'There is no point in just saying, 'hum wapas bhej denge (we will send Kashmiri Pandits back)'.'
The plan hinged on two critical assumptions: India would not be able to replenish supplies quickly to launch a counter-attack. India could not respond in enough strength to dislodge the Pakistanis. Both assumptions would be proved wrong due to the ferocity of the Indian response, reveals former RAW officer Tilak Devasher in his new book, Pakistan At The Helm.
'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).
Negotiations are underway to have a "more practical and effective" mechanism to prevent face-offs between Indian and Chinese troops on the Line of Actual Control and efforts are being made to have confidence building measures, Defence Minister A K Antony said on Monday.
?Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said "enemies of humanity" who could not digest India's progress carried out the attack in Pathankot.
'NSA Doval and the PM are known to admire Israel's tough response to cross-border terrorism.' 'However, New Delhi's situation is far more complex than Tel Aviv's, which enjoys military superiority over all its neighbours,' says Ajai Shukla.
'It will be a repeated folly to ever think that China will not attack us.'
Love stories, superheroes, family dramas, kiddie flicks, whodunits, rom-coms, Sukanya Verma lists your OTT menu for the week.
The ceasefire violations and firing from across the Line of Control are "quite serious" and the government wants a "quick resolution" of the problem there, IAF Chief Arup Raha said.
'It is possible elements within the Pakistani establishment felt bad about eating humble pie and wanted to avenge the humiliation through a terror attack.' 'After all, lodging an FIR in Pakistan about the Pathankot attack amounted to an admission of Pakistani involvement,' says Rajeev Sharma.
'That the terrorists could still kill three security personnel, including men of the Defence Service Corps, indicates highly trained men are being sent across the border,' says national security expert Nitin A Gokhale, founder, BharatShakti.in
'My brave JCO managed to get to the gun, sit on top of the dead man and fired away at the attacking aircraft till they melted away into the darkness.'
'India would not like to see Pakistani domination and tutelage of Afghanistan against Indian security and economic interests.'
'The Pakistani JIT's visit is the first ever experiment by the two South Asian neighbours to probe a terror attack 'jointly.' Well, it is not unlike the scenario wherein the thief himself is made an investigator,' says Rajeev Sharma.
India is worried about Pakistan getting the Taliban to ignite trouble in Kashmir, observes Ramesh Menon.
For both India and China, the most likely option -- and the most challenging -- appears to be a freezing of the status quo.
'Washington is telegraphing here is its willingness to support a low-grade, limited use of force meant to send a strong message to Pakistan.' 'Perhaps something along the lines of the surgical strikes in 2016, or perhaps something a bit more -- but not much more.'
Dismissing the remarks by the Pakistani military on the November 26 deadly NATO cross border strike, the United States on Monday said it stands by its own investigation that it was not an unprovoked firing by the US-led forces.
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).
'Jihadi outfits backed by the ISI are now prepared to attack targets not just in J&K, but also in Punjab. This signals an escalation in the range and scope of cross-border terrorism, which cannot be ignored,' says Ambassador G Parthasarthy, former high commissioner to Pakistan.
The decision was taken during a meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistan counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the southwestern the Chinese city of Chengdu on Saturday.
24-year-old Rifleman Yash Paul, a resident of Mantalai village in Udhampur lost his life in cross-LoC firing.
This will also be his first August 15 address after coming back to power with a huge mandate.
Its advanced Longbow radar picks up enemy armoured vehicles and then destroys them with anti-tank missiles, air-to-surface rockets or a chain gun that sends 625 rounds per minute ripping into the targets.
Prime Minister Modi made a strategic blunder of Nehruvian proportions -- presuming no war can happen now, and the Chinese won't be a military threat and risk their economic interests, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The visiting Pakistani JIT will begin recording the statements of the witnesses in the Pathankot terror attack case from Thursday.
General Naravane's UAE and Saudi Arabia visits communicate India's long awaited arrival in the domain of integrated foreign policy where the diplomatic and the military domains both complement each other much more substantially, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Unless each attack drone can be neutralised, India will be literally deploying elephants to stamp out ants -- and the ants may still survive! points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The report said that Pakistan also plans to lodge a complaint against India at the United Nations, accusing New Delhi of "eco-terrorism".
The Pakistani team investigating the Pathankot terror attack will complete its probe this week, a top official said on Monday, days after three suspects in the high-profile case were remanded to police custody.
The perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attack, who shot dead 166 people, had confessed to details that should have been enough to hang him, but Pakistan enjoyed his anti-India rhetoric and let him spread his tentacles. A revealing excerpt from Khaled Ahmed's Pakistan's Terror Conundrum.
'With the Balakot strike, India has now established a precedent for response to any new terrorist attack engineered by Pakistan.' 'This will stay irrespective of who wins the coming elections,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Khan said time has come to begin a 'comprehensive dialogue' between the two countries.
Today, the two countries, ruthlessly divided by the Radcliffe line that pierced their very heart, grapple with the political challenges of the present. Yet, when friendships develop there are no borders, observes Payal Singh Mohanka.
Kulbhushan Jadhav's friends, who have known him since childhood, recall a man tough on the outside but full of compassion inside.
Terror shook the world for the second time in less than a week on Sunday, with a suicide bombing that killed at least 65 at a park in Lahore.
The Rafale will surely be flying in Indian skies next year. But the way the BJP government has botched this will cast a shadow on defence acquisitions in the years to come.
'All the government needs to do is to identify clear political and strategic objectives and to give the military planners a free hand,' asserts Ajai Shukla.
The arrival a couple of days ago of a Chinese nuclear submarine for the first time in Karachi port, coinciding with a Chinese military delegation's visit, points to Pakistan's importance for China, says former R&AW officer Jayadeva Ranade.
Prime Minister Modi told President Xi that he has made efforts to improve ties with Islamabad but these efforts have been "derailed".
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