'In South Asia, unlike Southeast, East, or Central Asia, there is a natural hegemon: India. China cannot cast it aside easily'
We understand the electoral compulsions, the desperate need for the BJP to have at least 50 per cent of the Hindus vote for them in Uttar Pradesh in a few months. For that, you need polarisation, put your own Muslim compatriots on the 'other' side. This is how your domestic politics runs contrary to your national, strategic interest, warns Shekhar Gupta.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed head of Russia's southern Chechnya region, hosted a dinner in honour of Egypt's football team and presented the Liverpool star forward Mohamed Salah with an award, the Chechen leader's press service said on Friday.
While Nifty 50 reflects changes in 40 years, it also shows what is missing: Low-cost manufacturers at one end, and deep-value players at the other. Also missing are technology players, observes T N Ninan.
'Modi cannot drag India back into a primitive epoch resembling the religious wars in medieval Europe and at the same time claim to represent the aspirations of modernity among Indians,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Pre-monsoon rainfall, colloquial referred to as "mango showers", is vital to many parts of the country.
The data leak obtained by 'The Australian' newspaper has revealed how the alleged CPC members are employed with some of the world's biggest corporations in the areas of defence, banks and pharmaceutical giants manufacturing coronavirus vaccines.
A beautiful documentary from Delhi. A shocking satire that spares no one. A thriller about a serial killer in Iran. A Pakistan film about family secrets... Aseem Chhabra lists the best films he saw in Cannes.
The BJP would want that by March 2022, when UP votes, the economy starts looking up and it heads into the polls with no other issue distracting from its main poll plank of the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
From Sri Lanka's most popular political family to its most despised -- going by the voices on the streets calling for the Rajapaksas' ouster -- what went wrong for the clan? Veteran Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy offers an insight.
Modi may take satisfaction from his display of considerable political skill in managing a mercurial, temperamental and unpredictable US president and nudging him into uncharacteristic restraint and even carefully orchestrated remarks. This personal chemistry will come in handy if Trump returns as president in the November elections, says former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
The Indian Navy has a big role to play in support of our strategic objectives in the Indian Ocean. The increasing Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean is a matter of concern and need to be factored. Hence, the requirement of an Aircraft Carrier is a foregone conclusion, asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
The Taliban's main challenge comes on the financial and economic front and there Pakistan doesn't have the capacity to be of any meaningful help, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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).
Here's a sneak peek of the arrivals.
Mere shuffling of resources or cosmetic changes to prove a point would be counterproductive in the long run, observes Commodore Venugoptal Menon (retd).
The country will not allow any "unilateral action" on its border and will pay any cost to thwart such attempts, he told the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha's state conference.
The festering dispute over the accession of Jammu and Kashmir stands out as one of the world's most volatile fault lines that divides regions, countries, societies, communities and ethnic groups, notes Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs, on Sheikh Abdullah's 39th death anniversary.
'Bola nikal jao. Sala firing karte hai Russi.'
Regional States will be worried that the US's nascent engagement with the Taliban behind the fig leaf of humanitarian aid enables the return of US intelligence personnel to Afghanistan, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
I tried to reason in my mind that wouldn't beating Pakistan again and again -- in the league matches and in the knockouts if they made it -- be a better tribute to our martyred soldiers? A revealing excerpt from Vinod Rai's Not Just A Nightwatchman: My Innings In The BCCI.
There is no conceivable reason for any big power to put road blocks on the path of an India-Pakistan normalisation process, asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
China criticised the forthcoming meeting of the Foreign Ministers of India, Australia, Japan and the United States in Tokyo, saying it is opposed to the formation of "exclusive clique" harming third party's interests.
A great war memorial goes beyond the list of dead, to contemplation of the phenomenon of war. To me as a civilian, it didn't matter that our war memorial stood under India Gate, a creation of the British; it didn't matter that it didn't name all the fallen. The fact that we embraced it and respected it made it an unforgettable war memorial, notes Shyam G Menon.
The ad for a 'lehnga' brand featuring Bollywood star Alia Bhatt as the much indulged daughter and granddaughter has fired debate on social media platforms and elsewhere on the age-old tradition of giving away the daughter.
The coronavirus has however infected increasing numbers of athletes and others involved with the Games, and authorities were on Friday trying to track down a Ugandan weightlifter who went missing from his training camp.
India's willingness to play a big role in the manufacturing and to allow some of those vaccines to go to other developing countries will be an absolutely critical part of containing the pandemic, said Gates.
Director Abhishek Kapoor's cousin Ekta Kapoor turned up to support the filmmaker.
'Our senselessness on caste issue has gone so deep that we need to have a sensitivity test on why we as Indians have become so numb to such mindless violence.'
The contemporary problem with the BJP in Tamil Nadu is that it has been trying hard to package the DMK especially as anti-god and anti-Hinduism, and seeking it to link to Periyar and M Karunanidhi, and by extension to Stalin, the latter's son and successor to the party mantle. Their hope was to consolidate the perceived 'pro-god, pro-religion votes', which they saw returning to the fold post-MGR, post-Jayalalithaa. But no such substantial vote-bank existed even in Periyar's time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Indian Matchmaking has clearly been produced to pander to Western audiences's awful fascination with the institution of arranged marriage, notes Kanika Datta.
'We have no time for meals. We don't sleep on time or have family or community interactions.' 'All this stress has made us pressure cookers without valves.' 'No wonder then we are bursting out with heart attacks,' points out Dr Udgeath Dhir, director, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram.
Riteish Deshmukh and Vivek Oberoi, among others, turned up at Khan's party.
Banerjee, who was flanked by newly-elected MP Nusrat Jahan and her husband Nikhil Jain, said, "Togetherness and tolerance for all faiths is the real religion."
The Bombay high court, while hearing posthumously the appeals filed by late Jesuit priest Stan Swamy in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, on Monday said he was a wonderful person and the court had 'great respect' for his work.
HCL CEO Vineet Nayar reportedly told an audience in New York City that American tech graduates are 'unemployable'.
SlumDog Millionaire has won over the Western audiences with its 'fairy tale in a Mumbai slum' storyline but back home the film has opened up a heated debate about the stereotyped representation of India and Mumbai in the Western films.
With the unanticipated floods across Tamil Nadu catching the unprepared administration unawares, Stalin finds that some of the early positives that had rubbed on his initiatives have been lost, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Russia welcomed the world to the soccer World Cup on Thursday as fans streamed in, the hosts savoured a 5-0 victory on the pitch and President Vladimir Putin's government derided Western efforts to isolate him.
