Seeking to downplay the visa row with India, Chinese experts have said that military ties between the two countries are strong and powerful and will not be "compromised" by incidents like Beijing's refusal to permit a top Indian Army officer to visit the country.
'We should build a military with the capability to fight today's war on priority -- balancing it with the requirements of the future,' says Lieutenant General Anil Chait, one of the Indian Army's most cerebral thinkers who recently retired as chief of the Integrated Defence Staff, in his agenda for the new defence minister.
Amid assertions by the Indian army that infiltration in Keran sector was backed by Pakistani troops, Islamabad on Tuesday said blame game is not the solution to any issue and insisted it too wants a ceasefire along the Line of Control.
Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan alias Karuna, who was the eastern commander of the LTTE before he fell out with Prabhakaran in 2004, and Daya Master, who surrendered to the army recently, were taken by the government to Puthumatalan to identify Prabhakaran's bullet-ridden body. "The body is of Prabhakaran's, there is no doubt about this," said Karuna, now a federal minister
An alleged Pakistani intruder was killed on Monday when an improvised explosive device he was carrying exploded during an encounter with security forces along the Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.
Official sources said withdrawal of tanks and other armoured elements from certain friction points is nearing completion while pulling back of troops from the North bank areas is being undertaken.
There have been more than 60 ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops along the LoC and IB in the state since surgical strikes against terror launch pads by the Indian Army in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
'Tibetans will participate in future conflicts with India (in all probability, some were already present in Galwan).' 'As nobody in India would like to have a deadly fight with Tibetan soldiers and officers, the issue needs to be closely followed,' observes Claude Arpi.
'The Chinese fault lines are tremendous and we need to exploit them.'
China and India have agreed to work to maintain peace along the Line of Actual Control and resolve the border standoff through talks while implementing the consensus reached between the two countries' leadership that 'differences' do not escalate into 'disputes', a top Chinese official said.
A preliminary internal assessment has concluded that the three-member suicide squad had chosen the Samba-based armoured unit with deliberate care, since a Cavalry or armoured unit is normally not as adept at counter-insurgency operations as an infantry unit, reports RS Chauhan.
For the first time in the last 26 years, a shutter of the Cheruthoni Dam was opened on Thursday.
Once Mazar-i-Sharif falls, some isolate pockets of resistance may remain, which the Taliban would tackle through political work or coercion, asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra were posthumously awarded to Major David Manlun and Major Satish Dahiya, who lost their lives while fighting with terrorists in Nagaland and Jammu and Kashmir.
Vice Admiral Raman P Suthan and the commanding officers of INS Rana and INS Ranjit met Chinese North Sea Fleet Commander Rear Admiral Su Shiliang and Qingdao Vice Mayor Zeng Aimin.
Arms and ammunition including two AK-47 rifles were recovered from the slain militants.
This time army killed 1 terrorists along the Line of Control in Gurez sector.
China has not limited the 'battle' to the diplomatic field alone; the People's Liberation Army has become aggressive on the ground too. The recent 'fights' in Northern Sikkim and Ladakh are part of the pattern, asserts Claude Arpi.
In his first media interaction after assuming the position of the CDS, Rawat also said that his focus as the CDS will be to integrate the efforts of the three services and to work as a team.
Terror infrastructure intact despite quake: Indian Army
'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.
At least 200 people were killed and more than 1,300 others injured today as a powerful 7.5- magnitude earthquake -- the strongest in 10 years --rocked Pakistan, sending severe shock waves as far as Punjab and PoK.
Twenty-two British and French trekkers, stranded in high altitude Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir following heavy downpour, have been rescued by Indian Air Force personnel in the past two days.
Lashkar spokesman Abu Huzaifa said the charge by Indian security agencies is 'fabricated and baseless'.
The first priority for the new Tibetan administration in Dharamsala should be to look at Tibetan recruitment in the PLA, suggests Claude Arpi.
A senior Indian Army official said on Monday that terrorism levels in Jammu and Kashmir had reduced tremendously and that 70 per cent of the terrorist leadership had been decimated.
Director General of Police S P Vaid said that Burhan Wani's successor Sabzar Ahmad Bhat is among the two terrorists killed in the encounter in Soimoh area of Tral on Saturday morning.
'The first clear cut call for 'engagement with all stake holders including separatists' came, not from the political class but the men in uniform,' points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished observer on Kashmir.
'There is hope that in the next 48 to 72 hours there will be some kind of movement forward to de-escalate and not heighten the tension.'
"I congratulate all Indian citizens on the occasion of Kargil Vijay Diwas. The sacrifices made by soldiers, which helped us win the Kargil war, will always be a source of inspiration for the armed forces," Rajnath Singh told reporters after paying the tributes.
'The potential of one such LAC engagement going out of control and leading to heavy casualties cannot be ruled out,' warns Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
At least 27 people were reported dead on Friday after Malian commandos stormed the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako with at least 170 people inside, many of them foreigners, that had been seized by Islamist gunmen.
Under the India-China agreement on the disengagement process in eastern Ladakh, the Chinese army will pull back its troops to east of Finger 8 areas in the northern bank of Pangong lake, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said in Parliament on Thursday, in what is seen as a significant step to dial down tensions in the key face-off site.
'The ISI is bound to exploit narcoterrorism.'
Scotland Yard's War Crimes Team, which is part of its Counter-Terrorism Command, has launched an investigation into the role of British mercenaries in fighting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in Sri Lanka during the 1980s.
An army jawan was killed and two of his colleagues were injured when militants triggered an IED explosion targeting a patrol team along the LoC in Akhnoor area of Jammu district, a senior army official said on Monday.
Pakistan perceives that if it had declared Gilgit-Baltistan, PoK or both, which are only a part of the territories of J&K, as legitimate provinces of Pakistan it would weaken its case for the entire J&K and lead to legal complications, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'The government is doing away with crucial laws such as the Forest Conservation Act and the Environment Protection Act which had helped safeguard our forests.' 'The President has to show that she will stand in favour of tribal rights.'
This is the second such incident of mutilation of the body of an Indian soldier on the LoC since October 29.
There is no conceivable reason for any big power to put road blocks on the path of an India-Pakistan normalisation process, asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
