Among the more poorly thought out foreign policy initiatives of the Indian government, one of the mitigated disasters has been the proposed BRICS bank. The New Delhi foreign policy establishment has taken to blaming the Indian finance ministry for the idea, but the external affairs ministry had to have gone along with the idea. Read more

The newly minted president of China, Xi Jinping, speaking to a group of BRICS newswires, told them the Indian participant that he had a five-point formula for Sino-Indian relations. Read more

Vladimir Putin made the annual Russian president’s visit to India and it was with difficulty that the local media roused itself to pay any attention. Read more

Another day, another foreign policy statement. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent oped piece in Foreign Policy magazine titled “America’s Pacific Century” helps place some perspective on where India fits into the US’s larger strategic view. Read more

The US budget deal was interesting in foreign policy terms at the willingness with which the US legislators and administration were willing to put the Pentagon’s budget to the axe. Read more

Indians take deserving pride in their space programme – the odd failed rocket launch notwithstanding. Read more

Several years ago a young US diplomat told me, “Wherever in the world I’ve been posted, I always found that the British had been there before me.” Read more

Broadly speaking, the worldview behind Wikileaks is a demand for complete transparency in the actions of government, corporations and, ultimately one presumes, individuals. A planet without secrets. How feasible is that? Read more