After two years of negotiation, Australia looks set to supply uranium to India. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Wednesday that he hoped to sign a civil nuclear deal during his visit to India this week that will allow the sale of uranium for peaceful power generation.   read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s single point objective in his first bilateral visit outside South Asia was to take Indo-Japanese ties to the next level. And he has achieved that handsomely. He visited ancient Buddhist temples, playing a taiko drum in an impromptu jam session, and met business leaders and school children. In short, the Prime Minister has shown Japan that India is a reliable friend, a serious partner, and, most importantly, open for business.   read more

The Indian government has called off Foreign Secretary talks with Pakistan scheduled in Islamabad next week, after the Pakistan High Commissioner met a Kashmiri separatist leader in New Delhi. The unusually strong response came after High Commissioner Abdul Basit met Sabir Shah, a leader of the Hurriyat Conference, on Monday, despite a blunt warning from India's Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh that Pakistan had to choose between “India or separatists” for talks.   read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than made up for the 17 years that Nepal had not seen an Indian prime minister on a bilateral visit. He has re-energised ties with his landmark two-day visit – addressing the country’s Constituent Assembly, providing Rs. 10,000 crore ($1.67 billion) in concessional loans to help build power plants and roads, and offering his Nepali counterpart a free hand to renegotiate the 1950 partnership treaty between the two neighbours.   read more

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Delhi this week as Washington tries to reset ties with India following the NDA's dramatic election victory. But immediate results are unlikely as the U.S. has some catching up to do with the other countries vying for the new administration’s attention.   read more

India is talking tough over food subsidies as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) deal heads to the wire. Diplomats from 160 member countries are meeting in Geneva to confirm the WTO’s first-ever global trade agreement that was agreed in Bali last December, which could add $1 trillion to the world economy and create 21 million jobs. But India is threatening to use its veto unless it receives assurances on food subsidies, Trade Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday.   read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met for the first time on Tuesday at the BRICS summit in Brazil. The simmering rivalry between India and China overshadowed the launch at the BRICS meeting of a joint development bank aimed at challenging Western dominance of global finance.   read more

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking to rejuvenate ties with neighbours, Myanmar is once again on India's radar. Seen as a gateway between India’s landlocked Northeast region and Southeast Asia, transport links with Myanmar are being upgraded, with a weekly bus service expected in October. The focus on upgrading bilateral ties has come at a time when reports indicate that Myanmar may buy fighter jets made by India's rivals China and Pakistan.   read more

40 Indian construction workers are taken hostage in Mosul, a group of Indian nurses remains holed up in their hospital in Tikrit, and the spectre of oil hitting $120 a barrel – the Iraq crisis has snowballed into the first major challenge for the Modi administration.   read more

A speech in Bhutan’s parliament, a reception by the King and Queen, and a state banquet hosted by the Bhutanese Prime Minister – Prime Minister Narendra Modi received a red carpet welcome in Thimphu on his first foreign visit after taking office. By reinforcing the strong ties between their two countries, he may have single-handedly swung Bhutan’s focus back to India.   read more