Generations of scholars and analysts working on India-China issues will be grateful to Mr. Avtar Singh Bhasin for the extraordinary service he has done to them by bringing into the public domain, in five volumes, important texts on the subject—over 2,500 of them—including many that are still not declassified by the Ministry of External Affairs and transferred for public access to the National Archives of India. He was able to do so because he got ready access to material classified as ‘secret’ or ‘top secret’ in the papers lying with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

This is a candid, stimulating, and highly readable account of Ambassador Maharaja Krishna Rasgotra’s diplomatic life, and through it, also of the evolution of Indian foreign policy since 1947. The bonus for the reader is to have a balanced reflection on India’s diplomacy, peppered with pertinent narratives and observations about important events and personalities.

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has provided a most readable account of his upbringing, his stint in the US National Security Council and his ambassadorships to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations. With his political sense and candour, he explains to readers how after winning easy military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, American efforts there so quickly lost direction and became examples of how not to intervene in difficult areas. Having ready access to high-ranking US administration officials, Ambassador Khalilzad was luckier than his American homologues serving in foreign capitals.

The generalist reader, as also those interested in indigenous historical knowledge, owes a debt of gratitude to Professor Subrata K. Mitra and Dr. Michael Liebig for bringing out this remarkable study. This is especially so since the IDSA has been investing for several years now in studying indigenous historical knowledge and its links to modern Indian political thought. Professor Mitra and Dr.

After the nuclear weapons tests of May 11, 1998, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee made a matter-of-fact statement:

“I have an announcement to make: today at 3:45 p.m., India conducted three underground nuclear tests in the Pokhran range…. These were contained explosions like the experiment conducted in May 1974….”

India’s burgeoning relationship with Israel since January 1992 is an exemplar of India’s post-Cold War foreign policy practice. From a relationship described as ‘stillborn for 40 years’ to the broad-spectrum partnership a quarter century later, India–Israel relations ties have developed well, pushed by a rapid expansion of defence ties. The growth of the India–Israel partnership is a testimony to the sagacity shown by Indian and Israeli leaders in steering the relationship forward, despite the baggage of a fraught and convulsive neighbourhood.