue.
The plan of UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not end with the collection of fingerprints and iris scan, it goes quite beyond it and poses a lethal threat to the idea of India, says Gopal Krishna.
The choice before the next government is not between being a soft State and a tough State; it is between being a smart State and a dumb State, says former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
'The Kashmiri identity and its unique blend of Sufi Islam, its culture and language can best survive in a plural and secular India.' 'Neither independence nor merger with Pakistan can achieve that objective.' 'Peace will return to Kashmir only when Kashmiris realise this, else they will be part of the 1,000- year war,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'We are witnessing a spectacle of breathtakingly creative diplomacy at work, riveted on the firm foundations of the country's strategic autonomy,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Madras Cafe is a swift, smart and serious study of an inglorious chapter of history, writes Sukanya Verma.
