India's military prowess and multi-hued images of the country's rich cultural diversity and achievements in various fields were on display at the majestic Rajpath on Tuesday during 67th Republic Day parade which was graced by French President Francois Hollande as the chief guest.
'General J S Aurora, the commander of the Indian forces in the East, asked General Sagat Singh to withdraw his troops who were on the move to Dacca -- but he refused.' 'He said, "Jaggi, over my dead body".' 'Therefore, I say the creator of Bangladesh was General Sagat Singh.'
Admiral Sam Locklear heads the US Pacific Command, making him the most powerful military commander on earth. With 60 per cent of the US Navy under him, PACOM oversees 52 per cent of the planet. Locklear is America's military pointsman for 36 countries, including India and China.
Exercise Tiger Triumph -- a full-scale, tri-service beach landing operation -- is a capability India is seeking to build.
'What we are actually missing in India is a platform wherein the government engages with cybersecurity experts, gets them employed and then utilises their capability to deter such attacks.'
The allocation in the defence budget is inadequate to meet India's long-term threats, especially from China and Pakistan, says Gurmeet Kanwal.
The majestic Rajpath saw a scintillating display of India's military might as the country celebrated its 69th Republic Day on Friday, with the leaders of all the 10 countries of the ASEAN attending the parade. Take a look here.
As counter-terrorism operations at the Pathankot air base continued for the second consecutive day, the Union government on Sunday said it was unsure if more terrorists were still holed up.
'A conventional war is not in fashion today and not seen as being able to deliver the objective.' 'Perhaps surgical strikes that are deeper, this time not on Pakistan's terrorist facilities, but on Pakistan army facilities.' 'The nation has to be prepared for losses.' 'War is not something that can be pussyfooted around.' 'If we go for limited number of posts in Kashmir, these are very difficult posts to capture and very difficult operations.' 'Be prepared for 200 to 300 killed.'
'Inept handling by the National Security Advisor transformed what should have been a short counter-terrorist operation in Pathankot into an apparent debacle.'
'The Chinese can't be trusted hence the need to verify and re-verify.'
'What has changed is the desperation of Pakistan proxies and the separatists in their failure to foment violence and civilian casualties in Kashmir.'
'Pakistan's recent utterances and tendency to use pinpricks to try our patience appear reminiscent of 1965. We are a strong nation, emerging stronger,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (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.
A war hero looks back at the men and the moments that forged India's greatest military victory.
The US has all along interfered in India-China issues. The objective is clear: Bring the Sino-Indian standoff to a flashpoint that would compel Modi government to take shelter under an American umbrella, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The fighter plane has been untraceable since Tuesday.
Water levels have started receding in Srinagar and telecommunication has been restored in parts of the city after it faced the worst floods in decades.
'Had they struck on the night of the 1st, there would have been hell to pay and had they been able to sneak further in, we would have had a greater problem,' says Lieutenant General H S Panag (retd), the former Northern Army Commander.
India must break out of this strategic triangulation between China and Pakistan. We need to settle our issues with one of the two, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'What should worry India and which needs to be expressed is Russia's simultaneous proximity to both China and Pakistan from a strategic angle. That hasn't happened ever before,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'This is what we train for: That one chance to deliver a blow so lethal that the enemy will constantly think about it when planning any misadventure.'
'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).
'If you destroy the assets in Pathankot, you degrade the combat potential of India; you degrade the war potential of India.'
'It will be a repeated folly to ever think that China will not attack us.'
The NIA on Tuesday summoned the caretaker of a shrine in Punjab which a superintendent of police rank officer had claimed to have visited before being kidnapped by terrorists who attacked the Pathankot Air Force base hours later.
Every demand of the armed forces remains essentially anchored to 1964 and its fulfilment or otherwise largely a function of money availability
Given how the armed forces struggle to attract talent, they cannot rule out hiring half the population, says Nitin Pai
'Why has the rhetoric gone down on the Indian side, Durrani wondered aloud.' 'I said because almost total normalcy and peace had returned on the ground in Kashmir,' recalls Shekhar Gupta. 'The general gave me that career spook's laser look. And he said: "That situation on the ground can change in no time".' 'This was precisely when the Pakistanis began their first incursions into Kargil.' 'Durrani had been retired for five years.' 'But once the ISI boss, you are always in the know.'
The entire gamut of China's activities is aimed at keeping India on tenterhooks, cause fatigue to its troops and keeping its security system unstable, so that it cannot play a meaningful role in international geopolitics as an effective partner of the US and Japan, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Over 1,42,000 people have been rescued from the flood-ravaged parts of Jammu and Kashmir so far, as the relief operations launched by the Armed forces entered the 12th day on Saturday.
'India's military posture has become significantly stronger than China's on the 3,500-kilometre Line of Actual Control.' 'This is enhancing confrontation between the two sides,' points out Ajai Shukla.
The mortal remains of the nine Siachen bravehearts, who were buried alive on February 3 in an avalanche in the world's highest battlefield, were on Monday brought to New Delhi.
'We need to be in a perpetual state of aggression, and able to swiftly change the goal posts to keep Pakistan in a state of imbalance,' argues Sanjeev Nayyar.
'A stronger response on the border, some action needs to be taken against Pakistan from where the terrorists come, and finally what needs to be done is to calm Kashmir down,' Lieutenant General D S Hooda (retd) -- the Northern Army Commander under whose watch the Indian Army conducted the 2016 surgical strikes -- tells Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
'We owe our existence to the men in uniform, and we owe it to them to cleanse the armed forces by driving away every bit of corruption that eats into it,' argues Sudhir Bisht.
The Border Defence Cooperation Agreement with China needs closer scrutiny, says Rup Narayan Das.
Even though the Health Ministry and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have been insisting that there is 'no solid evidence' of community transmission so far, the government has started scaling up health infrastructure to deal with any situation.
On display was India's military might and cultural diversity.
'New Delhi showed itself willing -- at least for a period -- to tolerate the risk of conflict and to withstand Beijing's implicit and explicit threats.' 'But it also continued to try to cut some kind of deal with China to reduce tensions.'
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