Political

Business

Economy: India may displace the UK as the third largest by 2029, says SBI report

September 3, 2022 virendra pandit

New Delhi: India may emerge as the third largest economy by 2029 — up seven places since 2014 when it was ranked 10th, according to a State Bank of India report on Saturday. They currently rank India as the fifth largest economy. “The path taken by India since 2014 reveals the country is likely to […]

Business

Roving Periscope: Lanka talks for $ 1 bn swaps with India; ‘Not sending troops’, says New Delhi

July 11, 2022 virendra pandit

Virendra Pandit New Delhi: As Sri Lanka’s fugitive President Gotabaya Rajapaksa offered to quit on Wednesday, and embattled Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced resignation once a new government is formed, the Cabinet ministers also said they would go after an all-party government is formed. The media reported on Monday the island nation’s central bank […]

Business

Sri Lanka: Emergency lifted as situation improves slightly

May 21, 2022 virendra pandit

Virendra Pandit New Delhi: With the law and order situation improving slightly in bankruptcy-hit Sri Lanka, the government announced the lifting of the state of national emergency on Saturday, the media reported. The move came nearly two weeks after it imposed the emergency for a second time within a month across the island nation […]

Roving Periscope: Now, CPEC is a ‘white elephant’ for both China and Pakistan!

May 9, 2022 virendra pandit

Virendra Pandit New Delhi: Once touted as Pakistan’s Khul Ja Simsim (Open Sesame) kind of golden future, the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) may have turned into a white elephant for both the ‘all-weather-friends’. While Beijing has adopted a go-slow policy. Islamabad is worried that the ultra-ambitious project might threaten the country’s […]

Business

Roving Periscope: Heading a “war cabinet”, Sharif admits Pakistan “drowning” in debt!

April 21, 2022 virendra pandit

Virendra Pandit New Delhi: In politics, it is relatively easier to dislodge your rival from power but very difficult to sort out the problems that led to the ouster. Pakistan is learning it the harder way. If there was any doubt about its grim economic situation, the new Prime Minister, Shahbaz Sharif, has removed […]

Business

Gift of the Nile? Egypt to import wheat from India

April 15, 2022 virendra pandit

Virendra Pandit New Delhi: The world’s oldest civilization, Egypt, had earned the sobriquet of being the “Gift of the Nile” as the great river had converted it into a fertile bowl of food grain for the ancient world. Now, Egypt will import wheat from India, with whose predecessor, the Indus Valley Civilization, it had […]

Defence

India to set up 75 projects in Nepal; signs MoU for providing fertilizers

March 2, 2022 virendra pandit

New Delhi: As part of the India@75 Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations, India will develop 75 projects in Nepal. Naveen Kumar, First Secretary in the Embassy of India, Kathmandu, inaugurated one of these projects, a new building at Nepal Police School in Dhangadhi, Kailali district, on Wednesday. The Embassy informed that these structures were built […]

Defence

Roving Periscope: War may escalate if the West expels Russia from UNSC

February 28, 2022 virendra pandit

Virendra Pandit New Delhi: Despite Russia and Ukraine heading to the negotiating table in Belarus, the worst conflict in Europe after the Second World War ended (1945) may escalate further and Moscow may have to pay the huge costs for changing geopolitical dynamics and regain the ‘superpower’ status it lost in 1991 after the […]

English

Roving Periscope: Can Ukraine become Russia’s Afghanistan-II?

February 26, 2022 virendra pandit

Virendra Pandit New Delhi: It was a smooth run in 1979 when the then USSR invaded Afghanistan for a pro-Moscow ‘regime change’ in Kabul; then the invader got trapped in the mountainous, landlocked Muslim country as the Taliban guerrillas engaged and bled it until the Soviet Union itself disintegrated in 1991 and the Islamist […]

Defence

Roving Periscope: Is it USSR-II, or ‘Tsar’ Putin’s Russian Empire-II?

February 25, 2022 virendra pandit

Virendra Pandit New Delhi: Make no mistake: Russian President Vladimir Putin is not revivifying the Soviet Union (1922-1991), in a new avatar. What he may do is to go further back and revive the Russian Empire ruled for three centuries by the Romanov dynasty, ousted by the Vladimir Lenin-led Communist Revolution in 1917. A […]