'The public has unfair expectations from Mrs Swaraj who is in Islamabad primarily for the Heart of Asia Conference. To restore India's position among stakeholders on Afghanistan is a fair one but to expect her to do more on the Indo-Pak front without requisite preparatory work is unrealistic.'
'The Nagas want a flag of their own, to share the Kohima skyline with the national tricolour.' 'The the government says you can have a flag for cultural and ethnic occasions.' 'The Nagas say that will be a bit like an NGO having its own flag,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
'There is no danger of the suggestion being accepted in a hurry, as we are still discussing the design of an IFS tie and trainee officers are still taught how to handle forks and knives.'
'Mr Trump is too capricious to be trusted,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'The first 55 years of Natwar Singh's life give a fascinating narrative of our diplomacy,' says Ambassador B S Prakash after reading One Life is Not Enough.
United States President Barack Obama on Wednesday vowed to relentlessly hunt down terrorists from Pakistan to the streets of Paris and called on Congress to approve new war powers against Islamic State militants.
'This novel format of diplomacy -- the informal summit -- will not only facilitate bilateral communication and reduce miscalculations at the very top level of the two governments, but possibly open the space for China and India to speak in one voice on various issues of mutual concern,' note Feng Renjie and Ding Kun Lei
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to address the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, giving his first global speech to an audience of nearly 200 world leaders and foreign ministers at the annual gathering of the world body's policymaking organ.
'... to Imran Khan, that there's not going to be any mediation of any meaningful sort given his (Modi's) special relationship with Trump.'
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday tore into Narendra Modi government, accusing it of bulldozing the federal structure and running a Presidential form of government, drawing sharp reaction from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
'What Trump and Kim have demonstrated is that leaders need not remain prisoners of the status quo and they can, by showing the necessary will and courage, break out of the hang-ups and constrictions of the past and carve out a new pathway for themselves,' says B S Raghavan.
China's white paper on Asia-Pacific security cooperation extends an olive branch to India. It mentions India 15 times -- a record in all Chinese white papers issued so far. New Delhi's response will need to be carefully calibrated, says China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
The expulsion is likely to cloud India-China ties as Narendra Modi visits China for the G-20 Leaders Summit on September 4-5 and Xi Jinping is scheduled to be in Goa for the BRICS meeting on October 15-16.
For one, the prime minister's residence will go vegetarian for the first time; Amitabh Bachchan, deservingly, will be conferred the Bharat Ratna; and the people can expect a lot of emotion-loaded communication from the prime minister, feels Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
One can only imagine how it is at the receiving end of the bomb. The sound is deafening, splinters and rocks fly like missiles and the blast sucks in the air around asphyxiating everyone. The shock waves can be felt for miles around.
Bhutan's recognition of Bangladesh without waiting for Indian advice was a clever move, but if it did it even before India did, it was a calculated gamble to assert its independence, says T P Sreenivasan.
In the past year, Beijing has hosted at least 70 delegations from India as part of its outreach to the Indian business community, youth leaders and Sangh Parivar affiliates
'If you destroy the assets in Pathankot, you degrade the combat potential of India; you degrade the war potential of India.'
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday pitched for a coherent regional strategy to deal with terrorism
'Even if the national security framework is to be threat-based, then the division of security threats between Pakistan and China is absurd. The two threats are one.'
'2019 is just a year away and Modi can do with some peace and tranquility on the external front.' 'There are risks, of course, but isn't Modi a risk taker?' asks Ambassador B S Prakash.
China is on the lookout for investment pastures where its money is welcome, safe and earns a decent return. India also needs vast investment - about $1 trillion over the next 10-15 years - in infrastructure, green energy, transportation and heavy industry, says Ravi Bhoothalingam.
'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.
In a rare gesture, China's official media in Beijing on Tuesday extended its biggest coverage to an Indian political event projecting Narendra Modi's takeover as Prime Minister as a harbinger of "big boost" to China-India relations.
An insistence on only one language will inevitably be resented as a form of imperialism and resisted.
Mohan Bhagwat flagged a number of issues like illegal immigrants, cow vigilantism, situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the economic scenario in his Vijayadashmi address.
Even as the United States snuggles closer to India with the thinly veiled objective of containing China, the Indian strategy is to avoid alienating either nation.
We see none of the euphoric build-up customary to India's encounter with US presidents in recent times. This gives Modi wriggle room to work on the much-needed reset of India-US ties.
Sonia Gandhi's iftar was meant to be a powerful show of unity of Opposition parties to take on the Modi Sarkar, but that was not to be...
Obama highlighted that in recent years, the US has put in place intensive screening and security checks to take in refugees as well as ensure the nation's security.
'If an 'informal meeting' with Xi Jinping materialises before the SCO summit in June, that itself could be regarded as a significant breakthrough in India-China relations,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Since the change in administration in the US, Indian leaders have publicly and privately identified with American objectives in Afghanistan.
'How does one get to weaken all those pillars on which the Deep State of Pakistan and the Separatists rely to prevent the situation reaching that point; how must this stage of the proxy war be countered? In many ways the strategy being followed by the adversaries is a smart one, acting within threshold and avoiding overpitch,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'We're going to see a defence relationship that really takes off -- now that India is a major defence partner of the US, the sky is the limit for arms sales.' 'The economic partnership will lag behind the security relationship, but the meeting and joint statement give cause to believe that it will progress more robustly than many of us would have expected.'
'Wing Commander Abhinandan would not have even worried if he was going to cross the LoC or not because he was not going to let go of a shot.'
Diplomats agree that amid stormy relations with China and Pakistan, Modi has posted impressive foreign policy successes, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Obama's decision to visit India must be a result of his judgement that Modi is a man of action, feels Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Obama's decision to end the US military involvement in the Afghan civil war needs to be welcomed as a positive development for regional security and stability. India, too, has a great opportunity opening up here if it plays its cards in sync with the spirit of the times rather than continuing to view the Afghan problem in zero-sum terms,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Both nations have to find ways to be sensitive to each other's politico-strategic and economic concerns, say Dr Rahul Mishra and Sana Hashmi.
