'Washington appears to be playing the long game, and making the argument to India that over the longer term, Russia -- sanctioned, cash-strapped, isolated by the West -- will no longer be a viable defence partner for India'
'Physically, he was a strong man, but given to moments of emotional weakness.' 'He had to be put back on the right track by the women in his life.'
Eight eminent personalities have appealed to people to "introspect and audit" the working of the Constitution.
What India has failed to acknowledge is that sub-conventional war is the name of the game and irregular forces have emerged with greater strategic value over conventional and even nuclear forces, and reliance purely on conventional force and diplomacy is grossly inadequate, says Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retired).
'History will repeat itself after a decade or so and historians will point to the folly of May 2017 as the event that sowed the seeds of another 9/11,' warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Shaken by the Taliban terror attack in which 148 people, including 132 school children, were killed in Peshawar on Tuesday, Pakistan has pledged to announce a "national plan" to tackle terrorism within a week with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif saying "this entire region" should be cleaned of terrorism.
Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province government has announced a bounty worth Rs 10 million for information leading to the arrest or killing of Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah, the mastermind of the Peshawar school massacre that left 150 people dead, mostly students.
'Washington is telegraphing here is its willingness to support a low-grade, limited use of force meant to send a strong message to Pakistan.' 'Perhaps something along the lines of the surgical strikes in 2016, or perhaps something a bit more -- but not much more.'
The ineptness of successive American presidents, from Bush the Younger to Joe Biden the Old, combined with the cluelessness that Americans demonstrate in foreign lands, contrasts with the Chinese leadership's seemingly singular focus on the accumulation of wealth and power, asserts T N Ninan.
With his name or without, Jim Corbett continues to live on in his home in Uttarakahand's Kaladunghi and in the jungles he loved.
'We will have to wait till the snows melt in June/July 2016 before we can get a clearer idea of whether Pakistan intends to get serious about ending support for cross-border terrorism,' says G Parthasarathy, India's former high commissioner to Pakistan.
'The Chinese thought India would back off. 'They did not expect such a firm Indian response to their expansionist manoeuvre.'
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said that Pakistan is verifying the facts to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Trump suggested a stronger military response is imminent.
Gwadar port India is hardly taking any note of developments in Balochistan. To counter and restrict China influence there, India needs to aggressively move forward on further consolidating its friendly relationship with Iran and Afghanistan, says Abhay Jere.
India should observe October 22 as Kashmir Martyrs Day to pay tribute to those who lost their lives to Paakistan's State terrorism, suggests Brigadier Narender Kumar (retd).
Ahead of crucial talks with his Indian counterpart, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday said he was ousted from power in a military coup in 1999 because he started peace talks with India.
'We have leaders who would rather that we cohabit with the Indian Mujahedeen than fight terror, as long as the payoffs are there in the next polls... Obviously, we are not headed down the best route to keep terror at bay,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
Addressing an election rally in Dwarka three days before the February 8 assembly elections, the prime minister said the national capital also needs a government that will give direction and not resort to blame games.
We can expect to see more Chinese wolf warrior diplomats on the prowl, in India's neighbourhood, though its mailed fist is not so visible while dealing with India, observes Colonel R Hariharan (retd).
Pakistani Taliban chief has ordered militants to hit the leaders of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's ruling party after the government lifted a moratorium on death penalty and set up military courts to try terrorists.
The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on Pakistan to expand and reorient its fight against Taliban and Al Qaeda and wants its army to pursue the militants into north Waziristan.
'No prime minister of India is averse to normalise relations with Pakistan, if it is possible to do so without altering our fundamental position on Jammu and Kashmir,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
US Central Command commander General Joseph Votel conveyed this to Islamabad during a visit last week.
A day earlier, the House of Representatives voted 326-78 to pass a waiver exempting Austin from the seven-year 'cooling off period' for retired generals taking over as defence secretary. The senate approved the waiver by 69-27 votes.
The days of a thousand cuts are over. These mini wars will remain under the threshold of undeniable war, but will escalate closer to that threshold when their big brother pushes in. Chinese aggression has changed the matrix, the strategies, and surely the objectives too, warns David Devadas.
'Foreign ministry sources in Delhi discount the official version of the story, in which Modi made an impromptu request to stop over at Lahore, during the course of a birthday telephone call to Nawaz Sharif. In fact, this stopover had been carefully considered in Delhi, as a way to galvanise the peace process further.'
The IAF chief also said Pakistan has become a pawn of Chinese policy and its dependence on China would increase further in future. He said India needs to understand the interplay of some major events in its vicinity that would impact the security scenario of the region.
A powerful car bomb exploded outside a Shiite imambargah at a busy market.
Barack Obama has said that he had ruled out involving Pakistan in the raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout because it was an "open secret" that certain elements inside Pakistan's military, and especially its intelligence services, maintained links to the Taliban and perhaps even al-Qaeda, sometimes using them as strategic assets against Afghanistan and India.
In a first of its kind lawsuit, a decorated Sikh-American soldier has sued the US military, alleging that because of his religious beliefs he is being subjected to "discriminatory" testing that no other soldier in the US army goes through.
The officials said they had no information other than that Azhar was undergoing treatment at an army hospital after suffering renal failure.
'It's a matter of great pride that no student of Army Goodwill Schools has ever joined terrorism.'
The Afghan deputy foreign minister explains how his nation's President became disillusioned with Pakistan. Ajai Shukla listens in.
The foreign minister said he has other engagements in Bangladesh while the home minister cancelled the visit due to ongoing protests against CAB.
'Jaish e Mohammed has been allowed to resurge through supported terror actions in J&K in a deliberate tactic by Pakistan, if only to reduce the international pressure on the Lashkar e Taiba leadership after 26/11,' points out Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
In all the instances of sniper attacks, the terrorists used a nearby hillock to carry out strikes on a security force campus when unsuspecting jawans were using their mobile phones to talk to their family or friends.
'In my tenure as a military chief and president of the country, we were succeeding. We were able to bring India to the negotiating table,' he said.
France and Canada, the UN, the US and the UK condemned the attack in which 18 soldiers were martyred.
US intelligence agencies had been tracking the hostages and shared their location when they were shifted to Pakistan.
