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.
A US RC-135S reconnaissance aircraft on Wednesday flew near the ongoing Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) drills in the South China Sea, a day after another US spy plane, a U-2, trespassed into another PLA exercise restricted zone, state-run Global Times reported.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday reviewed the functioning of security grid at a high level meeting in winter capital Jammu following the twin militant attacks on Thursday that left four army personnel including a lieutenant colonel, four cops and two civilians dead.
The IMD has also issued a red-coded warning alert to the Odisha and West Bengal coasts.
'There are major implications for India. Though there was a transparently thin attempt to project the troop reduction as intended to promote peace, the downsizing is actually part of plans to streamline and strengthen the PLA, capable of defending China's national interests at home and abroad,' says Jayadev Ranade.
'If one puts the context of what Xi Jinping said at the UN about not wanting a 'hot or cold war with any country', one realises that his speech was quite bizarre.' 'The world does not expect such statements from China, a nation aspiring to be a superpower.
There are more questions than answers about the Indian Army's Keran operation, says R S Chauhan. Was the infiltration bid not detected because the army had vacated two old observation posts, he asks. Why did the infiltrators decide to stay put and fight once they were detected? Were the infiltrators Pakistani Special Forces?
As per the agreement reached by the two sides, India and China will withdraw the forward deployment in a phased and coordinated manner, the defence minister said.
Seeking to strengthen mutual trust between their armed forces, India and China are planning to hold exercises between their navies and air forces also in the near future.
We do not know, because there has been no discussion, no transparency and most likely no real thinking on this matter at our end, observes Aakar Patel.
Here's a glimpse of all that happened around the world last month, in 20 images.
The Indian Army on Monday celebrated the Infantry Day, marking the landing of first batch of troops in Kashmir 67 years back to push back Pakistani troops, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi paying tributes to the martyrs who dedicated their lives to protect unity of the country.
The sortie had to be executed in good weather and in sub-zero temperatures, which meant it was to be accomplished by mid or third week in May before the earth heated up and the monsoon clouds made things difficult.
With flood waters receding, the armed forces have stepped up its rescue operations in Jammu and Kashmir
'The one aspect which no Indian military thinker would wish to see emerge is a LoC type of posture at the LAC.' 'The LoC is manned for 750 km and terrorist infiltration has led to the creation of a virtual fortress along its entire length.' 'Something mirroring this at the LAC is going to be expensive although deployment everywhere is not warranted there.' 'However, given the complete trust deficit, there appear few alternatives,' notes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'The leverage created by the Indian military must not be lost.'
Violating the ceasefire, Pakistani Rangers on Sunday opened fire at Tawi area in R S Pura sector of Jammu district.
'If the strength of foreign terrorists can be brought to negligible levels there will be few takers for militancy.' 'That is why it is important to neutralise the terrorists at their launch pads,' advises Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'What has changed is the desperation of Pakistan proxies and the separatists in their failure to foment violence and civilian casualties in Kashmir.'
The death toll is Jammu and Kashmir mounts to nearly 200 and thousands still wait to be evacuated.
Claude Arpi salutes Lieutenant General Zorawar Chand Bakshi, India's most decorated general, who passed into the ages recently.
On August 6 and August 9 of 1945, warfare changed forever when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, devastating the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killing more than 100,000 people. The attack on the people of Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, and the second attack on the city of Nagasaki at 11:02 am on August 9 killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting men, women, and children in a horrible blast of fire and radiation, followed by deadly fallout. In years that followed, those who survived -- the hibakusha -- suffered from the trauma of the experience and from the long-term effects of their exposure to radiation from the weapons. Before the blast, they were thriving cities. In a flash, they became desolate wastelands. Seventy-five years later, take a glimpse at the destruction.
A range of retaliatory measures are being weighed by India's generals.
A controversy has erupted over the portrayal of the Jat king of Bharatpur in the movie.
It is not known whether the BSF personnel was killed by the terrorists or had fallen victim to 'friendly fire'.
In any conflict with China, the unmanned BrahMos could be advantageously used in the opening stages for pinpoint strikes on heavily defended targets -- such as air bases, headquarters, key roads and railways or logistics dumps -- which are too dangerous for manned fighter aircraft to attack.
A war hero looks back at the men and the moments that forged India's greatest military victory.
India was fooled into believing that Communist China wanted a 'negotiated' settlement with the Tibetans; it was never the case, says Claude Arpi.
Their leaders in the provinces, which have been under the control of Taliban commanders for several months now, speak the language of the bigot. Women are known to have been abducted and enslaved. Several young girls have simply disappeared.
'If you behave like a nail, the adversary will behave like a hammer.'
'War is won by team work. War is won by sacrifices,' says Subedar Sanjay Kumar, Param Vir Chakra.
Tawang wears its history -- and also its present -- with ease. The flourishing town, with restaurants selling everything from noodles to dosas and locals returning home to new business prospects, shows little sign of the tension building up at the border about 40 km away to the north.
Did Xi deliver a message to Modi at Mamallapuram, which though couched in a velvet glove was time-bound? What was that message? It is clear Indian/Israeli/US spy satellites would not have missed detecting Chinese troop movements towards the Ladakh-Tibet frontier. Then why did some important functionaries in the Government of India choose to only ask the Russians about this in April 2020? Was Russian reassurance of Chinese troop movements being part of a routine exercise the reason that the Leh-based XIV Corps did not mobilise itself for its annual summer exercises near the LAC? A fascinating excerpt from Iqbal Chand Malhotra's new book Red Fear: The China Threat.
'The standing committee on defence was flagging what the services had said.' 'As a soldier, General Khanduri might have felt that it was his duty to point this out in the greater good of India,' points out Aditi Phadnis.
'Notwithstanding the realisation among the Indian leadership to build up its navy for the force's expanding role, the Indian Navy was allocated only 15% of the interim defence budget presented in Parliament in February 2019.' 'The outlay for the navy's capital acquisition is not even adequate to meet its committed liabilities,' points out Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
Arpi deserves to be complimented for the commitment and hard work that have gone into this production. The frustrations of seeking reliable documentation from the catacombs of the Indian bureaucracy did not deter him from going after the best information available, and the result is one that he can take much satisfaction in. Ambassador Prabhat P Shukla, Member Advisory Council, Vivekananda International Foundation, reviews Claude Arpi's The End of an Era: India Exits Tibet.
Access to Sabang Port will allow the Indian Navy to dominate Malacca Strait more effectively, reports Ajai Shukla.
'China wants to change the status quo of India's Northern Border and proves that it can do whatever it wants in what it perceives as its own territory,' states Claude Arpi.
Women in war-torn countries battle on the front lines
'If we had sent a few airplanes (into Tibet), we could have wiped the Chinese out.' 'And everything could have been different in the 1962 War.' 'They did not believe me there was no Chinese air force.' 'Can you imagine what would have happened if we had used the IAF at that time?' 'The Chinese would have never dared do anything down the line.'
