From reaching out to the Jat community and requesting them to not harm the country's assets to trying to mediate on behalf of the women protesting against Shani Shingnapur temple authorities, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has made his presence felt. Nikita Puri examines the rise of the New Age guru.
Mental health and life coach Anu Krishna tells you how to take control of your life.
'The Pakistani move to ban militant outfits and placate international opinion and Islamabad's openness to a UN security council resolution on Azhar -- instead of beseeching China to cast yet another veto -- enables Islamabad to occupy the high ground,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Pakistan's law minister Zahid Hamid on Monday quit as the government "surrendered" to hardline religious groups, who called off their violent protests in Islamabad that had left six people dead and hundreds injured.
'Indian diplomacy faltered amidst multiple failures of statecraft.' 'The functionaries responsible must be held to account for their abject failure,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
"The political stars never quite aligned but a solution similar to the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement, with a soft border allowing locals to travel freely from one part of Kashmir to the other, will have to be the outcome of any peaceful solution," he noted.
The prime minister made these remarks at a meeting of the council of ministers, while asserting the need to maintain an atmosphere of amity and harmony in the country.
"When we asked the US, to play facilitating role...Why do we ask? Simply because we are not engaging bilaterally," he said.
'Many said his visit was very risky. But mercifully, Air Force One has taken off from Delhi without Mr Trump stepping on anybody's toes,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Authorities said social media posts will be monitored to ensure that no attempt is made to vitiate the atmosphere.
A battle royale, fought over 15 long years, comes to an end as a prince and a princess -- grandchildren of the legendary Rajmata Gayatri Devi -- get back the Jai Mahal Palace Hotel from their step-uncles.
'Modi skillfully navigated Trump's ego and pushed the right buttons.' 'Critics assailed Modi's speech for its personalism, but in the Trump era this is par for the course.'
They said it was then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi who on February 1, 1986 got the permission for starting prayers at the disputed site and got the locks opened.
If the FATF lets Pakistan off the hook, which is to be expected, it would signify a big boost to Pakistan's standing in the fight against terrorism. Delhi, on the other hand, loses the propaganda advantage, states Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The decision to disengage the forces, locked in a bitter standoff for the last six weeks in eastern Ladakh, was taken at a nearly 11-hour-long meeting between senior Indian and Chinese commanders in Moldo on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on Monday.
'A lot of what I am was determined by what he was.'
In this weekly self-help series, mental health and life coach Anu Krishna tells you how to take control of your life.
The India-Japan joint naval exercises are a strategic signal for China, observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
'China, which had earlier blockaded New Delhi's bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group by citing the nuclear non-proliferation law, finds itself in an awkward position and international isolation.' 'India needs to pursue a policy of mediation between China and the Southeast Asian countries for regional security,' says Srikanth Kondapalli.
'Foreign ministry sources in Delhi discount the official version of the story, in which Modi made an impromptu request to stop over at Lahore, during the course of a birthday telephone call to Nawaz Sharif. In fact, this stopover had been carefully considered in Delhi, as a way to galvanise the peace process further.'
In a meeting mediated by Union Minister of State for Home, Khiren Rijiju, the Chief Ministers of Assam and Nagaland, Tarun Gogoi and T R Zeliang, on Thursday promised to take joint efforts to resolve the vexed boundary dispute.
India maintains that the Kashmir issue is a bilateral one and no third party has any role in it.
Zakaria, while talking about the unrest in Kashmir, claimed that 'genocide and crimes against humanity committed by India in Kashmir' were going on unabated.
Some 30,000 enthusiastic people performed the ancient spiritual practice, celebrating the first UN International Yoga Day.
In her weekly column, mental health guru Anu Krishna offers advice on how to take charge of your life.
India has maintained there is no scope for a third party mediation.
'We should have seen these signals and reacted earlier.' 'We miss out on a certain strategic advantage by arriving late on the scene.'
Thailand's army chief on Thursday announced coup to restore stability after 6 months of anti-government protests left the country deeply paralysed.
Rangoli Chandel is in the news again. This time, for spreading communal hate through her Twitter posts.
'It will be foolhardy to overlook that this stunning shift in China's stance comes as the culmination of the severely damaged India-China relationship under the present government,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Israel is determined to take the bilateral engagement to a different level that goes beyond defence hardware and intelligence software. Kanchan Gupta reports exclusively from Tel Aviv for Rediff.com
'The Indian version is that the two top diplomats merely exchanged pleasantries, while the Pakistani side characterised the encounter as an 'informal dialogue'.' 'The truth, as always in such piquant situations, is somewhere in between.' 'It stands to reason that ice has been broken,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
More than 6,000 people have died in the nearly one-year-old Ukraine conflict; the United Nations human rights office said on Monday and warned that "deliberate targeting" of civilians may constitute a "crime against humanity".
'What is at stake is not one mosque or temple, it is the question of the principle of secularism which is part of the basic structure of the Constitution as declared even by the Supreme Court of India.'
Here's the full text of President's Ram Nath Kovind's address to the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament on the first of Budget Session 2022.
In fact, given the current tensions and massed troops on both sides, there is a danger that the LAC will become more like the Line of Control with Pakistan, a heavily fortified and strongly defended border where weapon fire exchanges regularly occur. Indeed, Stratfor Worldview research has listed a sharp increase in new Chinese facilities along the LAC in 2019-20.
'Traditionally, the US tried to tamp down tensions whenever a crisis situation arose and deputed officials from Washington to travel to Delhi to counsel restraint.' 'This time around, no US envoy flew down to Delhi -- not even when tensions spiked and a flashpoint was reached last week,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'It's the first-ever US presidential visit which is specially planned for India.' 'The standalone visit itself has achieved something already. Don't underestimate it.' Sheela Bhatt gives us an exclusive glimpse of what the Modi government hopes to achieve from Trump's visit.
'Indira Gandhi and P N Haksar did not want Pakistan to leave as an embittered foe hell-bent on taking revenge for being humiliated so comprehensively.'
Sources also said that India meets the criteria for a US sanctions waiver for procuring S-400 missile defence systems from Russia and the Trump administration has 'enough flexibility' on the issue.
