German elections this week have once again underlined that Europe's political landscape is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Friedrich Merz's conservatives won, but the star of the election night was Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which managed to double its support in just four years to 20.8%, emerging as the second biggest political force in the nation's parliament.
By setting in motion a peace process that is likely to see a swift end to the Ukraine war, US president Donald Trump is doing India another favour.
It is most welcome that external affairs minister S Jaishankar has said that India and Japan are well-positioned to support Africa’s sustainable development, even as the US government has frozen the funds its aid agency, USAID
Although India recognized Israel as the 54th UN member in 1949, it opposed granting full UN membership to Israel on the grounds that the Jewish state had been established through war rather than negotiation
The Trump-Modi meet on February 13 in Washington proved strategic in several ways. The order of priority in which only a few heads of the state met Donald Trump before Narendra Modi carved a niche of its own. It was widely anticipated that the Trump administration would give the bilateral relationship a Trumpian imprint, if not carry out a strategic upgrade altogether.
Any deep understanding between the US and Russia will erode China’s influence at the high table. Rapid global developments following US President Donald Trump’s phone call to his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin, Vice President J D Vance’s critique at the Munich Security Conference and the US-Russia talks at Riyadh on resolving the Ukraine conflict, sans Ukrainian representation – have all been eroding the edifice built assiduously by China since President Nixon’s visit in 1972. The quick strategic transformation underway and the cataclysmic change it is unleashing is worrying Beijing, given its carefully crafted policies of keeping the US-Russia differences intact through multipolarity and global governance initiatives.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit to the US on February 12-13, at the invitation of President Donald Trump, is significant and timely. PM Modi has spoken to his friend twice already. Modi was among the first few world leaders to congratulate the then president-elect. He spoke to Trump for the second time when the latter announced his invitation to PM Modi as they discussed key bilateral, regional, and global issues.