'We are too important to want to be paired with Pakistan but too intensely connected to it to successfully detach ourselves,' asserts Aakar Patel.
Pakistan was waiting for an opportunity to bring the Jammu and Kashmir issue to the global agenda and resorted to the terrorism route to provoke India, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The Taliban is showing its strong discontent as the high hopes given to it by the Pakistani military have been dashed, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Then 18, Talash crossed the border into Pakistan after Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 before settling in Spain as a refugee the following year. The International Olympics Committee changed break-dancer Talash's life forever by including her in its refugee squad for the Paris Games.
The Pakistani Taliban has said that it will carry out more attacks on "secular" political parties like the ANP and MQM, warning people to stay away from their rallies, a day after a blast outside an ANP gathering injured about 10 people.
'Pakistan's only concern has been while they were on the FATF watch list was to distance their State institutions and organs from any direct connection with the actual execution of militancy inside Kashmir.'
The Taliban's main challenge comes on the financial and economic front and there Pakistan doesn't have the capacity to be of any meaningful help, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Conflicting accounts emerged on Wednesday of a possible nascent peace process between Pakistani authorities and the Taliban, with a militant spokesman confirming preliminary peace talks while denying the announcement of a ceasefire.
Three policemen were killed and another injured when Taliban militants attacked a police van in Pakistan's restive northwest on Thursday, officials said. The militants lobbed grenades at the van and then fired at it with automatic weapons in Lakki Marwat area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. District police chief Gulzar Ali confirmed that three policemen were killed and another one injured.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the 2008 Mumbai terror attack marked a turning point in relations with Pakistan when Indians collectively felt that such behaviour from a neighbouring country could no longer be tolerated. Speaking at Charotar University of Science and Technology, Jaishankar acknowledged India's transformation under Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the last decade, while Pakistan has remained unchanged, continuing with what he termed as its "bad habits."
Their shared brief: To assert India's case with clarity, rebut hostile narratives, and secure enduring partnerships for global counter-terror cooperation.
Terrorism and insurgency in J&K had subsided when India demolished East Pakistan -- for the simple reason that Pakistan understands power. We need to follow Chanakya's dictum of Saam, Daam, Dand, Bhed for strategising against Pakistan, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd). The ground truth is that unless we are prepared to acknowledge our shortcomings, including massive intelligence failures, punish those responsible and take corrective actions, we will continue in the same vein, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd).
Hundreds of Afghan protesters, including many women, took to the streets of Kabul on Tuesday, September 7, 2021, in an anti-Pakistan protest chanting 'Death to Pakistan', denouncing Islamabad's interference in Afghanistan as well as airstrikes by Pakistani jets in Panjshir province in support of the Taliban.
'If Pakistan's army wants to escalate violence in Kashmir, they have an unlimited supply of jihadis they can train and send. That's not an issue for them.'
"Now we live in a completely independent Afghanistan. The new government will be announced very soon," said Anaamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban's cultural commission, reported Tolo News.
Pakistan, in recent months, has been increasingly frustrated by the Taliban government's reluctance to eliminate the terrorist groups, including the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
'I can see the world's concern. I am concerned. I have daughters who play cricket.'
Security expert B Raman writes on the alarming rise of Taliban in Pakistan.
If the Taliban have proved one thing over these two decades, it is that they are way smarter than their big brother, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'It was such a joy for me to return there today -- after 13 long years -- to be surrounded by the mountains, dip my hands in the cold river and laugh with my beloved cousins.'
'Trump will absolutely back New Delhi on its position that Pakistan must do more to crack down on terrorists that threaten India.'
'The worst case scenario for Pakistan is a full-scale Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.' 'Pakistani militants would be inspired and emboldened and seek to replicate the Taliban's successes in Pakistan.'
'Throughout the nearly 20-year US-led war, State sponsorship from Pakistan has been a constant.'
Asim Malik's shift to the important DG, ISI post comes as something of a surprise now, but it indicates the army chief's confidence in him, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has invited the Taliban to play a cricket match in a bid to revive a stalled peace process but his remarks were criticised on social media.
On January 30, a suicide bombing at a mosque in the Peshawar Police Lines area claimed the lives of at least 101 people
The recent incident has eroded trust and Chinese social media reflects growing anxiety, with calls for stricter security measures to protect Chinese lives.
Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province government has announced a bounty worth Rs 10 million for information leading to the arrest or killing of Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah, the mastermind of the Peshawar school massacre that left 150 people dead, mostly students.
Pakistan is in 'constant touch' with the Afghan Taliban for safeguarding the country's security interests, a top military official has said.
The Taliban has its backers, notably Pakistan and China. Their purpose is to have a monstrous entity near India's northern borders to keep democratic, secular India off-guard, observes Amulya Ganguli.
Police in Pakistan have busted an illegal telephone gateway exchange in Lahore, allegedly being operated by the Taliban to make ransom calls to families of persons kidnapped by them, including the sons of former premier Yusuf Raza Gilani and slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer.
The maiden meeting between the Pakistan government and a Taliban-nominated committee to frame a roadmap for peace talks was postponed on Tuesday, with representatives of the banned group claiming state negotiators had pulled out under "pressure".
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has decided that the outfit will now focus on jihad inside Afghanistan, reports Tahir Ali
Singh, the joint secretary heading the division for Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran in the ministry of external affairs, held talks with Taliban's foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Thursday.
'If they aim to remain aligned with the public sentiment, as any democratic government should, then they must respond. Why else would the prime minister have cut short his visit to Saudi Arabia? And why would he have instructed the home minister himself to travel to Srinagar to assess the situation firsthand? This suggests that something is indeed being planned. I am quite certain of that, although the exact form it will take remains to be seen.'
'The struggle of insurgents and pro-independence political activists is fuelled by a deep conviction that not only is a free Balochistan possible, but they also believe that Pakistan will inevitably break apart, leading to Balochistan's independence.'
After initial hiccups, Pakistani state negotiators and a Taliban-nominated committee met at an undisclosed location on Thursday to frame a roadmap for parleys aimed at ending terrorism and bringing peace to the country.
At least two policemen were killed and many others injured when Pakistani Taliban militants seized a counter-terrorism centre and took some people hostage in the Bannu district of Pakistan's troubled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
'We are committed to leveraging our influence constructively to support the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) in fostering cricket development and ensuring playing opportunities for both men and women in Afghanistan'.
England previously faced Afghanistan at the 50-overs Cricket World Cup in 2023, as well as at the Twenty20 World Cup in 2022.
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