India is apprehensive about the Taliban's return as it would mean loss of access to Baluch rebels and help to the restive tribals of Waziristan. This would be a setback to the Indian strategy of returning the compliments of death by a thousand cuts to Pakistan, notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
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The company will be increasing the prices of its compact car Beat, SAIL and multi-purpose vehicle Enjoy by 1.5 per cent, which translates to a range of Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000.
The residents of Delhi stand to lose 10 years of life expectancy if the current air pollution level persists.
'India enjoys the maneuverability of a coming big power.' 'It is this possibility that has persuaded Moscow to humour India and stayed Washington from getting punitive about India's neutrality on the Ukraine issue.'
'All they need is proper leadership.'
'The hardliners in Delhi are in for a big disappointment,' predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Putin is in danger of losing face in his Ukrainian adventure. His bluster is a response to this.'
'The big power struggle in faraway Europe erupted at a most critical juncture when India has been increasingly sceptical about American policies and statesmanship,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The RSS ideology has been borrowed from fascism and is not borne out of Hinduism.' 'They want India to have one historical identity whereas India is a land full of divergence which goes in every direction.'
Europeans believe that what is under attack is their way of life, their secular faith, the long-fought right to keep religion out of the public sphere, observes Virendra Kapoor.
High frequency indicators suggest that a growth recovery is underway, but very tentatively and with weak legs, says Saugata Bhattacharya.
'The stage is set for increasing tensions in a highly volatile region as crucial as ever from a geopolitical standpoint,' predicts Claude Smadja.
An Afghan businessman is believed to be allegedly indoctrinating youth from Maharashtra to join the dreaded Islamic State.
He was ready even to take on Germany's collective guilt over the Holocaust
'Washington appears to be playing the long game, and making the argument to India that over the longer term, Russia -- sanctioned, cash-strapped, isolated by the West -- will no longer be a viable defence partner for India'
It's easy to say investors should focus on fundamentals but this risk can have a significant and lasting impact
'A three generation US-Pakistan relationship is not likely to be snapped any time soon. All this presents an irritant to an India that wishes to concentrate on economic development,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
India has the ability in all respects to be a great power and address our security challenges in the best national interests, says Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Notwithstanding how the current impasse is solved, at some point in the future, Russia will realise that just as centuries ago it developed the paradigm of securing its heartland's safety through annexing vast buffer zones between itself and the enemy, a more modern security is possible only through friendly relations and sustainable peace, observes Shyam G Menon.
Enthused by rising potato prices after a prolonged slump, Pradeep Sharma was planning to sow the crop on his 15-acre farm near Agra slightly earlier than usual. The delayed departure of the southwest monsoon also prompted his decision, since the good soil moisture would have saved at least one initial irrigation. But the acute shortage of diammonium phosphate (DAP), a crucial nutrient ahead of the sowing season for potatoes, nipped those hopes in the bud. DAP is the second-most used fertiliser in the country after urea.
Despite the Indian government's recent efforts anecdotal evidence indicates that there has been little change in the extortionist behaviour of a significant proportion of tax and police officials, says Jaimini Bhagwati.
Arif Majeed (23) from neighbouring Kalyan, who until now was believed to have been killed while fighting for militant group ISIS in Syria, was on Friday night arrested hours after he landed in Mumbai.
'Drone warfare has come to stay.' 'India should exploit the expected Reaper acquisition from the US to build an effective counter terror campaign,' argues Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
The chief of the army staff said that with one-third of the world in the Gulf region and elsewhere involved in some sort of conflict and war, "it is important that we keep the flames of fire away from our region."
In India, he has already made investments in both his personal capacity and through DST Global, his venture firm.
In its application, the investigating agency stated that the accused need to be taken to Maharashtra and Rajasthan and it also wanted to question them on the possibility of recovering more explosives.
Any Indian government at this juncture would have voted and spoken exactly this way. It isn't just about the vast Indian dependence on Russian-origin military equipment. It is also about trust, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The robot can hold long conversations, track the child's mood and is controlled from an app on the parents' smartphone
Forecasts of a further rise in bullion prices keep Indians away from selling gold.
'Which will not happen.' 'Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has expressly refuted Beijing's statement that normalcy was returning to Sino-Indian relations.'
The implications of the interim deal between Iran and the world's big powers go far beyond the nuclear programme, says Nitin Pai
A combination of externalities such as global trade wars and slowing growth, continuing glitches in accessing offsets under the GST regime, which has created a liquidity crunch for smaller exporters, and the growing competitiveness of smaller countries are causing the slowdown.
The Al Qaeda, the Islamic State or Daesh, as it is also called, will continue to exploit the fault lines and the many contradictions in the approaches of different countries, says Hardeep Puri.
'...but from those who control the narrative.' Powerful nations have mastered this art of narrative building. Those nations who aspire to become global powers must do so, observes Shanthie Mariet D'Souza.
The Philippines army battles terrorists backed by Islamic State in the first major military encounter with Islamists in that part of the world.
'The India-Pakistan relationship is in a deep freeze, though it could be a lot worse had there not been a new LoC ceasefire a year ago.' 'The India-Pakistan relationship will only start to thaw if the Pakistani military decides it's prepared to push for detente.'
'We may think that in our border quarrel, the Chinese can give up a bit of territory here or there to satisfy us, but that's not how they see it.' 'Arunachal Pradesh is 90,000 square kilometres and twice the size of Taiwan.' 'The Chinese can't be seen to be asserting their rights to Taiwan and on the other hand, cheaply giving up Arunachal Pradesh.'
India is the world's fourth-largest importer of natural gas, accounting for six per cent of the global market.
China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years, which it says it has the right to defend.
My candidate for the best general of the last century hailed from a little, poor colonised Asian nation whose impact on world affairs rarely amounted to much, notes Shankar Acharya.
