'The military aim in a future conflict, if it can't be avoided, should be to cause maximum damage to the adversary's war waging capability and capture limited amount of territory as a bargaining counter,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
The 1971 war reaffirmed the importance of inspirational senior leadership in battle and heralded the emergence of a new fighting class amongst officers and men of India's armed forces.
Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam lists the major operational takeaways from the 1971 War in his new book 'India's Wars, A Military History, 1947-1971'.
It has been said that by 2025, India could become among the top five economies in the world. If India does become a $5 trillion economy but gets all its rivers polluted, food chain poisoned and genetic pool depleted and biometric database of Indians sold or stolen at the behest of commercial czars, will it not be a pyrrhic economic victory, asks Gopal Krishna.
'I regret not having played an individual sport. When it came to rewarding an athlete, it was always one in an individual sport who was favoured.' 'I feel lucky that I was born in India and played football for India. I can go home with a smile on my face..'
A new report says Indian jihadis, including the Indian Mujahideen, are significantly more lethal as a result of external support, primarily from Pakistan. Aziz Haniffa reports.
'For years, a whispering campaign against the non-Nagas -- and occasional violence -- has dominated the local discourse, but Farid Khan's lynching was unprecedented in its ferocity.'
The Ghazi Attack tells the story about one of the 'last unsolved greatest mysteries of the 1971 war.'
Everything about ISIS had indicated that this would be a violent Ramzan. A violent, divisive Ramzan sends out exactly the message that ISIS wants to send to religious Muslims outside its folds: It plays on their faith and fears, says writer Tabish Khair.
A list of all the foreign visits taken up by PM Narendra Modi this year and their outcomes.
Investigators were on Sunday examining a flight simulator found at the home of a pilot of the missing Malaysian plane with 239 people on board, as they refocused on "those in the cockpit" who knew how to avoid detection by radars.
Those who know Shiv Shankar Menon will vouch that he did lots of things, substantial in the immediate neighbourhood and widespread in South Asia, but without making things public. Twenty per cent of Menon's job was visible, while 80 per cemt of his job was not known to the public, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
Five years ago, Bharatiya Janata Party veteran L K Advani spoke to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com on the Emergency. On the 40th anniversary of Indian democracy's darkest hour, we reproduce the interview.
Just 21 then, a young air force officer looks back at the 1971 war, which was like a baptism by fire in the fauj.
'There is a problem with the rise of a popular view that sees Kashmir through the prism of the larger, chronic Hindu-Muslim tensions.' 'By redefining the Kashmir problem simplistically in Hindu-Muslim terms could end up keeping Kashmir but losing most Kashmiris,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative also revealed about his training while he deposed in front of a Mumbai court via video link.
'As China rises and India grows to reclaim their earlier positions on the world stage as two of the largest economies and most important countries, there will indeed be some contention between these two powers.' 'There will also be plenty of space and room for cooperation amongst the two of us.' 'As our economic size increases to match the fact that we are the two most populous nations on earth, it will be all the more important for us to keep the interests of our peoples as well as those of the rest of the world in mind.' 'We shall have to grow together rather than as separate and disparate entities,' points out Ambassador Gautam Bambawale -- who served as India's ambassador to China -- in the 7th annual lecture of the Indian Association of Foreign Affairs Correspondents on March 1, 2019.
'Earlier compensation was less, but we have increased compensation four fold. As a result, farmers want to give up their land.' 'Infrastructure projects will create 50 lakh jobs. If today we are building 14 km of road per day, by next March, we hope to take it up to 30 km. My own hope is we can take it to 100 km per day.' 'The government's ambitious Sagarmala project aims to develop port infrastructure along the country's 7,500 km coastline. The project includes modernisation of our ports and islands, setting up of coastal economic zones, new major ports and fish harbours.'
If an elected government had been sworn in, Jung's tenure and the government would have been more or less co-terminus and Jung would have been just the ceremonial head of Delhi. Now, he will run Delhi, pending another round of assembly elections, says Aditi Phadnis
Hemant Kanoria tells Niraj Bhatt why understanding the dynamics of the borrower's business is critical for the lender.
'Modi took to the dais and said he would like to step down as chief minister over the riots.' 'Immediately, people from several sides got up and said there was no need to do so.' 'Whether it was orchestrated or not, Shourie wasn't sure.' 'But, according to him, Vajpayee felt that it was a coup.'
New Zealand have never appeared so well-united as they do currently. 'Individually and collectively, under Brendon McCullum's astute leadership, they seem a formidable lot.'
If Prime Minister Narendra Modi fails to live up to the expectations that he has raised, it will be entirely his fault. He should have started by ending the IAS
The Enforcement Directorate has managed to sniff out over Rs 9,000 crore as suspected haul from money laundering in a decade, but it has yet to link those against anyone successfully in a court.
The Election Commission has a fight on its hand as candidates use ingenious methods to smuggle in money to Voters.
'Muslims are depressed and disillusioned.' 'The safety valve is that we still have a multicultural mosaic in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.'
'Muslims, like people of all other faiths, are quite comfortable with the idea of nationalism and democracy today. But are they following Islam in its spirit? That is a different question.'
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his historic visit of the United States of America, here's a look at some landmark visits by Indian prime ministers to the United States of America.
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.
'Vietnam has become an adjective as well as a verb -- the Americans, for instance, were driven by the passion to do a 'Vietnam' on the Soviet Union when that country invaded Afghanistan in 1979.'
20 years ago this day, May 11, 1998, India conducted its second nuclear test at Pokharan in Rajasthan. In a fascinating interview on Rediff.com, K Subrahmanyam revealed how Indian PMs reacted to nuclear ambitions.
"Each soldier was my brother in arms.' 'We fought together and achieved glory for India.' 'We fought on with only one thing in the mind -- that that this is a national battle and we must not let the Pakistanis get the better of us,' says Major General Shamsher Singh, who was awarded the Mahavir Chakra for fighting in one of the bloodiest battles the Indian Army has ever waged.
'India and China have to make concrete progress with regard to the border issue, addressing the trade deficit, and facilitating people-to-people interactions. This has to happen in the next two, three years.' China expert Tansen Sen tells Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com how India and China can take their relations to the next level.
Veteran journalist Coomi Kapoor, whose book came out recently, speaks to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com about Independent India's darkest phase.
'If India employed a strategy of a 'thousand cuts', Pakistan will wither away.'
The UPA Government is trying to push through the second wave of airport privatisation before the elections and the controversial elements of this process threaten to harm the sector.
Like China, India needs to encourage 'hacker clubs' in view of the challenges of virtual terrorism, says Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd)
'If one observes a common man passing a church or gurdwara or dargah, he instinctively bows his head. It is this prevalence of polytheism that has ensured that monotheists and minorities flourish in India. This may sound preposterous in wake of the recent communal clashes in Muzaffarnagar. But it must be understood that in a county of over one billion people that was at worst an aberration,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'In the merry-go-round of Indian cricket, amid abhorrent match-fixing scandals and incessant politicking, Ravi Shastri is a multifaceted personality who, when called upon, can don any hat with ease.'
Once again an Indian prime minister has realised that with Pakistan and China, things will not move as he wishes.
