The centrality of Pakistan — which the United States has so far tacitly accepted — in any talks between the Hamid Karzai government and the Pakistan-based Taliban leadership to prepare the regional politics for a post-US Afghanistan, is a thing of the past after Abbottabad.

The core American response to the killing of Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan is captured in a sentence of President Barack Obama, “Justice has been done”.
As for the Indian reaction to a historical turn of events, which occurred in our region, and whose implications should have a bearing on our foreign policy thinking, there is only guess-work to go by. Only unexceptionable generalities have been offered at the official level by the external affairs minister and the Union home minister.

Only recently, the government was mauled in the Supreme Court on the issue of the appointment of the CVC as it was in flagrant violation of the letter of the law and its spirit. The Prime Minister had to express regrets in Parliament. A similar moment could conceivably approach if the Manmohan Singh dispensation does not exert due

Recently I met a man from Poland who was headed for Kerala, in the post-communist era in the world a distinct surprise.

The high-decibel demand of the BJP — supported by the Left from the sidelines — for the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the WikiLeaks issue, made in Parliament on Thursday, suggests strong political motivation, but carries little conviction.

The scene in Egypt is changing and there is now a possibility of a transition to a new form of state-power, though its character is far from pre-ordained.
Much would depend on power struggle or compromise between the two most organised and effective forces in the country — the Army and the Islamist radicals (the Muslim Brotherhood) — the barracks and the mosque.

India and Afghanistan are understood to have discussed this country’s role in the post-US Afghanistan during the two-day visit of President Hamid Karzai here earlier this week.

K. Subrahmanyam, who died at 82 on Wednesday, was quite appropriately admired, even when he lived, for being the “guru” of strategic affairs pundits in the country.

The 31st annual summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council — the grouping of the six rich Gulf states — opened here at the opulent Emirates Palace Hotel on Monday with regional security concerns being voiced prominently.

Amid concerns being expressed in the petroleum rich Gulf Cooperation Council countries that the regional body of six influential Arab states has not pulled its weight regionally or internationally, th