India's 40-4 (win-loss) home record in the last decade is awe-inducing but there is an ever-little crack, which is getting more pronounced in the past three years, particularly in the case of star batter Virat Kohli.
Mr Modi might have questions to ask himself on the most formidable strategic challenge before India that he inherited from the United Progressive Alliance: The triangulation between China and Pakistan. The failure to break out of it, or even loosen it a bit, is something to reflect on, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Fastest 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 in Tests...
Captain Sharan and Flight Engineer Anil Jaggia both confirm that the hijackers seemed to know a lot about flying an aircraft. Without help from the ISI or the Pakistan army, it was impossible, points out Utkarsh Mishra.
A powerful suicide blast ripped through a mosque in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province on Friday, killing at least 52 people and injuring over 50 others gathered to celebrate Prophet Muhammad's birthday, authorities said.
Qin, who recently succeeded Wang Yi, had a phone call at the request of Bilawal on January 9, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement in Beijing said on Tuesday.
Since Sunday there have been around 50 such attacks carried out in the province and in one incident in Sibi town attackers targeted an election rally of a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party-backed candidate for the National Assembly in which four people lost their lives and six were injured.
'Islamic State has declared that the liberation of Islamic Xinjiang from China is an objective. Beijing may well find that Pakistan is unable to assist in any meaningful way,' says China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
'They have a fine spin bowling attack and some good players who have done well for a long time.'
Rabada reaches new milestone as Proteas take control over Bangladesh, on the opening day of the first Test against Bangladesh.
The Sri Lanka police on Wednesday said a senior deputy inspector general will head a team appointed to investigate four of its citizens arrested in Gujarat when on an alleged mission to carry out terror activities in India at the behest of the banned Islamic State.
A video of protesters purportedly raising 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans during an agitation held in Pune by the Popular Front of India (PFI) has surfaced on social media, prompting some BJP leaders in Maharashtra to demand strong action against the slogan shouters.
China on Monday expressed the hope that the Taliban will stand by its commitment of establishing an "open and inclusive" Islamic government in Afghanistan and will ensure a peaceful transition of power without violence and terrorism.
All they have said so far is that their handler was going to inform them about the exact location and time of the target after they collected the weapons," he said.
Khan, 71, has been lodged at the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi on account of multiple cases against him.
A senior Afghan interim government official on Monday confirmed that strikes in the Afghanistan provinces of Paktika and Khost along the Pakistan border have taken place.
The Taliban government in Afghanistan is not going anywhere. That being the case, why is the hesitation to establish formal diplomatic relations with the Taliban? asks Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd).
'...to think apna time aa gaya after the 2024 election.'
Bangladesh pacers have also been fortunate to have come under the tutelage of South African great Allan Donald and former West Indian pacer Otis Gibson.
Players from Afghanistan's female youth soccer teams have arrived in Pakistan and will seek political asylum in third countries amid concern over the status of female athletes under the new Taliban government in Kabul.
He attributed the nation's predicament to unseen forces orchestrating decisions from behind the scenes, reducing elected officials to mere puppets.
If the Taliban have proved one thing over these two decades, it is that they are way smarter than their big brother, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'At this moment you cannot give her asylum because if you do, then you are directing public anger against India.'
Priyantha Kumara, the Sri Lankan national, who was lynched by a mob in Pakistan's Punjab province on December 3 over allegations of blasphemy, was buried according to Buddhist and Catholic rites at Ganemulla, a suburb north of Colombo, on Wednesday, December 8.
The Pakistan army is staring at the greatest, scariest, existential threat to its power in their country. This threat has come from a populist riding democratic power, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The ATS, in a brief note, said the four accused, who were arrested from the airport, were Sri Lankan citizens and terrorists of the Islamic State.
Observing that Islamic law is within the framework of Pakistan, the US has refrained from making any comment on the peace deal between Islamabad and a Taliban-linked group for enforcing Shariah law in the Swat Valley.
'By annoying the Arabs and cozying up to Iran, Pakistan may end up losing Arab economic support, annoying the Americans and increase Shia-Sunni tensions domestically,' Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) points out.
IMAGES from Day 2 of the first Test between India and Bangladesh, played in Chennai, on Friday.
Crucial reforms in Muslim personal law, especially laws related to inheritance and adoption, need to be initiated forthwith; historically speaking, without the State's backing, hardly has any reform taken place or allowed to prevail, asserts Mohammad Sajjad.
It said two of the key accused were Islamic State of Iraq and Syria radicals, who used fraudulently obtained "Indian SIM cards and Indian bank accounts" besides "various Indian and Bangladeshi Identity documents downloaded from the dark web (which is accessible only through specialised browsers) in carrying out their nefarious activities.
'If religious scholars and preachers declare suicide attacks as un-Islamic and decree that suicide bombers will be denied an Islamic burial and funeral rites, it may dissuade some would-be terrorists who dream of an afterlife in heaven,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'What we are today witnessing is the final act of the Pakistani army trying to retain its turf,' argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The strikes were concentrated in an area in Pakistan's Balochistan where "one of the largest headquarters" of Jaish al-Adl was located, the report said.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi discussed ways to further strengthen the "iron-clad friendship" between the two countries as the two sides signed five agreements to deepen their bilateral cooperation in various fields, the foreign office said on Tuesday.
Pakistan and South Africa both signed off their Under-19 World Cup campaigns on a positive note with victories on Thursday.
Surat police commissioner Anupam Singh Gehlot identified the arrested accused as Maulvi Sohel Abubakr Timol (27), who worked at a thread factory as a manager and offered private tuition on Islam to Muslim children.
Two of the five Bangladeshi attackers, who hacked to death 20 people at a restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone used to follow three controversial Islamists, including Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Nayek.
The idols of deities at Shri Mari Maata Mandir in Karachi's Korangi area were attacked on Wednesday.
Uzbekistan lives comfortably in several centuries but is also a forward-looking nation, Deepa Gahlot discovers on a visit to this Central Asian country.
