A common language doesn't soothe dry tongues and thirsty throats.
Sanjaya Baru
If U.S. mistakes in the Middle East helped Putin raise Russia's global profile, China's missteps and hubris in East and Southeast Asia, once called Indo-China, have opened up new spaces for India's profile to be raised.
Indeed, China may never acquire the geo-political influence and reach that Great Britain enjoyed in the 19th century and the United States of America did in the 20th, even though it may have already surpassed the geo-economic clout the two major powers enjoyed in the heyday of their empires.
Given the stake that both the U.S. and Europe have in stabilising and sustaining global growth, their policies should be aimed at ensuring China, India, and other newly industrialising Asian economies can take up the slack created by the slowdown in OECD economies.
Family business management is a discipline that has evolved from an art into a science. The market for this line of education has been created by the growing recognition of family-run companies that shareholders are demanding greater clarity on issues ranging from succession to the management of wealth and the distribution of profits.
As Asia's rising powers seek to sustain growth and ensure stability, energy security has moved to the forefront of Asian geopolitics.
Policies aimed at attracting more foreign investment into India would naturally be a part of an external stabilisation strategy.
Angela Merkel is no Konrad Adenauer or Helmut Schmidt.
Continent-wide nations require continent-wide leaders whenever they are in crisis. The 'idea of Europe,' much like the 'idea of India' was the construction of such continental leaders.
India's difficulties in negotiating an FTA with both the ASEAN and E.U. are a reminder of the importance of multilateralism.
Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao put together are no Deng Xiaoping.
The reason a Congress-led coalition didn't happen in 1990 was because it is entirely possible that Rajiv Gandhi himself wasn't sure how the Congress party would evolve in that context.
Rajiv Gandhi could have certainly attempted to form a Congress-led coalition government in 1990.
Any sustained rise in the price of oil will hit the Indian economy hard.
Adversity is the mother of enterprise.
It is inconceivable that the rise of Asia could happen without the rise of the Indian subcontinent.
The challenge of leadership in a plural democracy is to construct policies that ensure political stability, social equity, and economic progress on the basis of a widely shared ethical and cultural foundation.
While history has its limitations in shaping contemporaneous and forward-looking strategic choices, it does shape popular perceptions.
Just as the policies and programmes for development have to adhere to the law of the land - respecting the basic principles underlying the Constitution - so, too, must the idea of Hindutva.
Prime ministers with full majority have behaved differently from each other. Jawaharlal Nehru was a leader who ruled by consensus while Indira Gandhi was considered more unilateral in her approach.
The world may view India more benignly, but it does more business with China. It courts China; it needs China. Look at the genuflecting Europeans and the fork-tongued Americans!
Strategic autonomy is not secured by merely asserting one's independence: it is secured by creating mutually beneficial interdependencies.
Africa is experiencing rising rates of growth, but will growth get translated into development?
For too long have many of us in India imagined a future in which the country would rise, leaving the rest of the subcontinent behind. This is neither possible nor warranted.
In India, too many people do not write memoirs, but Natwar Singh and P. C. Alexander did.
Economically, the business development of the greater Hyderabad region has made the city integral to the state.
All economically well-off nations have used what has been dubbed 'cheque-book diplomacy,' and China does so, too. Apart from funding government-to-government lending, China has also been able to create global companies and global brands that have contributed to Chinese soft power.
The G-20,with all its inadequacies, is a mixed group of the world's rising and risen powers.
The 1990s was not just Japan's 'wasted decade,' it was also a wasted decade for the India-Japan relationship.
Few in Europe imagined the incompetence and dishonesty of Greek economic managers would bring the entire European project into question.
When national policy becomes hostage to regional interests, the federal government becomes paralysed and would be unable to act in the larger national interest.
With new oil and gas discoveries, Africa's energy exporters will have to invest in defence capability and work with other Indian Ocean powers to ensure security of sea lanes.
While the World Bank is an inter-governmental institution, drawing its funds from member governments and run by a board of directors nominated by member governments, its policies have increasingly become sensitive to civil society pressure and NGO agendas.
Policies that aim to promote the livelihood security of the people - promoting employment, improving the nutritional status of children and women, expanding educational opportunities, and providing affordable healthcare - would be the first charge on the budget of a developmental state.
Every university has its problems. The issues range from lack of amenities, plagiarism, poor quality research, sexual harassment, faculty moonlighting, and faulty and biased recruitment.
The World Bank is a shareholder-driven organisation, and as in all such organisations, the majority of shareholders would want a manager of their liking at the top.
China and Germany are important geo-economic powers that have been able to bolster their geo-political and even military power, thanks to the opportunity provided by their geo-economic rise.
Telangana is not like Jharkhand or Chhattisgarh, nor even like Haryana. Apart from the language it shares with the rest of Andhra Pradesh, it is today more integrated economically into the state as a whole.
As fiscal constraints impinge on defence and diplomacy, governments find themselves increasingly homebound, even if diplomats happily travel to summits.
While ideological blinkers blind one to change that one does not wish to see, statistics and opinion surveys, too, have their limitations in a complex polity like India.
While UPA2's handling of immediate foreign policy challenges can be criticised, it would be difficult to challenge the long-term relevance of the principles that define the Manmohan Singh Doctrine.
If the World Bank does not alter its shareholding structure to reflect the shifts in global distribution of income and economic power, its role may get marginalised as regional institutions fill the vacuum.
There is no denying the fact that China has been able to convert its economic might into commercial and technological capability.
Shoji Ito was an Indophile like no other Japanese economist I have known. During the 1990s, he would frequently visit India to keep pace with the changes in the economy. We would always meet and have long conversations about India, Japan, and the world. Unfortunately, Ito-san died early.
To be sure, China is nowhere as powerful as the U.S., but it has acquired the ability to impose its will on individual nations around the world. From Australia to Germany, South Africa to South Korea, political leaders are careful not to rub China the wrong way.
Few disagree with the view that the 21st century will witness the return of Asia to the centrestage of global economic activity.
The liberal fiscal spending of the 2004-08 period was made possible both by rising government revenues and national income growth and by relative comfort on the external side. After 2009,these pillars of growth began to wobble. By 2012, they were shaking.
A trilateral initiative by the U.S., China, and India in the Gulf, aimed at facilitating a resolution of historic problems in the region, would benefit global growth and stability.
Like wildebeest and zebra migration across the Serengeti, investment managers and consultants, too, have a habit of running together and, every now and then, changing direction.
During the 1990s, when India opened up to foreign investment, Japan was so mesmerised by the China opportunity that it chose to yield market space across a wide swathe of industries to South Korean competitors.
