I tried to reason in my mind that wouldn't beating Pakistan again and again -- in the league matches and in the knockouts if they made it -- be a better tribute to our martyred soldiers? A revealing excerpt from Vinod Rai's Not Just A Nightwatchman: My Innings In The BCCI.
'If the series of instances in the recent past are taken into account -- guns falling silent on the border; vastly reduced cross-border infiltration into J&K; positive approach to meeting Indian demands on the Kartarpur Sahib pilgrimage; resumption of overflight for Indian aircraft; visible disinterest in rhetoric and so on -- Commander Jadhav may see better days in a conceivable future,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India and Indians can ignore Pakistan, but that cannot be said of other nations in the neighbourhood, where New Delhi's 'Neighbourhood First' policy constantly reverberates. Four of the eight SAARC member-nations are Muslim -- Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives. The rulers decide the nation's India or anti-India policy in the first two, and street-opinion contributes to the same in the latter two, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Pakistan's 'approach is one of getting even, an eye for an eye, or death by a thousand cuts.' 'The entire effort is to be the equal of India. Unfortunately, the reality is that this can never be the case.' 'India will always be the bigger, economically stronger, technologically more self-reliant country.' 'Therein, lies the dilemma Pakistan faces which leads it to perennial enmity with India,' notes Ambassador Gautam Bambawale in the Air Marshal Y V Malse Memorial Lecture 2019.
'Banning Bollywood films will mean a paucity of content to keep the multiplexes and theatres running profitably.'
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.
'Under National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval and now Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, India began to actively work on Pakistani internal faultlines with a possibility of the break-up of Pakistan as the only solution,' observes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Former India wicketkeeper-batsman Farokh Engineer has urged Pakistan's captain-turned-Prime Minister Imran Khan to use his political clout and restore bilateral Test cricket between the arch-rivals.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's phone call to Trump will help restore a degree of sanity to Indian statecraft and diplomacy, notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The two NSAs, who have been mandated to address mutual concerns on terrorism, will need to devise credible and irreversible measures to see that the likes of Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar do not ever get a free hand to run riot again,' says Ambassador G Parthasarathy, India's former high commissioner in Pakistan.
'The attack on the Pathankot base constituted an act of war. Yet Modi's only public comment up until now on that attack has been to blame it on "enemies of humanity".' 'Modi came to power talking tough about Pakistan. But in office, he has pursued a Pakistan policy that has lost both direction and purpose,' argues Brahma Chellaney.
'Nobody is going to fight India's war.' 'India has to fight its own war against the rogue State and the evil forces nurtured by it.'
'The Pakistani move to ban militant outfits and placate international opinion and Islamabad's openness to a UN security council resolution on Azhar -- instead of beseeching China to cast yet another veto -- enables Islamabad to occupy the high ground,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Pakistani officials handed over Varthaman to Indian officials, including from the IAF, at the Attari-Wagah Border.
'But an overthrow of the Afghan government would really embolden regional militant groups in a big way.' 'LeT and JeM could be emboldened, and prompted to replicate in Kashmir what the Taliban did in Afghanistan.'
General Singh said the army was ready for any exigency anywhere in the country.
'Whichever way you look at it, it is a blow to the JeM and to the Pakistani army in general; the attack has taken place in mainland Pakistan and not in PoK.'
Former CIA operative Bruce Riedel on the Uri attack and its aftermath. Exclusive to Rediff.com
"The world's eye is on Kashmir and on Pakistan...I will be the ambassador who raises Kashmir's voice at every international forum," he said.
While Prime Minister Modi may pursue the laudable aim of building a cooperative relationship with Pakistan, he and his advisers should never think that concessions (and dialogue is a concession in itself) will change the Pakistan army's approach to India, says Vivek Katju.
'The Pakistan army feels it can inflict a similar defeat on India in Kashmir and make it "India's Bangladesh".' 'But comparing Bangladesh of 1971 with the Kashmir valley of 2017 is like equating chalk and cheese!'
'The challenge before the two countries is to turn the peak into a plateau and enter an irreversible phase of cooperation,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Listing Masood Azhar as a 'global terrorist' was done with Islamabad and Imran Khan's concurrence.' 'It was not prompted by the so-called 'Wuhan spirit'.' 'The relationship between the two 'iron brothers' has not been dented,' points out former RA&W officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
In his latest response to his Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry's fresh invitation of August 19 for talks, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar once again emphasised on the need for earliest possible vacation of Islamabad's illegal occupation of PoK and conveyed that not just India but the larger region is aware that Pakistan is actually a "prime perpetrator" of terrorism.
'If a 'two-front war' develops, Iron Brother may only turn out to be a drag on the PLA, since Pakistan is in no position to wage a war with India,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The Modi government's pusillanimity vis-a-vis Pakistan makes almost certain that India will, in the coming weeks and months, be confronted with cross border terrorist actions of increasing intensity,' warns Satish Chandra, former deputy national security adviser.
AITA likely to request ITF to consider neutral venue for Davis Cup tie vs Pak
The fact that known terrorists like Hafiz Saeed and Syed Salahuddin have been able to hold huge rallies in Pakistan's main cities is a reflection of the state of affairs in Pak, said India.
'India should be able to weather the storm, given its enhanced standing among the major powers. However, India's international clout is partly from its rapidly growing emerging economy and a large and expanding commercial market. 'If the Indian economy continues to slow and protectionist barriers advance, then our international clout will also diminish. The international fallout from bringing the Valley to heel may be more difficult to handle,' says Shyam Saran.
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).
This is the first time since the Pathankot terror attack that the country's top security czar has spoken about India's strategy in dealing with terror, says Rajeev Sharma.
'They will not escalate and bring India-Pakistan close to war.'
'Modi has said he has been made the PM of India not to do small things but big things. What bigger thing can there be than to have peace with Pakistan and in the neighbourhood?'
'If India does venture across the LoC, it will evoke a strong response.'
After receiving the United States backing on the issue of terrorism emanating from Pakistan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will meet Nawaz Sharif in New York on Sunday when he is likely to ask him to rein in terror elements operating from their soil and unleashing violence in India.
After days of speculation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confirmed he would meet his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif in New York, when he is expected to convey concerns over "barbaric" incidents on the LoC and continued terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
'Indira Gandhi proved herself a great war leader, but failed as a statesman,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have secured a rare concession from Pakistan that 'terrorism' and not the issue of Kashmir be the central theme of the India-Pakistan dialogue.
'If the Chinese military gets hold of some western sectors on the India-China boundary, it will give them added military advantage.'
This is for the first time the UNHRC has issued a report on the alleged human rights violations in Kashmir and PoK.
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