The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), a United Nations body of independent human rights experts, has adopted its ruling on Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, announcing his depriv
Late in his presidency, Barack Obama looks at the future and finds climate change as the most worrisome factor – and he is also worried about drought, famine and “displacement from the
India got support from Switzerland as it mounted a bid to enter the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the move coming on a day when Indian prime minister Narendra Modi was in Geneva where he cal
There is something unique in Narendra Modi, even his enemies will admit that. The kind of stir his foreign trips create and the impact they leave is something that has not been witnessed before. Hi
On June 23, Thursday, Britain will decide, through a countrywide referendum, whether it wants to stay with the European Union (EU) or not. Popularly known as ‘Brexit’ (from ‘Brita
Thursday’s Brexit referendum has generated high passions, dividing people not only of Britain but across the world. Will Britain ‘remain’ part of the European Union or ‘leav
What is NSG? The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is a syndicate formed by nuke-powered countries to keep a check export of materials, equipment and technology that can
As Britain voted to opt out of the EU Friday, India has asserted that it is well prepared to meet its consequences. “We are well prepared to deal with the short and medium ter
A combative Narendra Modi on August 15 prised open the fault lines within Pakistan, touching upon Balochistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) in a move that will definitely leave Islamabad squi
India has finally struck, albeit surgically. After the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attacks in Poonch and Uri on September 11 and 18,
Uzbekistan president Islam Karimov, who died in September at the age of 78, will be remembered as the leader who steered the former Soviet Republic with political acumen by carefully maneuvering th
Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton has sent out a personalized email to all her supporters, thanking them, congratulating Donald Trump, and highlighting in particular that, “This loss hurts.
A UN human rights expert has issued a strong statement accusing the US security forces of using “increasingly militarised response” against North Dakota pipeline protestors, and called
Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in the 2016 presidential elections has unleashed a great deal of soul searching among America’s liberal elite. His victory has been attributed to anger
The inevitable has happened albeit a tad sooner than expected. US president-elect Donald Trump has clashed with the UN even before he has assumed office promising that “things will be differe
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s four nation trip is expected to shore up support for India’s bid to enter the exclusive Nuclear Suppliers Group, ahead of its meeting scheduled fo
When India’s longest bridge, the 9.15-km Dhola-Sadiya over the Brahmaputra river, connecting Assam to Arunachal Pradesh, was inaugurated by prime minister Narendra Modi on May 26, China react
The USA declaring Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin as a specially designated global terrorist may not take the sting out of terrorists’ plans in Kashmir immediately but it has given a
India is increasingly turning to defence diplomacy to gain strategic depth in its neighbourhood and beyond, a move that is expected to checkmate China’s muscular domination. Defence
India and China are not prepared for a war over Doklam plateau in Bhutan, assessed JNU professor Srikanth Kondapalli, a well-known China expert who is back from Beijing and Shanghai
Pageantry has been a common feature of every Republic Day function that India has organised since 1950. However, it has not been without a fairly large share of weighty political and diplomatic sym
After the 1962 India-China war, Walter Crocker, then Australia’s high commissioner to India, described prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s position by quoting from Victorian poet Robert B
Prime minister Narendra Modi on Monday held a “constructive” interaction with Chinese president Xi Jinping during the BRICS summit, just days after the Doklam crisis was resolved.
September 13 promises to be a busy day in the diplomatic calendar with two back-to-back events of high developmental and strategic importance for India. First, prime minister Narendra Modi and his
Rohingya people who have entered India are not refugees but illegal immigrants, home minister Rajnath Singh has said, as they have not followed the due procedure to acquire a refugee status.
Pakistani experts and commentators seem rattled by India’s rather swift move to operationalise the seat route to the landlocked Afghanistan via the Iranian port of Chabahar, ending, for all t
Is China behind the fall of Zimbabwe’s longest serving leader Robert Mugabe? The whole African region and the European continent are abuzz with speculation that toppling of the Mugabe governm
This is a crucial month for India’s foreign policy makers as two back-to-back trilateral meetings, one at the ministerial level and another at the foreign secretary level, are going to be hel
If you are a keen watcher of the celebrations on Independence Day or Republic Day, you may be aware of the security risks these two events used to entail. Sleuths were busy in carrying out raids wh
Just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi walked up to the museum in Wuhan during his two-day China visit, a smiling president Xi Jinping was waiting to receive him. Xi then gave him a nugget of critica
Abhay Kumar is a poet and a diplomat, a 2003 batch officer of the Indian Foreign Service, now serving as India’s deputy chief of mission in Brazil. He edited 100 Great Indian Poems, an an
Soon after the India Sweden Business Day (November 12) in Stockholm, Indian ambassador to Sweden Monika Kapil Mohta spoke to Rupali Mehra on business ties between the two sides, the ‘Make
Diaspora diplomacy has emerged as an important component of India’s foreign policy in the last few decades. At the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in January, prime minister Narendra Modi emphasised
India has told China that the legislation changing the status of Jammu and Kashmir was “an internal matter. External affairs minister S Jaishankar, visiting China Monday, told
Prime minister Narendra Modi has told US president Donald Trump that Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan’s “incitement to anti-India violence” was not good for peace in south Asia.
An unintended consequence of the inversion of Article 370 and the division of the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories is the curious revival of Pakistan’s interest in Indian
The Promise of India: How Prime Ministers Nehru to Modi Shaped the Nation (1947-2019) By Jaimini Bhagwati Penguin Viking, 385+xxix pages, Rs 799
The event was named ‘Howdy Modi’. “But Modi alone is nothing. I am a person working for the wishes of 130 crore people in India. So when you ask, ‘Howdy Modi’, I would
Barely four days are left for Chinese president Xi Jinping to land in Mamallapuram (or Mahabalipuram) for an informal summit with prime minister Narendra Modi. While official confirmation is still
Prime minister Narendra Modi has accepted president Xi Jinping’s invitation to visit China in 2020 for their third informal summit after Wuhan and Mamallapuram, indicating both sides’ r
India’s Act East Policy is a significant cornerstone of the Indo-Pacific strategy, prime minister Narendra Modi said, adding that ASEAN is at the core of Act East Policy. Modi
When the corridor to the Gurudwara Darbar Sahib, in Kartarpur (Pakistan), was opened for the pilgrims from India on November 9, prime minister Narendra Modi recalled the fall of Berlin Wall, which
In a rare development in Sri Lanka’s history, two siblings are now at the helm of the island nation’s affairs. While the younger brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is the new president, elder
Faced with the situation emerging around the world, especially on the strategic front, India has indicated that its Indo-Pacific approach will not be confined to merely ASEAN, Africa, Australia, Ne
In the new year, India will not only infuse more life into its traditional political and economic ties with Africa, but also consolidate its defence relations with the continent – all this in
As India gears up to celebrate its 71st Republic Day on January 26, it will host Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro as the chief guest of the event that marks the day when the country formally adop
As the coronavirus outbreak in China continues to claim lives, India has stepped up its precautionary measures. The cabinet secretary on Monday reviewed the situation along with the
A third positive case of Novel Coronavirus has been reported from Kerala, even as the Indian authorities stepped up their efforts to meet the challenge of the virus outbreak from China. On the dire
Preparation is in full swing for US president Donald Trump’s India visit on February 24-25. This will be his maiden India visit as president. As per the ministry of external affairs press rel
America loves India, America respects India, said US president Donald Trump as he and first lady Melania Trump began their short visit of India from Ahmedabad on Monday, welcomed by prime minister
On the second and last day of US president Donald Trump’s India visit, prime minister Narendra Modi said the real foundation of Indo-US friendship is people-to-people relations. Trump, meanwh
In the more than 40 hours of stay in India during his two-day visit, US president Donald Trump exhibited his talents as a politician and also a showman with acumen to provide the Indian audience an
India has taken the lead in reaching out to the neighbouring member-nations of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), and prime minister Narendra Modi has proposed to set up
In the thick of battle with the deadly coronavirus, India on March announced a 21-day lockdown till April 14 in its bid to control the spread of virus which has so far led to 10 people’s deat
Whatever may be the reason behind US president Donald Trump’s irksome statement against India and then within 24 hours correcting it by making placatory remarks for prime minister Narendra Mo
In his interaction with Indian overseas students from the UK, Canada, Singapore, Europe and Australia through video-conferencing on April 26, union minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gad
For the rest of the world, it is not easy to understand China when it comes to politics or economics. Under pressure from the international community, it has accepted to open the country for a &ldq
Coronavirus is the proverbial last nail in the coffin of globalization. Following this pandemic, we shall be constrained to live in a changed world. The claims of global solidarity and intern
For all intents and purposes, India is going to reset its relations with China and a subtle hint to this regard has been given by the Narendra Modi government after the deadly June 15/16 night face
India, facing China’s aggressiveness at border, has banned 59 smartphone apps, including TikTok, as they were indulging in activities harmful to India’s sovereignty and integrity.
In a major development on July 6, the Chinese army started moving back its tents, vehicles as well as troops from locations where disengagement was agreed upon in eastern Ladakh’s Galwan Vall
India would play a leading role in the global revival, prime minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday, as he addressed the inaugural session of India Global week via video-conference.
It is perhaps neither new nor is it unacknowledged by people in general that India has, after the deadly scuffle with Chinese soldiers on the Line of Actual Control, decided to do away with caution
As parliament on Monday commenced its special session amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic, prime minister Narendra Modi underlined the importance of debate in the house, saying that it is “bene
Sections of the news media have degenerated into becoming the pet performing poodle of the government, says Manish Tewari, former information and broadcasting minister and a member of the Lok Sabha
International observers will keenly watch the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee meeting next month. The central committee is the highest organ of the CCP with a mandate to execute the decis
Congress leader and former union minister Kapil Sibal feels the media, the fourth pillar of democracy, has actually dismantled itself and is in self-destruct mode. He was in a live
The India-US two-plus-two ministerial dialogue, concluded late last month, has once again reaffirmed the two countries’ commitment to strengthen their bilateral engagement and work for peace
India is facing aggression from China – not in eastern Ladakh alone, rather it is seized with a Beijing-backed proxy war in the northeast region and also ‘Salami Slicing’ of diffe
The spirit of collaboration among nations in meeting the challenge of Covid-19 has been a valuable take-away from the pandemic, prime minister Narendra Modi said Thursday, as he suggested creating
Former Indian diplomat Kanwal Sibal has said that the US war over the Taliban in Afghanistan could only have been won if it had dealt with the terror group’s safe heavens in Pakistan first.
We are at a defining moment of history twenty years after the deadliest terrorist attack that killed 2,977 and injured more than 6,000 in the USA. Just to recollect, four commercial flights were hi
Amid the geopolitical uncertainty after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, India cannot have any kind of diplomatic relations with a militant regime, believes GVL Narasimha Rao, Member of
The Midway Battle: Modi’s Roller-coaster Second Term By Gautam Chintamani Bloomsbury / 400 pages / Rs 699 Gautam Chintamani,
Dark Secrets: Politics, Intrigue and Proxy Wars in Kashmir By Iqbal Chand Malhotra Bloomsbury, 277 pages With his latest work, ‘Dark
Being a diplomat is a fulltime job, in which Abhay K., an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, spends most of his working hours. Like all diplomats and indeed the rest of us, he manages to make ti
Escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine have made the Indian government worried if the market situation is conducive but it will go ahead with the upcoming initial public offering of the sta
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis, which has resurfaced the dirty WW (world war) word to the horror of a world just trying to come out of a crippling pandemic Covid-19, has reached a stage where ne
The tensions between Ukraine and Russia are seeing new heights. All the media outlets, leaders of powerful countries, social media users and citizens all over the world are witnessing, and talking
To bridge the gap and address diverse needs in cancer care, Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) has signed a partnership agreement with Indonesia for the Cancer Patient Navigation (CPN) progr
The 1971 war between India and Pakistan lasted for 13 days. India flagged victory and the eastern part of Pakistan was separated from it, becoming Bangladesh. In that war 93,000 soldiers of Pakista
A two-week capacity building programme in the field administration for civil servants of Bangladesh was inaugurated at the Mussoorie-based National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG) on Tuesday.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh has highlighted the need for greater cooperation in an increasingly-complex global security scenario. He stated that the theme of the event ‘SPEED’ charac
The Chinese should be wary about the city air quality in their metropoles as one of the surveillance balloons unleashed from the People’s Republic of China was shot down by an American missil
As prime minister Narendra Modi on Thursday addressed a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of G20 via video message, he underlined why India had chosen the theme of ‘One Earth, One Family
The Indian President: An Insider’s Account of the Zail Singh Years By K.C. Singh HarperCollins, 312 pages, Rs.699
South Sudan is no exception to the rule that a state of anarchy prevails in the large dark continent in the want of effective diplomacy and conflict resolution. It’s not that the aforesaid ta
‘Africa matters’ is the refrain of the contemporary New Delhi denomination. As part of the larger striving in India’s outreach external affairs minister Dr S Jaishankar recently v
The 3rd ECSWG (environment and climate sustainability working group) meeting is being held during May 21-23. The meeting is being kicked off with a G20 Mega Beach Clean-Up on Sunday in Mumbai at Ju
The ongoing third Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group G20 meeting (May 21-23) has focused on three aspects: land degradation and reclamation of mining areas, Blue Economy and susta
Centres of Power: My Years in the Prime Minister’s Office and Security Council By Chinmaya R. Gharekhan Rupa, 336 pages, Rs 795
Ties between India and the United States of America subsist on a substratum of “shared values” wherein the life practices of the order of rule of law, democratization of tyrant nations
Over 500 shipments of illicit, and potentially dangerous, unapproved prescription drugs, combination medical devices, and synthetic drug precursors were stopped from reaching American consumers in
Literature partakes of the glory of courage and chivalry in the French context. Think of D’Artagnan, Arthos, Porthos and Aramis, who are the chief Protagonists of the novel, ‘Three Musk
The Importance of Shinzo Abe: India, Japan and the Indo-Pacific Edited By Sanjaya Baru HarperCollins, 284 pages, Rs 699 Shinzo Abe, who was tr
The quintessential and traditional IR pet peeve is that the third-world nations and the developing comity of LDCs are pitted against the first world in a zero-sum game since the aftermath of World
Prime minister Narendra Modi has expressed confidence that the New Delhi G20 Summit will chart a new path in the human-centric and inclusive development. He emphasized that India’s G20 Presid
Prime minister Narendra Modi on Saturday lauded the adoption of the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration and expressed his gratitude to all fellow G20 members for their support and cooperation.
India’s prime minister Narendra Modi along with the leaders of other G20 member nations paid homage to Mahatma Gandhi at the Rajghat Sunday morning. Modi underlined that Gandhi
After more than four decades of global leaders` united statement in 1987 to define the future as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future ge
The fourth G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) meeting held in Mumbai during September 14-16 concluded with members agreeing to work towards the vision of universal financial incl
The entire Israel-Palestine quagmire can be perceived through the vivid lens of the Political Contest Model where in the quintessential nation-state actor is pitted against the non-state actor in a
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has condemned the killing of civilians in the Israel-Hamas war and underlined the need for restraint, dialogue and diplomacy for finding a way out of the conflict.
It is nearly two weeks since FBI director Christopher Wray landed in New Delhi and held talks with CBI director Praveen Sood and NIA chief Dinkar Gupta on the alleged killing of Gurpatwant Singh Pa
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around since the 1950s. Developments around it, till recently, were mostly limited to an informed few. However, the launch of ChatGpt and emergence of deep fak
Bharat Rising: Dharma, Democracy, Diplomacy By Utpal Kumar BluOne Ink, 268 pages
The issues of the order of immigration, healthcare, abortion rights or otherwise along with the American economy and the American contributions to the twin wars have impacted the general narrative
When it comes to the internal matters of India, particularly those that have elevated sensitive values, the US, despite being a close ally, has developed a habit of producing sound bites which are
As a beacon of electoral integrity and transparency, the Election Commission of India (ECI) exemplifies its commitment to conduct general elections of the highest standards, offering a golden bridg
Prime minister Narendra Modi has strived incessantly to bring laurels and much needed recognition for the nation since May 2014 when he was sworn in as the head of state. The poser which can be del
In his first foreign visit after taking oath of office for the third time, prime minister Narendra Modi Thursday evening left for Italy to participate in the G7 Outreach Summit. &ldq
Israel-Palestine War: Give Peace a Chance By Dr. Joseph K. Thomas IndiePress, 243 pages, Rs 399
All eyes are on the Narendra Modi-Vladimir Putin meeting, as the prime minister left Monday for an official visit of Russia as also of Austria. In the ‘departure statement, the
Prime minister Narendra Modi, accompanied by president Vladimir Putin, visited the All Russian Exhibition Centre, VDNKh, in Moscow Tuesday. The two leaders toured the Rosatom Pavilio
The final ‘Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure’ by ‘India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure for Economic Transformation,
The End of the Chinese Century? : How Xi Jinping Lost the Belt and Road Initiative By Bertil Lintner HarperColins, 256 pages, Rs 499.00
Prime minister Narendra Modi and his Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sanchez, jointly inaugurated the TATA Aircraft Complex for manufacturing C-295 aircraft at TATA Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) Campu
As the results of the tightly contested US Presidential elections became clear Wednesday afternoon (India time), prime minister Narendra Modi congratulated Donald Trump on the victory.
When Europe and West Asia in particular are deep in fear about Donald Trump because he as the 47th US president is expected to bring a significant shift in the geopolitics of the world with his pol
In the new year, India appears all set to carry forward its foreign policy objectives, such as Neighbourhood First, Act East and Think West, with all its seriousness, while giving prominence to its
