It was good fortune for India to have Atal Bihari Vajpayee lead the government at a crucial moment in our history. He avoided India meeting the fate of Iraq or Ukraine, asserts military historian Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Many were hoping that with Vajpayee's NDA gone, there would be a return to the Congress normal. Nobody was prepared for the opposite. Sonia Gandhi was sceptical. This became the only issue over which Manmohan Singh took on his party bosses and risked his government. Politically, it was riskier than the 1991 reform, recalls Shekhar Gupta.
Modi, who arrived in Warsaw on the first leg of his two-nation visit during which he will also travel to Ukraine, paid his tributes at the memorials for the Valivade-Kolhapur camp and the Monument to the Battle of Monte Cassino in Warsaw.
'Did anyone else get the feeling that AWIAL -- despite being ostensibly based in the Mumbai of today -- is actually set in a Neverland of Solemnity?' asks Sreehari Nair.
According to intelligence reports, the terrorists entered the Akhnoor region through the Battal area, and a wireless set seized from them confirmed their association with the JeM.
France are only the third country to win back-to-back golds in men's volleyball after the former Soviet Union and the United States.
'The present generation, either due to historical amnesia or political propaganda, has been fed a narrative that paints India as an adversary rather than an ally.'
By throwing food at poverty that is result of faulty economics and lack of jobs, one is only trying to suicidal path.
Here is the Brahma Mantra for mankind. So long as the world has leaders with judgement -- humane, compassionate, and no-nonsense in their thinking -- natural intelligence will prevail, notes R Gopalakrishnan.
The Ukrainian Air Force on Thursday said that Russia launched a massive missile attack on the city of Dnipro, involving intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
At their Kremlin summit, leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) -- comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- signed an agreement for the creation of RAF under a joint command.
A deputy of freedom fighter Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, an 'old friend' of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and a former Indian ambassador, ACN Nambiar, has been described as a Soviet spy.
The Enhanced Pinaka has demonstrated a range of 75 km and an ability to strike within 10 metres of where it is aimed. This allows a Pinaka battery to destroy a terrorist camp, or an enemy post, logistics dump or headquarters, without sending soldiers across the border.
One terrorist was killed on Monday as special forces were mobilised to neutralise a group of recently infiltrated ultras who attacked an army convoy in a village in the Akhnoor sector near Jammu, officials said.
Donald Trump's exaggerated opinion of his dealmaking capacity can get him into trouble, observes R Sriram.
Sections of our media and elites take Western reports/judgements at face value and are ready to condemn the targets without understanding the deeper power linkages behind such actions, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (Retd).
We no longer have the ambition to rival China save through words. We are happy to be fighting ourselves and digging up disputes from centuries ago as a substitute for real development, argues Aakar Patel.
The top 10 films of the year may not be great by themselves but they stand out amidst the other OTT releases.
Times have changed, situations have changed, but the basic nature of superpower geo-politics remains the same and so also India's diplomacy -- call it non-alignment, strategic autonomy or neutrality; it all depends on the time scale, notes Rup Narayan Das.
'It is the first technology in history which is not just a tool, it is an agent.' Yuval Noah Harari on the dangers on AI.
India became only the third country to win both the men's and women's gold medals at the same Chess Olympiad.
The scaling up of the India-US strategic partnership to the level of non-NATO ally with defence deals, sharing and transfer of defence technology, interoperability, joint collaboration and joint production of defence equipment has exacerbated Moscow's anxiety, notes Rup Narayan Das.
In days of smart, networked technology and no shame over collateral damage, what will blow up next -- cars, mobile phones, TV sets, refrigerators? And where?, asks Shyam G Menon.
Indian chess prodigy D Gukesh sealed a remarkable Chess Olympiad campaign with a decisive victory over GM Vladimir Fedoseev on Sunday in Hungary.
Vladimir Putin -- who only travels to countries (like China, North Korea) where he cannot be arrested and extradited to The Hague to face the International Court of Justice -- embraces Kim Jong Un on his arrival in Pyongyang early on Wednesday, June 19, 2024.
Ma Durga might be the city's most celebrated annual visitor, but Kali is the resident Goddess, notes Sandip Roy.
The North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) intercepted a group of bombers near Alaska, marking the first instance of joint Russian and Chinese operations prompting such a response from the United States, CNN reported, citing, a United States defence official.
The Russian embassy marked the 40th anniversary of the first space flight by an Indian, Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, with an exhibition at the Russian Cultural Centre in New Delhi.
Former World Rapid Chess champion Koneru Humpy wants the All India Chess Federation to increase women's tournaments.
India and Canada have mutually beneficial political and economic linkages. The two countries should get together and find a solution. The expulsion war should, in the meantime, be a guarantee against any deterioration of the situation, asserts Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, the first Indian head of mission to be ever expelled by any country.
Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Erigaisi and Vaishali have trained at the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA) that the bespectacled chess wizard set up four years ago in Chennai. The 18-year-old Gukesh and the 19-year-old Praggnanandhaa have often stated that they would not be where they are without "Vishy sir".
The CAS banned teenage figure skater Kamila Valieva in January for four years for doping, effective from December 2021, a decision that also stripped the Russian Olympic Committee of its gold medal in the team event at the 2022 Games, nearly two years after the competition.
Sitaram Yechury strived to have the country's Left movement shed its doctrinaire approach to India's socio-cultural complexities and stitch electoral and social alliances to fight the Sangh Parivar.
The United States continued their dominance of the Olympic 4x400 metres relay on Saturday but only just, as Rai Benjamin held off Botswana's Letsile Tebogo in a thrilling last-leg battle between two individual gold medallists.
Chess icon Viswanathan Anand feels the current crop of Indian players, that he has had a role in shaping, has turned out to be "great" in grabbing crucial opportunities.
It seems that the West is sending a signal to India that it can return to old hostilities unless India toes their line on Russia. It is no surprise that India is being compared with Putin's Russia in terms of targeting 'dissidents' as the West calls these Khalistani terrorists, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
New Delhi has reached out to Moscow while waiting for a new president in Washington. New Delhi knows well that in international relations, there are no permanent friends or foes, only permanent national interests, points out Dr Rup Narayan Das.
India should encourage the second coming of SAARC with climate change as an urgent agenda and keeping Indian security concerns in mind as the subtext, suggest Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil Athale (retd).
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