While India sleep-walked into a US-inspired grouping, China’s counter move to draw away Saudi Arabia has altered the game.

The BJP is not likely to learn from this and temper its majoritarianism though it may rework its agenda.

If India can speak about the danger to freedom of religion in Pakistan, why can't other nations raise questions about the treatment of minorities, especially Muslims, in India?

Prime Minister Modi defied history and facts to woo President Xi with swing-rides and photoshoots, forgetting that settling the border issue is not merely a factor of personal equations between leaders.

Historically, pandemics have been portals for dramatic change.

Despite years of a personalised relationship with India, Iran seems to have decided to take the bull by the horns perhaps after a cost-benefit analysis.

Many of the themes in the joint statement issued at the end of the Iranian President's visit hark back to a decade and a half when meaningful engagement between India and Iran had ceased.

The Modi government's conundrum is that if it rides the jingoism tiger, it will have to retaliate against Pakistan – but that will risk conflict between two nuclear armed nations.

Raising Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan is justified, given India's strategic interests, but by talking about Balochistan, Modi has entered a territory fraught with complications.

If the result generates strife and tension, the world will be increasingly wary of taking major decisions this way.

If Indian diplomacy has to succeed, the skill needed to engage the new Iran will have to be greater and sensitivity to their concerns adequately factored in.

With the UAE it has been a case of letting ties drift and opportunities slip by. That must now change

The worry, however, is that come election time in West Bengal and Assam, the electoral machine of the BJP may hijack the government's Pakistan policy once again.

Hopefully, Prime Minister Modi will at some stage retrieve his Pakistan policy from the security and intelligence lobby.

India needs to fine tune its strategy, rather than lurch from one development to another. Involving the External Affairs Minister at every step will be a good idea

The Modi government needs to understand that unbridled rhetoric, poor messaging and the failure to build public opinion in line with its mood swings can only land badly, like the unclaimed and splintered drone.

The attack on the Vice President came not from the intemperate fringe of the sangh parivar but from Ram Madhav, a responsible leader who serves as a vital link between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the RSS.

The correct procedure would have been for Sushma Swaraj to inform the Enforcement Directorate of the 'humanitarian' grounds on which Lalit Modi needed to be helped, and to then authorise the issue of a short-duration Indian passport