'The adversary will always exploit India's anti-national elements.'
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.
It currently has between 140 and 150 nuclear weapons in its control and stockpiled around 200 to 300 kilogram of plutonium.
'Given this dissonance between India's age-old multicultural tenets and the anti-minority temper of the present times, it cannot be easy for the BJP to maintain its balancing act to convince the world that all is well,' observes Amulya Ganguli.
'No amount of economic measures or prosperity in Kashmir will make any dent in the situation there. The average Kashmiri understands the Pakistani game and is unlikely to prefer Pakistan over India. But the Pakistanis have made clever use of religious symbols and slogans to force religious-minded Kashmiris to support them. India has failed to counter this posturing by the separatists,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
China dismissed the reports as groundless.
'Nehru's inability to take religion seriously as a category led to serious errors of judgement in his dealings with the Muslim League, and later, also with the Hindu right.'
Modi's hardline policy towards Pakistan and J&K has created numerous leverages and bargaining positions that New Delhi can bring to the bargaining table and translate into concessions, argues Ajai Shukla.
For the first time in our political history, Pakistan has become centre stage of the incumbent's campaign, points out Shekhar Gupta.
He also participated in the 1947-48 war against Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir. He was a founder Instructor of the National Defence Academy during 1949-51.
A number of Congress leaders across the country have gone against the party's stand in Parliament on abrogation of the provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution in Jammu and Kashmir by supporting the Centre's move and a bill to bifurcate the state. The Congress has strongly opposed the move and the bill to bifurcate the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories.
'India is not going to accept whatever the Chinese say. That is not going to happen.'
'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).
An economist from J&K and a popular face from the RSS/BJP sat together to craftily weave an alliance in what is one of the most difficult agenda-setting exercises in recent history.
'India needs offensive and defensive security measures to protect itself.'
Hasty, ill-conceived steps show how isolated Mamata Banerjee had been from the national political trend. A fascinating excerpt from Sugato Hazra's Losing The Plot: Political Isolation Of West Bengal.
Separatists and their wide network must be neutralized for peace in the Valley
As and when the pandemic recedes from these shores, rebuilding the economy will be the biggest challenge for Modi in the remaining three years of his term, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Here's the full text of President's Ram Nath Kovind's address to the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament on the first of Budget Session 2022.
'If the virulence of COVID-19 has muted the toxicity of the BJP's communalism, it will be an example of good coming out of the pandemic,' notes Amulya Ganguli.
Participating in an online session, a panel of Hindu-American women, from different walks of life, expressed their strong views in favour of President Trump.
'Ladakh is a tiny salami-slice issue.' 'The big one for China is Arunachal Pradesh, more than 83,000 sq km.' 'Do they imagine they can grab any of this by force?' 'In the 21st century, nursing those thoughts only means you need to get your heads examined.' 'It isn't going to happen,' declares Shekhar Gupta.
The report did not name the leader but said it was addressed by the "supreme commander" of the organisation, a title with which Hizb Chief Sayed Salauddin was referred to by the outfit.
Armed forces and the police can only ensure that violence is kept under control but for any kind of lasting peace, politicians will have to find an answer to the perception that the Indian State is anti-Islam. Therein lies the biggest challenge to the Modi government, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retired).
The cases are related to gunning down of Indian Air Force personnel and the Rubiya Syed kidnapping.
'Where should shudra-OBCs go because of whom the nation is surviving?'
The Pakistan high commission has invited Kashmiri separatist leaders for consultations with Sartaj Aziz ahead of the National Security Advisor-level talks with India in New Delhi next week.
'The NIA has shared with states concerned a list of 125 suspected activists who have close links with the JMB leadership'
Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who is accused of masterminding the Mumbai terror attacks, on Friday said the only solution to resolving problems between India and Pakistan is the 'liberation of Jammu and Kashmir', failing which radical groups will resort to the 'option of Jihad'. Addressing a gathering of about 10,000 people at the Mall Road in Lahore to mark 'Kashmir Solidarity Day', Saeed said this is the message he would convey to Home Minister P Chidambaram.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought a special rehabilitation package from the Centre for the flood-ravaged state.
While they were invited with protests at Geelani's home, they were turned away by Yasin Malik, who was lodged in jail.
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).
Exploiting the killings to ratchet up the tension in the region and harden negotiating positions with the central government serves nobody, least of all the people of Nagaland. The peace process must not be stalled because of this incident or distracted by calls to repeal the AFSPA, argues Vivek Gumaste.
The Supreme Court found enough grounds to order a CBI probe into 1,528 extra-judicial killings in Manipur between 2000 and 2012.
China on Monday dodged a direct response to reports of presence of the People's Liberation Army's troops at a forward post in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and said it "regretted" that the media keeps "popping up" stories of incursions into the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control.
Asserting that there is a large presence of Chinese troops and workers in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, Northern Command Chief Lt Gen T K Parnaik on Tuesday said that China would not like to "interfere" in border conflict between India and Pakistan.
With Azadi's Daughter -- The Journey of a Liberal Muslim Woman, Seema Mustafa chronicles her journey from the violence-ridden 1980s when she covered riots in Assam, Punjab and Kashmir. She says the book heavily borrows anecdotes from her personal life, and presents her views on not only her personal journey but also reflects upon the issues that riddle the Indian Muslim.
The prosecution in the Mumbai terror attacks case on Thursday appealed to the trial court to modify the charge framed by it on the issue of 'waging war against the nation' by arguing that one of the objectives of the conspiracy was to separate Jammu and Kashmir from India. The appeal comes in the wake of the charges framed excluding the prosecution's point that the Mumbai carnage was part of a Jihadi plan to liberate Kashmir.
Indian agencies have been engaged in countering Pakistani cyber-attacks on social media platforms for a very long time. But just like the fight against the coronavirus, only through the active participation of ordinary citizens that this war on fake news can be won, suggets Colonel S Dinny (retd).
Addressing the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting in Parliament House, she also attacked the governor of the state, Bhagat Singh Koshyari, saying he had acted in an "unprecedented and reprehensible manner".
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