The launch of the first-ever direct train service from Delhi to Kashmir would be a big turning point in the Valley's mood and its integration with India. He had to thwart it at any cost, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Recent disclosures allege large scale corruption, nepotism and kickbacks by Pakistan air chief Air Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar Sidhuin housing land deals in Islamabad and in buying of new aircraft, points out Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
Pakistan's hardline Islamist general Hamid Gul, known for nurturing militants in Kashmir and Punjab and Afghanistan during his stint as chief of the powerful ISI, has died following a brain haemorrhage.
But it is less adventurous. It seems, at last, that in its eighth decade, Pakistan has settled into being a parliamentary democracy just like Bangladesh has and like we have always been, observes Aakar Patel.
'Of all the PMs of India, I had the closest relationships with Morarji and Rajiv.' Mark Tully, the most famous foreign correspondent in India, remembers some encounters with prime ministers, dictators and militants.
In India, Sartaj Azizis respected as a man of grace, wit and patience. He is a wizened soldier of many diplomatic battles between the two neighbouring nations
'Once accession to Pakistan appeared unlikely, the British instituted Operations Gulmarg and Datta Khel respectively to foil possible accession to India.'
'Imran had the misfortune to be in an age when there was a surfeit of mighty all-rounders.' 'Indians would not put him on a par with Kapil Dev or Vinoo Mankad,' points out Uddalok Bhattacharya.
'What is required is to make Pakistan less war-like and more modest in its ambitions. To normalise with India and to reduce the State's fondness for religion.' 'It is pragmatism and not charisma that it required and it is by being boring and not heroic that this can be achieved.' 'This is the moment of realisation which brings the Pakistani leader into conflict with the army.' 'Imran Khan will learn the lesson in time,' says Aakar Patel.
Chastened by the Kargil conflict, Pervez Musharraf will be remembered for gradually lowering the profile of terrorism and seeking a realistically negotiated settlement to the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, notes Ambassador G Parthasarathy, who served as India's high commissioner to Pakistan when Musharraf seized power in a coup in October 1999.
It was only a matter of hours before I would be declared persona non grata; all my work would turn to ashes, and I would be revealed as a typical untrustworthy Indian. I steeled myself for the axe to fall.
There is a great danger of the government getting stampeded into actions in Kashmir that could result in long lasting damage, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'By annoying the Arabs and cozying up to Iran, Pakistan may end up losing Arab economic support, annoying the Americans and increase Shia-Sunni tensions domestically,' Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) points out.
'What we are today witnessing is the final act of the Pakistani army trying to retain its turf,' argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
AQ Khan, a controversial scientist known as the father of Pakistan's clandestine nuclear programme, passed away here on Sunday after a brief illness. He was 85.
'Its internal economic rot and corrupt political elite have made the resurgent supremacy of the military establishment more invincible,' says Sunil Sethi.
India's majoritarian regime is now making a dangerously fast-paced move towards theocracy, like its western counterpart did a few decades ago, warns Mohammad Sajjad.
'India can replicate what Pakistan did to Kulbhushan Jadhav should the need arise.' 'Hopefully, Pakistan will see reason before that transpires,' says Ambassador G Parthasarathy, former high commissioner to Pakistan.
The modern world will not accommodate bigotry of the sort India is showing the world today, argues Aakar Patel.
'There is no point in just saying, 'hum wapas bhej denge (we will send Kashmiri Pandits back)'.'
'What the long term repercussions of the Ayodhya judgment are will unfold in time.' 'And I hope the consequences are not going to be as damaging to us as they were to Pakistan,' says Aakar Patel.
Kashmir has a deep resonance inside Pakistan and the tense situation in the Valley acts as bait and encourages radical elements 'to wage jihad to liberate fellow Muslims', says former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri.
It is most unlikely that the US would take kindly to Indian claims of having shot down an F-16. There is too much commercial interest involved, says Col Anil Athale (retd).
'Bolstering India's conventional military capability against China is in America's strategic interest,' says military historian Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
To consider Pervez Musharraf a real force for peace is an absurdity, declares Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The special court of Islamabad on December 17 last handed down the death penalty to 74-year-old Musharraf after six years of hearing the high-profile treason case against him. The case was filed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government in 2013.
'Whatever the two countries are doing these days, on the diplomatic front and on their borders, that hostility is not sustainable.' 'Today's world doesn't approve it.'
The idea of weaponization got a fillip from an unexpected quarter. In the last week of October 1985, Rajiv met US President Ronald Reagan. Reagan told Rajiv, 'Pakistan has already made a bomb.' When Rajiv started talking about disarmament, the US president cut him short, 'Don't talk theory, think of your own protection.'
Bilawal Bhutto's political inheritance is his biggest asset as well as the biggest liability as he tries to make his mark in Pakistan politics. Challenging the Taliban militants is part of that strategy, though it matches with his political ideology. Shahzad Raza profiles the son of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari.
'Afghanistan cannot be at peace until the Pashtuns regain their pre-eminent role in the country's governance,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The late ICC chief Jagmohan Dalmiya supported PCB a lot in the Shoaib Akhtar bowling action case. He took a stand for PCB despite the ICC members insisting that Akhtar's bowling action was illegal.
'Therefore, these people want Imran Khan out of the elections whenever it is held.' 'For this, he will have to be disqualified from contesting on the basis of cases against him, declaring that he is not sadiq (honest) and ameen (righteous).'
'I want to be murdered at your hands, so I can live on in history. The verdict of who is or is not a traitor cannot be pronounced by a secret agency, but by history.' Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who survived an assassination attempt on April 19, challenges his enemies to dub him a traitor and says nothing will stop him from exposing them.
'The generals couldn't care less about political corruption, being complicit themselves.' 'Coup d'etats are out of fashion.' 'Their only desire is backroom control,' says Sunil Sethi.
Learning perhaps from the Kargil debacle, Musharraf tried hard to evolve as a statesman in his dealings with India, recalls Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
The outgoing BSF DG said that Head Constable Narender Singh was killed in an "action of the Border Action Team" of Pakistan.
'When it vanishes as a national force (meaning when it can no longer get sufficient votes to hold onto its symbol, the hand) it will not have been the first large Indian party to die,' says Aakar Patel.
'Why has the rhetoric gone down on the Indian side, Durrani wondered aloud.' 'I said because almost total normalcy and peace had returned on the ground in Kashmir,' recalls Shekhar Gupta. 'The general gave me that career spook's laser look. And he said: "That situation on the ground can change in no time".' 'This was precisely when the Pakistanis began their first incursions into Kargil.' 'Durrani had been retired for five years.' 'But once the ISI boss, you are always in the know.'
Just for a moment, says Kamaraj Gopalan, consider the possibility: Dawood Ibrahim captured a few days before the next general election. It would be Dr Singh and the Congress's Osama moment. What answer could Narendra Modi possibly have to that?
'India has to understand that the permanent state of war that exists between India and Pakistan has to be expected,,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd). 'The only way to ensure peace or absence of war is to maintain a militarily-dominant position over Pakistan.'
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