India-EU virtual summit will take place on July 15, 2020 under the shadows of the cataclysmic Covid-19 pandemic. One of the enduring urban legends in modern times is the quip attributed to Henry Kissinger, ‘Who do I call if I want to call Europe?’ Kissinger disowned it subsequently, but the myth lingers on. Europe is …
Continue reading “EU summit to reboot India’s world outlook”
Special Representatives of India and China on border dispute A.K.Doval (L) and Wang Yi (R) reached a ‘positive consensus’ over de-escalation and disengagement in Eastern Ladakh, July 5, 2020 The civilian-military relationship is a complex matrix. In ‘wartime’, this is more so when civilian leaders who never held a killer’s weapon in their palms …
Continue reading “US lobbyists set the Indian narrative on China border”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced free ration for 800 million Indians for the coming 5-month period “to empower the poor, downtrodden and deprived sections of society”, New Delhi, June 30, 2020 Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation today evening has been a remarkable event from several perspectives. For a start, he dedicated his …
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) & Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) at informal summit, Mamallapuram, India, October 12, 2019 The controversy over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks at the All-Party Conference in New Delhi on June 18 regarding the border clashes with China will have limited shelf life only. All this brouhaha becomes quintessentially an …
Continue reading “Modi only can reach a border settlement with China”
Excavator clearing bags of cement scattered on a road after the truck accident killing 26 migrant workers in the wake of India’s lockdown, Auraiya, Uttar Pradesh, May 16, 2020 The national directives for Covid-19 by the Union Home Ministry that come into force across India on May 18 mark a defining moment. The country has …
Continue reading “Remains of the day as India exits lockdown”
General Bipin Rawat took charge as India’s Chief of Defence Staff, New Delhi, January 1, 2020 Through the past three years and more at the pinnacle of the Indian armed forces, General Bipit Rawat acquired a reputation as an outspoken general causing firestorms of controversy every now and then. The controversies erupted largely due to …
No social distancing in Stockholm: Sweden has taken a “flexible” approach, but Prime Minister Stefan Löfven regrets that wasn’t good enough. It might have sounded exciting two days ago to propose the Swedish pathway as the ideal route for India to pursue to combat the coronavirus . But no longer so. When it comes to …
President Trump’s crowded White House press conferences to discuss the coronavirus have become daily events, Washington, DC, March 13, 2020 It often puzzles me what transpires during high-level visits by world leaders. The substantive content of such events laced with pomp and glory impacting inter-state relations is generally handled by sherpas, quietly and unobtrusively. (Of …
Continue reading “We desperate Indians also need ventilators, Mr. Trump”
Health workers setting out to combat Covid-19, Chennai, April 4, 2020 We got to know from the US President Donald Trump today morning that his phone call to PM Modi on Sunday was to make a demand that India should lift its export ban on the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which is being used in America …
Russian President Vladimir Putin donning a bright yellow full-body hazmat suit and respirator as he visited a hospital on Moscow outskirts that is treating coronavirus patients, March 24, 2020 Soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address to the nation on Wednesday on the government’s coronavirus response and measures to be adopted to deal with the …
Continue reading “Covid-19: Modi, Putin to coordinate efforts”
