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The growing socialisation with female virtual assistants in AI is rapidly diminishing the significance of women to 'a gendered female who responds on-demand'.

Lashkar, with its vast network of trained jihadis, commanders and training infrastructure, is Pakistan Army's key strategic instrument in keeping terrorism active in Kashmir and other parts of India

There are developments taking place in the quake affected Pakistan occupied Kashmir that need to be closely watched by both the Indian authorities and the Western world. The first is the failure of the Pakistan army and its associated institutions to provide relief to the millions of quake affected people in Kashmir under its occupation.

Inaugurating the ORF conference on "Generating responses to an uncertain monsoon", Minister of State for Agriculture Harish Rawat emphasised the need to understand the science behind the behaviour of the monsoon for achieving a long-term drought-proofing solution.

As the partner that stands to benefit the most from any expanded BRICS play, China needs to be singularly more magnanimous and mindful in accommodating the legitimate interests and aspirations of other member states.

With the stage set for the Geneva II conference on Syria, positions have been drawn, bargaining will be tough and the outcome could go either way.

In 1990, after the end of the Cold War and the unification of Germany, the United States of America gave an assurance to the Soviet Union that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would not expand its role beyond the borders of Germany.

Although neither India nor China envisions participating in decisive naval battles given the interdependent nature of the world order, naval suasion continues in the Indian Ocean. The underlying strength for control of the Indian Ocean, however, is not geopolitical but economic power.

Pakistan's present actions of ratcheting up tensions not only on the Line of Control but also along the International Border, while obviously making an attempt to regain the initiative, is actually unlikely to pay any dividend for a number of reasons.

An autonomous Judicial Commission can effectively nudge the judicial system towards its intended Constitutional mandate; apolitical, enlightened and efficient application of the rule of law and protection of the fundamental rights of private entities, against encroachment by the executive or the legislature.

India must come to terms with the fact that what it does with one country is bound to affect its relations with others, notwithstanding the declarations to the contrary. For international relations is not a series of discrete bilateral relations. The answer lies not in circumscribing one's own options but in intensifying engagement with all.

The recent terrorist attacks in China's Xinjiang and the involvement of terrorist camps operating in Waziristan and nearby areas have raised serious questions about Pakistan's commitment to battle terrorist groups.

The Chinese objectives are in perfect congruence with those of Pakistan in Afghanistan. Pakistan is also mindful of the fact that an enhanced Chinese presence will keep India away (at least Pakistan is hopeful of), thereby ensuring Pakistan the strategic depth that it has been seeking to achieve in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Yousuf Reza Gillani lost a sliver of a chance in Pakistan's supreme legislative body National Assembly (on May 9) to steer his embattled country away from the perpetual dilemma of being stuck at the crossroads of destiny.

The panacea for the current problems emanating from a one-sided media coverages is public service media, insulated as much from the government as the market, something the Prime Minister promised during his earlier term - UPA-I.

Terrorism is not a new phenomenon. It is the calculated, targeted and indiscriminate use of intimidatory violence to achieve an objective, which could be political, economic, social or religious or to give vent to anger arising from political, economic, social or religious reasons. A terrorist gives vent to anger on behalf of a group or a community.

Efforts are being made on a global scale to improve public health. One of the ini tiatives to attend to the many problems and challenges in the public health sect or is the creation of the Health Impact Fund (HIF).

PM Narendra Modi's interest in the diaspora is about recognising India's possibilities as a "global nation" that is not defined in narrow territorial terms. Delhi, of course, is not yet ready to give dual citizenship of the kind that some countries do. But short of political rights for the diaspora, Modi has begun to offer much.

Growing urbanisation and its resultant problems and issues have drawn the attention of international organisations, national governments and the civil society. The United Nations (2012) has reported that while "unprecedented increase in urban population will provide new opportunities to improve education and public services in Africa and Asia,...

Eminent economist Professor Jagdish Bhagwati has defended globalisation staunchly in his latest book "In defence of globalisation" and so has the editor of Financial Times (London) Martin Wolf in his book "Why Globalisation works".

The recent violent actions of the Maoists have made big news. It will not be easy to resolve this problem because these are the people who have been deprived of their land and development, and they form the core of the movement. Only better distribution of the growth story can bring peace to these people

India lacks resources and direct access to Afghanistan, but it can derive some comfort from the fact that, if the past is any guide, you can always trust Islamabad to give us the opening through its propensity to overreach.

The US constitution builds a wall of separation between the church and the state, interpreted as prohibiting the state from meddling into the affairs of the church and vice versa. However, this constitutional provision cannot negate the church's influence in impacting who gets elected as President.

The All Party Hurriyat Conference¿s rather studied acceptance of the Centre¿s offer of talks while welcome should also add to the seriousness of the peace process in Jammu and Kashmir. While distancing Pakistan from a process that had been trilateral in the past formulations of the Hurriyat, the current round would expect the Centre to go beyond traditional pulse-feeling, and gestures.

The Indian proposal for a SAARC power-grid, revived by Union Minister Piyush Goyal, has the potential to increase power-generation in South Asia. It also has the potential to reverse the way the South Asia thinks about itself - and the world thinks about South Asia, besides cutting oil bills of countries like India.

Saying that South Asian countries need to work closely to share, and not divide, water, the author says the consequence of bringing water to a pedestal on India-Pakistan relations can have devastating effects on regional security and prosperity.

The Power sector reforms in the country have presented the next strategic challenge that could redefine global interest in India. The country has set an ambitious target of producing 20,000 MW of Nuclear power by 2020 i.e. around 1000 MW of additional nuclear capacity per year for the next 17 years.

In the current and preceding years, the government has been trying everything to limit gold imports to control the current account deficit. Yet this commodity has one of the largest share in terms of exemption given. In 2012-13, the estimated amount of custom duty foregone for diamond and gold would be Rs 61,035 crore or 20.5% of the total revenue foregone.

The New Telecom Policy if implemented in letter and spirit has the potential to fundamentally transform governance.

Pakistan's first transfer of power between elected governments is indeed a milestone, but how strong a precedent it will set is very much dependent on the performance of Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N. Confidence in civilian institutions, high voter turnout aside, remains dreadfully low.

Radical transformation in governance can only begin when we are pushed to the wall and have no other option but to take the monster head on

The Defence Minister's annual review of progress in self-reliance in defence efforts will end as a ritual unless a common minimum quantification of self-reliance efforts is arrived at. Else, we will be perpetually confused as to how self-reliant we are in defence production.

A lot has been discussed about PM Modi's first year in office. While actions and policies on economy, security, external affairs, 'Make in India' are being deliberated upon extensively, there is little attention on how the government has fared on gender equity.

An international conference on South Asia's water future, organised by Observer Research Foundation in association with the PHD Chamber of Commerce, has underlined the need for proper management of this largely exploited and poorly utilized natural resource.

When compared to countries like the US, the Indian government is understaffed and it affects the service delivery, says retired revenue secretary M.R. Sivaraman. He says the Indian government has only 257 people serving every 100,000 population against 840 in the US federal government.

Mr S. Jaishankar is reported to have said he was happy to join “the Tata Group… India’s most respected brand globally”.

In the latest despicable act of extreme cruelty, the arm of an Indian maid working in a Saudi Arabian household was chopped off by her employer. Since the royal in question was King Salman's son, there are no prizes for guessing that no member of the ruling family will be punished for this incident.

India's former member of the WTO Arbitration Committee, Dr. A.V. Ganesan, thinks that it would be unsustainable for India to rely on imported food grains, and hence it is imperative that India supports its farmers to augment food production to meet the domestic demand.

There is a need for a multi-pronged attack on human trafficking involving the government, corporate bodies and the civil society, it was observed at a panel discussion on the "Role 'India Inc' in Combating Human Trafficking" at ORF.

A roundtable discussion at Observer Research Foundation was held on January 25 2010 to discuss the internal dynamics of Pakistan