Army Chief Asim Munir’s visit to Tehran this week, carrying what multiple regional broadcasters describe as a US-drafted framework for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, places Pakistan in a familiar but increasingly delicate role: intermediary between two adversaries with little appetite for direct talks. It is a position Islamabad has occupied before, and one that
A US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III touching down at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport would, under most circumstances, be unremarkable enough to escape notice entirely. That this particular landing has instead triggered a wave of speculation, from prisoner exchanges to back-channel diplomacy, says less about the aircraft itself than about the peculiar state of US-Russia relations:
The collapse of US-Canada trade talks this month offers a sobering case study for India as it navigates its own trade relationship with Washington. After negotiators failed to reach a deal despite intense discussions, the United States imposed 50 percent tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded
Former Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan’s recent clarification about Operation Sindoor, that an Indian loitering munition may have inadvertently struck near Pakistan’s Kirana Hills after running low on fuel while hunting for radar targets around Sargodha, is a small but revealing window into how autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons are reshaping the nature of
Friendships between nations are usually described in the language of interest, not sentiment. Yet the India-Russia relationship has, for over six decades, defied that convention. Through every major conflict India has fought since independence, Moscow has been present in some tangible form, whether through arms, diplomatic cover at the United Nations, or political support when
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Moscow this week, and his meeting with President Vladimir Putin, was a reminder of a relationship India has consistently declined to sacrifice despite years of Western pressure. Putin’s warm reception, and Jaishankar’s own emphasis on growing cooperation in trade, energy, fertilisers and nuclear power, underline a partnership that
A viral story about a 64-year-old Uttar Pradesh government official who completed an MTech degree, finishing in the top 10 of a class half his age while working full-time and travelling nearly 1,000 km a week, has done more than generate admiration online. It has surfaced a question India can no longer afford to treat
For decades, India’s economic story has been told through the lens of scale: a billion-plus population, a fast-growing middle class, a market too large for global companies to ignore even when returns were modest. A recent report projecting that India will overtake China by 2036 in the number of consumers spending more than $90 a
Few constitutional promises have remained as persistently unfulfilled, or as politically charged, as Article 44’s directive towards a Uniform Civil Code. Conceived by the framers as an aspiration rather than an obligation, it has resurfaced in recent years as an active legislative project, with Uttarakhand implementing its own version and other states signalling intent to
India routinely tops the list of the world’s fastest-growing major economies, and successive quarters of healthy GDP growth are cited as proof that the country is on the right track. Yet a persistent unease runs beneath these headline numbers: growth is not translating into jobs at the pace or quality that a young, aspirational population
