Army spokesman Lt Gen Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry in a media interaction said at least 26 people were killed and 46 injured in the missile strikes on cities in Punjab and PoK. "The six locations that India attacked last night... Pakistan lost 26 people and 46 were injured," he said.
De-centralised execution should drive the operational concept and support military strategy, under a unified command architecture. Enablers and technology need to be positioned first for such an activity to be undertaken, recommends Lieutenant General Anil Chait (retd).
Under the direction of the ministry of external affairs, the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) efforts are being progressed in conjunction with Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff, the Indian Army, the Indian Air Force and the National Disaster Response Force, the defence ministry stated.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting with top defence officials, including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and the chiefs of three services, amid India weighing its countermeasures following the Pahalgam terror attack which left at least 26 civilians, mostly tourists, dead. Modi has vowed to pursue the terrorists behind the attack and their patrons, a clear reference to Pakistan, to the "ends of earth" and inflict harshest punishment on them.
Almost five years later, the three services have still not fully understood that joint/theatre commands are not a discussion point; they are the prime minister's diktat on a military reform measure that is in line with what armed forces around the world have implemented, points out Ajai Shukla.
Gen Dwivedi, who has vast operational experience along the frontiers with China and Pakistan, was serving as the Vice Chief of the Army.
Pakistani military targets at Rafiqui, Murid, Chaklala, Rahim Yar Khan, Sukkur and Chunian were engaged using air-launched precision weapons from Indian fighter jets and the retaliation largely focused on command and control centres, radar sites and weapon storage areas, Qureshi said.
India on Wednesday dismissed claims on Pakistan social media about 'Operation Sindoor', saying the neighbouring country has unleashed a 'full-blown disinformation offensive' with 'lies' and digital theatrics to control the narrative.
The three services are reeling under a shortage of 1,35,784 personnel, with the Army having the maximum vacancies at 1,16,464, according to details provided by the government.
Possible convergence of interest among China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh may result in serious implications for India's stability and security dynamics, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan said on Tuesday.
'Unfortunately, India and Pakistan could learn a 'lesson' from this conflict that will make them more likely to use these weapons against each other in the future.' 'Rounds of missile and drone attacks could be more routine features of their hostility, just like artillery fire has become a familiar fact of life along the Line of Control.'
Being a 'fauji' kid, Sofiya Qureshi grew up listening to tales of valour and sacrifice of the army shared by her grandfather, who was a soldier.
'There's an urgent requirement, particularly for the Indian Ocean region, as China's naval presence grows, and with Pakistan also acquiring more submarines.'
When the country has been at war, the Opposition has buried its differences with the government, points out Aditi Phadnis.
The defence ministry on Sunday said the decision is in line with Singh's vision of "inclusive participation" of all women in the armed forces, irrespective of their ranks.
A pet project of the Indian Army, four-legged robotic prototypes have been making waves at the Republic Day and Army Day parades in the past year.
In the early part of the Kargil operations, the army opted to more or less go it alone, sacrificing large numbers of men and officers in almost superhuman struggles against an enemy on higher ground. Some generals seem to think their predecessors would have succeeded better if they had had air resources at their disposal, points out David Devadas.
Speculation about the missing Chinese Defence Minister General Li Shangfu may have been removed and detained became rife after he was conspicuously absent at the meeting of the Central Military Commission (CMC) in Beijing on Friday.
The bodies of the last four of the trapped labourers were pulled out from the site of the avalanche-hit Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp in Chamoli on Sunday, taking the death toll to eight as authorities ended the nearly 60-hour rescue operation.
The total allocation to the defence sector is 12.9 per cent of the total budget of the government of India for the financial year 2024-25.
The 12 SU-30MKI jets for the Indian Air Force would be licensed manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited at its Nashik facility and cost around Rs 13,000 crore.
The defence budget was on Thursday increased to Rs 6.21 lakh crore for 2024-25 in a modest hike of 4.72 per cent from last year's allocation of Rs 5.25 lakh crore amid India's continuing border row with China in eastern Ladakh as well as concerns over evolving security situation in the strategic waterways.
Parts of Rahul Gandhi's speech during the Operation Sindoor discussion in the Lok Sabha were expunged from the record after he criticised the government for trying to protect Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image.
'It is important India to stay focussed on its primary national objectives: Combating terrorism; not losing sight of other security and strategic concerns (on the Sino-Indian front for instance); ensuring a strong economy and registering growth which includes improving the lot of common people; and finally making certain that the social fabric remains intact and harmony among people is not jeopardised, at least any further,' asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Front-line bases of the Indian army and the air force along the nearly 3,500 km de-facto border with China were Wednesday put on high alert in view of the worst border clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh that left 20 Army personnel dead, official sources said.
Mrs Gandhi's power ebbed and peaked with the times. Mr Modi's has almost been constant, barring the few months of hard dip after the 240 seats of 2024, points out Shekhar Gupta.
China also removed Finance Minister Liu Kun and appointed Lan Fo'an in his place. Liu is the third senior Cabinet minister to be replaced without any explanation.
'It brings precarious peace because the red lines have shifted. 'The next Pahalgam attack would mean a full scale war.'
'For weeks, months and years, it would continue to be debated if India should have pushed the early advantage and decapacitated Pakistan militarily.' 'India refused to bite the provocatively proverbial bullet and escalate it into a full-fledged war,' notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The indigenously designed and developed Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH-Dhruv) and the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas will not be part of the upcoming Republic Day flypast in India due to the grounding of the entire fleet of ALH-Dhruv helicopters following a crash earlier this month. The grounding of the helicopters is a result of a Coast Guard ALH crash in Porbandar, Gujarat on January 5, which claimed the lives of two pilots and an aircrew diver. The decision to exclude the ALH-Dhruv and Tejas from the flypast comes as a high-level probe panel investigates the cause of the crash.
The incident has left the family grappling with grief and pride as they remember their brave son who sacrificed his life while saving another.
Durve argued that the word 'secret' is nowhere in the exemption clause under which information could be denied to an applicant.
'One good outcome of Operation Sindoor -- perhaps, its best outcome -- could be that India has resumed meaningful contact directly with Pakistan at the military-to-military level,' observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
A week before he turned 63 on June 9, retired General Benjamin 'Benny' Gantz -- briefly his country's prime minister and now its defence minister -- was in New Delhi to meet with his counterpart, Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh.
'Fears in Washington began to intensify when it was realised that subsequent Pakistani and Indian attacks on major military facilities -- which were significant in terms of geographic scope and intensity -- could rapidly take both sides to where neither actually wanted to go.' 'The US objective was to stop the fighting as soon as possible. Everything else was secondary.'
Wing Commander Vyomika Singh's role at the press briefing for Operation Sindoor is consistent with her experience as a helicopter pilot in Jammu and Kashmir during the course of her career.
'Had Haji Pir and/or Skardu been taken, the message would have gone out not just to General Asim Munir and his cohort in the Pakistan army but to the Pakistani people that every terrorist incident in India would lead to substantial loss of territory in PoK.'
All three service chiefs of the Indian armed forces will be from the 61st batch of the National Defence Academy at Khadakvasla after the army chief-designate Lieutenant General Manoj C Pande takes over as the 29th chief of army staff on April 30, 2022.
With respect and gratitude we honour the memory of soldiers who sacrificed their lives in Operation Sindoor.
