'I was present at a meeting where he decided to permit the IAF to strike at Pakistan positions in Kargil, with the caveat that they should not cross the LoC.' 'Confident that the Indian Army would succeed, Mr Vajpayee was positioning himself to tell the world after the Kargil conflict was won that India did not violate the 'sanctity' of the LoC,' recalls Ambassador G Parthasarathy, who served as India's envoy in Islamabad in that eventful year, 1999.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Wednesday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaj Sharif on September 29 in New York will obviously send 'some significant signals' to Islamabad about India's concerns on cross-border terrorism.
The company has been developing donor-derived stem cell platforms.
'A speedy trial is absolutely essential.' 'Not only justice is given, it is given expeditiously.'
Sanjeev Nayyar suggests 16 measures by which we can tackle our unrelenting and untrustworthy neighbour.
The Uttar Pradesh by-election will be the real test for the Modi government. By-election results are not a referendum on Modi but the time has come to analyse whether the Modi government is succeeding in assuring people that the promises it made would be fulfilled, says Dharmendra Kumar Singh.
In the circumstances, an independent probe alone would establish the truth, starting from Koodangulam. It is more so in the case of Marina violence, which may even at this late hour hold a candle to the events and developments in Thoothukudi, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra takes stock of his Bollywood career and explains why he thought of foraying into Hollywood.
The terrorists were armed with AK-47s, grenades, pistols, knives, many rounds of ammunition. Sepoy Jagdish Chand's weapons were his bare hands and enormous courage. He died, but not before he felled one of them. Archana Masih/Rediff.com speaks to the family of Sepoy Jagdish Chand, one of the 7 soldiers martyred in the terrorist attack on the Pathankot Air Force Station.
Lt Gen Bakshi announced 'full support' to the new chief and made it clear that he won't resign.
In the heat and dust of a Baramati rally with Supriya Sule.
She is changing India one village at a time.
'Modi's popularity is a myth.' 'The Modi government has fulfilled zero promises.' 'They have not done anything.'
The Centre will grant Rs 500 crore for each of the smart cities.
'One lesson to emerge out of the Modi-Putin summit is that India can be more self-confident that it possesses inherent strengths to leverage its interlocutors to influence Pakistani policies,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'If Haider petitions the court and the government for legitimate rights it is called minority appeasement, but when Hardik orchestrates violence he is lionised, romanticised and given huge media space that ends up both legitimising and oxygenating his movement, no matter how contrary it is to the Rule of Law,' argues Shehzad Poonawalla.
20 years ago this day, May 11, 1998, India conducted its second nuclear test at Pokharan in Rajasthan. In a fascinating interview on Rediff.com, K Subrahmanyam revealed how Indian PMs reacted to nuclear ambitions.
'He is still compulsively an operations man. Just a whiff of a live operation, and he is back in the field, at least in his mind. That is why the immediate decision to send the NSG to Pathankot.' 'But there is a difference between classical intelligence or counter-terror operation and dealing with a larger threat to a place as sensitive and sprawling as an air force base. This is what led to confusion and mix-ups,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'The government has sent a clear message to Pakistan: It is no longer business as usual.' 'The rules of the game have changed and a new game is at play,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'Attempts at long-term rapprochement have been rather feeble from both sides. The primary cause of the lack of progress is that these efforts do not appear to have the support of the Pakistan army,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
For the world and India, one of the most enduring challenges of the times is for Pakistan's nukes to be neutralised, before they are ever used by the State, their sponsored non-State actors or any rogue elements from the many terror tanzeems dotting Pakistan's unstable landscape, says Lieutenant General Kamal Davar (retd).
India has given a clear indication that killing of its five soldiers on LoC by Pakistan Army will delay the Indo-Pak Secretary-level talks, asserting that dialogue can only proceed in an environment free of violence and terror.
'A veiled secret of India's defence and strategic culture is the lack of a serious interest in them by the political class. The Indian National Defence University would fill this void,' feels Lieutenant General Anil Chait (retd).
'While visits and personal meetings are useful, changes of strategic significance have occurred recently, with Beijing trying to take the lead which Modi must take note of.'
''There is the perennial worry in the Indian mind regarding the US 'hyphenating' India and Pakistan. Frankly, this is a completely nonsensical hypothesis. The US has always 'hyphenated' India and Pakistan and it couldn't have been otherwise,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Barring a Shah Rukh Khan, an Akshay Kumar or a Preity Zinta, it is near impossible for most Indians to break into Bollywood's exclusive club of star children. Hearteningly, it is still possible for Indians born in middle class homes to become star technicians like 3 Idiots director Rajkumar Hirani. Patcy N and photographer N V Reuben traveled to Raju Hirani's home town Nagpur last week to discover how his journey to directorial superstardom began.
This is the first time that a Muslim lady has filed a nomination in a Presidential election.
Sanjeev Nayar offers some ideas on how Indians can help in improving the lives of those living in border areas and in the process help the Indian Army.
United States President Barack Obama has nominated Nisha Desai Biswal as the new assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs.
US congressional leaders on trade and finance wrote to the US International Trade Commission calling for a second investigation into India's 'unfair' trade practices, detailing any changes under Modi.
States spent much more in the first three months of the current financial year compared to the corresponding period last year.
'An operation such as the Mumbai attacks, which needed expert technical assessment, money and time to prepare, could not have been carried out without the knowledge of the ISI's leadership.'
'Coordination between our 50 teams, each with a strength of 45 men, played a key role in rescuing flood-affected people in Chennai. In all, we succeeded in rescuing over 20,000 people.'
'The defence minister needs to focus on human resources-related issues at the same pace in 2017 as he did on acquisitions in 2016,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initial weeks in office and the composition of his national security team give a sense of his government's foreign policy and national security priorities, says Harsh V Pant
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the first joint sitting of Parliament as mandatorily required under the Constitution after the general elections. The address is the political, economic and foreign policy road map of the Narendra Modi government and covers virtually all crucial areas.
As India rises, creating niche areas for itself in the Asian landscape, China and India are bound to step on each other's vital areas of importance, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
'The Naga Hills region, Nagaland and Manipur, have had the most uncaring and corrupt state governments with little to show on the ground despite the nation's highest per capita development expenditure,' says Mohan Guruswamy.
Siddarth Dudheria is the founder of Ride2Light, a group of motivated individuals who cycle to raise awareness and funds for various social causes.
