Dr Anthony Fauci has been named as Chief Medical Adviser to the President on COVID-19, while Dr Rochelle Walensky has been named as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith as COVID-19 Equity Task Force Chair.
Here are highlights of the 68th Republic Day parade.
Chiefs of Army Staff in India have not been tactful about politicians. But they have stayed clear of politics, reports Aditi Phadnis.
Indian Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag on Saturday said the attack on Uri camp in north Kashmir's Baramulla district was a desperate attempt by militants to disrupt the democratic process in the state.
The clear assertion by New Delhi came ahead of a fresh round of Lt General-level talks between the Indian army and the Chinese PLA which government sources said is set to take place within the next two days.
The Chinese military is now desperately attempting to give "ex post facto strategic meaning" to its actions in eastern Ladakh.
The joint statement said Jaishankar and Wang agreed that both sides should take guidance from the series of consensus reached between leaders of the two countries on developing India-China relations, including not allowing differences to become disputes.
'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.
The marathon fourth round of Lt Gen-level talks also focussed on steps for pulling back large number of troops and weapons from rear bases along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.
'The Chinese can't be trusted hence the need to verify and re-verify.'
The army on Sunday ordered a Court of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on 16 Cavalry camp in Samba on September 26 in which its four personnel, including a Lt Col, were killed and two others, one of them a Colonel, injured.
Four heavily-armed militants were killed by security forces in Keran sector near the Line of Control in north Kashmir's Kupwara district.
By jettisoning the seniority principle, the government has sent a strong signal that only merit and suitability will count in occupying posts in the higher echelons of the military, writes national security expert Nitin Gokhale.
If Imran Khan delays his assent to General Bajwa's recommendations any further, it could imply he is taking stock of possible serious dissent within Pakistan's top army echelons, says Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan Desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
'The Indian government wakes up after the fact when it can do nothing, or rather lacks the will to prosecute military actions to reverse these adverse PLA-driven developments.'
Modi is courting Japanese investment in an ambitious industrial "corridor" to run between Delhi and Mumbai.
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).
The Army operation against the holed up militants in Keran Sector along the Line of Control in Kashmir on Sunday entered the 13th day with intermittent gunfire being exchanged.
The terror infrastructure across the Line of Control has the potential to vitiate the security environment in Jammu and Kashmir and Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act should not be withdrawn as it is a "strategic imperative" until the US' pullout from Afghanistan in 2014, Army Chief, Gen Bikram Singh, has said.
The authorities urged the people to maintain peace and tranquility and do not allow the miscreants to create any trouble in their respective areas.
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.
The government must figure out what the Chinese game plan is and thwart the endgame before it is upon us, possibly in early winter, advises David Devadas.
'It is ironic that General Rawat, an infantry officer who the government chose because of his expertise in counter-insurgency, has made his first bold statement in the realm of warfighting and mechanised operations,' points out Colonel Ajai Shukla (retd).
A massive combing operation was underway on Friday to track down insurgents in areas of Chandel district of Manipur where 18 army jawans were killed and 11 others injured in an ambush on Thursday.
'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.'
During the course of the intense and complex negotiations between senior commanders of the two armies that ended at 2 am on Wednesday, the Indian delegation also apprised the Chinese PLA about the "red lines" and conveyed that the onus was largely on China to improve the overall situation in the region, the sources said.
The attack on the Balochistan Police College, 20 km from Quetta city began around 11:10 pm on Monday night, triggering an operation by Pakistani security forces who rescued hundreds of cadets from the academy.
After the Ladakh fiasco where Xi Jinping did not expect the Indian Army to resist his land-grabbing tactics, he has to save face before his colleagues in the Communist party.' To bring the threat of a mega-dam to the northern Indian border is a clever move, observes Claude Arpi.
He said both sides reaffirmed to sincerely work towards complete disengagement of the troops along the LAC.
At war, the Jalashwa can carry and launch a full infantry battalion in a single wave. At peace, the Jalashwa can evacuate 1,000 people in a single trip. Ajai Shukla explains why the Indian Navy's new tender for more ships like the Jalashwa must be treated with special urgency.
An army jawan was killed on Tuesday night when Pakistani troops opened fire at Indian forward posts in Balakote sub-sector along the Line of Control in Poonch district in what is stated to be the second ceasefire violation of the day and the eighth in less than a week.
Bravery of the wives of two army officers who were staying in the family quarters helped in averting a major hostage crisis during the encounter that took place in Nagrota area of Jammu on Tuesday.
The Indian army said that while the infiltration bids were foiled, it has also inflicted heavy damage to several Pakistani posts across the Line of Control in Poonch sector.
'Overlying his idealism was a hatred of war and of all things military. He gave no deep thought to politico-military matters and this prevented him from making sound security decisions.'
'The idea that the J&K issue gets internationalised by allowing foreign delegations to visit it appears bizarre to me because the issue is not about Article 370 or the decisions relating to the abrogation, but more to do with the post decision handling,' notes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
The bodies of two terrorists had been recovered on Sunday.
General Naravane's UAE and Saudi Arabia visits communicate India's long awaited arrival in the domain of integrated foreign policy where the diplomatic and the military domains both complement each other much more substantially, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
The Indian Army on Tuesday said that it was moving ahead with 'unprecedented speed to initiate investigation' in the Chattergam firing incident in which two youth were killed and two others critically wounded on Monday evening.
Defence sources had said possible 'action plan' was also discussed about how the Army can respond to the attack.
Every demand of the armed forces remains essentially anchored to 1964 and its fulfilment or otherwise largely a function of money availability
