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There were four more explosions in London on July 21,2005, but of a much lower intensity as compared to those of July 7,2005. The target again was the public transportation system. As on July 7,2005, there were three explosions in the underground railway system and one in a bus. Apart from injuries to one person, no other human casualty has been reported. Material damage was also very little as compared to July 7.

An ORF study report on the neglect of the Mumbai river Mithi, and how it can be reclaimed effectively was jointly released by Mr. Suresh Prabhu, former Union Minister of Environment and Forests, and Mr. Rajendra Singh, the Ramon Magsaysay Award winner and a noted water activist.

At the top, communication between the senior leadership on both sides is very good. But, once you get past that, the real engine of any bilateral relationship -- the mid-levels of the bureaucracies -- do not communicate consistently well yet. A large part of this lack of communication is a paucity of 'strategic messaging' from the US in India.

Until the lions write their own history, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. The sentiment of this famous African proverb came out repeatedly during an interactive session with African journalists at Observer Research Foundation on January 24, 2011.

If India is unable to call the shots in Maldives, who will even take it seriously as a player in the region?

Three weeks well into the constitutional deadlock that has stalled governmental functioning an parliamentary proceedings alike, there is no end in sight still to the political crisis overwhelming the Maldivian archipelago. The infant democracy, which otherwise used to be inward-looking until the politico-constitutional changes of 2008, cannot allow to fail itself - and its political leaders cannot try to have it both ways, either.

With only a week left for the scheduled second-round polling in the presidential elections on Saturday, 28 September, it may be time the stake-holders in Maldives arrived at an interim consensus, keeping the healthy and constructive future of the infant democracy at heart.

In Maldives, a midnight police break-in and alleged yet uncontested seizure of 'dangerous weapons' from Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim's residence has led to his unceremonious replacement by Maj-Gen (Retd) Moosa Ali Jaleel, until then High Commissioner to Pakistan.

Now, Maldives seems to be slipping steadily into the 'pressure cooker' mode. No solutions are in sight. None one knows what is going to happen next. May be, the ruling Yameen leadership should look around to learn its lessons from neighbouring Sri Lanka.

A few incidents in four weeks, and the Maldivian Government is not taking any chances. The illegal import of five double-edged swords and some 'toy guns', shipped from China, and that of a stun-gun and face-mask as

Two events in as many weeks, and Maldives has been making news, both on the home front and in the global arena, for reasons that had been better left untouched. Coming as they did after the successful SAARC Summit in the southern Addu City.

Maldivians, particularly the security authorities in the country, may have heaved a sigh of relief after the competing rallies by the NGOs and the political Opposition on the one hand, and the ruling MDP on the other, went off peacefully on Friday last.

India has assured Maldives to extend all technical expertise to resolve the current water crisis. India pressed the button after Maldivian Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon called counterpart Sushma Swaraj soon after the seriousness of the crisis was known.

After privatisation, the 'managed float of rufiyaa against the dollar, and other aspects of governance under President Mohammed Nasheed, the Opposition has begun identifying the ills of 'western ways of governance' to individual sectors, and thus drive home their arguments against the Government, even more.

Maldives may have already opened up a national debate on the need for early electoral reforms, with a public assertion by President Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik that the Bill that he had returned to Parliament on fixing a minimum membership of 10,000 for political parties to be registered for State funding,

That is the question large sections of the people of the Republic of Maldives have been raising as the small country in the Indian Ocean gets ready for the elections to its Parliament (Majlis), which are due to take place on December 31. While the Indian media and analysts have been devoting considerable attention to the coming re-poll (December 26) to elect the next President of Ukraine in order to see whether the elections there would be free a

The sudden and inexplicable way in which an 'investor-row' involving the Indian infrastructure group, GMR, is getting a new twist in recent days in Maldives, if unchecked, has the potential to rock the bilateral relations.

By applying for clemency to President Abdulla Yameen during the month of Ramadan, former President Mohammed 'Anni' Nasheed has put the ball in the court of the Maldives President. Yameen is now under twin-pressure on the Nasheed front.

Not all seems to have been lost to the infant Maldivian democracy. Arch-rivals in the still -unfolding national political drama have come together again, to re-vote two Bills to ensure mandatory assent after President Waheed Hassan Manik had returned them.

The People's Majlis, or Parliament's confirmation of the nomination of Vice-President Mohammed Waheed Deen have taken the punch out of the MDP's argument against the need for a constitutional amendment for facilitating early elections.

Maldive's new President Mohammed Waheed's hands are going to be full as the country is left with a bagful of unresolved crises, each piling upon the other, all of them needing urgent or not-so-urgent attention from the new leadership.

Notwithstanding the recent media leaks on a 'US military base' in Maldives, a decision on whatever that facility be, may have to wait until after the parliamentary polls of May 2014, not stopping with the presidential elections due in September this year.

The latest in the series of crises that have hit the young Maldives democracy is the arrest of Chief Justice of the Criminal Court, Abdullah Mohammed, and the involvement of the Maldivian National Defence Force in executing the arrest request from the police.

For a nation celebrating the golden jubilee of the country's Independence, Maldives has been at sixes and sevens through the previous year. And for a people who have taken politics and democracy with all its dynamism and vibrancy,

In Maldives, if the mainline polity has failed in fighting a process now being projected as contributing to religious extremism, militancy or terrorism, the global community too has failed to distinguish between a return of Islamic traditions and the advent of Islamic extremism, and act accordingly.

After the cancellation or non-conduct of the court-ordered first-round re-poll on 19 October in Maldives, outgoing President Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik and the Supreme Court seem to have expanded the scope and meaning of 'inclusive poll' in the even more contemporary context.

If one thing is becoming increasingly clear in 'democratised' Maldives, it is that street-protests can change Governments and constitutions, policies and national priorities. It is thus that the nation found street-protests heralding 'multi-party' democracy,

Without most people noticing it and anyone acknowledging it, either inside the country or outside, Maldives' new President Abdulla Yameen launched the nation's new 'foreign policy' at a quiet ceremony in capital Male on January 20, 2014.

The unresolved India-China border dispute brings China closer to the Indian Ocean in every political and geo-strategic calculation of nations like Maldives and Sri Lanka, even though they are not as close to both the 'Asian giants' as the rest of India's South Asian neighbours.

In a not-so-unexpected development, the Maldivian Supreme Court stripped Elections Commission President Fuwad Thowfeek and Vice-President Ahmed Fayaz Hassan of their membership, for the contempt of the court.

After seemingly winning the earlier rounds in the ongoing political tug-of-war since the New Year commenced, Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen seems to have got his political detractors on the wrong foot again,

For a second occasion in almost as many weeks, former Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed hinted at a change of the country's leadership. Such reports will sound credible only if the MDP is able to muster two-thirds majority in Parliament.

The recent presidential polls show the continuing stranglehold of 'coalition politics' in the contemporary Maldivian context. It became visible when Nasheed defeated incumbent Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in the second round of the 2008 polls, after securing only 25 percent vote-share in the first round.

In Maldives, a ruling coalition member's decision to move an amendment to the 2008 Constitution, to fix an upper age-limit of 65 years for contesting presidential election, has landed President Abdulla Yameen in an unnecessary controversy.

In Maldives, the development following former President Nasheed seeking refuge in Indian Embassy after an arrest warrant from a local court has raised a number of issues -- legal, political and diplomatic. Presidential polls are due in the country in September this year.

Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj undertook a two-day weekend visit to Maldives, setting the stage for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to follow suit, but possibly based on the quick-changing domestic developments in the Indian Ocean archipelago.

As was only to be expected, the WikiLeaks whistle-blower's accounts of US diplomatic exchanges within has something to say of little Maldives too, and it has also the potential to embarrass, if not harass, the incumbent Government of President Mohammed Nasheed.

With Maldives' Election Commission setting in motion the process for holding the first round of Supreme Court-ordered re-poll for the nation's presidency, political parties and voters alike are gearing up for a repeat performance of sorts, twice in as many months.

Though there is a feeling of political stability now with the Government of President Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik in Maldives, it has also flagged news issues that could challenge the internals of the uneasy coalition that he has been heading.

India has been understanding of the Maldivian government’s new policy, but it expects the island nation to respect Indian sensitivities and equally uphold its commitment to bilateral ties

Under-nourished women, in all likelihood, became under-nourished mothers with a greater chance of giving birth to low birth-weight babies, perpetuating this cycle

Boosting further the relations between India and Bangladesh, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee recently undertook a three-day visit to Dhaka. The successful visit is expected to create a positive ground for Prime Minister Modi's visit likely later in the year.

Birds provide multiple benefits to the world’s ecosystems. In recent years, experts have raised the alarm about deteriorating bird populations, with some species becoming extinct and others threatened to dangerous levels. This decline in avian populations is primarily attributed to urbanisation. Concerted efforts are required to conserve birds and their habitats in cities. The Government of India, state governments, urban local bodies, non-gove

The rapid uptake of artificial intelligence (AI) in the military in the past couple decades has been accompanied by a slow but gradual build-up in attempts to understand how these AI systems work to achieve better results in military operations. The idea behind what is called ‘eXplainable AI’ (XAI), and the technologies driving it, are a manifestation of this trend. The question, however, is if XAI in its current form is the solution

Tensions in Asia are rising over unresolved territorial disputes and sovereignty issues. In contrast to the immediate post-Cold War period, recent tensions are characterised by the evident proclivity of some, if not all, parties towards the threat or use of limited force.

New entrants in the Indo-Pacific offer both opportunities and challenges for outer space.

Former Prime Minister Vajpayee¿s government may not have left India shining, but to its credit, it notched up several major achievements on the national security font. Foremost among these was declaring India a nuclear weapons state, a move that unquestionably enhanced India¿s quest for strategic autonomy.

It is important that manufacturing growth picks up otherwise India's demographic dividend in terms of having a youthful population could become a demographic liability. Around half of India's population is under 25 years old. Unless they have jobs or job prospects, they will become dissatisfied and disgruntled.

The traditional Left in the country too has failed to 'grow' with the new-generation labour force, with the result that there is a vacuum that the Maoists possibly seem to be exploiting. This is not the first time traditional Left have failed the labour force.

Despite the high number of casualties suffered in the Maoist attacks, the government's action unfortunately depends on the 'paradox of numbers'. And it clearly mirrors the phenomenon of "lumpy adjustment" instead of the needed incremental steps.