Here are highlights of the 68th Republic Day parade.
'His secretary of defence nominee, General James Mattis, says he expects Pakistan to take action against terrorists operating from its soil.' 'Any pressure the US can bring on the Pakistani regime terror-wise would pay dividends for India.'
In the light of India's increasingly 'darkening' threat environment and the convergence of strategic interests between China and Pakistan, the IAF's declining combat capabilities are a cause for concern, says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Nelson Mandela's remains arrived in his childhood village in eastern South Africa on Saturday for a traditional burial on Sunday, bringing down the curtain on 10 days of national mourning and memorial events for the anti-apartheid icon.
'The speech he delivered had a profound impact on my colleagues,' US Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
Searchers using sonar equipment on Wednesday located the wreckage of the ill-fated AirAsia plane carrying 162 people at the bottom of the Java Sea off Indonesia, even as bad weather hampered the recovery of many bloated bodies seen floating around the crash site.
We bring you a presentation of some of the best photos from around the world in the month gone by
Powerful senators write to US Defense Secretary Hagel to support a robust defence relationship with India to achieve shared goals and form an unwavering bond between the world's two largest democracies. Aziz Haniffa in Washington, DC
India's cumbersome arms procurement procedures and a plodding Ministry of Defence bureaucracy have long been blamed for shortfalls in combat capability. Now there is another, more worrying, reason - a growing crisis of funds, magnified by the lack of tri-service coordination.
We get tangled up in our own crooked web on purchases, and the murky arms bazaar knows it, says Shekhar Gupta.
'This is going to be an opportunity to hear from the prime minister of the new India and the progress made in the last two years of the growing cooperation between the US and India in several areas, including areas that would have seemed implausible a few years ago.' US Congressman Ed Royce, who led the campaign to have Prime Minister Modi address a joint session of Congress, speaks to Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
The defence ministry is finalising a decision to allow the FGM-148 Javelin missile, built by US companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, into a contest to supply the Indian Army with anti-tank guided missiles. This is bad news for Israelis
'This is the first time the US has formally recognised the threat India faces from terrorist organisations based in Pakistan.'
Here are some of the best photos from around the world in the month gone by...
Rescue and relief operations continued in full swing in Chennai with over a hundred people taken to safety by teams of Army, IAF and NDRF, including a seven-month pregnant woman who was airlifted on Thursday from one of the worst-affected areas in the flooded city.
Fresh tremors were on Sunday felt in various parts of India, including the national capital Delhi, even as the death toll in Saturday's earthquake climbed to 62.
The winners of the annual US Military Photographer of the Year competition showcase the compelling body of work military photographers compiled in 2014.
'Other countries go out on a limb to save even a single life.' 'What to talk of civilian accidents and disasters, even our military does not have a priority for Combat Search and Rescue,' says Group Captain P I Muralidharan (retd).
An AirAsia flight from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people aboard reportedly went missing on Sunday morning after losing contact with air traffic controllers.
Instead, increases in foreign-direct-investment levels; and reforms to make labour, land and capital more mobile.
Two lessons from the closure of the Barak investigation: be careful with investigations, and buy from the US or Russia through transparent protocols. Premvir Das examines
'Under the present Defence Procurement Procedure, it would have been a nightmare, and a long, long one at that, to build 108 Rafales in India. Modi realised this and took the wise decision, though it is a definitive setback for his Make in India scheme.'
With cyclone Phailin expected to make landfall in Odisha on Saturday, the state government mounted a massive operation to evacuate two lakh people from six coastal districts on Friday night
PM Modi seems to be gradually ending India's strategic ambiguity
On display was India's military might and cultural diversity.
'The government has belied the hope that many harboured of change, efficiency and dismantling old practices as the defence ministry continues to pursue the same well trodden and wasteful path.'
'India was in no position to wage another war in 1965, having suffered a morale-shattering defeat in 1962. The three services were in the middle of a modernisation and expansion phase and therefore not fully trained or battle-ready.'
'We have a common way of looking at the world, a common way of thinking, and a common set of values that predispose us to be partners. And our interests overlap greatly,' Dr Ashton B Carter, America's next defence secretary, told Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
'It is in the interest of both sides that the visit of the US President is seen as being successful. Both sides have invested considerable political capital in it. This rapid exchange of visits and the decisions taken have to be justified, beyond the symbolism, which is no doubt important in itself. This opportunity to impart a fresh momentum to ties should not be missed,' says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
Prequel to take you where no Star Trek has gone before.
Several low-lying areas in the city and suburbs were water-logged after overnight heavy showers
Kanyakumari has the highest per capita income in Tamil Nadu and the second highest literacy rate. There are 23 candidates the fray.
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