It is most unlikely that the US would take kindly to Indian claims of having shot down an F-16. There is too much commercial interest involved, says Col Anil Athale (retd).
'The BJP will get the lion's share of the Opposition vote. I would give the Congress-Left around 15 per cent.'
Omkeshwar Singh, Head, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
A special Bangladeshi tribunal on Wednesday sentenced opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party's 83-year-old leader Abdul Alim to jail until death for committing large-scale killings and other war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan.
Like their international peers, Indian CEOs too have a significant portion of their incomes coming from stock options and performance-linked bonuses
'He will be constrained if and when he tries to set the foreign policy agenda that is not to the liking of the army.'
Besides Bhatkal, the others convicted were Asadullah Akthar of Uttar Pradesh, Zia-ur-Rahman alias Waqas of Pakistan, Tahseen Akhthar of Bihar and Aizaz Shaik of Maharashtra. All of them are in judicial custody.
The much speculated expansion of the Uttar Pradesh cabinet will take place on Thursday. Chief Minister Aklhilesh Yadav, who gave indications to that effect on Tuesday, is all set for enlarging the size of his 56-member council of ministers.
Jaswant speak of his new book India At Risk, Mistakes, Misconceptions and Misadventures of Security Policy and explains to Sheela Bhatt why India is at risk.
'A new doctrine now needs to be evolved for a new situation, and the army will do it.' 'You won't see more Kashmiris driven in front of army columns.' 'Nor will the army massacre hundreds, Dyer style,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The plan hinged on two critical assumptions: India would not be able to replenish supplies quickly to launch a counter-attack. India could not respond in enough strength to dislodge the Pakistanis. Both assumptions would be proved wrong due to the ferocity of the Indian response, reveals former RAW officer Tilak Devasher in his new book, Pakistan At The Helm.
'The military in Pakistan is capable and self critical, but intelligence is stuffed full of lifers who resist change, which is why career soldiers in Pakistan try with all their might not to be transferred into the ISI.'
A lot of the terrorism that is affecting Pakistan is really a blowback of the Pakistani state's policy of using jihadist groups as instruments of state policy. And unlike some other countries with similar policies, Pakistan doesn't have the benefit of the political and social space for pulling back from the disastrous course, says Sushant Sareen.
12 security personnel, including three officers, were also injured in the operation at Reasi.
'The only quality required in this tenure is to be the military's yes man and that he has the capacity to do so.'
'This army has lost Pakistan's territory, ideology, financial and intellectual capital, ruined its institutions, democracy, the respect for its passport and, like it or not, reduced its status to a globally acknowledged university of jihad,' says Shekhar Gupta.
There are several books that Aakar Patel wishes were being written but aren't. Fortunately, there's plenty coming up this year that he's eagerly awaiting.
During a war, there are just four possibilities a soldier faces. One: Victorious and safe. Two: Wounded. Three: Killed in action. Four: Prisoner of War. It was my fate to face the fourth, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) on the year spent as a prisoner of war in Pakistan during the 1971 War.
A war hero looks back at the men and the moments that forged India's greatest military victory.
'The combination of the LeT and the ISI is the most dangerous terrorist challenge in the world because it carries a real and present danger of provoking nuclear war.'
'The devious minds across the border will test us to the hilt, but in the course of that will offer us opportunities for which we must be prepared,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd), who commanded the Uri Brigade, the Baramulla Division and the Srinagar-based Chinar Corps.
'While Piyush Goel, Dharmendra Pradhan, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and a clutch of former bureaucrats including R K Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri and K J Alphons are loyal BJP members, none of them fit the mould of party apparatchiks.' 'In fact, many of the latter kind have been shown the door or have been given reduced charges.' 'That goes to show the prime minister's comfort level in dealing with professionals and administrators and the trust he reposes in them,' says Shreekant Sambrani.
Much of Bangladesh was paralysed on Monday by the latest strike called by Jamaat-e-Islami, with two powerful explosions rocking Shahbag Square, the epicentre of a massive campaign demanding toughest punishment for leaders of the fundamentalist party for war crimes during the 1971 war.
Abbasi will run the government until Sharif's brother Shehbaz is elected as member of parliament
'Our biggest problem has been keeping this country together.' 'Nation building is never easy. It is a very difficult task.' 'Even 70 years is not too long a time.'
'People in Pakistan opened their homes and hearts to me because I was an Indian. I didn't feel alien at all and I felt as if I was in my own country.' 'I believe that there is a strong chance that the Taliban can win over Pakistan. In an era of ideological confusion these people (Taliban) thrive.' 'The Pakistani State is an enemy state not just for India but for Pakistan itself. By funding non-state actors, the Pakistani government is destroying itself.' Film-maker Hemal Trevedi speaks on her experiences when filming a documentary on Pakistani madrasas
'The top-most functionaries and destiny-makers of the nation have thrown away the pretensions of statesmanship.' 'They seem to have made a categorical announcement that the next general election will be fought on the solo plank of Hindutva, rather than on good governance, economic development, and employment to youth', says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Pakistan is full of 'religious entrepreneurs' like Hafeez Saeed who poison the minds of the young so that they can be motivated to become terrorists. They work in concert with the rulers of Pakistan. It is a private-public partnership.'
The Bangladesh government on Sunday claimed the attackers who slaughtered 20 hostages inside a cafe in Dhaka in the country's worst terror attack were members of "homegrown" Islamist terrorist outfits and not Islamic State of Syria and Iraq militants.
A prominent lawmaker of the opposition Bangladesh National Party was on Tuesday sentenced to death by a special Bangladeshi tribunal for genocide during the country's 1971 liberation war against Pakistan, becoming the first Member of Parliament and seventh person to be convicted of crimes against humanity.
Chief Pakistan prosecutor in the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, Chaudhry Azhar says the bail will lead to unusual delays in the case. Shahzad Raza reports from Islamabad.
'There is a design of fundamentalists that the north east must become an Islamic country.'
Bangladesh's fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami was on Wednesday sentenced to death by a special tribunal for his role in the killing of thousands of people during the nation's independence war against Pakistan in 1971.
The known unknowns in Prime Minister Modi's Saudi visit assume great significance, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Nawaz Sharif knows a coup in 2016-2017 will not only complete Pakistan's isolation, but even a whiff of instability will frighten the world into imagining another Islamic State-zone, and this in a fully nuclearised subcontinent,' says Shekhar Gupta.
What India has failed to acknowledge is that sub-conventional war is the name of the game and irregular forces have emerged with greater strategic value over conventional and even nuclear forces, and reliance purely on conventional force and diplomacy is grossly inadequate, says Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retired).
If you don't have power in a game you are masters of, the world will walk all over you, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'Small bands of terrorists believe they can destabilise superpowers if they are ready to become martyrs.' 'Since the road to paradise is under the shade of swords, it is a win-win situation for those ready to die for the cause of Allah.'
'Pakistan's negativism should be seen as the reason for India losing interest in SAARC.'
