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The entire region from Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Bihar and West Bengal to Arunachal Pradesh will benefit through improved connectivity. India should now look and Act East in Myanmar seriously as the country has a long border with our northeast and sustained friendly relations are important for India.

India is commonly — and rightly — considered as a reluctant democracy promoter. But while sceptical about the motives behind Western attempts to promote democracy and about the effects of their democracy promotion efforts, India has since the mid-2000s moved warily to involve itself in “democracy assistance”. This article argues that New Delhi has engaged in these activities in the context of a wider shift in strategy, in parallel with t

What is new is the fact that Delhi under Modi is no longer coy about affirming its position in conjunction with the US. A self-assured Modi is injecting a measure of pragmatism and openness into India's positions.

Just compare the return of Benazir Bhutto with that of Musharraf. Both equally botched up. Bhutto's return was part of a deal between the Army and the US. Which interests had struck the deal with Musharraf?

For two reasons, no big ticket items or headline-grabbing news came out of this year's third Indo-US Annual Strategic Dialogue. For one, the US is in election mode; the second reason is the policy paralysis in New Delhi.

Tamil Nadu's river water cases may have relevance elsewhere in the country, now or later. Given the increasingly fragile nature of the federal structure as evidenced in this 'coalition era', effective measures need to be put in place lest the unity of the Union should be at stake.

How far inflation control will be successful, only time can tell and we have to wait and watch. Inflation is very bad especially for the poor. But inflation cannot be controlled by interest rates alone. By being overly hawkish, the RBI Governor is not going to help industry which is starved of investment.

As the two biggest Asian economies, China and Japan are directly involved in infrastructure development in many Asian countries and this has led to fierce rivalry between the two. The recent decision of the Indonesian government to offer the construction of Jakarta-Bandung high speed network to China came as a bolt from the blue to Japan.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Delhi, NSA A.K. Doval said there is a need for collective response by countries to tackle terrorism as it will be very difficult for countries individually to fight terror effectively. He called for a Comprehensive United Nations Convention against Terrorism.

National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon on March 5 released the book "Samudra Manthan: Sino-India Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific", authored by Dr. C. Raja Mohan, Head of the Strategic Affairs Programme of Observer Research Foundation.

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 29: The Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board and President of the Centre for International Affairs of Observer Research Foundation, Mr. Maharajakrishna Rosgotra here today called for concerted efforts to find alternative sources of energy, especially solar energy.

The least reported link in the otherwise raging controversy over Pakistan¿s nuclear proliferation happened on January 1, 2004, at the Denver International Airport. Asher Karni, 50, a Jewish businessman from South Africa, was snared in a sting operation launched by the US Commerce Department and other federal agencies.

Senator Douglas Roche has urged the India to lead the movement for disarmament of nuclear weapons, saying India under the leadership of Dr. Manmohan Singh was serious about nuclear disarmament.

Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi, hosted a talk on Monday, September 18, 2006, by Brookings Institution President Strobe Talbott on "US Foreign Policy in the Presidential Election Season".

Highlighting the inevitability of Nuclear power being an essential requirement to address India's growing Energy security needs in the time to come, Mr Shashidhar Reddy, Vice Chairman National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said.

Nuclear development in Iran has been an issue of great concern, not only to its neighbours in West Asia, but also for the global powers, in the interests of regional and global stability. At present, efforts are being made to find a solution to the crisis. The interim nuclear deal signed between Iran and P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany) on 24 November 2013, and the complementary Framework for Coopera

There is a definite need for India to reconsider its doctrine or a strategy to counter and/or deter use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons weapons by Pakistan for non-strategic (say battlefield) purposes.

A closer reading of the joint statement issued by Chinese President Xi Jinping after a meeting with the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych last month, suggested China was merely offering boiler plate assurances to Ukraine.

India’s young women, now more educated and healthier than ever, are entering a phase of significant socio-economic progress. Many of these women also aspire to become social innovators. With gender parity in education and an increasing number of women in STEM fields, they have increased potential for social innovation. However, barriers such as gendered social norms, domestic and care responsibilities, the digital divide, safety concerns, limit

If the first term of President Obama is any indication, U.S. foreign policy will to continue to develop in a cautious, limited, pragmatic, yet largely reactive manner. There will be few American efforts to order the new multipolar world, or respond proactively to much of anything.

Hard line Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must know a few things about Andalusia, of which Cordoba was once the capital. His father Professor Benzion Netanyahu specialized in the history of the Jews in Spain!

Though Obama does not want the Tibetan question complicate his effort to build a sustainable partnership with Beijing, he does not want to appear abandoning the human rights issues in China and alienate a significant section of domestic elite opinion.

Alleging the Assad regime's involvement in the last week's chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs, President Barrack Obama said that he has decided to take military action against Syria by launching limited military strike.

Obama's China policy, motivated by an increasing level of interdependence, will involve constructive engagement with China. However, simultaneously, the US will also seek to ensure that their image of being a great power in Pacific-Asia does not change, according to US scholar Prof. Ronald W. Pruessen.

The inadequacy of Barack Obama's Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy stems from the exigencies of the calendar of the next presidential elections in America,

President Obama is definitely more confident and on a high note, though mindful of the fact that his political capital will not last long into his second term; that he has very little time and leeway in which to enact and achieve some of the priorities he stressed during his address.

In search of saliency in the Obama visit, pundits have missed out on "Indo-US" co-operation in Afghanistan, a major shift since the narrative so far has been about US-Pak collaboration in the Af-Pak theatre.

All those, who were until the other day shrugging their shoulders and despairing at no "deliverable" packages during the Obama visit, suddenly have a relaxed pensiveness in their eyes which comes from the dawning of realism. In essence, the visit will be directional, not "destinational".

What India needs badly is FDI with it technology transfer and hopefully that would come after Obama's India visit. The inflows have already raised India's reserves to $322 billion recently. Also, the stock market has been on the roll before and after Obama's visit, though because of reasons other than the visit.

By now, even reluctant observers of American politics would have easily discerned that economy will largely decide who will win the November presidential elections.

New Delhi's knee-jerk political protestations against Barack Obama's remarks on the stalled economic reforms in India have missed out on far more important comments from the President of the United States about Jammu and Kashmir.

In the end, every great power will have to accept the spheres of influence or "special interest zones" of other powers so that there are no clashes in interests. The world will have to adjust to polycentricism and to big powers occasionally rubbing against each other, even if there are no hot conflicts.

The US needs to seriously reconsider its policy of advising African countries about how they go about their foreign policy or risk losing any goodwill it has left in the region. Also, perhaps, Obama's Africa visit has come too late in the day and his promises are too little to entice the Africans.

Barack Obama's strategic problem now is to reassure east Asian allies of the strength of American commitment to them without provoking an unwanted conflict between the US and China.

Myanmar hosted US President Barack Obama this week in Nay Pyi Taw for the ASEAN and East Asia Summit. Obama, who visited the former 'paraiah State' for the second time in three years, said that the reforms in Myanmar were real but incomplete.

Pakistan's cooperation against extremist groups has been selective, targetting those threatening its own stability but avoiding action against the Afghan Taliban seen as strategic assets for controlling Afghanistan once the US withdrew

As US President Obama reshapes America's relationships in the Middle East, new equations are likely to emerge within the region and more Space will be created for China to win over the old allies of the US.

The basic purpose for Obama to have undertaken the nocturnal visit to Kabul is to show the Republicans as the misguided war mongers who thrust two wars on a nation in recession. True, Afghanistan was a war of choice but now unpopular at home. He would like to appear to be the leader who called back the troops.

Even as the United States tries to retract from being labelled the global policeman, it still cannot ignore the calls that come from being the sole superpower in the world, notwithstanding debates about its relative decline.

Following President Obama's State of the Union address, polls show Obama leading the Republican Presidential frontrunners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. The next few months will tell us whether Obama will be able to convert this into another Presidential term.

At the Obama- Xi talks, there has been some movement forward on the so-far intractable issue of Hydroflurocarbon (HFCs) emissions. Washington and Beijing have agreed to work together to eliminate the use of HFCs and persuade countries like India to join this effort. This could mean trouble for the tenuous alliance of BASIC.

It might be an interesting detail for a US President who has come up the Civil Rights ladder. The role caste politics in India has played in boosting Indo-US ties in recent years.

The current US presidential campaign, which is about to come to a close, has been replete with spins disseminated by the spin-masters of President George Bush as well as Senator John Kerry.

The first meeting of the ORF-Pacific Council Task Force on India-US Relations was held at Jamnagar on March 18-19, 2004.

The Afghan Election Commission has set the next presidential elections for April 5, 2014. This move has been welcomed in the country as well as by the international community as a positive development.