'Peace talks with Pakistan are like accepting a dinner invitation from cannibals and hoping to return alive,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Fighting terrorism and doing away with the safe shelters, sanctuaries, and safe havens will be an important part of our cooperation.'
'Whichever way you look at it, it is a blow to the JeM and to the Pakistani army in general; the attack has taken place in mainland Pakistan and not in PoK.'
If he doesn't, two things are guaranteed: Failure for him, and continued slide for his nation despite its talented people, strong nationalism, the gift of geography and a formidable army, points out Shekhar Gupta.
US Congressman Joe Crowley, who spearheaded the campaign for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to create a new separate hate crimes category in the agency's uniform crime reporting programme to track bigoted attacks against Sikh Americans, has now set his sights on fully integrating Sikh Americans in the US Armed Forces
The Modi government has been put on notice.'Will it buckle under such pressure? These are times when the moral fibre of the leadership makes all the difference, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
During Vajpayee's tenure, he was there as an indispensable insider, witness to every action that had an impact on history: Pokhran-II (nuclear tests in 1998), the 1999 Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan, the Indo-Pak Agra Summit in 2001, intense engagement with the United States on nuclear issues besides the Kandahar hijack.
India has experienced hands and will emerge with flying colours, declares Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd).
After dropping Chinese sportswear company Li Ning as India's Olympic kit sponsor, Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday said the country's athletes will not wear branded apparel in the upcoming Tokyo Games even as the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) claimed that the search is on for a new partner.
'As far as Kashmir is concerned, a 'solution' was very much in play, and had brought endemic violence across the Jammu and Kashmir regions very much under control before the disruptive adventurism of the present regime resulted in a limited and localised escalation.'
"The FATF plenary decided continuation of Pakistan in 'Grey List' till its next meeting to be held in October," an official privy to the development told PTI.
Two hardcore Lashkar-e-Tayiba militants, including a foreigner, were killed and two special police officers wounded in a fierce gunbattle at Gundoh in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said in Jammu.
A shocked Pakistan on Wednesday began observing 3 days of national mourning for the 141 people, mostly children, massacred by the Taliban suicide attackers in horrendous terror attack in northwestern city of Peshawar.
Figures showed that the worst-hit was Mirpur with 24 dead, nine in Jatlan and one person lost his life in Jhelum.
Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan is located across the river Ravi, about four kilometres from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Punjab's Gurdaspur district.
'China's opaque defence allocation processes are shrouded in mystery and have triggered security dilemmas among its neighbours and others,' notes China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
'More members of the Indian Armed Forces have died in Kashmir, North East and Naxal areas than in the 1962 and 1971 wars against Pakistan combined. These deaths are the result of political failure and not war.'
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claims that ISI got hold of bin Laden in 2006 after paying bribes to some of the tribal leaders
Given the magnitude of the operation of the air base, the operation will continue to be concluded till we are able to fully render the base safe.
'The attacks made clear to all the Gulf States that Pakistan was the nursery and sanctuary of extremist violence and that this violence threatened all the countries in the region.'
'Even if someone other than Trump had become president, the US distancing from Pakistan and coming closer to India was already set in motion.' 'With Trump openly declaring his intent to take on Islamic extremism, the days of US political correctness are over,' says Colonel (Dr) Anil A Athale (retd).
'Just this week, the Indians killed a Kashmiri terrorist, who is a member of Hizbul Mujahideen.' 'This is a nasty terrorist organisation, and did Pakistan welcome this killing?' 'No, in fact, they denounced it and referred to him as a Kashmiri separatist.' 'These Kashmiri terrorist groups have been aided by the Pakistani State.'
'The Pakistani military has encouraged and supported terrorist organisations, especially in Kashmir, as a means of waging proxy war against the Indian military and the country's superior economic resources.' 'The evidence is irrefutable with the recent killing of 46 paramilitary troops being just the latest example.'
It is often alleged that half the Indian Army is based in J&K. It is bewildering why there has been no rebuttal or clarification of this issue from the central or state governments, or from the army itself, wonders Ajai Shukla.
As the western forces prepare to leave Afghanistan in the coming year, India stands at a crossroads where it remains keen to preserve its interests in Afghanistan but has refused to step up its role as a regional security provider. New Delhi needs to recognise that there is no short-cut to major power status, says Harsh V Pant
'Our biggest problem has been keeping this country together.' 'Nation building is never easy. It is a very difficult task.' 'Even 70 years is not too long a time.'
The reduction of tension on the Chinese border may have reduced the urgency of a Biden-Modi meeting, but the sooner Modi starts a bromance with Biden the better as he had done with Obama and Trump, suggests Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Mattis said there can be 'no tolerance to terrorism safe havens'.
Any form of entanglement with India or the US on the strategic plane will be anathema to Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa rulers, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Pak seeks US help to ease tensions with India.
Dallas police say the gunman staged a furious ambush-style attack in Dallas at a rally held to protest this week's fatal shooting of two black men by police in other states.
With the situation in Ladakh tense and no resolution in sight the trigger to take the India-US relationship to a transformational one is already there, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
For two decades after his release in exchange for passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999, Azhar has since been the darling of Pakistan's external snooping agency Inter-Services Intelligence.
New Delhi and Beijing are the only two regional capitals that have commented on US President Donald Trump's speech on August 21 outlining the way forward in Afghanistan. The Indian foreign ministry statement was effusive in praise, while the Chinese statement has been one of cautious and guarded hope. Delhi has identified itself with Trump's Afghan strategy, whereas the Chinese stance is calibrated -- observant and objective, keeping a distance, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to the national capital on Thursday after a successful three-day visit to Nepal capital Kathmandu, where he attended the 18th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit.
'There is gradual rise in the number of nations viewing Pakistan as the nursery of global terror.'
Despite dependence on the ISI for years of sustenance, Taliban leaders may harbour resentment over the ISI's excessive control, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing.
Bhutto was killed in a gun-and-bomb attack during an election campaign rally on December 27, 2007 outside the Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi.
'While US officials understand and accept India's desire for retaliation, they still don't want to encourage steps that would likely lead to war.'
After Modi became the prime minister, the Indo-US relationship has seen an upward trajectory, he said.
