Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, on Tuesday addressed senior defence commanders in New Delhi in the wake of a deteriorating security scenario in the South Asian region, especially in neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan.
China appears determined to upgrade Pakistan's military capabilities, sufficient to ensure local parity with India, alerts former foreign secretary Ambassador Shyam Saran.
We have nothing to gain by raising our concerns internationally as our narrative has got entangled with several controversial concepts in the United Nations, asserts Ambassador T N Sreenivasan.
'Every decision India makes along the LoC, it must also consider implications along the LAC.'
After the 1962 War with China, there was a demand to forge greater defence cooperation between India and the West. One such voice was that of Sudhir Ghosh, a distinguished MP, to tie up strategic cooperation with the USA immediately after the Chinese attack on India, recalls Rup Narayan Das.
The ministry of external affairs also seemed to reject Trump's forceful comments that Washington brokered the understanding between India and Pakistan on ending their four-day military conflict.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US Vice President JD Vance have expressed satisfaction with the progress made in negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement. The two leaders met in New Delhi and discussed a range of bilateral issues, including cooperation in energy, defense, strategic technologies, and other areas. They also exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual interest.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United States President Donald Trump on Monday vowed to work towards a 'trusted' partnership with a focus on boosting India-US cooperation in areas of trade, energy and defence in their first phone conversation since the American leader's inauguration last week.
'The strategic direction of the relationship will not be affected. But the perception has been affected.'
Access to India's defence market must be made conditional -- available only to those who are ready to make a long-term commitment in India, argues Ajai Shukla.
'For weeks, months and years, it would continue to be debated if India should have pushed the early advantage and decapacitated Pakistan militarily.' 'India refused to bite the provocatively proverbial bullet and escalate it into a full-fledged war,' notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
>The Indian Army still uses old British-era names and recruits soldiers based on caste or region, which hurts national unity, argues Colonel K Thammayya Udupa (retd).
Several US companies, including McDonald's, Walmart and Facebook parent company Meta, have ended or scaled back their DEI programmes since Trump was elected in November last.
United States President Barack Obama has signed into law the annual defence policy bill, authorising $633 billion (Rs 34,40,355 crore) in defence spending for 2013.
The Supreme Court of India has made public the asset details of its judges, including Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna who has Rs 55.75 lakh in a fixed deposit, a three-bedroom DDA flat in south Delhi, and a four-bedroom apartment measuring 2,446 square feet in the Commonwealth Games Village. The court has also uploaded the complete process of appointments to the high courts and the Supreme Court on its website for public awareness.
Introducing the bill, Rijiju said the consultation process of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) was the largest ever exercise carried out by a parliamentary panel in India's democratic history.
Last year, the country's defence budget was $175 billion.
During the talks, India and the US decided to take a big leap in broad-basing their strategic ties in several critical areas.
In an eventful week ahead, stock market investors will take cues from major events like the US Federal Reserve's interest rate decision, the upcoming Union Budget and Q3 earnings, analysts said.
Amid escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, the US has said it will not get involved in the conflict, stressing that it is "fundamentally none of our business." While acknowledging concerns about a potential nuclear war, Vice President J D Vance emphasized that the US cannot control India and Pakistan, but can encourage them to de-escalate. The US has also reiterated its support for direct dialogue between the two countries and encouraged efforts to improve communications.
'If Pakistan has fired one bullet at us then we have to respond by firing 10 bullets at them. It is our right to do so.'
In a year bookended by intractable conflicts and geopolitical fragmentation, India focused on ramping up military prowess by broadly firming up defence procurement worth Rs 4.22 lakh crore even as Indian and Chinese militaries completed pulling back their troops from border face-off points in eastern Ladakh.
An upcoming book by investigative journalist Chitra Subramaniam claims that senior Indian bureaucrats "tutored" Bofors officials in a secret meeting in 1987 on how to absolve then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of all blame in the infamous bribery scandal. The book, "Boforsgate," details how the meeting was held to cover up the alleged Rs 64 crore bribe in a Rs 1,437 crore deal for Howitzer guns, and how Indian officials provided advice on concealing information from investigators. Subramaniam's revelations are based on documents provided to her by the Swedish head of police investigating the Bofors case.
President Donald Trump is expected to sign a series of executive orders fulfilling campaign promises, including declaring an emergency at the southern border, addressing a national energy crisis, and defining sex-related policies. The orders aim to address immigration, national security, and energy independence, with a focus on reversing policies implemented by the previous administration.
Singh made the remarks while addressing a "CEOs' Roundtable" at the 14th edition of Aero India at the Yelahanka Air Force station complex on the outskirts of Bengaluru.
The move came against the backdrop of Turkiye backing Pakistan and its condemnation of India's strikes on terror camps in the neighbouring country and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir under Operation Sindoor.
In a significant move, state-run oil producer Oil India Limited (OIL) has finished drilling its first well in the Andaman sea while Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has just started drilling operations in the area, said officials.
On Thursday, the Chinese military published its ICBM launch photos, shedding its secrecy.
The defence ministry has eased rules for rolling out mobile towers, optical fibre and other telecom infrastructure gears in its area in line with the "Right of Way (RoW)" Rules notified by the Telecom Ministry in 2016. A copy of the new rules uploaded on Gati Shakti Portal on Thursday replaces "shared communication tower and other telecom infrastructure to extend communication network in military station/cantonments" issued in February 2018. As per the new rule, "... any application received for installation of under/overground telecom infrastructure of defence land shall henceforth be processed in accordance with the Indian Telegraph Right of Way Rules 2016 (as amended from time to time) formulated by the Department of Telecommunications" with some additional conditions.
Terrorism and insurgency in J&K had subsided when India demolished East Pakistan -- for the simple reason that Pakistan understands power. We need to follow Chanakya's dictum of Saam, Daam, Dand, Bhed for strategising against Pakistan, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd). The ground truth is that unless we are prepared to acknowledge our shortcomings, including massive intelligence failures, punish those responsible and take corrective actions, we will continue in the same vein, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd).
rediffGURU Rohit Gupta, co-founder and COO of College Vidya, provides a list of competitive exams that can help you land a job in the public sector.
The key platforms that India has been exporting are Dornier-228 aircraft, 155 mm Advanced Towed Artillery Guns (ATAGs), Brahmos missiles, Akash missile system, radars, mine protected vehicles, armoured vehicles, Pinaka rockets and launchers, ammunition, thermal imagers and various components of avionics and small arms.
In 2020 India was compelled by China to change its national security strategy. From counter-insurgency, which the army has been focussed on for years, we shifted to conventional war, observes Aakar Patel.
'A less tense US-China relationship would make Beijing less likely to provoke India -- including on the border -- in retaliation for its close defence ties with the US.'
'Countries like Israel said openly that they will hunt people down. We have no such policy.' 'We have always been following the legal process of getting them (people wanted by India) through extradition.'
The new law, effective from January 1, weakens the role of the State Council, China's Cabinet headed by Premier Li Keqiang, in formulating military policy, handing decision-making powers to the Central Military Commission (CMC), the overall high-command of the two million-strong People's Liberation Army (PLA) headed by Xi, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Sunday.
'We should not just react when a terror attack happens on our soil.' 'Our approach should be continuous and a launch pad should be destroyed the moment it comes up.'
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
Posing a series of questions to the prime minister, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh also asked if Modi would convey to the US president that India would send its own aircraft -- like Venezuela and Colombia did -- to bring back Indian deportees in the future.
