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The tiny Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan has completed 25 years of energy cooperation with India. The idea was/is for Bhutan to facilitate Indian funding for setting up hydro-power projects in the country,
'Election fever' has descended on the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, but it is not inspired by the political class and the masses but by the State. The notification of the Election Commission on limiting the role of religion.
Neighbours India and Bhutan have shared five decades of friendly ties. Using as a backdrop Bhutan’s transition from a monarchy to democracy beginning in 1998, this brief makes an assessment of India’s role in Bhutan’s economic development in the past 20 years. It looks at India’s contribution to Bhutan in terms of trade, hydropower enrichment, and development cooperation. The brief argues that India and Bhutan’s relations have endured
This paper assesses United States (US) presidents Donald J. Trump’s (2017-21) and Joe Biden’s (2021-present) respective records on the India-US technology partnership. During the Trump years, this domain of bilateral cooperation saw the finalisation of foundational agreements, including those on force interoperability, and new precedents on US arms export designations for India. While these agreements pertained mostly to defence technology, t
During a roundtable with a delegation of EU Members of Parliament, the ORF Director pointed out the great chance the international community has today in setting up electricity generating plants in India with green technology.
In 2023, a decade after inaugurating the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinese President Xi Jinping convened the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (third BRF) in Beijing. In his Chair’s Statement, he pledged reforms and institutionalisation to address the connectivity initiative’s myriad problems and international criticisms. The third BRF focused on practical cooperation, multimodal connectivity, globalisation of trad
Nitish Kumar is already playing with one hand tied behind his back, by the RJD. Till very recently Kumar and the BJP developed Bihar in collaboration. They are, in fact, conjoined brothers in development. Modi must rise above his personal feelings and go all out to support Kumar.
That the Muslims in Bihar turned to Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal (United) despite his alliance with the BJP could well be another turning point in the country's political history. This confirms the extent of Muslim exasperation with the Congress. Nitish Kumar harnessed this disgust deftly.
Former Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Mr. M Ganapathi, has emphasised the importance of the Indian Ocean in global developments in the 21st Century and the importance now given to the region by the government.
Bangladesh and India are standing at a take-off stage in their relationship despite anti-Indian groups and political parties trying to find fault with Hasina's moves. The Chinese and Pakistani lobbies are unhappy with this growing engagement.
Mr. Manish Tewari, Member of Parliament, has introduced a Bill in the Lok Sabha to regulate the functioning and use of power by the Indian intelligence agencies within and outside India and to provide for the coordination, control and oversight of such agencies.
The winter session of the Parliament, which has just commenced, is of critical significance to the country and its economy. While some may link the importance of this session to the much awaited Lokpal bill.
An audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden was aired on the Arabic network Al-Jazeera on January 3,2004. This is the third message exclusively relating to Iraq attributed to him since before the US-led invasion of Iraq by the coalition forces. The first, called a special message to the Iraqi people, was aired on February 11,2003, and the second
There was a massacre of hundreds of Shias of Gilgit in the Northern Areas (NA) of Pakistan (before 1947 called the Northern Areas of Jammu & Kashmir) in 1988 following a demand raised by them for the creation of an autonomous Shia state to be called the Karakoram State, consisting of the Shia majority areas of the NA, Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).
It is not difficult to imagine that the Chinese will be uncomfortable with the current scenario. China is against any "outside power" being involved in the South China Sea, though its own forces are regularly operating in the Indian Ocean region.
If the BJP stands by its leader Arun Jaitley's illogic, it must necessarily oppose any negotiation of India's land boundary disputes with any of its neighbours, including China, Pakistan and Nepal. If this is a considered position of a party that is in striking distance of power, one shudders to think what the foreign policy of a BJP government might look like.
If Modi is a strong leader who is bringing greater purposefulness to India's China policy, Xi is even more powerful at home. He has conveyed a strong interest in transforming relations with New Delhi and is willing to explore opportunities with Modi.
India's 16th general elections, billed as the most expensive elections ever, are witnessing an unprecedented flow of black money into country's electoral process. Analysts claim that a mammoth 400 billion rupees, roughly 0.35 percent of India's GDP, has been pumped into the democratic process.
Nepali political leaders have missed a self-imposed deadline for promulgation of the country's new Constitution. Last year, in the wake of the election to the second Constituent Assembly (CA), the lawmakers had kept January 22 as the deadline.
Intelligence is the first line of defence in any war, be it a conventional war or a war against terrorism. The American security apparatus has readjusted itself well, in almost all the areas of modern warfare in the post cold war era. However, the recent American failures indicate that still much needs to be done in of the areas of modern day warfare, and that is intelligence gathering.
At least two people were killed and 50 others injured in a series of 300 simultaneous small bomb blasts in 50 cities and towns, including Dhaka, the capital, across Bangladesh on August 17,2005.
After Independence, none of the national parties - the Congress, the Janata Dal, leave alone the BJP - have ever had anyone other than a Hindu as their supreme political leader. The only recent exception is Sonia Gandhi of the Congress. But even her links into politics are exceptionally pucca, upper caste Hindu.
Terrorism, like almost every other human activity that involves production and creation of goods and services, needs money. Described by experts like Raymond Baker as Gross Criminal Product, this included illegal capital flight, narcotics trade, smuggling of arms and other goods, human trafficking, counterfeiting and computer crimes.
A constitutional court must not outsource its judgement on freedom of expression online to an industry association even if it convenes others to help make this decision. It must also avoid allowing the executive to take over this role, determining without any transparency what content is blocked.
The DRDO has done a commendable job as evident from the initial tests of the Missile Defence system, but its net worth as a truly viable option can only be assessed when the claims made about the system are realized and it is serial produced for active deployment.
The January 20, 2012 attacks in Nigeria's northern city of Kano, which left at least 185 police and residents dead, was the biggest attack carried out by Boko Haram, a Sunni extremist group which owed allegiance to al Qaida and called for an Islamist rule.
The slow pace of rail track construction in India is a total contrast to the development across the border. China has already built a 1142 km-long electrified railway line from Golmud to Lhasa. Now it has plans to extend it to Shigatze and Yatung, reaching almost Nathu La pass.
After the successful operation into Myanmar against Naga insurgents, it is natural for all Indians to feel thrilled at the valour and skill of our forces and show it. But, it is not so natural for a government to beat the drum in this fashion.
Unlike many other countries where China is making risky investments, Delhi is a more credible long-term economic partner for Beijing. If China is ready for a genuine consultative approach with India and is willing to facilitate serious tie-ups between companies in both countries, Modi should embrace President Xi Jinping's Silk Road initiative.
The unanimous passage of the LBA bill through both houses of Parliament underlines the growing maturity of the political discourse on foreign policy in India. In particular, the larger political parties have shown that building consensus on India's foreign policy can increasingly be a bipartisan affair.
The British government's Integrated Review brought out in 2021 places a high priority on its partnership with India
The problem with the Indian state is less to do with capacity, than the state-society interaction being constrained by political dynamics. The state measures continue to be captive to narrow, patronage-driven political imperatives that are highly embedded in political returns at national and state levels.
The twin bomb blasts during the Boston Marathon on April 16 present new counter-terrorism challenges for the US as well as other countries gearing up to face a rapidly mutating threat.
Given the US's counter-terrorism experience and security threat, it is in its interest to come out of its earlier bureaucratic deadlock and view the threat of terrorism more objectively and work to enhance counter-terrorism cooperation with countries such as India.
With the US already having made a strong base to deal with terrorist activities from external sources, it is time the US, and other countries develop mechanisms that tackle home-grown groups with vigour, but without endangering the principles of 'rule of law'. This is particularly important as the elements of home-grown terrorism are, in fact, the citizens of the respective countries.
In healthcare, one of the main rudimentary elements is health education which is lacking in India. Hygiene and cleanliness are very important as is emphasised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and if basic habits like washing hands before eating are inculcated in the people, a lot of diseases could be prevented.
Trump may spring surprises but there exists a broad outline that other policymakers could go by
After trade talks broke down, there seems to be no meeting ground, signaling a prelude to a wider fracture between the two countries.
As India's online footprint has increased, so has the role of e-commerce. The industry is expected to cross $6 billion in revenues by 2015, not including ticketing and travel, according to Gartner Research. It must then follow that e-commerce should be encouraged to play a key role in building requisite supply chain efficiencies across India.
Notwithstanding the fact that Arvind Kejriwal had to resign as Delhi Chief Minister because he could not get through the Jan Lokpal Bill in the Assembly and BJP and Congress accusation that Kejriwal quit after creating an excuse for doing so, Kejriwal and AAP have not lost their popularity among the people of Delhi.
