Colonel Sonam Wangchuk was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra, India's second highest honour for courage, for wresting the first victory of the Kargil War. Leading 40 men, his unit evicted 135 Pakistani troops in a three day battle fought in two feet snow and minus 6 degrees.
'A great General who had become a legend in his lifetime.' 'India will not see the likes of Sagat Singh again.'
The year is coming to an end and overall, it's been one hell of a year! We have had our share of ups and downs and we look forward to a better 2020. While we count down the days to the new year, let's also reflect on those who gave us strength to stand up in what we believe, the courageous who didn't bow down and the ones with gumption who inspired us to be better. We, Rediff.com, have selected 26 personalities, who we think are worthy of the title -- HERO OF THE YEAR -- and we want you, dear readers, to choose your hero!
Claude Arpi salutes Lieutenant General Zorawar Chand Bakshi, India's most decorated general, who passed into the ages recently.
Nirmal Purja is a multiple Guinness World Records holder for quickest ascents of Everest, Lhotse and Makalu.
Borna Coric and Marin Cilic put Croatia in complete control of the Davis Cup final on Friday, leaving hosts and defending champions France facing what looks like mission impossible.
'I had never in my wildest dreams imagined that this could happen to me.'
'Once we are past this electoral season, during which all promises are presented as free lunches, could we bring such non-populist issues into focus?' 'Like fixing the problems of the public sector?' points out T N Ninan.
General Qamar Javed Bajwa, an expert in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir affairs, on Tuesday took over as Pakistan's new army chief succeeding General Raheel Sharif and promised to improve the tense situation at the Line of Control soon.
Cities are setting the rules that now carry life and death implications for their residents, and most of these rules are sought to be set by the municipal authorities who have never wielded such power, reports Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
'While fighter pilots must not be sent into combat in inferior aircraft, an obsessive quest for outright combat superiority will leave an air force short of numbers,' says Ajai Shukla.
Men and women of the Indian Air Force who conducted rescue missions in Kerala's worst deluge speak to Rediff.com's Archana Masih.
8 Thai boys were brought out of the over the first two days.
'Why has the phrase gone missing from Modi's vocabulary?' asks Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The probe into the mysterious disappearance of the Malaysian jet is now looking at the possibility that the plane may have landed somewhere as no debris has been found so far, a media report has said.
'As I went around Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Jaffna and Mannar, my mind went back to my visit in January 1990 at the fag end of the IPKFs mission in Sri Lanka,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
There's no head or tails to anything that happens in Saaho, says Sukanya Verma.
"I am running for HOPE -- Humanity, Oneness, Peace and Equality," says Sufiya Sufee.
After several women were prevented from entering the Sabarimala shrine after the Supreme Court verdict upheld their right to do so, Bindu and Kanakadurga managed the seemingly impossible. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com finds out how they did it.
Austria's Dominic Thiem strained every sinew trying to cling on to the 32-year-old Spaniard and at times even gained a precarious foothold in his first Grand Slam final. But it ultimately proved a futile mission as, just like in all but two of Nadal's previous 87 matches here, the relentless Spaniard proved insurmountable, winning 6-4, 6-3, 6-2.
'If tempers all over the country are so fragile that they can be lost because a couple of film stars give their child the same name as a 14th-century warlord, exactly what sort of compromises can be palatable,' asks Mihir S Sharma.
IAF pilots would no longer have to fly deep into heavily defended airspace to strike enemy bases, they can launch a Brahmos from as far away as 295 km.
'The CAA should be kept in abeyance, without making it a prestige issue.'
'Laying down a clear policy on the future of illegal migrants will dispel anxieties and help in implementing the CAA, NPR and also the NCR,' suggests former Union home secretary Dr Madhav Godbole.
Four top lawyers secretly worked on resolving sensitive legal issues including sending forces on Pakistani soil without its consent.
The 1971 war reaffirmed the importance of inspirational senior leadership in battle and heralded the emergence of a new fighting class amongst officers and men of India's armed forces.
'It was a mission undertaken in darkness in every sense -- literally, because Afghanistan had no electricity at that time; and, metaphorically because Delhi historically dealt only with the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and the foreign ministry's vast archives had nothing to offer on the culture and politics of the northern tribes in the Hindu Kush.'
He was the army commander who planned Operation Bluestar. As army chief he planned Operation Brasstacks which rattled the Pakistan army. General K Sundarji was brilliant, ambitious and controversial, remembers Rahul Bedi.
India's cumbersome arms procurement procedures and a plodding Ministry of Defence bureaucracy have long been blamed for shortfalls in combat capability. Now there is another, more worrying, reason - a growing crisis of funds, magnified by the lack of tri-service coordination.
IMAGES from the French Open semi-finals played at Roland Garros on Friday
Cesc Fabregas and Branislav Ivanovic struck late goals to earn improving champions Chelsea a 2-1 victory at Southampton in the Premier League on Saturday.
Kanika Datta visits the Cu Chi military tunnels -- a testimony to a plucky little country's 30-year war of resistance against, first, French colonisers and, then, the US.
Fourteen photos from events that defined the world in the week gone by.
Though it is a little too neat and a little too light, Rubaru Roshni is important because it is telling us stories of people who have experienced an 'Inner Migration' in their lives, notes Sreehari Nair.
'So what if the enemies take us as prisoners of war? So what of they kill us? I would feel proud that I could sacrifice my life for the country,' say these proud lady officers of the Indian Navy.
'Must every believing Hindu automatically be assumed to subscribe to the Hindutva project?' asks Shashi Tharoor.
'How can Kashmir be demilitarised if the terrorist threat remains and Pakistan continues to incite elements in Kashmir to keep the internal situation unstable?' asks former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
'Since India has to live next to Pakistan, it can't remain under permanent blackmail.' 'A predictable consequence of these fundamental shifts is the fraying of the principle of strategic restraint.' 'It hasn't been junked. But the threshold has been shifted to provide India much greater room for retaliatory action,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'In 2015 I watched films in so many places. I attended several film festivals around the world -- Berlin, Tribeca (New York), Telluride, Toronto, Zurich, Mumbai, Dharamsala and Goa,' says Aseem Chhabra, author of a forthcoming book on Shashi Kapoor.
Udta Punjab truly soars when being its own madcap beast, profane and powerful and preening.
