'Warner overstepped the line a lot in his early career. He then changed into a more placid player but was then told by Cricket Australia to be the enforcer and was doing what he was told'
'Who in Pakistan was intending to carry out one of the most grievous acts of international terrorism just a few months ago?' Former CIA official Bruce Riedel reveals how the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the ISI planned the attack on the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Herat in May to take Indian diplomats hostage and disrupt Narendra Modi's swearing-in.
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The Indian Army must be given a free hand to retaliate punitively at one or more places of its choosing on the LoC. The aim should be to cause maximum damage to the forward posts of the Pakistan army, particularly those through which recent attacks have been launched, thereby raising the cost for the army, says Gurmeet Kanwal.
Given our troubled relationship with Pakistan, we need to keep our security apparatus in a state of alert with state-of-the-art equipment. All bilateral issues with Pakistan -- political, military, economic -- will simply have to go on the back-burner till Pakistan decides it wants to live as a good neighbour, says Vikram Sood.
Unlike Al Qaeda, ISIS recruiters are proactive and internet savvy. They know there is angst among Muslims about their helplessness even in a vibrant democracy like India, leave alone other parts of the world where Muslims live. So ISIS feeds them a regular diet of the golden age of the Ummah, creating for these youngsters a live yet make-believe world which is completely disconnected from the reality around them, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'Let people across the LoC see the resolve of Bharat and the contribution of the Indian Security Forces in rebuilding the Valley. Let disaster become the rallying point for integration -- not only of society but also of all the instruments of State,' says General Anil Chait (retd).
At no other time has a single meeting of the leaders of two democracies been so critical and hazardous.
'How can Kashmir be demilitarised if the terrorist threat remains and Pakistan continues to incite elements in Kashmir to keep the internal situation unstable?' asks former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
'As Mumbai showed, and the Nairobi Westgate Mall attack reinforced, "guerrilla-style terrorism" has increasingly become the method-of-choice for terrorist groups,' says terrorism expert David Kilcullen.
Delivery of a great operational machine must not get affected to settle political scores, says Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd).
'Trump's stated strong stance against Islamist extremism and terrorism could play into the Indo-US relationship.' 'It could mould US attitude and exert pressure on Pakistan.' 'In the event of US military presence in Afghanistan increasing, however, Pakistan could gain an opportunity to again emphasise its importance.'
While Prime Minister Modi may pursue the laudable aim of building a cooperative relationship with Pakistan, he and his advisers should never think that concessions (and dialogue is a concession in itself) will change the Pakistan army's approach to India, says Vivek Katju.
'No amount of digression can hide deflect the fact that the PM's visit was badly conceived, planned and executed,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
United States President Barack Obama has authorised "targeted air strikes" against Islamic militants to protect American military personnel and airdrops of meals and water to thousands of religious minorities trapped on a mountaintop in northwest Iraq.
Southampton confirmed that they had signed 23-year-old Walker-Peters, who spent the second half of last season on loan at the club. British media put the fee at 12 million pounds.
'The two NSAs, who have been mandated to address mutual concerns on terrorism, will need to devise credible and irreversible measures to see that the likes of Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar do not ever get a free hand to run riot again,' says Ambassador G Parthasarathy, India's former high commissioner in Pakistan.
The publishing of the NRC will not rid India from illegal immigrants who are already here. But even if it manages to withhold their political and voting rights, it will be a significant achievement, says Anand Kumar.
'Modi has said he has been made the PM of India not to do small things but big things. What bigger thing can there be than to have peace with Pakistan and in the neighbourhood?'
'General Bajwa is believed to consider the internal threats to Pakistan's security as far more serious than the bogey of the Indian threat.' 'This doesn't mean that he is soft on India, only that he is more rational and sensible than his predecessor who had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about India,' points out Pakistan expert Sushant Sareen.
'Modi wants to be pragmatic -- acknowledge the problem of Pakistan and that full reconciliation is essentially a non-starter, but at the same time grab the low-hanging fruits (such as trade) to put things on a more even keel, to engender enough stability in the relationship to allow him to focus on other priorities.'
'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.'
All that's transpired on and off the cricket pitch on Monday.
'So you have a middle class, and an elite that have seceded into outer space and they look down and say, "What's our bauxite doing in their mountains?" and "What's our water doing in their rivers?" There's a sense of entitlement there.' Arundhati Roy captures minds with her thoughts on capitalism, Indian politics, war, and more in New York.
'India is going to maintain its ties to China, India is going to develop a strong relationship with the United States. It means that India is going to have the flexibility to pick and choose its friends.' 'That's traditional Indian foreign policy, and it's smart.' Former US ambassador to India Frank Wisner, one of America's sharpest minds on South Asia, tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com what Washington can expect from Narendra Modi's visit.
'If you invest your entire capital in talks, you cannot abruptly change gear and decide on war.'
'The response to terror is not always reciprocal terror, nor is launching a conventional response the best response.' 'The best response is to make the sponsor pay a price he cannot afford,' says former RA&W chief Vikram Sood.
The majority of the International Cricket Council's Board members on Saturday voted in favour of restructured revenue sharing model including rollback of the Big 3 formula despite vehement opposition from Board of Control for Cricket in India's representative Vikram Limaye.
US President Donald Trump triumphantly greeted supporters at the first of the three inaugural balls, joining his First Lady on stage to tell them: 'We did it."
'How does one get to weaken all those pillars on which the Deep State of Pakistan and the Separatists rely to prevent the situation reaching that point; how must this stage of the proxy war be countered? In many ways the strategy being followed by the adversaries is a smart one, acting within threshold and avoiding overpitch,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'If Indian armed forces entered Pakistan and succeeded in inflicting major damage on the Pakistani army and occupied territory in the Pakistani heartland, there is reason to think the Pakistani military would use some nuclear weapons against the incoming Indian forces to compel India to stop.'
'Despite Modi's high-flown rhetoric about good-neighbourly relationships in South Asia, he lacks a road map how to proceed -- be it with Bangladesh or with Sri Lanka and Pakistan... But a deeper question arises here: Did he duck on his own accord or under the diktat from the RSS, asks Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Three Indian Air Force officers captured as Prisoners of War by Pakistan during the '71 War made a daring escape from a Rawalpindi jail. M P Anil Kumar recounts that heroic story.
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