The contribution from the President will be used to procure units of PAPR (powered air purifying respirator), which are state-of-the-art equipment to enable medical professionals breathe during surgeries and protect them from infection, an official communique said.
'In Eastern Ladakh the Chinese attempted salami slicing.' 'Our response has been superb. Our military has responded magnificently.'
Fourteen years after they last met, the directors general of military operations of India and Pakistan on Tuesday held an over two-hour-long meeting at the Wagah border to ease tensions and ensure peace on the Line of Control.
'All this talk of 'tactical nuclear weapons' or a limited nuclear war are 'false flags'! It looks like India and Pakistan are slowly but surely inching towards this realism,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Will India extend their run to make it 8-0? Or will Pakistan be able to snap the streak?
'For me, he's the brother and friend I lost so early.' 'It is like a part of me has been amputated.'
The Chinese have only created limited defences for protection of their posts which are located well in depth and much away from the Line of Actual Control, notes Colonel S Dinny (retd).
'Vajpayee was the first prime minister to visit the battlefield at the height of conflict,' recalls Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'China has forcibly occupied territory it had never occupied before, blocked Indian patrols' access to areas they had patrolled for decades and, most provocatively, killed 20 Indian soldiers.' 'Most countries would regard these as acts of war.' 'New Delhi has apparently taken off the table the option of evicting the PLA with force,' observes Ajai Shukla.
Singh paid tributes to soldiers killed in the Kargil War at a memorial in Dras sector.
Discussion on the two bills could not take place as Opposition members continued to stage protests demanding a discussion on the Pegasus snooping allegations and the farmers' demand of repealing the three new agri laws.
Tharoor's statement came just ahead of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA)'s a crucial decision on whether India should play Pakistan in the 2019 ICC World Cup in the wake of Pulwama terror attack.
'We can expect heightened belligerence from China.'
'What has India got out of Howdy India in substantive terms?' asks Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf has said that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's efforts to make peace with India at the cost of 'selling Kashmir' had resulted in the 1999 Kargil war.
Brigadier M P Bajwa (retd), commander of the troops that captured Tiger Hill, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih how a band of young soldiers won the Kargil War's most famous battle with their blood and grit.
'War is won by team work. War is won by sacrifices,' says Subedar Sanjay Kumar, Param Vir Chakra.
'It will be a repeated folly to ever think that China will not attack us.'
The army has long been deficient in artillery, the modern battlefield's most lethal killer, says Ajai Shukla.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi may soon visit Indian army's forward posts in the Siachen glacier, the highest battlefield in the world, during his tour of Ladakh.
'When economic policies were attacked by people on his own side, he went ahead despite all the criticisms in the coalition, within the party and the Sangh Parivar.'
'The Pangong Tso lake is frozen from September-October to February-March. The windchill factor is phenomenal. The night temperature goes to minus 40. The area is like a barren desert. You are out in the open with no trees or bushes to take cover.'
'The Ladakh Scouts are a fantastic mountain troops suited to this terrain.' 'Other troops have to first get acclimatised, but these men are tough mountain people.'
Twenty one years ago, the Indian Army and Indian Air Force fought a bloody and bitter war to evict Pakistani intruders from the icy heights in Kargil. Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd) salutes the lesser known heroes of the Kargil War.
'We have not had one discussion on the border incursions or the subsequent report of the building of Chinese villages on Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh.'
Army personnel deployed in icy heights like Siachen and Kargil now can look forward to munch mutton and chicken biryanis or non-vegetarian sandwiches with all nutrients and taste attached, thanks to the efforts of a leading food laboratory.
Archana Masih recalls that December evening 22 years ago when Atal Bihari Vajpayee logged into the Rediff Chat.
'Windows shook and rattled, and the thunderous growl of the engines doused even the sound of our noisy helicopter till such time the plane had lifted itself into the skies and disappeared from view.'
Raminder Singh Jassal, India's deputy chief of mission in Washington, DC, has been appointed the Ambassador to Turkey. Jassal succeeds Chitra Narayanan, daughter of former President the late K R Narayanan, who moves as India's envoy to Switzerland
President Ram Nath Kovind presents the President's Colours to the Ladakh Scouts Regimental Centre today, August 21. These are normally presented to units that distinguish themselves consistently over decades. The Ladakh Scouts became a regular army regiment only in June 2001 after its stunning performance in the Kargil conflict, notes Ajai Shukla.
Major General Sujan Singh Uban, a legendary veteran of the Second World War, was a natural choice to raise, train and command the Special Frontier Force and mould them into a well oiled fighting machine, recalls his son Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd), who led SFF troops during the Kargil War.
Leh assembly constituency has set up a polling station at Gaik village which has only 12 registered voters.
'Kargil was Pakistan's strategic blunder. India must remain on guard against such sinister operations being launched in future by Pakistan's vengeful and devious military leadership that continues to have a hate-India mindset and the mentality of primitive warlords,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'The idea that the J&K issue gets internationalised by allowing foreign delegations to visit it appears bizarre to me because the issue is not about Article 370 or the decisions relating to the abrogation, but more to do with the post decision handling,' notes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
The LCH can provide our soldiers fire support in 15,000-16,000 feet-high contested areas like Depsang, Galwan and the heights north and south of the Pangong Tso, where Indian soldiers are facing off against Chinese intruders.
'It is my duty to tell them about the brave soldiers who gave their lives for our land.' 'The free air of freedom that we breathe is because of men like them.'
Bill Clinton says he firmly rejected Pakistan's pleas to mediate on the Kashmir issue at the height of the Kargil crisis because India objected to third party intervention.
'Captain Haneef-ud-din, pulling his sinewy body forward, crawled, rifle in hand, in the snow on 6 June 1999. He died on this craggy mountainside exactly two years after he had passed out of the IMA...'
The Russian origin aircraft, now capable of effecting mid-air refuelling, is compatible with latest missiles and can launch multi-dimensional attacks.
