Through its early days to the 1980s, Pakistan sought to expand its sphere of Islamic influence through Afghanistan to Central Asia and got Pakistani citizens recruited in the Afghan government institutions in the 1990s when the Taliban were power. Now, it is looking eastward through India to Bangladesh and Myanmar to establish an imaginary caliphate.
'Nawaz Sharif knows a coup in 2016-2017 will not only complete Pakistan's isolation, but even a whiff of instability will frighten the world into imagining another Islamic State-zone, and this in a fully nuclearised subcontinent,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The next big destination for IS in South Asia could be India. In India, the SIMI-IM network can provide the logistics for an IS staging area, says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
'Modi deliberately chose such unhinged people because they said what he wanted to, but couldn't,' says Aakar Patel.
If the radical Islamic movement had been largely peaceful, Headley would have probably found another way to ensure real life excitement.' 'But I really do believe that his relationship with radical Islam is real. Very real.' 'It was a match for his desires.'
Simultaneous protests were held in several other cities, and are also slated to be held elsewhere in the world, the organisers said.
The draft 'Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage Bill' was considered by the Union cabinet which gave its nod, the functionary said.
We sorted through countless photographs taken around the world to come up with the top photos of 2019. Together these images tell the story of the year -- capturing moments of hope and heartbreak, triumph and tragedy.
A special court in Indore on Monday awarded life imprisonment to Students Islamic Movement of India chief Safdar Hussain Nagori and 10 other activists of the banned group
'No country or society ever prospered or remained secure by marginalising more than one-sixth of its own,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
'We can make all the noise we want to about being a tolerant society, but the reality is in front of us.'
'Many said his visit was very risky. But mercifully, Air Force One has taken off from Delhi without Mr Trump stepping on anybody's toes,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Mufti is much more mellowed, much more accommodating. He knows he is stuck and he knows that he cannot retreat now.'
'The Pakistani defence minister talks of throwing a nuclear bomb on India. And if someone throws ink on your face, you call it violence?'
'The travesty of recent Indian strategic thought is it emerges not from our brains, but from whatever part of the anatomy that secretes the prickliest hormones,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'If you put colour-coded internal security maps of India in May 2014 and now, the picture won't be flattering to Modi.' 'Failures on internal security are now piling up and can break Modi's momentum,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The BJP knows the CAA, combined with a fresh nationwide NRC process, is an idea that's dead on arrival. Where it lives on is as a divisive, polarising instrument as its rivals have to take a position against it and thereby be exposed to the charge of 'Muslim appeasement' again, points out Shekhar Gupta.
A disparate global network of violent fundamentalist Islamic groups threatens India's eastern flank as much as the north and west with a real possibility of these spilling over into our borders, says Shyam Saran.
'India was in no position to wage another war in 1965, having suffered a morale-shattering defeat in 1962. The three services were in the middle of a modernisation and expansion phase and therefore not fully trained or battle-ready.'
'Pakistan is full of 'religious entrepreneurs' like Hafeez Saeed who poison the minds of the young so that they can be motivated to become terrorists. They work in concert with the rulers of Pakistan. It is a private-public partnership.'
The 1965 war teaches us that war by escalation is a real possibility. Despite clear threats, Pakistan never believed that India will ever cross the international border. In the age of nuclear deterrence, this failure to deter Pakistan is the central lesson of 1965, says Colonel Anil Athale (retd).
The country's top security body "concluded that India has committed uncalled for aggression to which Pakistan shall respond at the time and place of its choosing," it added.
'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.
'The original dream of people like Faiz was that Pakistan would be something different from the old India: Progressive, forward looking, democratic (if not socialist), tolerant, diverse and pluralistic.' 'I don't think anyone foresaw the catastrophe that Partition was to become.'
"The timing of the attack, methodology and location are all eerily similar to attacks in the border belt of Jammu," said Abdullah.
'The fabric of democracy is fraying,' says T V R Shenoy. 'It is being attacked not just by terrorists in Kashmir or by zealots in the North-East, but is being ripped apart even in Allahabad, in the Hindi heartland.'
'Even if it is difficult to replicate Bangladesh, India can cause sufficient turmoil in Pakistan to keep it off balance,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The cascade of cordiality on both sides after the Modi-Sharif handshake in Paris was preceded by much planning and even goading from UK, US and Germany.
The outcome of the Bangkok NSA-level talks underscores that Pakistan has got exactly what it wanted -- talks at different levels, talks on Kashmir, talks on mutual concerns regarding terrorism, talks on ceasefire on the border. What if any has been India's gains remains unexplained, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Indian-Americans can make a "significant difference" in helping first ever woman United States presidential candidate Hillary Clinton break the ultimate glass ceiling.
Expelled BJP ideologue Prof Hari Om speaks to Pervez Majeed.
Under the draft law, triple talaq in any form -- spoken, in writing or by electronic means such as email, SMS and WhatsApp -- would be bad or illegal and void.
'If chutzpah nationalists brought the Babri Masjid down, chutzpah secularists did precious little to stop it from being torn down.' 'If chutzpah nationalists ensured carnage in Gujarat, chutzpah secularists allowed Muzaffarnagar to become their next hunting ground.' 'Chutzpah secularists readily banned SIMI, but dragged their feet when it came to banning the Bajrang Dal.'
"We should safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and achieve full unification of the motherland. This is the aspiration of all Chinese people. This is also in line with fundamental of the Chinese nation," he said in an apparent reference to Taiwan which China claims as part of it.
.jpg)
Throughout a quarter century of proxy war, India has shown tremendous restraint in the face of grave provocation. It is inconceivable that any other nation would have refrained from launching trans-LoC operations to eliminate terrorist training camps and interdict known routes of infiltration, says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'We are on the world map. Every country is watching this event.'
Agencies like the Tauheed Jammat have been set up in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana to radicalise the youth and recruit them to carry out terror activities in other countries. Vicky Nanjappa reports
In a major breakthrough in the mysterious car crash incident at the iconic Tiananmen Square here, Chinese police on Wednesday termed it as a terrorist act by Islamic militants from the troubled Xinjiang province and arrested five suspects.
The action against the Lucknow passport officer was a hasty reckless decision taken by an establishment playing to the gallery to appease the pseudo-secular elite of the country, the Lutyens Delhi lobby intent on discrediting the Hindu identity, and an action that blatantly violated the basic tenets of justice, argues Vivek Gumaste.
Thirteen assailants were shot dead on Saturday by Chinese police after they rammed their explosive- laden vehicle into a police station in a suicide attack that injured three officers in the restive Xinjiang province.
