A triumphant Khan returned to his Lahore home on Saturday after having locked himself in the Islamabad high court premises for hours for fear of re-arrest despite being granted bail on Friday.
The US is not in a forgiving mood for being humiliated in such a manner by an insurgent force and made to look 'loser' internationally, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Pakistan has worsted India in the Afghan proxy war and the defeat becomes a template of regional politics,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Indian Air Force's first flight carrying 200 people from Bucharest landed at 1.30 am and Union Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt welcomed them at the airbase, they noted.
The Western world keeps talking, ratcheting up sanctions, the only thing it can do. The Russians march on to Kyiv and capture Zelensky and key members of his government as part of their 'de-Nazification' drive, predicts Shreekant Sambrani.
The day that Russia invaded Ukraine was the day Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan met Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.
The army chief's comments on Wednesday, at the Raisina Dialogue, on engaging with Taliban were first such public remarks by a senior functionary of the government.
'The worst case scenario for Pakistan is a full-scale Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.' 'Pakistani militants would be inspired and emboldened and seek to replicate the Taliban's successes in Pakistan.'
India and Russia are involved in talks to sort out the nuclear liability issues before they sign an agreement for setting up Units III and IV of the Kudankulam power plant in Tamil Nadu during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's annual summit with President Putin in Moscow next week.
A closure of the Indian mission in Kabul will be a Himalayan blunder at this historic juncture when the wheels of diplomacy and politics are set to accelerate in Afghanistan, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
Now, as before, India's vote at the UN was dictated by paramount national interests. Though the Indian vote was 'neutral', its explanation was explicit in its criticism of the Russian actions. India took back with the left hand what it had given with the right, explains Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Pakistan would want to take full advantage of the situation to direct Taliban trained terrorists into the Kashmir Valley, alert Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The external affairs minister reiterated India's position on Afghanistan and highlighted its humanitarian support to the war-torn country, including the supply of wheat, medicines, vaccines and clothing.
A video shared by Qureshi's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Twitter shows plain-clothed men taking him away, with him waving at party workers before departing from the location where he was detained.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will hold its first in-person summit in Samarkand in Uzbekistan on Thursday after two years, shaking off Covid fears and providing a rare opportunity for all its eight heads of state to meet on the sidelines of the event to have face-to-face talks on pressing global and regional issues of common concern.
Delhi has come to accept the Taliban takeover in Kabul as a reality and seems increasingly unsure of its dogmatic view of the Taliban as a mere proxy of the Pakistani military and security establishment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
A Pakistani court in Islamabad on Monday rejected former prime minister Imran Khan's plea seeking the suspension of the non-bailable warrant issued against him in the Toshakhana case.
The Lahore police closed the main road leading to the Zaman Park residence of Khan by placing containers. Riot police and water cannons are currently present near Khan's residence.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov will be the other two participants at the conference. Uncertainty had loomed over the meeting following the cross border clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Galwan Valley on Monday evening.
'From what evidence has come up, General Bajwa somehow managed to tell the Americans that I was anti-American.' 'And so, it [the plan to oust me] wasn't imported from there. It was exported from here to there.'
CIA Director William J. Burns held a secret meeting in Kabul on Monday with Baradar in the highest-level face-to-face encounter between the Taliban and the Biden administration since the militants seized the Afghan capital, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity,
The two leaders reaffirmed that the United States and India 'will take concerted action against all terrorist groups, including groups proscribed by the UNSCR 1267 Sanctions Committee'.
The US military engaged the C-RAM missile defence, but, according to ABC News, it is still unclear whether all of the rockets were successfully intercepted.
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.
The road ahead will be long and winding and much resistance can be expected from the high-flying 'hawks' in our skies. But that should not deter the policymakers from planning a road map with the 'big picture' in mind, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'What would we feel if we found the world behaving the way it has?' 'Forced to fight our own prolonged battle; nobody from outside really demanding that the war end or actively working to make it end, and above all, a completely toothless United Nations reduced to pleading for a halt to the violence,' notes Shyam G Menon, exactly a month after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
He reaffirmed India's resolve to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and said peace and prosperity cannot coexist with terrorism, in remarks seen as directed at Pakistan.
'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).
Shah Rukh Khan's weathered intensity, grizzly charisma and trademark wit lends Pathaan's all-out, devil-may-care antics a sense of purpose that evades mindless acts of mayhem, cheers Sukanya Verma.
'Even during the worst days during the 1990s, India was dealing with the Taliban.'
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.
India is worried about Pakistan getting the Taliban to ignite trouble in Kashmir, observes Ramesh Menon.
'Washington must retain control over any peace process until the Taliban gets worn out,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Brinkmanship in the Taiwan Strait will not only be a recipe for disaster to both China and Taiwan, but also to international peace and stability, warns Rup Narayan Das.
'They are both very individualistic and have similar personalities.'
The summit probably fulfilled the expectations on both sides, but the bar of expectations was intentionally kept low, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
El-Sisi welcomed Modi, who is on a two-day state visit to Egypt, at the Presidential Palace where the two leaders were closeted for one-on-one meeting after which the two sides signed a memorandum of understandng.
External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said India will continue to extend all support to the Afghanistan as a contiguous neighbour, in a clear reference that the Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir belongs to India.
'The India-Pakistan relationship is in a deep freeze, though it could be a lot worse had there not been a new LoC ceasefire a year ago.' 'The India-Pakistan relationship will only start to thaw if the Pakistani military decides it's prepared to push for detente.'
All things taken into consideration, the Taliban statement on Kashmir portends trouble ahead. The Taliban is notorious for doublespeak and when it says there is no link between the Kashmir issue and the Afghan settlement, the opposite must be taken into account as well, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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