While we seem to want soldiers on short-term engagement, warfare itself is getting more technical and needs skilled manpower. The world has seen the dismal performance of armies that rely on short tour of duty soldiers or have outsourced war to 'contractors' in Afghanistan and now in Ukraine, points out Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Just two days ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Jammu and Kashmir, security forces on Friday foiled a suicide attack in Jammu by the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed, eliminating two suspected Pakistani terrorists in an encounter after they fired on a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) bus and killed an officer.
This is the first appointment made by President Wickremesinghe on his first day in office.
The agency has booked Sisodia, a 1992-batch IRS officer Sukesh Kumar Jain who was then secretary of vigilance, retired CISF DIG Rakesh Kumar Sinha who was working as special advisor to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and joint director in the Feedback Unit, they said.
Dr Anthony Fauci has been named as Chief Medical Adviser to the President on COVID-19, while Dr Rochelle Walensky has been named as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith as COVID-19 Equity Task Force Chair.
A police jawan was killed in a gun-battle with Maoists in insurgency-hit Chhattisgarh's Kondagaon district today, the police said. "The encounter took place near a river in restive Hekli forests under Mardapal police station limits when security personnel were returning after a search operation in the evening," Kondagaon Additional Superintendent of Police Surjit Atri told PTI.
With the spectre of nuclear terrorism growing, the international community is concerned about the security of India's nuclear facilities. The worry has grown since 2010, when radioactive Cobalt-60 surfaced in a New Delhi scrapyard, killing one person and hospitalising eight others.
Barring Chhattisgarh, the situation is under control in other states.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Tuesday gave further unequivocal backing to this summer's Tokyo Olympics, urging athletes to prepare "full steam" despite the coronavirus threat. Multiple sports events around the world have been cancelled during the epidemic, which has killed more than 3,000 people in China and spread to more than 60 nations including Japan where infections are near 1,000 and 12 people have died.
A dossier will be given to the FATF, an international terror financing watchdog.
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal exhorted the people to exercise restraint and observe the 32nd anniversary of Operation Bluestar peacefully.
'Past experience shows us that cross-border strikes have not prevented Pakistan from continuing with further terror attacks.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initial weeks in office and the composition of his national security team give a sense of his government's foreign policy and national security priorities, says Harsh V Pant
Indian Army has taken the initiative to induct women in rank and file, and the first batch of 100 women soldiers is undergoing training at Corps of Military Police Centre and School, he said.
The Centre on Wednesday promised to consider requests for Central Industrial Security Force security to Mohabodhi temple and other prominent religious places in the wake of Sunday's terror attack.
The RJD chief said four STF teams, each headed by a DSP, were working round-the-clock to secure the release of Hindustan Times photojournalist Ashok Karn, who was abducted on December 27.
On a specific input regarding movement of terrorists from Bandipora to Srinagar, a checkpoint was established by security forces near Wullar Vantage Aragam on Saturday, a police official said.
The senior officials of the health ministry apprised the minister on various improvements that have been made to make the pan India dry run glitch free, such as number of telephone operators has been increased to answer every possible query from the teams on the ground conducting the dry run.
Stopping the stars won't be enough to win World Cup
'While the US-Pakistan relationship has been stabilised, it's still mired in uncertainty.'
The Central Industrial Security Force Friday apologised to noted dancer and actor Sudhaa Chandran after she said she felt disheartened and humiliated when she was recently asked to remove her artificial limb during the security check at an airport.
The gunbattle took place at a forest in Kistaram area bordering Telangana
The operation was conducted between June 23 and 25, the police said.
India believes no country would emerge victorious in the Russia-Ukraine war as all will suffer losses and there will be a "more serious" impact on developing and poor countries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday after holding talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as both leaders reiterated the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Six government employees, including two policemen, were on Wednesday dismissed from service for their alleged links with terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, taking the total number of employees sacked in last nearly six months to 25, officials said.
Twenty people were gunned down in Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor district in a police operation said to be against red sanders smugglers that came under severe attack from the government and political parties in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, which claimed 12 victims were labourers from their state.
The first joint theatre command would be responsible for the border against Pakistan in what the military refers to as the "western theatre"; while a second command -- the northern theatre command -- would be responsible for the border with China. A third, navy-heavy theatre, called the "maritime command" will be responsible for the security of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR); and an island command, already functional and called the Andaman & Nicobar Command (ANC), would project power into the eastern Indian Ocean.
Three Naxals, including two women, were on Saturday gunned down by security forces at two different places in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Bastar division, taking the total number of ultras killed in separate gun-battles in the region this month to 21.
The military standoff with China has been going on for over two years now when the Chinese side attempted to change the status quo unilaterally by moving troops in large numbers against Indian positions.
The team heard a loud crackle. Then the scream came from Dilshan at the front of the bus. 'Get down.' Jayawardene was hit first; his sock filled with blood. Outside, twelve gunmen blocked the exit. A revealing excerpt from Nicholas Brookes's An Island's Eleven: A History of Cricket in Sri Lanka.
India has a huge untapped population which doesn't have facilities for financial aid and insurance, and it is perhaps plausible to look at the option of having niche players catering to smaller sectors akin to non-banks and microfinance institutions in lending, said Rakesh Joshi, member (Finance & Investment), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai). Speaking at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit, Joshi said, "Today, most of our insurance companies operate at a national level. There is arguably a case for having differentiated operations, which cater to niche sectors the same way we have non-banking financial companies (NBFC) and microfinance institutions in lending." "The capital requirement for niche players may not be as large as those having national ambitions. "Enabling these niche players, which require lower capital, will enhance the penetration in areas which hitherto had not seen traction from large players," he said.
It offers a real opportunity for the flag carrier to compete on the world stage, backed by a leading conglomerate with deep pockets like the Tatas, observes Indrajit Gupta.
Gen Pande, who was serving as the vice chief, became the first officer from the Corps of Engineers to helm the force.
Russian track and field athletes look certain to miss out on this year's world championships after an IAAF task force recommended on Monday that the country's ban should run until November.
The murder of Atiq and his brother and the police encounter with his son have raised many questions about the propriety of how crime is tackled by the Yogi government. But Yogi knows he has the support of the people who are fed up with crime holding the state to ransom for decades, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Saeed's arrest is also being seen as a pressure on Pakistan in connection with its commitment to the Financial Act Task Force whose next deadline is in October.
The strengthening of the Mountain Strike Corps is part of the steps taken by the force to rebalance its focus more towards the Chinese border from the western front with Pakistan.
Parliament has passed a bill to extend the tenure of the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to a maximum of five years from the present two years.
Adityanath has earned a new sobriquet "bulldozer baba" due to raging of properties of criminals and mafias built through illegal means.