'We can expect heightened belligerence from China.'
India displayed its military might and vibrant cultural heritage on Rajpath on Wednesday with the grandest flypast with 75 aircraft to mark the 'Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav' celebrations being the highlight of the 73rd Republic Day Parade, which was drastically scaled down in view of the Covid pandemic.
Xi Jinping's recent actions in South Asia have amply demonstrated the disastrous impact of China's embrace, observes Jayadeva Ranade, the retired senior RA&W officer and China expert.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the first in-person summit of the Quad leaders in Washington on September 24 that is expected to broadly focus on contemporary global challenges including ways to ensure a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.
The funeral will take place on Thursday with full military honours, army sources said.
'The feeling is growing that if India slips in the realms of liberal tenets, it will be a tragedy not only for the country, but also for the world because it will lose a remarkable role model,' notes Amulya Ganguli.
'The adversary will always exploit India's anti-national elements.'
As Myanmar refuses to accept that the boat-loads of refugees abandoned at mid-sea are its people, claiming instead that they are from Bangladesh, the plight of the Rohingyas has worsened, reports Prakash Bhandari from Dhaka.
'There is no point in just saying, 'hum wapas bhej denge (we will send Kashmiri Pandits back)'.'
'There is a design of fundamentalists that the north east must become an Islamic country.'
The Indian Navy has a big role to play in support of our strategic objectives in the Indian Ocean. The increasing Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean is a matter of concern and need to be factored. Hence, the requirement of an Aircraft Carrier is a foregone conclusion, asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
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.
'The committing of the SFF into operations in Ladakh is a signal from New Delhi of how seriously it takes the Chinese intrusions and the lengths India will go to in combating them.'
American help in defending our independence will send a strong signal to the Chinese, argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Air Superiority that we held from the Second Day of Operation 'Cactus Lily' helped our Armed Forces to speed up operation 'Jackpot' to seize East Pakistan and force Gen Niazi and the Pakistani Army to lay down their arms on 16 December.'
'Ladakh is a tiny salami-slice issue.' 'The big one for China is Arunachal Pradesh, more than 83,000 sq km.' 'Do they imagine they can grab any of this by force?' 'In the 21st century, nursing those thoughts only means you need to get your heads examined.' 'It isn't going to happen,' declares Shekhar Gupta.
'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.'
'How does relief in the form of citizenship to a persecuted Hindu in Bangladesh put the citizenship of an Indian Muslim in danger?', asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
'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.'
Chances are any such disruption will not occur on the major shipping lanes but on some edge of the ocean between India and China. Even if there is no actual disruption, the costs of averting one can be punitive. The setting for this is provided by the energy shortage both countries face, says Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
'At this moment, the Trinamool has an edge.'
'India serves itself poorly with its latter-day discovery of Pakistan as an instrument in domestic politics,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
'They were the leaders of my country and the children of Mother India, but they didn't die as martyrs.' 'They were killed, most unfortunately, by a well planned enemy plot, and they were victims of political violence,' states Sudhir Bisht.
Few people know Ratan Tata as well as R K Krishna Kumar does. Widely perceived to be among the managers closest to Tata, Krishna Kumar assesses Ratan Tata, the man and business leader, in this exclusive interview to Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
'Indira Gandhi, it appears, did not to consult her Cabinet colleagues, or diplomats, or civil servants when she decided to sign the agreement in Shimla.' 'We ruefully recall Bhutto's perfidy and the Indian prime minister's gullibility,' says Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
'Under National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval and now Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, India began to actively work on Pakistani internal faultlines with a possibility of the break-up of Pakistan as the only solution,' observes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The one thing India has over these two States, whose toughness awes us, is our ability to embrace diversity with ease. 'The way ahead lies in learning from Vajpayee's method, not in Xi Jinping's,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Nobody is going to fight India's war.' 'India has to fight its own war against the rogue State and the evil forces nurtured by it.'
'New Delhi's rulers should be alert to lighting a dangerous tinderbox,' warns Sunil Sethi.
The Hindu right-wing body in its mouthpiece taunts "liberals" protesting the Dadri lynching incident, asking what exactly is their idea of India.
We love a leader who oozes authority and firmness, notes Virendra Kapoor.
Tarun Vijay, MP, salutes the General whom he adored as a great friend.
'The Chinese -- up to the highest leadership -- will avoid a conflict because they know they will be badly licked.' 'The reputation they have painstakingly built over the last two-three decades of being a global power will be destroyed.'
When China protested strongly over the August decision on J&K -- not once but twice -- we ignored it. And to compound matters, we simply turned our back and walked over to the 'Quad' alliance with the US, upgrading it to ministerial level, and thereafter began following the American footfalls on Taiwan and COVID-19 to taunt and humiliate Beijing, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The so-called separatists are representatives of Pakistan. They get paid from Islamabad for propagating that country's policy and conniving in her ploy of accession of Kashmir to Pakistan.'
Esper also highlighted the 'increased' military cooperation with India and called it as 'one of the most important defence relationships of the 21th century'.
We are spectators who have no voice and no power to influence the giant changes being imposed on all of us, says Aakar Patel.
'We don't know what the reasons were that we gave back the Haji Pir Pass which was strategically very important. Today the entire infiltration into Kashmir takes place from that area. If we had retained that post that we had captured, things could have been different.' 'A lesson we need to learn is if you start losing the gains of war at the negotiating table, they become a disincentive for future wars,' says Lieutenant General D B Shekatkar (retd), reviewing the lessons from the 1965 War.
'Why is the RSS trying to destroy the indigenous culture of Assam and its language?' 'If these migrants settle in Assam, they will overwhelm the 47 per cent of people who speak Assamese.'
