A Turkish-Russian entente cordiale in the making

‘Operation Peace Spring’: Turkey’s military operation inside Syria launched on October 9, 2019.  Shall we sit upon the ground and tell there is no longer daylight between Russia and Turkey? We are almost there. The Turkish incursion into Syria on Wednesday is the tipping point. Turkey and Russia are closely coordinating. Consider the following.  The …

China displays rock-solid support for Pakistan’s “core issue” of Kashmir

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) received Pakistan PM Imran Khan (L) in Beijing on October 9, 2019   The visit by Pakistan PM Imran Khan to Beijing on October 8-9 has been a runaway success from Islamabad’s perspective. It revved up the dynamics of the China-Pakistan Economic Cooperation projects, will most certainly intensify China-Pakistan defence cooperation …

Centre-left socialists win re-election in Portugal

Portugal’s Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa (C) won re-election in parliamentary poll on October 6, 2019  The renewed mandate secured by Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa’s Socialist Party minority government in Sunday’s parliamentary poll carries a special flavour for India.  India has a claim over the cordial Senhor Costa, whose father Orlando da Costa was …

Trump orders troop withdrawal in Syria. It could be for real.

Next to a US armoured vehicle, Syrian Kurds protest against  threatened Turkish military invasion, Hasakeh province, October 6, 2019 The US president Donald Trump is not known to practise judo. A few judo techniques he may have got to know from his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who is a Black Belt. But what Trump has just …

Mamallapuram beckons China’s Xi Jinping

Indian Army holding its biggest ever mountain combat exercise in Arunachal Pradesh bordering China in Oct 2019 The ancient port city of Mamallapuram on the Coromandel Coast in southern India where the  informal summit between PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping may take place, is frenetic with activity. The authorities are busy laying new roads, …

India shouldn’t lose the Afghan plot

Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah casts vote in presidential election, Kabul, September 28, 2019 India is probably the only country to hail the “successful conduct of Presidential elections” in Afghanistan on September 28. Everyone else is holding breath. Curiously, the unusually muted campaign highlighted that candidates themselves seemed uninterested in spending money on an election …

Ukraine gains from Trump’s impeachment inquiry

The controversy swirling around the phone conversation between the US President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky regarding the business interests of former vice-president Joe Biden’s son is having a salutary effect on the conflict in Ukraine.  The US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker has resigned from his official position once it transpired …

A reluctant foreign secretary takes leave — quietly, unobtrusively

KPS Menon (Jr.), India’s Foreign Secretary during 1987-89 KPS Menon (Jr.), former Foreign Secretary, passed away last night. He chose Thiruvananthapuram in deep south for his departure, as far away as he possibly could from the Byzantine world of the Indian capital. Was there a deliberateness in that decision? I suspect so.  When KPS (Jr.) …