It would be difficult to take issue with any of the themes that National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval took up in his Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture on Thursday, 25 October. The highly cerebral Doval, who has a reputation for operational efficiency, declared:

* India needs a strong, stable and decisive government for the next decade; weak coalitions will not do. 

* India cannot be a soft power because it needs to take hard decisions. 

* India needs to have a big, globally competitive economy and it can be that only if it is technologically ahead. 

* Populism is bad and against the larger national interest. 

* Indian private sector companies should promote India’s strategic interests. 

* Rule of law is extremely important and the temptation to undermine it should be resisted. 

* Hard power and large armies don’t win battles’ technological superiority does.

The killing in Rawalpindi of Maulana Samiul Haq, also known as Mullah Sandwich for his massage preference, is probably significant in its irrelevance.

It isn’t clear as yet whether his killing was a murder or an assassination.

India’s decision to join the second edition of the Moscow format talks on Friday, 9 November, on Afghanistan, where representatives of the Taliban were present, is essentially an acceptance of the inevitable.

New Delhi has had to confront a situation where the principal players are willing to undertake a dialogue with the Taliban and the US; Russia and China have been active in promoting reconciliation between the Afghan government and the Islamist group. The two representatives sent by India are ‘non-officials’.

Another day. Another skeleton out of the closet. More specifically, from MJ Akbar’s closet.

National Public Radio journalist Pallavi Gogoi revealed in an article in the Washington Post on Friday, 2 November, how she, in the 1990s, was emotionally and verbally abused – and raped by Akbar (over a period of time) – while working under him at the The Asian Age newspaper.

‘Constitutional crises’ are what characterise Sri Lanka now, after President Maithripala Sirisena dismissed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe from office last week. The fact that the President removed a sitting prime minister from office, who enjoyed parliamentary majority, in “exercise of powers”, proves anomalous.

President Sirisena himself, when he first took office, had moved a motion to amend the statute book, which was then passed by Parliament. According to this amendment, the President no longer has powers to terminate the Prime Minister – the move to sack Wickremesinghe, then, appears to be in violation of the law.

That NT Rama Rao (NTR) would be tossing in his grave seeing son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu joining hands with the Congress party, is what you are likely to hear on the streets of Andhra Pradesh.

In 1982, NTR had launched the Telugu Desam on the plank of Telugu atmagauravam (self-respect) and dislodged the Congress within eight months. Anti-Congressism has been the TDP's principal plank over the years and pretty much its political identity.

It’s the age of crowd-funding, and political parties too are taking it up in election season, because... elections cost money.

Back in 2013, as the assembly elections in Delhi approached, the word on ground was that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), was set to challenge the traditional Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Congress duopoly in the state.

Every year, in the last week of October, Kashmiris living outside the South Asian region get together to observe a day that is largely forgotten by the world. They remember what happened on 22 October 1947, and call it a black day.

A vital decision recently taken by the Supreme Court has the potential to be a game-changer for the long-term health of our republic. The Supreme Court ruled that a writ petition seeking the establishment of a formal committee-based process for selection and appointment of the chief election commissioner and the election commissioners would be heard by a constitution bench comprising five Supreme Court judges.

The Asian strategic triangle that includes the complex and often contradictory relationship between the three major powers viz China, Japan and India will witness considerable summit-level engagement over the next few weeks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Tokyo (28-29 October) for a third visit to meet with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe and it is expected that major infrastructure and defence logistic agreements will be concluded.