This is a challenge India's political establishment will have to face unitedly, without looking for electoral benefit, warns Vir Sanghvi.
He also said that terrorists are constantly finding new ways to carry out violence, radicalise youth and raise financial resources and the darknet is being used by terrorists to spread radical content and conceal their identities.
'It is a testing time for our foreign policy which may involve a certain element of taking risks, assessing costs, and expecting failures,' asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
The Taliban have the ISIS in its crosshairs. The Taliban has shown the skill to assimilate extremist elements if they are reconcilable as well as the ruthlessness to eliminate troublemakers, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
The case pertains to hatching a conspiracy, both on physical as well as cyberspace, for undertaking violent terrorist acts in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country, by cadres of Pakistan-based proscribed terrorist organisations.
The US intends first to cripple the Afghan government financially through sanctions, freezing of assets, denial of access to international banking, etc, and then proceed to do pretty much what it wants to do with scant regard for Afghanistan's sovereignty, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'We can't be outliers. We can't be bystanders. We have to be players.' 'The Taliban also need India to balance the winners in this game.'
America's Central Intelligence Agency has taken its war against Taliban and the Al Qaeda from the mountainous Af-Pak border region to the bases in Pakistan's Peshawar and Quetta cities, a media report said on Thursday. The report by the New York Times said that the agencies that have previously shared a 'tormented relationship', are now working on the several reconnaissance missions together.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday underlined the threat posed by the 'Do it Yourself' breed of terrorists who gain information in bomb-making and suicide attacks over the internet to perpetrate terror acts.
India has told the United Nations General Assembly that it is high time the international community called on Pakistan to take 'effective and irreversible' actions against terror outfits operating on its soil, asserting that Islamabad should not take the 'high road of morality' which is only laden with mines of falsehood.
Exclusive documents obtained by the Pakistan daily The News and from law enforcement officials tasked with the responsibility of eradicating the 'Daesh' in Balochistan and Sindh revealed that the terror group has also spread its tentacles into tribal dominant Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province as they have been recruiting young Afghans living in refugee camps.
'What needs to be pursued as the operations progress is a degree of reconciliation amongst the other parties, less the more orthodox Al Qaeda affiliates.'
The Sikhs, especially in Punjab, are already angry and frustrated, cautions Shekhar Gupta.
Asserting that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has become the most well-funded terrorist group in recent memory, two top American senators have urged the Obama Administration to label the outfit as a 'Transnational Criminal Organisation', a designation given to Hezbollah.
'Pakistan will leave no stone unturned to keep Kashmir on the edge and put the entire blame on the Government of India if there is any untoward incident,' says Brigadier Narender Kumar (retd).
The government has initiated a series of steps to check the spread of the Islamic in India, including the launch of a counter-radicalisation and de-radicalisation strategy.
Beijing's growing assertiveness as kingmaker in Kabul has suffered a setback with Washington quietly moving in, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Barack Obama administration apparently believes that Pakistan has discarded its use of ISI-sponsored terrorist groups to foment its strategic depth strategy vis-a-vis India in Afghanistan, and has told Congress that Pakistan has also re-deployed its troops from the Indian border to its border with Afghanistan to meet the internal terrorist threat it faces.
'Russia's interest lies in boosting Pakistan's grit and capacity to withstand US pressure,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India's Lovlina Borgohain reflects on her victory over former World champion Nien-Chin Chen in the Olympics 69kg bout on Friday.
The Corps Commander, who heads the army in Kashmir, was replying to a question about the possibility of the Islamic State forging an alliance with the militant outfits like Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad for expanding its activities to the valley.
Non-BJP chief ministers are retaliating. If the Centre can use its agencies to threaten, intimidate and jail its rivals, so can they. The fightback will get more intense, observes Shekhar Gupta.
62-year-old Fai, who last week in a US court pleaded guilty to the federal charges of being an ISI agent, said in a statement that meeting these Indian officials was part of his strategy to communicate with New Delhi.
India is apprehensive about the Taliban's return as it would mean loss of access to Baluch rebels and help to the restive tribals of Waziristan. This would be a setback to the Indian strategy of returning the compliments of death by a thousand cuts to Pakistan, notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'For every act of terrorism on Indian territory for which there is credible evidence pointing to the Pakistan army and the ISI's involvement, carefully calibrated military strikes must be launched against the Pakistan army,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Unless each attack drone can be neutralised, India will be literally deploying elephants to stamp out ants -- and the ants may still survive! points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Concerned over reports about increasing number of armed militants across the India-Pakistan border to cross over to the Indian side, Army's top commanders have called a meeting in Jammu on Monday to review and chalk out a fresh strategy to foil their attempts."There are reports of mounting terrorists' concentration across the International Border in launching pads, waiting to cross over to Jammu and Kashmir," Defence Spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel S D Goswami said.
United States President Barack Obama will on Wednesday announce the strategy to tackle the threat posed by the Islamic States, earlier known as ISIS, the terrorist outfit which has gained control over a large part of Iraq and Syria, and has brutally killed two American journalists in the recent past.
The Western powers appear to regard Delhi as the most logical destination in the region in these extraordinary times -- as a counterpoint to the ascendance of political Islam and a rising red star over Afghanistan, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The alacrity with which regional States responded to Delhi's invite signals that expectations are high regarding an Indian role in the efforts to stabilise the situation in Afghanistan, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'A resurgent Jaish could be a reflection of the Pakistani security establishment's view that with the region moving ever closer to a post-US Afghanistan, it is time to redirect attention to Kashmir.'
'The worst case scenario for Pakistan is a full-scale Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.' 'Pakistani militants would be inspired and emboldened and seek to replicate the Taliban's successes in Pakistan.'
'Throughout the nearly 20-year US-led war, State sponsorship from Pakistan has been a constant.'
"The political stars never quite aligned but a solution similar to the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement, with a soft border allowing locals to travel freely from one part of Kashmir to the other, will have to be the outcome of any peaceful solution," he noted.
Violations from the Pakistani side along the Line of Control have become a common recurrence, and according to sources in the Intelligence Bureau, some peace can be expected only after Pakistan Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani retires next month.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked by US Congressmen if the US had explore the possibility of northwest India for counter terrorism capabilities in Afghanistan. Blinken's remarks on India assume great importance, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
On January 1 in 2018, violence erupted at an event to mark 100 years of the Bhima-Koregaon battle, leaving one dead and several injured, including 10 policemen.
Blaming Pakistan for sponsoring terrorism in India, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said the neighbouring country is providing shelter to Dawood Ibrahim and the mob boss is currently staying along the Pak-Afghan border.
