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For the Narendra Modi government, the demonetisation exercise is not a standalone that simply tackles existing black money.

The agenda for change is a large one. This list or any other can be multiplied several times and still come up short. But the compulsions of reform are urgent. With a bulging profile of young people, India is said to be on the cusp of a demographic dividend. But that dividend could well become a nightmare unless we are able to fix our politics, our governance system, economy, national security machinery.

If Merkel's Berlin republic is discarding its many postwar political inhibitions and reconstituting the Eurasian landscape, Modi's putative "third republic" is looking beyond non-alignment to the idea of India as a "leading power". In their second summit in six months, Modi and Merkel may have decisively nudged India and Germany towards a goal that was first articulated 100 years ago.

Fixing manufacturing and acquisitions alone will not work. Nirmala Sitharaman needs to urgently tackle the need to reorganise India’s sprawling military to make them an effective fighting unit for 21st century warfare, where challenges range from nuclear armed adversaries to proxy jihadis.

Indian counter-terror thinking needs strengthening from the ground up without care of international levers, FATF, and other multilateral security mechanisms

The US cannot be seen to be losing the war in a re-election year, and so the US withdrawal needs repackaging as a peace process for Afghanistan. The problem is that nobody really knows what the Taliban wants and reconciling an emirate — and Shariat-based system with the existing constitution — is not easy.

Hasina’s victory will likely put Delhi-Dhaka relations under more scrutiny -with the West expecting India to be vocal about the state of democracy in Bangladesh

The issues in Afghanistan do not exhaust potential areas for India-US cooperation. For example, combating the drug trade, engaging China, Central Asian nations, Iran, and Russia. Successful coordination and collaboration will go a long way towards creating a post-2014 Afghan scenario amenable to both India and the US.

Though Pakistani PM Yousuf Raza Gilani described his Mohali discussions with Dr. Manmohan Singh as a win-win situation, the Pakistan foreign office spokesperson, Tehmina Janjua, described the situation as one of guarded optimism. So what are the ground realities in this exchange? asks Mr. T.V. Rajeswar.

For now, India’s role in the Western Pacific region remains symbolic, and in the Indo-Pacific context, confined to the Indian Ocean Region.

In the urban-rural stereotyping, the phrase 'city girls' epitomises the impact of urban excesses on the apparent modesty and traditional aspect of femininity. City girls are assumed to be loud, to say the least, and of 'morally inappropriate character' on the extreme. Even within cities, this dilemma of how girls in cities ought to behave persists.

The poem, one of numerous written in that period, expresses admiration for the spell Nehru had cast by his deft navigation of foreign policy between the two blocs not for India alone but a whole group.

Countries in South Asia, before COVID-19, were already battling critical socioeconomic vulnerabilities and a deluge of extreme weather events brought about by a changing climate. The pandemic has demonstrated how disasters can cascade and converge to threaten lives, livelihoods, and economic and social systems. Yet, governments in the region have been slow to incorporate a multi-hazard, multi-sectoral perspective into their preparedness managemen

The construction of the India-US strategic partnership in the 2000s was an entirely unexpected political bonus. Making it work now is an absolute necessity for both Delhi and Washington as they struggle to cope with a challenging environment at home and abroad.

By overdoing soft power, India isn’t going to be able to fix the challenges of today, nor will it be able to exploit and benefit from the opportunities of today and tomorrow.

The Democratic election nomination tussle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is going through an exciting time as Sanders' far-left economic agenda is increasingly becoming more appealing to the party's base.

One of the great tragedies of our time is the near total decline in the credibility of the Western media. There are some exceptions but only some.

Kerala is trying in a civilian court two Italian military men for actions they took in defence of their territories. Imagine trying a serving Indian soldier in a civil court for an incident resulting from discharge of duty in naxal-infested areas, the northeast or Kashmir.

This paper explores how an individual's participation in higher education is dependent on her religious affiliations, socio-economic status and demographic characteristics.

Privacy and democracy have always had an uneasy relationship in India. However, now India has a unique opportunity to evolve a progressive and expansive legislation on privacy and protection of personal data. The report of the experts group chaired by Justice Ajit Prakash Shah is a good starting point.

It is surprising that much of America and the rest of the world seems surprised at an election of Donald Trump as the next US President.

For Narendra Modi, going into elections next year, the focus has been to put across India as a major global economy.

As the rest of the world is opening up, China’s zero-Covid policy and new outbreaks are proving to be a headache for the country.

The Indian state must use the opportunity that the political crisis has offered to fix the many things that are broken.

The rising tempo of Chinese deployments in Tibet should be of concern to New Delhi.

India has pulled ahead of China and United States as the most favoured destination for foreign direct investment. But is being number one good enough to make the Modi government's 'Make in India' productivity reform a success story and achieve its desired 8-8.5 per cent growth?

On December 20, 2003, a landmark in the history of modern India was achieved. The nation's forex reserves for the very first time crossed the $ 100 billion mark, to be precise clocked 100.048 billion. The high, coming just after a decade of reforms, remember 1990-91, could well be termed as the coming of age of India¿s liberalisation program.

If Hillary Clinton runs for office in 2016, it seems that she will be campaigning for herself as herself - an exceptional professional, a controversial former secretary of state, and a woman.

While superficial similarities between the recent Gurdaspur attack and the Mumbai attack may be apparent, there are major differences in the manner both planned and executed. The scale of the attack itself suggests that it certainly doesn't seem to have had the support of the highest echelons of power as in the Mumbai attack.

The 2014 campaign was a pulsating and historic one but its essential architecture was unorthodox.

Any attempt by India to haul up Pakistan before the international community, including the UN, could prove counter productive. It could start with India itself 'internationalising' the issue, and formally allowing the rest of the world to tell us what we should do to Pakistan, and on the vexatious Kashmir issue.

The strategic advantage accruing to India in Siachen should not be given up for apparent short-term political gains. Giving up Siachen as a gesture of friendship would also mean that its recapture would be extremely expensive to India in men and material.

A weaker American presence would only compound New Delhi’s existing Afghan conundrum.

India's objections to Pakistan's plan of holding an election in Gilgit-Baltistan region and New Delhi's protests to Chinese activity there need to seen in the wider context of Sino-Pak nexus.

The G20 — with its mix of developing and developed countries — offers the perfect platform for India to infuse partner nations with foundational ideas

A country that spends 15 per cent of its Central expenditure on national defence (armed forces and DRDO) and 23 per cent on national security (armed forces and all other security forces like para-military, police) must explain to its citizens as to whether its spending on security is justifiably utilised or not.

New Delhi's labyrinthine procurement organization is an obstacle to the country's national security. And the external security threats that India confronts, especially that from Beijing, will not miraculously disappear.

The CBI is #IASmukt, as is the CVC, whose commissioners are former income-tax, police and bank officials.

Two of the six spots renamed could be of significance, but the other four are simply points on a map. Is there a method behind this that we cannot discern at the moment?

Does Indian Foreign Policy towards West Asia have to be as fragmented as the region? Probably not. One could start by enunciating a few guidelines that are minimalist; that we are against religious extremism, toppling established states and condemning disproportionate use of force by Israel.

The Indian tendency to muddle through is likely to continue when it comes to counter-insurgency. The distance between the Army and its civilian masters is so gaping that advice, however enriched by experience and reflection, is likely to fall on deaf ears.

The US, as always, learned the hard way that it was not or need not be all that dependent on Pakistani cooperation and generosity and Pakistan was probably beginning to realise that it had exaggerated its own importance.

Strong Republican support for India in the US Congress, the new tensions in America's ties with China and Russia, and the unfolding geopolitical flux in Middle East and Asia, make it possible for Modi and Obama to boldly reimagine the bilateral partnership.

Technology solutions for illiterate people are exclusively designed by the formally educated and that is a fundamental problem

Without having to do away with the collegium per se, the new scheme could involve its choice going to Parliament, through the Executive, for a joint committee of both Houses holding public hearings, the American way, before the President appoints the person.

National Accountability Bureau is working overtime to 'fix' the former prime minister and his family.

In terms of technology, Japan is way ahead of us and China in many areas. It may be some time before we can expect Japan to export complete weapons systems, but Japanese technologies, be they the fly-by-light aircraft control systems, sonar equipment, or those that go into its own BMD systems, can be very useful.

Decades of women right movements have demonstrated that theory and praxis must join hands in order to bring about a sustainable change. Exploring and implementing ideas to make this process participatory with adequate incentives will ensure that half a billion Indians,

While the visits by political leaders to the Yasukuni Shrine potentially exacerbate regional tensions, it is the right of every country to honour those who have sacrificed their lives for their country. All countries have war memorials where they honour such sacrifices. The Yasukuni Shrine should not be seen as an exception.