India on Thursday completely rejected as "baseless and unsubstantiated" allegations levelled by Pakistan against eight officials of the Indian high commission in Islamabad and strongly protested the manner in which their names and photos were published, compromising their security.
'Overlying his idealism was a hatred of war and of all things military. He gave no deep thought to politico-military matters and this prevented him from making sound security decisions.'
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the nation on the eve of 72nd Republic Day.
If Indian PM boycotts the CHOGM, it is likely to add to Sri Lanka's bitterness. This would not help India's desire to add more depth and content to its relations with Sri Lanka but its ability to influence Sri Lanka's decision making process on the both strategic issues and on Tamil minority issues, says Colonel (retd) R Hariharan.
In his last column for Rediff.com, Praful Bidwai joins issues with those lauding India's covert operation against Naga rebels based in Myanmarese territory.
Blaming state actors in Pakistan for making attempts to destabilise India, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said the neighbouring country has not abandoned its efforts to harm the country through "various tactics".
The tragedy is that, at least on social media, the narrative that was being lapped up by many Indian Muslims was that Yakub Memon was being victimised. The purveyors of this poisonous line of thinking of course want this sentiment to grow since communal polarisation is the primary pillar of their political strategy, says Sushant Sareen.
Describing Iran as a "danger" to world peace, Israeli President Shimon Peres has asked India not to remain "neutral" to Iran's "aggressive attempt" to become a forceful hegemon in the region.
"God forbid if they (militants) would have done something. It would not have been possible to have smooth conduct of the elections," Sayeed said.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
Sandeep Singh Dhaliwa stopped a vehicle with a man and woman inside and one of them got out and shot him "ambush-style".
Snooping is one of the oldest peccadilloes of man, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Only he, with his tremendous political capital and personal stature, can pull it off, observes B S Raghavan, the veteran civil servant.
'The bloodthirsty rhetoric of chicken-hawk TV anchors are the worst contributors to Kashmiri alienation.' 'If this implacable hatred is the authentic voice of India, Kashmiris argue, who can hope for peace?' asks Mihir S Sharma.
'This Chinese behaviour we have not seen for a very long time.' 'This sort of build up on the border, this pattern in Chinese behaviour, and especially the aggression and brutality with which our people were attacked on the 15th of June, this is not something we have seen before.'
The government and the farmers must come back to the negotiating table with only the interest of the country in mind, suggests Vivek Gumaste.
Chennai Super Kings players took to social media to express their disappointment a day after the Board of Control for Cricket in India was forced to shift the franchise's remaining home fixtures to Pune in the 11th Indian Premier League owing to the ongoing Cauvery water dispute.
'Unquestionably, the spirit behind the Panchsheel agreement and the 'Hindi Chini bhai bhai' slogan were thrown overboard by the Chinese, and a trust deficit was injected between the two nations.' A revealing excerpt from General J J Singh's The McMahon Line: A Century Of Discord.
Sounding an alert in the state, Parkash Singh Badal said it was time that the Centre dealt with terrorism with an iron hand.
'Given the present force levels, India cannot fight and win.' 'India can't hope to terminate the conflict on India's terms and impose the nation's will upon the adversaries,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
In this weekly self-help series, mental health and life coach Anu Krishna tells you how to take control of your life.
The Indian Army on Saturday said the announcement of the ban on Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa by Pakistan were "good moves" but the effect of these steps needs to be gauged on the ground.
'If the NSCN-IM is cold shoulderd, the chances are that it will slip back into insurgency,' caution Sandeep Pandey, Meera Sanghamitra and Babloo Loitongbam.
'The return of violence in Kashmir justifies government precautions, but risk has to be taken.' 'We need to act and ensure that risk is converted to gain through direct interaction with Kashmir's public,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'No one needs to lose sleep if a person with better operational credentials supersedes lesser endowed peers,' says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
Sandhya Ravishankar describes the thorny relationship between the two political titans of Tamil Nadu, M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa, both now part of the ages.
Expressing concern over the recent incidents of communal clashes, President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said the country has not learnt lessons from the history and same "tragic mistakes" are being repeated.
The official cited it as an example of 'how the Chinese military is trying to resolve issues through dialogue mechanisms'.
'Beijing is comfortable with Hasina's pragmatism -- perceived as 'pro-India', but staying out of Indian orbit and receptive to forging close ties with China and yet, siding with neither neighbour,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
He said he wanted to tell those who damaged public property "not to forget that rights and duties go hand in hand".
As disputed South China Sea witnesses increased Chinese influence, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Monday pitched for India's "active support" to peacefully resolve all disputes and sought its greater linkages across the region.
On his PIL, the SC had in 2013 directed the Centre and the states to set up a Civil Services Board to decide on transfers of officers.
Arvind Kejriwal is poised to return to power with a simple majority. Even if the BJP wins 20 to 25 seats, it will be seen as a victory, says R Rajagopalan.
Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Science, claimed that India is provoking China because it wanted to prove to the United States that it could contain China while Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in the US.
In this weekly self-help series, mental health and life coach Anu Krishna tells you how to take control of your life.
A Nedumudi Venu character was happiest when moving his head to a piece of music with his eyes closed; or, when inventing off of a note that a co-actor had left unfinished; or, when reciting a poem by Kavalam Narayana Panicker where a hymn about nature descends into a musing about cheating, depression and death, feels Sreehari Nair.
'Vajpayee was the first prime minister to visit the battlefield at the height of conflict,' recalls Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
It will not be to India's advantage to create misperceptions that it is bandwagoning with some Anglo-American project for regime change in Myanmar, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The problem here is not that one community's deity has suddenly become another community's meal.' 'Hindus and Muslims have been peacefully coexisting with their cows for centuries now.' 'The problem here is that a section of Indians has been suddenly made to realise that it makes great political sense to degrade each one of the 170 million Muslims to a potential cow-killer, lynch a few of them to keep the heat on, polarise and win elections.'
'Any conventional conflict could trigger a nuclear war with results that neither India nor Pakistan could survive easily.' >A revealing excerpt from Shuja Nawaz's The Battle For Pakistan: The Bitter US Friendship And A Tough Neighbourhood.
