News
A Clinically Executed Anti-Terror Operation
As more details emerge on the Pathankot terror strike and India's response, it is becoming increasingly clear that the quick decision-making at the highest levels of the country's security apparatus saved a repeat of a Mumbai-like carnage at the frontline airbase.
Read more
Let billionaires save the world
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's pledge to give away 99 per cent of his shares in the company, assessed at $45 billion, is the most recent in a series of over 138 billionaires who have signed the "giving pledge" to donate 50 per cent of their fortunes to charity.
Read more
From Buddhism to Bollywood - The Investment in Soft Power
As a gross generalisation, three factors shape the foreign policy of most countries: history, geography and capability. And each of these has decisively influenced Indian foreign policy, in different ways at different times. India’s power of attraction, the foundation of any country’s “soft power”, derives from each. India’s newly recognised global economic significance and potential greatly lends weight to the country’s international profile.
Read more
Modi vs terror
What's with Prime Minister Narendra Modi? In the past two weeks, in various speeches, he has raised the standard of combating terrorism. True, this is the period in which horrific attacks were carried out in Paris, Bamako and Beirut, but nothing unusual has happened in India. Indeed, there has been no major development on the terrorism front in India since 2008, which saw the Mumbai attacks and the bombing campaign of the so-called Indian Mujahideen.
Read more
Paris Attack is Nothing but a Message
The brutal serial attack in Paris resulting in death of 129 civilians besides injuring scores of others should not come as a surprise to anyone. The possibility of such a well-executed attack on in Europe have been doing the rounds ever since the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) established its caliphate in July 2014. - See more at: http://www.vifindia.org/article/2015/november/16/paris-attack-is-nothing-but-a-message#sthash.VXARwo2a.dpuf
Read more
G20 Ministerial: Should focus on global and Asian economy
In the run up to the G20 Leaders' Summit-to be held in Antalya, Turkey, on November 15-16-there have been several meetings between the finance ministers and Sherpas of G20 member countries on the agenda set out by Turkey, the chair this year. The priority areas include investment, inclusiveness and implementation, among others.
Read more
Balancing innovation and employment
What has Make in India got going for it? The primary facilitative factor for the Narendra Modi Government's flagship initiative to convert India into some sort of a manufacturing power - and raise the share of manufacturing from the current 17 per cent of GDP to 25 per cent of (a much bigger) GDP by 2025 - is the large Indian market.
Read more
Similar narratives in India, US elections?
The United States and India share a range of similarities - from over throwing the British crown and adopting a democratic federal structure with a secular constitution, to boasting a diverse, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic, populace. It is no surprise then that one can draw a range of parallels in the political discourse prevalent in the two countries.
Read more
India and Israel: Conflicted Friends Look to the Future
Indian President Pranab Mukherjee's historic visit to Israel this month set the momentum for greater high-level engagement between both countries, including a possible visit by Prime Minister Modi. However, his mixed messages during the six-day tour of the region, which included Jordan and the Palestinian Authority (PA), inject a degree of uncertainty to the Modi administrations' trajectory of relations with Israel.
Read more
The Pakistani Shadow on Indo-Us Relations
We should be treating the visits of Pakistani leaders abroad as part of normal diplomacy that all countries engage in. By paying too much attention to them we boost Pakistan’s political importance and diminish our own stature. Unfortunately, we cannot easily ignore the visits of top Pakistani leaders to the US, not because of concerns about what Pakistan may seek but what the US may dispense.
Read more