Lately, the United States and some European nations have lifted oil and other financial sanctions on Iran and have also released roughly $100 billion of its assets after international inspectors concluded that Iran had complied on its promises to dismantle large sections of its nuclear programme. To signal that the relations are now moving towards friendship, just few hour before the implementation of the nuclear accord five Americans were released from Iran’s prison.

Accommodating corporate aspirations would be the biggest task before V K Atre Task Force on Strategic Partners.

In India, attempts at reforming complicated sectors like national defence invariably start with constitution of committees / task forces and thereafter the leadership battles conflicting positions on recommendations, leading to either shelving of such reports or at best partial implementation that are more ad-hoc than preferred solutions. A survey of committees constituted between 2002 and 2015 justifies this assessment.

India’s tryst with Saudi Arabia dates back to nearly five millennia when Indian sailors and merchants made regular forays in to the Arabian peninsula and forged commercial, cultural and civilisational links. In recent times, the relationship between the two countries has been marked by an upswing in the strategic partnership.

Seven years back, Nepal began the process to write an inclusive constitution in order to institutionalize the gains of the peace process, which took off in November 2006. Finally, the new Constitution was promulgated on September 20, 2015. Unfortunately, nearly over half of the Nepali population have branded the new Constitution as regressive and protested against the same. The anti-draft protests in Nepal, especially in the southern plains, started on August 9, immediately after the constitution making process was initiated.

The issue is OROP (One Rank One Pension) and the question is: Has the time come to think differently in regards to implementation of OROP?

During the Asian-African Conference Commemoration Summit in Jakarta, the Indonesian president in his opening address put the record straight that "The view that the world economic problems can only be solved by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank is an out-dated view." One can hardly hear such a scathing attack from an incumbent leader against the financial-troikas in Asia.

On May 16 Prime Minister Narendra Modi would twit: ‘First Indian Prime Minister is visiting Mongolia after 60 years of our diplomatic relation’. If China is repositioning itself in the Silk Route (ancient India was a major link too) through larger economic thrust, India has to travel in the same breadth and length with the teachings and philosophy of Buddhism in North and East Asia, as Buddhism flourished prior to the Silk Route era.

The decision to buy 36 Rafale fighters exposes the complexinstitutional mechanisms in defence procurement.