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”
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 …
Continue reading “China displays rock-solid support for Pakistan’s “core issue” of Kashmir”
How amazing that the defeat of the Turkish ruling party AKP in the election for Istanbul mayor on Sunday turns out to be world class headline in the western media! At the most obvious level, it only highlights the deep antipathy toward Turkish President Recep Erdogan in the West and the US’ regional allies in …
Continue reading “Will India and Turkey jointly broker an easing of US-Iran tensions?”
(Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin with their delegations, Bishkek, June 14, 2019 on the sidelines of the SCO Summit.) The Bishkek Declaration, issued after the summit meeting (June 14-15) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation devotes one sentence praising China’s Belt and Road Initiative: “The Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the …
