Call it a G20 farewell summit, Prime Minister Modi’s way of underscoring and reminding the world (and his constituents) what was achieved during India’s presidency about two months ago. It may not be the usual practice but don’t be surprised if the hosts of subsequent G20 summits borrow that singular leaf from his book. Not […]Read More
NEW DELHI: Reports of a possible ceasefire in Gaza to enable the release of some Hamas-held hostages and Palestinian prisoners in Israel are yet to be confirmed, but Tel Aviv has practical reasons for wanting one. Ever since the war, the shekel has plummeted to an eight-year-low, the central bank has slashed the projected growth […]Read More
NEW DELHI: Rocket attacks on U.S. air bases in Iraq and Syria and U.S. interception of drones fired by Houthi rebels believed to be heading towards Israel shows that Tehran’s proxies have begun to take action. Though Tehran stated in a statement on Sunday that it would not intervene directly against Israel unless Iranian territory […]Read More
NEW DELHI: U.S. President Joe Biden seemed to have come to Israel with his mind made up. In a meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he made it clear that the U.S. would not just stand with Israel in its hour of need but also “continue to ensure that you have what you need […]Read More
NEW DELHI: What are the lessons for India from the Hamas strike on Israel? Lt Gen PR Shankar, former DG Artillery with vast operational experience, argues that apart from increased vigilance on the LoC and continuous monitoring of India’s internal security situation, contingency measures needed to be taken to handle surprise and deception tactics by […]Read More
NEW DELHI: At the annual India Defence Conclave organised by Bharat Shakti, the point was made that India, one of the fastest-growing markets in the world for digital technologies, has not equipped itself adequately to deal with the growing number of cyber-attacks that have implications for economic and national security. The annual MIT CyberDefense Index […]Read More
Armenia and Azerbaijan appear to be in a state of armed truce after the latter seized Nagorno-Karabakh and displaced its 100,000+Armenian minority in a lightning military operation. Azerbaijan is demanding access to a corridor to the enclave of Nakhichevan, populated by Azeris, which is separated by a huge sliver of Armenian territory. Whether the Azeris […]Read More
NEW DELHI: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chose parliament, the country’s highest political body, to make his claim about India’s alleged role in the killing of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. It does suggest the “potential link between agents of the Government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen”, he said. He’s kicked […]Read More
NEW DELHI: The clock is ticking on the 60-day deadline set for fleshing out the ambitious IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Corridor) project, seen as an alternative to China’s BRI. “The ministers will have to meet in 60 days to see if IMEC makes financial sense. Only there can we make a judgement on how it is […]Read More
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Modi has made action on climate change a priority in the run-up to the G-20 summit. In a penned article in the Indian Express on India’s expectations from the G20 on Thursday, the prime minister stated that not only should “climate action be a complementary pursuit,” but that actions on climate […]Read More
NEW DELHI: India’s list of 28 strategic partners ranging from the US and France at one end to Uzbekistan and Mongolia at the other, is all set to grow: on Friday Greece will join that list with Prime Minister Modi doing the honours in Athens with his counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Why Greece? The last time […]Read More
NEW DELHI: The Biden administration is inching forward in what some observers term as an “unspoken arrangement” with Tehran where five Iranian Americans will be released by Iran in exchange for $6 billion of Iranian assets frozen in South Korea. While neither Washington nor Tehran have publicly confirmed the tradeoff, White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson […]Read More
NEW DELHI: In less than seven years from now, 50% of India’s electricity capacity (500 GW) would be of the non-fossil fuel variety, Prime Minister Modi promised G20 energy ministers late last month, implying a mix of hydropower, solar, nuclear and hydrogen. The country, he added, was on track to meet its net zero emissions […]Read More
NEW DELHI: The military coup in the west African state of Niger last week has underscored a cocktail of other issues including Russia’s role, allegedly through the Wagner Group, and the region’s hopes of realising the Trans-Saharan Pipeline. But first the Russian angle. Geopolitical analyst Velina Tchakarova believes the coup needed to be seen in […]Read More
NEW DELHI: As the world weighed in on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial law, curbing the power of the judiciary to strike down government decisions, even the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah threw in its two bits: Israel was on a “path of collapse, fragmentation, and disappearance,” claimed Hassan Nasrallah, its leader, a trifle optimistically. […]Read More
NEW DELHI: Arab unity can be pretty fickle. Allies and friends fall apart, squabble and get back together again before something else triggers a falling out. A case in point are remarks attributed to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who reportedly told some journalists last December, that the UAE “has stabbed us in the […]Read More
A little over two days since Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain deal, that allowed the export of over 30 million tonnes of grain from Ukraine, politics took over. “So the result of Russia’s action today — weaponising food, using it as a tool, as a weapon in its war against Ukraine — will be to […]Read More
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Modi’s state visit to Egypt last week, the first since 1997, seemed to lack substance. The Ministry of External Affairs website listed an MoU on agriculture and land reclamation, another on the preservation of ancient monuments, cooperation “in the field of competition laws”, an IT centre of excellence in Cairo and […]Read More
NEW DELHI: “It should be noted that China does not respect weakness, only strength. That’s what I tell the international community all the time. If you keep acting like a pony, China will keep riding you.” A harsh warning from the man who has every reason to be concerned by China and therefore studies that […]Read More
NEW DELHI: It was ironic that talk of an Iran-US deal would be confirmed by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He told the Israeli media that Washington and Tehran had reached a “mini-agreement.” While this is yet to be confirmed by either capital, reports say Iran has agreed to not enrich uranium beyond 60% in […]Read More