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Other than neighbouring countries, any future Indian government's principal focus will be on the vast swathe that begins in Sri Lanka and ends in Sydney, and can be described under a variety of rubrics: Look East, Indian Ocean Region, the Indo-Pacific. Countries such as Japan, Indonesia and Singapore present India big windows as it strives to become an economic and maritime power.
To improve South Asian regional cooperation, Modi has three options. The first is to focus on a two-speed Saarc. The second is to build on transregional institutions like the BIMSTEC. However, it is the third way -- unilateral action -- that offers Modi the greatest opportunity. For example, Modi has already proposed to build a Saarc satellite for use by its neighbours.
As he swings across the Indian Ocean this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's biggest challenge is not about countering China. His real problem is in Delhi, afflicted by a condition called continentalism, which has proved rather difficult to overcome.
For a bilateral visit at the highest-level after an undesirable and inexplicable gap of 28 long years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-day tour of Sri Lanka was noted as much for what it achieved as for the optics.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Fiscal policy must be leveraged to contain the impact of rising interest rates on growth.
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
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.
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
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.
Mullah Omar's latest statement shows that despite his amicability to the reconciliation process, the prospects for the new Afghan president to achieve a breakthrough with the Taliban are quite remote.
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.
It makes more sense to enable domestic multi-brand retailers to become strong and see how they develop the village infrastructure and supply chains. It would be risky to usher in oligopolistic global retailers without any strings attached and allowing them to take a big slice of India's huge retail market.
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.
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.
For long we have been fed lies. Mumbai has no scarcity of houses and the key to the truth lies in using digital technology to unlock the city's housing potential.
