'TTP has vowed to take revenge for the attacks that Pakistan is carrying out against Afghanistan.' 'To diminish this threat, Pakistan is hitting Afghanistan hard.'
Trump couldn't care less anymore about the Israeli demand for Iran's 'de-nuclearisation' and 'de-militarisation.' Trump pins hopes on a grand bargain with Iran as a partner in America First, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
It provides for a broad-based composition of the Central Waqf Council and the State Waqf Boards and ensures the representation of Muslim women and non-Muslims in such bodies.
Apart from religious hatred that makes it kosher for the Sunnis to massacre the Shias, the targeting of Shias serves a political objective of the Islamists in destabilising the Pakistani state. As a result, the Sunni extremists are killing two birds with one stone, says Sushant Sareen.
Seven persons were killed and over 10 injured in sectarian clashes in Pakistan's northwestern Kurram tribal area, where skirmishes between Shias and Sunnis continued for the second day on Thursday. Security forces used artillery to target trenches occupied by the two groups in two areas in upper Kurram Agency. Both groups are using automatic and heavy weapons like mortars to attack each other's positions.
The meeting of the Joint Committee on Waqf (Amendment) Bill took an ugly turn as the Trinamool Congress MP smashed a glass water bottle and threw it towards panel chairman Jagdambika Pal of the Bharatiya Janata Party during a heated exchange of words with BJP's Abhijit Gangopadhyay, a former Calcutta high court judge.
Latest reports from Bahrain speak of considerable tension marked by anti-king and anti-government slogans shouted by thousands of Shia mourners.
'The Abdullah family is the problem and facilitator of the instability that we are seeing in Kashmir.'
The bill to amend the law governing Waqf boards proposes far-reaching changes in the Wakf Act, 1995, including ensuring the representation of Muslim women and non-Muslims in such bodies.
The result is a big blow to the military establishment, revealing the limits of 'political engineering'. It reflected the anger of the electorate, especially its younger voters, who have spoken decisively against the persistent harassment and victimisation of Imran Khan's political party, asserts Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
For a village in Azamgarh, Mubarakpur is an aberration. Its streets are clean, roads well-paved, and no open sewage drains are visible anywhere. Although a few houses look derelict, most bear signs of relative affluence, some even opulence. But that is not attributable to the village's marquee industry - silk saree weaving, which is sold as the "Banarasi silk saree" across India. Rather, it's because of the exodus of its residents and those of neighbouring villages to Saudi Arabia and the money repatriated back home.
A powerful suicide blast ripped through a mosque in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province on Friday, killing at least 52 people and injuring over 50 others gathered to celebrate Prophet Muhammad's birthday, authorities said.
Ambassador Chinmaya Gharekhan explains the situation in Iraq and Syria in this interview to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
The indefinite curfew imposed in summer capital Srinagar on Wednesdy evening following sectarian clashes will continue until Friday without any break.
'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.
Members of Shia and Sunni communities hold a peace march to ease tension in curfew-bound parts of Srinagar on Tuesday
Tension prevailed in the area after clashes broke out between Shia-Sunni groups during a Milad-un-Nabi procession on April 1.
Squabbles over Islamic law and Kurd autonomy delayed the drafting of the interim constitution.
Meanwhile, in what has become an almost daily routine over the past few week, a suicide car bomb attack in southern Baghdad killed two Iraqi police officers and two civilians on Monday
Pakistan perceives that if it had declared Gilgit-Baltistan, PoK or both, which are only a part of the territories of J&K, as legitimate provinces of Pakistan it would weaken its case for the entire J&K and lead to legal complications, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Islamic State group jihadists have claimed responsibility for twin explosions.
'Modi has visited all these three countries (the UAE more than once, inexplicably) but has left out Kuwait and Oman, the two Gulf countries that are closest to India in their political, cultural and civilisational ethos,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Sunday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to flare up the situation in Kishtwar to polarise the population with an eye on next year's elections to parliament and the assembly.
A disparate global network of violent fundamentalist Islamic groups threatens India's eastern flank as much as the north and west with a real possibility of these spilling over into our borders, says Shyam Saran.
'Vishal Bhardwaj, Haider will ensure you a permanent place in the galaxy of filmmakers like Guru Dutt and Satyajit Ray.'
Hours after Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali said that Narendra Modi coming to power would 'destabilise the peace in the region', the Bharatiya Janata Party slammed Pakistan, asking it to mend its ways and saying the manner in which they have been functioning with India will not work.
Awful religious practices need to be abolished. But through social and political reformers, not by courts, argues Shekhar Gupta.
'Gods of different religions haven't warred, so we shouldn't either.'
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi claimed that "20-25 per cent" voters from the minority community had voted for him in the assembly polls and asked the party cadre to reach out to all sections, including Muslims, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
'Islam says the person who has been hurt has the right to pardon the accused. So don't ask me on whether I will pardon Narendra Modi or not. Go and ask this question to Gujarati Muslims who have been hurt.' 'Secular and non-secular is not an issue for Muslims. The day Muslims become strong, the non-secular guys will become secular. And if Muslims are weak, the same secular guys will cut the throats of Muslims.' 'The secular character of India can never be finished. India is secular by its nature. Whoever comes to power, he will have to become secular to rule,' Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad Naqvi tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com
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We have in UP today the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party representing the two extremes in a bid to capture power in this huge state that returns 80 members to Parliament, says Seema Mustafa.
The ground situation in Iraq is so bad that there is no scope for any non-conventional action or any kind of bravery. Patience, slow movement, and full backing to Indian negotiators would help in a big way, says Sheela Bhatt.
'The civil war in Islam has just got worse and the existential crisis facing it more threatening.'
'If the Iran nuke deal holds, Iran becomes a gateway to Afghanistan, and a better one than Pakistan because the route is not so mountainous. Correspondingly, I imagine Pakistan's value to the US will fall,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
The main culprit in vitiating the inter community/caste/class relations has been the so called 'targeted' approach. This is nothing but discrimination on the basis of faith/caste/class. When an equally poor and deprived child is denied scholarship, despite equal merit, resentment begins to brew, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
'The parallels between 1914 and 2014 are striking. The crumbling of American and Russian hegemony, the rise of powerful terrorist groups, ferment in the Middle East and the rise of China... These closely mirror the world of 1914,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
