'If India employed a strategy of a 'thousand cuts', Pakistan will wither away.'
'At 1.58% of GDP, the defence budget is one of the lowest since the Chinese aggression of 1962.' 'The government of the day has lost sight of the fact that defence of the country is as important as its growth,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
'We must look at the entire question of military preparedness anew, taking into account the new realities,' says Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
'Definitely, they are going to attempt this, not only in Kashmir but elsewhere, maybe in the Jammu area and beyond.' 'They would want to expand the battle space and the conflict area.'
Oil prices were poised for a third day of gains following a rise of more than 4 percent last week after Islamic militants seized much of northern Iraq as Baghdad's forces there collapsed.
A sub-inspector of the Andhra Pradesh's counter-Maoist force was posthumously awarded the Ashok Chakra, the highest peacetime gallantry award of the country, as India celebrated its 65th Republic Day on Sunday.
'Worryingly, intelligence assessments indicate that growing disaffection amongst the youth is ceding ground to fundamentalist Islamist groups like Islamic State,' reports Ajai Shukla.
'There is simply no evidence of any new or clear policy direction in internal security, and mounting evidence of policy incoherence.' 'Worse, the promise of giving the common man -- and, more importantly, woman -- a greater sense of security has been utterly belied. Indeed, with an escalation of communal posturing and rhetoric, there is a broader sense of uncertainty,' says Ajai Sahni.
'In order to achieve Pakistan's psychological isolation and pariah status, breaking all cultural, economic and people to people contacts must become a government policy with clear linkage to a change in behaviour by the Pakistani regime.'
Important for Chinese President Xi Jinping will be Zhao's discussions on the issues of Tibet and the Dalai Lama and his assessment of the likely results of India's coming national elections, notes former senior RA&W officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
'The ideal of justice is ingrained in every human being.' 'I truly feel that if we empower our forces, the rich and the powerful will lose their hold on them.' Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand in an exclusive interview.
Unimaginative increments, persistent refusal of funds have turned the military into an underfed child scared to ask for a full meal.
WWhat Pakistan faces in the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan is virulent insurgency and terrorism, fuelled by its association with Al Qaeda
The government's leaks to the media and General Singh's very vocal comments on the charges against him have played right into the hands of separatists and their cross-border sponsors, says Nitin Pai
'Our defence services are in a position to checkmate any Chinese adventurism.'
'Other countries go out on a limb to save even a single life.' 'What to talk of civilian accidents and disasters, even our military does not have a priority for Combat Search and Rescue,' says Group Captain P I Muralidharan (retd).
'The only effective defence against a suicide attack is 'pre-emptive' destruction of the attacker,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'At an altitude of 5,000 metres, the levels of oxygen in the blood of a healthy soldier would be similar to that of a patient with a severe lung disorder at sea level.' 'While such patients are admitted to ICUs, confined to bed and treated with continuous oxygen therapy, the soldier at 5,000 metres with similar levels of oxygen in his blood performs intense physical activity and fights the enemy!' BharatShakti.in founder Nitin Gokhale reveals the ordeals that await soldiers when they are posted to the Siachen glacier.
Can Modi and Obama forge a common outlook on international terrorism?
C Christine Fair, an acclaimed Pakistan expert who teaches at Georgetown University rebutted some of the common perceptions of Pakistan.
'Terrorism is merely a symptom of a deeper disease in Pakistan's body politic,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
One thing Beijing must understand is that India is not obsessed with being a threat to China but only wants a rightful place for itself in the world, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
'We should hit Pakistan, continue to prepare for surgical strikes, continue to punish Pakistani posts in the proximity of the LoC and we should start adopting counter terrorist measures.' 'That should be India's action without escalating it to a full-fledged war.'
'We should expect a cold-blooded, transactional relation that requires a lot of engagement and mutual trust to sustain,' says Constantino Xavier, Fellow, foreign policy, Brookings India.
'He is still compulsively an operations man. Just a whiff of a live operation, and he is back in the field, at least in his mind. That is why the immediate decision to send the NSG to Pathankot.' 'But there is a difference between classical intelligence or counter-terror operation and dealing with a larger threat to a place as sensitive and sprawling as an air force base. This is what led to confusion and mix-ups,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Tripura's popular chief minister shows up the failures of the elitist central leadership of India's Left, says Devesh Kapur
India should not have a large bilateral military training program in Afghanistan in the future because that would predictably exacerbate tensions, says Director of research, Brookings Institution Michael O'Hanlon.
'The Army must always be balanced in response.' 'Rabble rousers will demand that it be given a free hand against anti-national elements in the streets. That is exactly what the adversaries want.' 'Burning the Kashmir Valley through the summer is their desire; the Army will never contribute to enhancing their aim,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd), who served as the General Officer Commanding 15 Corps in Kashmir.
'The situation is in real danger of swinging back to the fearful days of the 1990s, primarily for want of a well thought out action plan in New Delhi.'
'Tying somebody to the jeep is not the military way, but the officer was able to come out of the situation without any bloodshed.' 'I am not supporting him, but I am also not criticising him.' 'He had to use some mechanism to save the uniformed personnel, many of whom were Kashmiri boys of the J&K police,' points out Lieutenant General D B Shekatkar (retd), who was instrumental in the surrender of a record 1,267 terrorists in Kashmir.
'There were assurances that Jaish-e-Mohammad was being reined in as was the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, but Pakistan's security forces could not risk opening too many dangerous new fronts,' notes former foreign secretary Ambassador Shyam Saran, who has just returned from a visit to Lahore.
'If you destroy the assets in Pathankot, you degrade the combat potential of India; you degrade the war potential of India.'
'I believe Modi mentioned Balochistan only to embarrass Pakistan and also divert attention toward the situation in Kashmir.' 'I think from now on, India intends to raise Balochistan whenever Pakistan brings up Kashmir or upsets them on the issue of terrorism.' 'Balochistan is the least developed of Pakistan's four provinces. It is the least educated and least economically developed. People are agitated that a region so rich in mineral resources and a sea-port is still so poor.' Baloch political analyst Malik Siraj Akbar on why the province wants freedom from Pakistan.
'Actually, the RSS is deeply ambivalent and uncomfortable with Gandhi as well as also Ambedkar, but it is not politically wise to oppose these two.' 'So Nehru is the main and only target.'
'We have never had a policy regarding Pakistani artistes working in India.' 'We welcome them with open arms and that remains the official policy of the Indian government, including the current dispensation.'
Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore and Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com travelled 650 km in Chhattisgarh's Sukma and Bijapur districts to report on the situation that exists 11 days after the Burkapal ambush, where 25 CRPF troops were killed by the Maoists.
Despite a lot of lip service to national unity, functional relations between the Han Chinese immigrants and the Uyghur regional majority have not developed on equitable basis, says R Hariharan
'The new generation voter is hyper-nationalistic, but it isn't essentially illiberal.' 'They will find the rants of Adityanath as laughable as Irfan Habib's. They will also find the BJP's polarising approach to vote-gathering unacceptable if it fails to deliver jobs and growth,' says Shekhar Gupta.
But the US will sell F-16 aircraft to Pakistan to fight 'terrorists.'
The United States on Monday assured India that its concerns over Taliban insurgents gaining legitimacy without severing their terror links will neither be "overlooked or undermined" during the talks with the Islamic fundamentalist group.
