Afghan President Hamid Karzai will undertake a week-long visit to India from April 9 to further consolidate ties between the two countries.
'Their offices are in Pakistan. Some of their hideouts are in Pakistan,' says Afghan envoy Masood Khalili.
'The Afghans used to say that if there is any person whose name should be taken after Allah, it is Hindustani.'
Afghanistan's cash-strapped government relies heavily on financial aid from the United States and elsewhere. Most of the country is impoverished and there is little infrastructure outside of a handful of cities.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is to leave for Afghanistan on a two-day visit.
After a 16-year gap, Indian Airlines will start operating on the Delhi-Kabul sector from March 27 this year giving an impetus to the new momentum in relations between India and Afghanistan.
Remember the US withdrawal agreement was signed in February 2020. In the intervening period, a proper evacuation plan ought to have been in place. It was not. Consequently, tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked as interpreters, drivers, suppliers of goods and services, etc, face brutal retribution from the Taliban, Virendra Kapoor points out.
21 people were hurt when a man with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up outside a mosque in the northern Afghan city of Sheberghan. Dostum, who was inside the mosque at the time, escaped unhurt.
'My family goes to the airport every day so that they can find a way out.'
The first Indian Prime Minister to visit Afghanistan in 29 years, Singh is to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai on the entire gamut of bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual concern.
Mullah Abdul Fayaz, a supporter of President Hamid Karzai, was shot while driving in the center of Kandahar city.
India on Thursday strongly condemned the Taliban attack on a guesthouse in the Afghan capital that killed 14 people, including four Indians.
As the western forces prepare to leave Afghanistan in the coming year, India stands at a crossroads where it remains keen to preserve its interests in Afghanistan but has refused to step up its role as a regional security provider. New Delhi needs to recognise that there is no short-cut to major power status, says Harsh V Pant
Pakistan on Saturday released former Afghan Taliban deputy chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, meeting a long-standing demand of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to advance peace efforts in the war-ravaged country.
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on Wednesday called on Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and CEO Abdullah Abdullah in Kabul and reaffirmed India's commitment to assist Afghanistan in building a strong, democratic and prosperous country.
Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi's invite to the heads of governments of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation-member countries has the stamp of approval of not only President Pranab Mukherjee but also the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Rogue elements in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence worry about India's interference in Afghanistan after the West pullout. The attack was an attempt to send a strong message to New Delhi to keep away, sources in the Intelligence Bureau point out.
'It is a testing time for our foreign policy which may involve a certain element of taking risks, assessing costs, and expecting failures,' asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Condolences continued to pour in from world dignitaries for former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj who breathed her last due to cardiac arrest on Tuesday night.
'Pakistan is determined to garner the peace dividends.' 'On the diplomatic front, this will be, principally, in terms of a revival of Pakistan's relations with the US,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India strongly condemned the terror attack, saying targeting of a religious place in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak reflects the "diabolical mindset" of the perpetrators and their backers.
'India should think big: About how in a multi-polar world, India can indeed be one of the poles, rather than being a secondary power that has to worry about 'alignment' with one of the poles. A G3 in other words, India should look to getting others to align with itself rather than the US or China,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
India needs to shed its policy of lethargy and inhibitions to engage the Taliban with an intent to maintain its influence in Afghanistan. This would not just put a spanner in Pakistani designs, but also incentivise the Taliban not to be the puppets of GHQ, Rawalpindi, asserts Colonel Nikhil Apte (retd), who served on the Af-Pak desk at the Military Operations Directorate.
As Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah form a joint government after contesting the presidential election against each other, Prakash Bhandari reports from Kabul on the problems facing the new, US-brokered arrangement.
In a veiled attack on Narendra Modi-led dispensation, Rahul Gandhi slammed those who were trying to "rub out" Jawaharlal Nehru from history as an international conference on the country's first prime minister affirmed that democracy, inclusion and empowerment espoused by him were of "enduring relevance".
Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani -- the two presidential candidates in Afghanistan -- are good friends of India and the country will work very closely with whoever wins the election, a top Indian diplomat said.
India on Friday sought resolute and comprehensive global action against terror infrastructure, saying the challenge must be taken seriously as different "theatres" are getting interconnected through terror networks as well as globalisation of the "supply chain of ideology".
Thousands of mourners jostled and some clambered on trees to capture the moment on their phones as former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cortege left the Bharatiya Janata Party's headquarters for Rashtriya Smriti Sthal.
Blackmail on one side and bullying on the other doesn't make for a constructive partnership, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
India has sought access to Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Headley, the Mumbai terror attack convict now lodged in a US prison, as it insisted on bringing to justice the perpetrators of the 26/11 assault.
'Modi has said he has been made the PM of India not to do small things but big things. What bigger thing can there be than to have peace with Pakistan and in the neighbourhood?'
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday promised to "stand together" with Pakistan in the war against terrorism and nudged his counterpart Nawaz Sharif to help clinch a peace deal with Afghanistan before NATO's withdrawal from the war-torn nation next year.
Vajpayee's ashes will be immersed in rivers in all the districts in Uttar Pradesh -- his karmabhoomi.
Hein Kiessling has the kind of access in Pakistan that journalists (and spies) would die for, says Kanika Datta.
It is not every day that one of the planet's richest men is arrested by his government.
India should not have a large bilateral military training program in Afghanistan in the future because that would predictably exacerbate tensions, says Director of research, Brookings Institution Michael O'Hanlon.
Indonesia, Turkey and Afghanistan also see important polls in the seven short weeks between end-March and mid-May, says Shankar Acharya
