Indian Navy chief Admiral D K Joshi resigned on Wednesday evening after owning moral responsibility for the series of mishaps plaguing submarines in the military.
People mostly say 'work hard and party harder', but Premji's concept is 'work hard and work harder'. With close to 70 per cent of his wealth pledged to charity, Premji is also the epitome of a true leader who makes a mark in giving back most of his wealth to society.
The country's first woman defence minister sat in the rear seat behind the pilot and was wearing the pilot's G-suit.
In the past year, Beijing has hosted at least 70 delegations from India as part of its outreach to the Indian business community, youth leaders and Sangh Parivar affiliates
'The potential of one such LAC engagement going out of control and leading to heavy casualties cannot be ruled out,' warns Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'At the first sign of rain, Mumbai's infrastructure begins crumbling.' 'The monsoon is the true test of the durability and effectiveness of any system.' 'What most don't realise is that the city is dead,' mourns N Suresh.
Pakistan made a tactical error in not investing enough in L K Advani, former R&AW chief A S Dulat tells Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
Just like China wants Trump to lose the US presidential poll, it may want Modi to lose the Lok Sabha polls. So months before the 2024 elections, China may take possession of an important area, say one of the Char Dhams, warns Sanjeev Nayyar.
Nirmala Sitharaman has a God given opportunity to orchestrate a transformation in India's defence capabilities. One hopes she has her own counsel and does not overly let the PMO run her ship, says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
'Each of them is a setu (bridge) that links the government with the party, but their territories are different.'
When Syed Firdaus Ashraf received messages last weekend, asking him to boycott Chinese goods, he laughed.
'As general elections draw near, the BJP and the JD-U (in whatever form it is) will do a deal -- the state to the JD-U in return for support at the Centre for the BJP.'
President Pranab Mukherjee pays an emotional tribute to APJ Abdul Kalam
BJP strategists know it may not repeat its 2014 performance in its traditionally strong bases in the north and the west. This is where the success in the north east and east is so important.
'The Modi Model we see now is still the old Gujarat Model.' 'But with an acknowledgement that governing India is more challenging than governing Gujarat,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
N Sathiya Moorthy goes back in time to dig up three cases that may not have any citation in legal text-books or lawyers' ready-reckoners quoted before courts but which may still have a bearing on the current case against the arrested activists.
The Central bureau of Investigation on Tuesday filed a closure report in a seven-year-old case of alleged bribery in the Rs.1,150 crore Barak missile deal in which former Defence Minister George Fernandes and the then Naval Chief Admiral Sushil Kumar were accused.
'On a new kidney, her immune system still getting used to it, she took on the Pakistanis at the UN, held meetings with her counterparts from across the world, and presented a picture of incredible poise and dignity,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
In any institution that has a passionate ideology, the moderate is always vulnerable to the person who is more extreme, because that is what the supporters want.
'1998-1999 was the only year in the last quarter century that India had net-negative foreign investment.' 'Foreign money ran away from India that year because capital is a coward and does not like uncertainty of the sort produced by such casual treatment of a destructive technology,' says Aakar Patel.
'It was India's good fortune to have a Vajpayee lead the government at this crucial moment in history.' 'By taking the N-decision he saved future generations of Indians from being 'Kosovoed' or 'Iraqed',' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Non-Congressism is the answer to India's current difficulties, says Dr Shambhu Shrivastava, who gives a historical perspective of non-Congress experiments in 1967, 1977, 1989 and 1998.
'On corruption the Yadavs of UP and Bihar will find it very tough to give an answer to the accusations of the BJP and its supporters,' says Aakar Patel.
Its governing allies are not happy on the economy and complain of ignored concerns but find themselves unable to be assertive.
'While China has been hiking its defence spending, India has done precious little in implementing the Manmohan Singh government's decision of raising a 90,000-strong China-centric Mountain Strike Corps,' says Rajeev Sharma.
Meraj Khalid Noor, who is popularly known as Bihar's Osama bin Laden for his uncanny resemblance with slain most-wanted Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, has said that he will contest the Lok Sabha polls against the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi.
'UP, Maharashtra, AP (including Telangana), Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, MP, Bihar, Karnataka and Kerala.' 'We chose these nine not only as being among the biggest, but also because in these states radical change is possible,' explains Shekhar Gupta.
'The nominations were not meant to last permanently, but depended on the government of the day.' 'There was no question of revoking it during Congress, Janata Dal or even Vajpayee's NDA rule.' 'But Modi is different.'
Nitish Kumar's unanimous election to the top post at the party's National Executive meeting brought an end to the decade-old tenure of Sharad Yadav, who had ruled himself out for a fourth term.
The Rafale will surely be flying in Indian skies next year. But the way the BJP government has botched this will cast a shadow on defence acquisitions in the years to come.
Ideology and principle are always put to work to camouflage political ambition. Nitish Kumar is a past master at this. His acceptance of the NDA in the first place was aimed at the top spot of Bihar. Then Delhi became the goal, but Narendra Modi's rise as head of the campaign rang alarm bells. So Nitish suddenly remembered secularism, says Jaya Jaitly.
The Congress kept sheltering Quattrochi, and the BJP was more intent on shielding the Hinduja brothers. The fact is that the two roads crisscrossed, and neither the truth prevailed nor did the law take its course, says Mohan Guruswamy.
'It is hard to justify $225 million a plane for an increasingly obsolete mission.' The purchase of the 36 Rafales has changed little for the IAF.
'Vajpayee was the first prime minister to visit the battlefield at the height of conflict,' recalls Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Akhileshji has to protect his political turf and if it means confronting his father, snapping ties with him and forming another party, so be it.'
'You won't find such an apathetic indecisive party in the world.'
China's and India's nuclear doctrines mandate 'No First Use' of nuclear weapons, so use against each other seems unlikely.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed the Emergency, imposed in 1975, as the biggest blow to democracy and said its memories should be kept alive to draw lessons to further fortify the democratic framework and values in the country.
Brigadier M P Bajwa (retd), commander of the troops that captured Tiger Hill, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih how a band of young soldiers won the Kargil War's most famous battle with their blood and grit.
'For half a century, Delhi has not seen a truly powerful ruling party president.' 'The Cabinet, chief ministers, and even the heads of the most powerful departments and agencies now acknowledge where power lies, besides the prime minister's office,' says Shekhar Gupta.
