Comment & Briefs

The recent increase in top level Indian delegation visits to Colombo indicates that India has entered a new and more comprehensive phase of bilateral relations with Sri Lanka.

Security and development cooperation have become the twin pillars of the India-Bhutan relationship.

The world needs India as a balancer – in trade, as a market, as an alternative model, and as a world power.

ISRO needs to conduct a thorough enquiry particularly because failure in a time-tested and launch proven “stage one technology” is undesirable.

The conflict over rare earths is not only a consequence of the monopoly amassed by China but is also reflective of the current flux in global power hierarchies.

This Brief uses irony to communicate five propositions, that can be found in several discourses on Sino-Indian ties. It evaluates these propositions in the light of the tangible and intangible gains from Premier Wen Jiabao’s second official visit to India.

The Maoists are trying to cash in on major issues like Telangana to expand their mass base in Andhra from where hail their top leadership.

With a friendly dispensation in Dhaka, it is an opportune moment for India to deliver on its promise to exchange the enclaves and surrender adverse possessions.

Would China’s strategic error in inviting Japanese hostility place more blocks to its rise as an unchallenged regional power or would it be able to override the Japanese threat in ample measure by altering its strategic game and finding a meeting ground with the United States?

China has all along been testing the limits of India’s tolerance and restraint and has once again given the Indian foreign ministry much home work for the next few months.