The greatest challenge before India is how to strike a fine balance of its relationship between its neighbour and strategic rival China, and the US.
The G-4 foreign ministers' grouping, that includes India, on Thursday called for urgent reform of the United Nations, including the Security Council, an issue that India has emphasised for the past several years.
'No country can go from zero to hero at the Olympics.' 'A hundred Indians now feature in the world's top 25 and that's progress,' says Shekhar Gupta.
India suggested that Pakistan should refrain from using the Right of Reply and instead "use the right of introspection" to think about the direction in which the country is moving.
'The government is using the Intelligence Bureau to go after NGOs.' 'It is not only the NDA, the UPA also didn't like NGOs.' 'NGOs predominantly work with the poor. So, when you cancel an NGO, the affected are the poor, the Dalits, the tribals, the street children and the marginalised.'
Narendra Modi's positive engagement with Barack Obama has well and truly washed away the doubts and slights of the past.
Apart from key bilateral issues, the two leaders also discussed situation in the region, particularly in wake of the increasing threat of terrorism and extremism from various sources including the Islamic State militant group.
The powerful United Nations Security Council on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution that endorses the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers.
Yale University has issued a statement saying that Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani attended a weeklong programme and received a certificate from the university last year, along with several other lawmakers from India. George Joseph/Rediff.com reports from New York
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the United States against any unilateral military stike on Syria, saying it would trigger a new wave of terrorism, result in the collapse of the United Nations and claim more innocent victims as the conflict could spread beyond Syria's borders.
In a blunt attack on Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday accused it of creating "nuisance" and "constantly" troubling India by promoting terrorism.
Former external affairs minister, K Natwar Singh, shares his critique of the Narendra Modi government's foreign policy in this e-mailed interview with Aditi Phadnis. Edited excerpts
After Pyongyang tests a missile potentially capable of reaching the US, Dr Rajaram Panda explores the realistic -- and peaceful -- options before Donald Trump and the international community at large.
'We are completely engaged in fighting poverty; alas, our neighbour Pakistan seems only engaged in fighting us.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had gone to China with a bagful of initiatives, but not all seems to have been fulfilled given China's reluctance to go the whole hog with him
India should enhance its economic, cultural and defence ties with Mongolia. It is high time Modi should focus on gaining clout in smaller Asian countries such as Mongolia. It is in this context, India's engagement with Mongolia would give much-needed impetus to India's foreign policy, says Sana Hashmi.
Balazs Jarabik, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research focuses on Ukraine and Eastern Europe, says preliminary and not direct evidence points suggests that the Ukrainian rebels shot down the plane. In this interview with Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa, Jarabik says that it would not be right to call this an act of terror or a war crime as it appears to be a horrible mistake.
The new equation between 'Namo' and 'Barack' may well 'convert a good start into lasting progress.'
India has some ability to influence what the world order will look like, but it needs to make structural changes to the ministries of external affairs and commerce, and evolve formal coordination mechanisms with the ministries of finance and home, says Nitin Pai
The previous democratically-elected government in Bhutan sought to get cosy with China. Will the new Tshering Tobgay dispensation mend the fences with India? Shubha Singh examines
As India rises, creating niche areas for itself in the Asian landscape, China and India are bound to step on each other's vital areas of importance, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
United States Secretary of State John Kerry, heading a high-powered delegation of his cabinet colleagues and top military commanders, today left for India as part of his 10-day seven nation Asia trip.
Further deterioration of the US-Saudi relationship will have geo-economic and geopolitical effects, says Nitin Pai.
'Look East' policy was first coined by the Narasimha Rao government in the 1990s and has been followed by the successive governments.
'What should worry India and which needs to be expressed is Russia's simultaneous proximity to both China and Pakistan from a strategic angle. That hasn't happened ever before,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'Modi and Obama both had agendas that went beyond the nuclear deal. The threat from the chilly Himalayas had to be tackled in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.'
The biological weapons convention is a non-starter in spite of the efforts of many states in the world for the last five decades mainly because the US is not ready to accept the 'verification protocol' which could allow the formation of some official mechanism for inspections, says Ajay Lele.
'If India employed a strategy of a 'thousand cuts', Pakistan will wither away.'
The Diaspora is no longer a mere remittance economy. It today claims dual loyalty and demands a say in Indian politics, says sociologist Shiv Visvanathan
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.
Addressing world leaders at the 68th session of the UN General Assembly, Obama said if the international community cannot be united against forcing Syria to give up its chemical weapons, "then it will show that the United Nations is incapable of enforcing the most basic of international laws".
'We have been found seriously wanting in addressing our undersea warfare capability and China's emergence is a cause for concern.'
Two US warships fired at least 50 cruise missiles at the Ash Shai'rat airfield in Homs province in western Syria, from where the US administration believes Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad fired the chemical weapons against his own people, media reports said.
Domestically, China's 'strike hard' policy is alienating Uighurs further in Xinjiang. China's quid pro quo with the Taliban is hardly any lasting solution to the Afghanistan crises or to regional security, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
President Xi Jinping's visit may put relations between India and China on a new trajectory
'By his very presence in Delhi on Republic Day, Obama is revisiting the most defining relationship of the 20th century after a period of stagnation,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Happily,' says Ambassador B S Prakash, 'BRICS displayed new-found energy and built something real, a bank. Between needless nihilism and as yet unjustified euphoria, there are many stations for the BRICS train and we can watch its progress with renewed interest.'
This quiet assertion of China has allowed various smaller countries of South Asia to play China off against India. Most states in the region now use the China card to balance against the predominance of India. Forced to exist between their two giant neighbours, the smaller states have responded with a careful balancing act, says Harsh V Pant.
The external affairs ministry's files, as distinct from those of the ministry of defence or the agencies, at least from before 1974 should be declassified. And if select files that are more than 40 years old are not to be declassified, the ministry should follow explicit guidelines to justify taking such a view, says Jaimini Bhagwat.
Seeking a peaceful and secure neighbourhood amidst threat of terrorism and extremism, India and Kyrgyzstan on Sunday signed four agreements including one on bolstering defence cooperation and holding annual joint military exercises.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances