'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.'
'... it must network its battlefield units quickly, securely, robustly,' notes Ajai Shukla.
The pre-dawn operation, described as "non-military" and "preemptive" struck a five-star resort style camp on a hilltop forest and caught the terrorists in their sleep.
'The attacks made clear to all the Gulf States that Pakistan was the nursery and sanctuary of extremist violence and that this violence threatened all the countries in the region.'
The navy finds itself fighting for relevance, with navy planners lamenting that its share of the budget has dropped dramatically.
'The English Game could have been truly great -- a precious glimpse into how the game went from being played by just the rich to one being eventually dominated by the masses,' observes Dhruv Munjal.
Images from the FIFA World Cup qualifying matches on Sunday night.
Qureshi, 46, had been on the run since 20 blasts ripped through Gujarat's main city Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008, killing more than 50 people
Just 21 then, a young air force officer looks back at the 1971 war, which was like a baptism by fire in the fauj.
An exclusive specially trained paramilitary unit armed with the latest gadgets and weaponry has now been deployed for security of Parliament house complex.
Buoyed by an overwhelming victory in the previous game, a resilient India would look to continue the momentum and seal off their second successive T20 series win when they take on Sri Lanka in the third and final Twenty20 International, in Visakhapatnam on Sunday. India shrugged off their embarrassing defeat in opening T20 match in Pune with a commanding show in Ranchi, where they outclassed the island nation by 69 runs to level the series. The Indian batsmen had struggled to cope with the 'green' track in Pune but adjusted well on a slow strip at Ranchi, where they did not put a foot wrong. The bowlers, too, were in complete control, never letting the Sri Lankan batsmen dominate. Moreover, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni's captaincy was impressive and all his experiments, be it reshuffling of the batting order or bowling tactics, paid off. India not only mastered the conditions but also executed their plans to perfection.
'It will be a repeated folly to ever think that China will not attack us.'
A range of retaliatory measures are being weighed by India's generals.
A Karachi-based businessman who sold the boat engine used by 10 LeT terrorists to reach Mumbai to carry out the audacious 2008 attacks, was cross-examined in a Pakistani anti-terrorism court in Islamabad on Wednesday.
'The Delhi-Washington stalemate can end only if India's concern over trans-border terrorism is addressed.' 'The Indian security establishment expects a spike in terrorist attacks in the months ahead.' 'And there is every likelihood that India may retaliate against Pakistan at some point,' observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
In the 10 years since Yudh Abhyas began, the exercise has grown from platoon-level operations to brigade-and battalion-level operations.
The Emergency greatly influenced the RSS' makeover from a fringe force in the Indian political imagination to one that could have its own man sworn in as prime minister in two decades' time. A riveting excerpt from Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil's India's First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975-1977.
Indian Admirals say Malabar 2018 will involve unprecedented complexity, featuring enemy threats in all three dimensions, but especially underwater threats from submarines -- a key Chinese strength. For the first time, officers from all three navies will be posted on other navies' warships. That means Indian Navy officers will obtain the unprecedented benefits of operating on US nuclear attack submarines and Japan's highly regarded Soryu submarines.
'A couple of hours before the H-Hour, the Kupwara division opened small arms and mortar fire on posts opposite its area of operation.' 'This was a diversionary tactic.' 'As Pakistani forces began to react to the firing, special forces teams began to slowly cross the LoC into PoK.' Nitin Gokhale reveals how planning for the surgical strikes began hours after the Uri attack.
The President has approved award of 398 gallantry and other defence decorations to armed forces personnel and others on the eve of the 68th Republic Day Celebrations.
Did Xi deliver a message to Modi at Mamallapuram, which though couched in a velvet glove was time-bound? What was that message? It is clear Indian/Israeli/US spy satellites would not have missed detecting Chinese troop movements towards the Ladakh-Tibet frontier. Then why did some important functionaries in the Government of India choose to only ask the Russians about this in April 2020? Was Russian reassurance of Chinese troop movements being part of a routine exercise the reason that the Leh-based XIV Corps did not mobilise itself for its annual summer exercises near the LAC? A fascinating excerpt from Iqbal Chand Malhotra's new book Red Fear: The China Threat.
Seven policemen were on Saturday killed and 10 persons were injured in a gunbattle with Naxals in the Maoist hotbed of Sukma district in Chhattisgarh.
In a subtle show of strength to China, the Indian Air Force on Tuesday landed its C-130J Super Hercules transport plane at the world's highest and recently-activated Daulat Beg Oldie airstrip in Ladakh near the Line of Actual Control, the scene of a stand-off with Chinese troops in April.
'It is ironic that General Rawat, an infantry officer who the government chose because of his expertise in counter-insurgency, has made his first bold statement in the realm of warfighting and mechanised operations,' points out Colonel Ajai Shukla (retd).
A US-made C-130J military transport plane, one of the most modern aircraft acquired recently by the Indian Air Force, crashed on Friday near Gwalior, killing all the five crew members, including four officers.
Now the the job of searching out and destroying enemy submarines in the waters off India's coast will fall to the navy's new fleet of a dozen Boeing P-8I aircraft, reports Ajai Shukla.
The case is being tried in the Anti-Terrorism Court since 2009. There has hardly been any case in any ATC in Pakistan that is pending for over nine years.
In fact, given the current tensions and massed troops on both sides, there is a danger that the LAC will become more like the Line of Control with Pakistan, a heavily fortified and strongly defended border where weapon fire exchanges regularly occur. Indeed, Stratfor Worldview research has listed a sharp increase in new Chinese facilities along the LAC in 2019-20.
They justified the strikes, saying the forces had entered into Indian territory occupied by Pakistan.
The CRPF DG said that security forces are reaching out to young men, who have joined terror groups, through all possible ways to stop them from taking up arms.
'It is purely based on real-time hard intelligence.' 'Timing is important. When you are attacking at 3.30 am, then everybody will be in the academy of terrorists.' 'If you attack at 10 am then someone will be out, so timing is very important.' 'Therefore, 3.30 am is the time when every terrorist is sleeping.'
'If push comes to shove, Pakistan does have the capability to make it difficult for the US and NATO forces to make even a withdrawal of troops out of Afghanistan in orderly fashion,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'One one hand, the BJP puts Uniform Civil Code as a goal in its manifesto, and on the other, it pushes massive discrimination against Hindus.' 'This is not sabka saath, sabka vikas. Rather it is "Haj ka saath, church ka vikas",' argues Sankrant Sanu.
'General J S Aurora, the commander of the Indian forces in the East, asked General Sagat Singh to withdraw his troops who were on the move to Dacca -- but he refused.' 'He said, "Jaggi, over my dead body".' 'Therefore, I say the creator of Bangladesh was General Sagat Singh.'
'Even if your soldiers are Sunny Deol and Vicky Kaushal, Pakistanis are no Johnny Walkers.' 'The one lot who never takes them lightly is India's professional soldiers.' 'That's why they keep winning the real wars,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'The thin line is a permanent dilemma with soldiers. You have to appreciate that in that dilemma and chaos there are officers who stand and lead their men.
During a war, there are just four possibilities a soldier faces. One: Victorious and safe. Two: Wounded. Three: Killed in action. Four: Prisoner of War. It was my fate to face the fourth, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) on the year spent as a prisoner of war in Pakistan during the 1971 War.
A Ferrari victory was the shot in the arm that Formula One needed.
'Whatever the result on December 18, Rahul has succeeded.' 'He has taken the battle to the rival's territory, and forced him to take him more seriously than he has done so far, or would have wished to.' 'A party, dominating and powerful as the BJP today, is spending all its time attacking the leader of one with just 46 seats in the Lok Sabha, and in the woods in Gujarat for 22 years.' 'This isn't the script the BJP had written,' says Shekhar Gupta.
He has left no one in any doubt about his ability to take bold, even out-of-the-box, decisions, to gauge the feelings and aspirations of the common people at the grassroots and to ensure that polices and schemes do not remain on paper, but are implemented, says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
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