PM Modi said Vietnam is a key partner in the Indo-Pacific initiative, and cooperation can make an important contribution in maintaining peace in the region.
India has been in talks with Vietnam, which has maritime border issues with China in the South China Sea, over Hanoi’s interest in acquiring supersonic cruise missile BrahMos.
During the visit on 6-7 October, Jaishankar will also be meeting his US, Australian & Japanese counterparts — Mike Pompeo, Marise Payne and Motegi Toshimitsu — separately.
Disguised as local operators, the Facebook accounts sought to amplify pro-China messaging over its control of South China Sea & promoting leaders favouring China’s status in region.
The meeting took place at a time when China is expanding its military aggressiveness in the South China Sea and is locked in a bitter border row with India in eastern Ladakh.
The American U-2 spy plane from the Cold War era can perform functions that still can’t be entirely matched by technology such as the unmanned Global Hawk drone.
The launches show China, with its increasing arsenal of ballistic missiles, is challenging American military superiority in Asia for the first time since World War II.
The tensions come as the US looks to push back against what it sees as a Chinese campaign to dominate the resource-rich South China Sea and smaller nations in the region.
Chinese and Australian envoys to India got into an argument on 2016 South China Sea arbitration last week, bringing focus back on China’s refusal to accept it.
For all their colonial underpinnings, postcards from Hyderabad also inadvertently preserve a trace of local memory: a glimpse of a street, a face, a forgotten name.
Indian toymakers are now exploring new markets, but they want govt to negotiate a trade deal with US soon, introduce incentives and subsidies to make the industry more competitive.
The project is meant to be a ‘protective shield that will keep expanding’, the PM said. It is on the lines of the ‘Golden Dome’ announced by Trump, it is learnt.
Now that both IAF and PAF have made formal claims of having shot down the other’s aircraft in the 87-hour war in May, we can ask a larger question: do such numbers really matter?
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