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There are now three national-level players for the Battle of 2014, the third one a fledgling upstart - AAP -a novelty on the political scene, building on its unexpected electoral triumph in Delhi to aspire for power at the Centre. It is still in experimental stage, notwithstanding the instant response it has evoked among professionals and the young in a climate of rising expectations for a new era of politics.

A twist in India-Japan relation was witnessed with the increase in Chinese assertiveness in East Asia. Hitherto, India-Japan relation was encircled by only economic and commercial sectors. The departure from the earlier stance was noted with Japan introducing new defence guidelines on December 17, 2013, under new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The two strategic documents (National Security Strategy and National Defence Guidelines 2014), adopted under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, identified a number of areas in which Japan would like to strengthen cooperation with India in the near future. This is believed to counter China’s new air-defence information zone (ADIZ) in East China Sea covering disputed islands of Senkakus and Diaoyus, declared a week before.

The one-day AICC meeting on Friday has demonstrated that Rahul Gandhi has come of age. Whatever his opponents may say, he made a brilliant speech at the AICC, perhaps his best after his impressive oration at the Jaipur conclave where he was anointed Vice-President of the party. Can the new found resolve to lead from the front help him to make a difference in the Congress Party’s fortune in the coming Lok Sabha elections?

New Delhi: South Korea has said that the kick-off of the POSCO steel plant in Odisha will encourage more Korean investment in India.

New Delhi: India has called for a more detailed discussion on political and security situation in Afghanistan as the presidential election and polls to provincial assemblies are due in April, this year.

Four decades after 1970-71, the US and its European allies have failed in their second attempt to organise an undeclared diplomatic isolation of the Awami league-ruled Bangladesh.

The UPA-II’s countdown has begun. Once again, Rahul Gandhi seems to be in his unpredictable best. BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s ‘Jayanti tax’ jibe at disgraced former environment minister Natarajan apart, it was probably one of the most politically puzzling decisions by the Prime Minister and the party leadership to dump veteran Tamil Nadu Congress leader Jayanthi Natarajan stigmatizing her solely for environment clearance delays most large core and infrastructure sector projects, just ahead of the Lok Sabha election.

New Delhi: Afghanistan is ready to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with US as its supreme people’s council, Loya Jirga has approved such a move.

New Delhi: With a view to develop their strategic partnership in a “more substantial and concrete manner”, India and South Korea signed as many as nine agreements, including those relating to cooperation in defence, outer space and cyber security.

Political commentators who heaved a sigh of relief after the Chairman of the interim government, Khil Raj Regm, announced a few days back that the first session of the new Constituent Assembly (CA) would be held on 22 January got a sudden shock with a writ petition by an advocate Sallu Tiwari, a day after, seeking a stay on the sitting of CA. The petition which is up to the Supreme Court of Nepal argues that 26 seats are still to be filled in the 575-seat CA – 240 directly elected through the first-past-the-post system, the rest under proportional representation, based on votes polled by the parties in the direct voting, should not be convened.