The acceptance of feasibility of BRICS Development Bank at recently concluded Fifth BRICS Summit at Durban has sent a shivering effect on a certain section who criticise the very idea.

Two Russian built warships with the same name i.e. Admiral Gorshkov have been making news in the last few weeks. The first vessel is an aircraft carrier which was sold to India in 2004 and is rechristened as INS Viramaditya. It has been plagued in controversy due to costs and time over runs. The pre-delivery trials of the ship were unsuccessful and according to reports, the vessel will have to wait till the White Sea ice melts during the summer of 2013 to complete the trials.

The latest Sukhoi T-50 prototype – PAK-FA – a twin-engine fifth-generation stealth jet fighter aborted a takeoff at the recently held MAKS Air Show outside Moscow on 21 August 2011 after four days of successful demo flights. While two prototypes of PAK-FA have cumulatively made 48 flights since 29 January 2010, it will be important to know the reasons of this mishap.

Following the high profile assassinations of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB (erstwhile Soviet Union’s secret service-Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) agent in November 2006, the British investigators found that Litvinenko’s killers used polonium-210, a rare radioactive element worth over $10 million to poison him.

President Vladimir Putin’s recent address to the Russian Parliament has attracted much attention for obvious reasons. Pitched betwixt his second term as the President, which according to some could be extended through a constitutional amendment and his seemingly carefully calculated desire to name the successor, the speech reflects three interrelated factors – robust nationalism, comprehensive national power, and a reassertion of the state in global politics – a concoction of which conforms to what is known as realism in international relations.