Category : Premium

NEW DELHI: A hop, skip and a jump would almost describe Prime Minister Modi’s helicopter flight from Kusinagar in Uttar Pradesh to a helipad in Lumbini Park, across the border in Nepal. At a day-long event combining elements of faith, politics and diplomacy, Modi will, along with his Nepali counterpart Sher Bahadur Deuba, lay the […]Read More

NEW DELHI: There’s a new buzz across the vast stretch of water linking the west coast of India and the Arabian Gulf states. The buzz is about commerce with the India-UAE free trade area coming into force on May 1. Oman and India are beginning the feasibility study for a limited FTA even as Delhi […]Read More

NEW DELHI: When Narendra Modi touches base with the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, it’s against the backdrop of the Ukraine war that is seen to have triggered Berlin’s decision in late March, to “rearm” with plans to spend an impressive 100 billion Euros. But not many may recall that two months earlier, the same […]Read More

NEW DELHI: A list released in the first week of April by the Deputy Commissioner of Kohlu district in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, had the names of 22,600 missing persons including over 348 from the same district. The numbers are staggering but the issue has plagued Pakistan’s poorest province for over two decades with little hope […]Read More

NEW DELHI: In quick succession, India has come up with two long-pending documents delineating its objectives for the polar realms of the Arctic and Antarctica. On March 17, Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Science, released India’s crucial Arctic Policy, aptly titled, ‘India and the Arctic: Building a Partnership for Sustainable Development.’ […]Read More

ZURICH: Five weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin did something few would have expected from a former KGB spymaster. He voluntarily conceded a long-standing American demand. Upon his orders, the Kremlin closed down its Cold War-era listening post at Lourdes in Cuba. A facility which may have […]Read More

NEW DELHI: Ahead of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s visit, the announcement from Tokyo of a $42 billion low interest loan commitment to India sparked some speculation. It was combined with Kishida’s publicly voiced intention, when he met Narendra Modi, to encourage a unified approach on Ukraine. Kishida was quoted as saying: “Since the Russian […]Read More

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Imran Khan came to power in 2018, promising a ‘Naya Pakistan’, in an election heavily engineered by the army in his favour. Less than four years later, he is widely regarded as a failure and finds himself under political siege, while Pakistan continues to confront its old problems: a collapsing economy, […]Read More

RIYADH: The first World Defense Show on the outskirts of Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh that kicked off on Monday has made an impressive start, attracting not only defence majors from across the globe but also generating interest amongst defence manufacturers for a possible arrangement to undertake joint ventures or localisation of defence equipment in the […]Read More

NEW DELHI: The liberalised trade deal with the UAE is India’s first in well over a decade (the last one was with ASEAN in 2010). Diplomats and trade experts say it will boost the confidence of negotiators going forward, also given that there is political will to lock up free trade agreements with the Gulf […]Read More