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New Delhi can't really expect that the Americans can or will solve India's problems with Pakistan. India can better leverage support from the US and other international partners only when it has a strong and sustainable engagement of its own with Pakistan.

The question remains as to how the Modi government will choose to address nuclear liability issue, balancing both the supplier and the domestic concerns. Dilution of the Liability Act is not an option, which is an important lesson learnt globally.

Former Ambassador to Nepal Jayant Prasad says that the relationship between India and Nepal should not depend on the number of projects or the amount of credit sanctioned. It should be a more sensitive political relationship.

Modi's visit to Dhaka is likely to focus on greater economic cooperation and engagement. Some of the major highlights of the visit will be on rail, road and water connectivity as well as coastal shipping services.

Modi's foreign visits resemble roadshows with their attendant hype, even though they also have a larger strategic purpose. But like all roadshows there is a time for publicity, and a time to get down to work on the MoUs, agreements, promises and commitments.

If elected to power, Narendra Modi's success on the diplomatic front will depend on an emulation of the last BJP prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who successfully carved out foreign policy autonomy from his party's antediluvian world view.

Britain's strong endorsement of India's regional interests marks an important shift in the way two countries relate to each other in the Subcontinent and the Indian Ocean.

India's Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi, has set a healthy precedent for all of South Asia to follow by inviting all Neighbourhood leaders for his inauguration, including Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

New Indian Prime Minister and Sri Lankan President should attempt to take forward the fishers' talks, promised to be continued/revived by their respective Heads of Government at their Delhi meeting, and then have their officials create the structures and super-structures aimed at implementing those decisions.

Some nuances can be captured from the opening remarks made in Sochi. Modi thanked Putin for helping India get a permanent membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In turn, Putin noted: “Our defence ministries maintain very close contacts and cooperation. It speaks about a very high strategic level of our partnership.”

To characterise the Modi-Sharif meeting and joint statement in Ufa as a "breakthrough" would be a gross exaggeration. It is another move - a positive move, but only one small move in the larger reckoning - in the elaborate chess game of India-Pakistan relations.

Alternatively, for India, BRICS remains a non-West platform as reiterated by PM Modi at the Russia summit that the organisation must not foster a notion that it seeks to replace international institutions.

We need to restructure government and administration in each of India's 568 districts. The District Collector/Deputy Commissioner, like his ICS predecessor, must become the executive head of the district with all branches of government subject to his/her authority and power. This must particularly include the police.

In his Kozhikode speech, Modi managed to underscore how Pakistan was going against the forces of history and how isolated it stood today as a result.

Having played multiple roles - part comic, part tragic - in the Western mind, perhaps it's time for Iran to make its own Bollywood debut. And get to play a solid, character role.

Canberra and New Delhi look at each other as vital partners playing critical roles in maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.

The government's focus on big ticket investment in irrigation projects without caring for its impact on production capacity defeats the very purpose of investing in agriculture projects. There is a need for monumental policy shift to fight the agrarian crisis

India, Iran and Russia have decided to begin using the part-ready International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a multimodal network of sea, rail and road routes between India, Iran, Central Asia and Russia. As the broader politics in the region undergo new configurations that may put to question the project’s prospects, and the evolving security situation demands continuous appraisal, it is time to refocus discussion on the economics o

Development partnerships between countries are crucial in addressing policy challenges in the developing world. Cooperation between countries in the Global South, in particular—such as those that India engages in, under its Development Partnership Administration (DPA)—is heightening conversations around the demands of sustainability. Yet, India continues to lack an appropriate framework by which to assess its development partnerships

As usual there is speculation about the normalcy of the monsoons. A deficient monsoon this year will certainly aggravate the stress of farmers who suffered losses due to the unseasonal rains in the last winter season. It will also dent the high growth profile that India is currently enjoying. Such a situation will test Modi's ability to manage crisis.

The visit of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in New Delhi this week offers an opportunity to PM Modi to recalibrate India's Afghan policy towards greater realism and more modest goals. Modi must reassure Ghani that Delhi is in a "standby" mode, ready to extend, whatever support Kabul wants and feels comfortable with.

The report prepared by National Investigating Agency (NIA) on David Coleman Headley, after interrogating him for 34 hours (June 3-9, 2010), show that he was not recruited by Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) but by ISI to help in planning the Mumbai attack.

read5 January 2005

Pakistan is grappling with multiple challenges currently and perhaps the only silver lining on the horizon is the possibility of a deeper economic relationship with India. There were more questions than answers about the situation inside Pakistan.

The occupier observed from the sidelines. The occupied were summoned to be handed yet another promissory note, and a sustenance allowance ¿ on condition of good behaviour. The ritual was enacted, appropriately enough, in London (on March 1) where it all began nine decades earlier; it was consecrated by the august presence of United States Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice,

The Fourth Finance Commission recommended devolution comes at a critical juncture of Centre-State fiscal relations that was looking increasingly unsustainable. Yet, with it, lies a different set of challenges and the Centre is expected to play an even greater role to aid States to spend money effectively while managing newer forms of inequality that are bound to emerge out of the new direction.

PM Modi's 'Make in India' is a grand idea to reboot the ailing manufacturing sector. But the success of this programme will largely depend on creating an enabling ecosystem for manufacturing. This would require serious reforms in taxation.

The biggest challenge in dealing with terrorism is the 'double-standard' approach that many nations, including the US, at the policy-level internationally, according to Dr K V S Gopalakrishnan, former Special Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

BRICS is surely much more than merely catchy acronym. While countries across the globe share a number of common interests, the order of priorities differs. Today, BRICS nations find that their order of priorities on a number of external and internal issues which affect their domestic environments is relatively similar.

President Mohammed Morsi was ousted from power by the military on Wednesday and has now been placed under house arrest along with many members of the presidential team. This announcement was met by cheers from the public.

The relative calm in the major Russian cities was broken last November when a bombing attack derailed the Nevsky Express -- a high-speed train plying between Moscow and St Petersburg

For Mongolia, Russian investments & cooperation between the two nations create a more competitive market in Mongolia & reduce its dependence on Chinese exports

Our 20 most–read commentaries this year.

The recent Indian government's decision to equip 800 police stations in 80 cities with radiation monitors is a clear indication of how serious the threats posed by chemical, biological and radioactive (CBR) weapons is being taken.

In agreeing to explore with Pakistan a final settlement of the Kashmir question as part of a normalisation of bilateral relations, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pushed the India-Pakistan dialogue into what could be an exciting, if not decisive, phase.

The India-Japan partnership has matured into an important component of the new security and economic architecture of the Indo-Pacific region. For a long time, the partnership was centered on economic matters. But it has diversified to cover a wide spectrum of interests including security, counter terrorism, sea-lanes, UN reforms, energy security and climate change.

A study undertaken by ORF on the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) found that there is a need to work on the loopholes of the scheme and take corrective measures for its better implementation.

The Indian parliamentary delegation's visit to Sri Lanka was not expected to fast-track a solution to the ethnic issue. Yet, it has facilitated continued Indian engagement on the subject with various stake-holders, the Government, the TNA and the UNP Opposition.

Nepal needs to be proactive in safeguarding the tourism industry centred around Mount Everest

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is popularly known as Bangabandhu or Friend of Bengal. He became the Prime Minister of Bangladesh in 1972. He was a close friend of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Instead of dealing with the Mullaperiyar dam controversy as a geo-political conflict, it should be tackled as an institutional, legal and administrative failure in the region. Equitable distribution of the benefits of the shared resource is not an impossible task to achieve.

New security challenges confront India today. Newer areas of conflict and contestation are emerging on the horizon. These challenges call for dynamic and autonomous response mechanisms.

As the Pakistani People's Party (PPP) Government struggles to get the Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) passed into legislation, an international team of IMF experts are scheduled to meet with political parties this week to be the mediators for a much-needed consensus.

BRICS and SCO are two key non-Western multilateral platforms where India and Russia cooperate closely. In the past decade, both these countries have seen shifts in their foreign policies, which has also impacted their approach towards multilateralism. At the same time, BRICS and SCO have also seen their initial agendas widen to include a greater engagement with regional and global issues, including the creation of a multipolar world order. Along

The future of the internet is by no means simple, and that the deeper the analysis became, the more complicated it would be, according to Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google.

Municipal governance has once again taken centre stage in Indian polity. There is a current re-shaping of narratives within the national government to make local governance effective. It is realised that deficit in the delivery of urban services results in chaos, which forms the basis for citizens doubting the functioning of the local government.