General Asad Durrani's disclosures could leave considerable egg on the face of those currently wielding the stick in Pakistan, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
The powerful orator leaves behind the legacy of an easily-accessible leader who played a key role in BJP's emergence in the late 1990s.
Aakar Patel looks forward to Prime Minister Modi's speech at the bhoomi pujan for the Ram temple in Ayodhya next week. It will be entertaining and stirring, predicts Aakar, and make lots of promises that he most likely won't be able to keep.
India's most powerful prime minister in five decades gets publicly admonished -- if gently -- by the US vice-president. The question is, would this make him reflect on how and why, or which ones of his government and party's missteps exposed his flank like this? asks Shekhar Gupta.
Some members of the Obama administration have worried that Pakistan's heightened anxieties about India might lead Islamabad to take reckless measures, so they have wanted New Delhi to pursue more diplomatic engagement with Islamabad.
Just wait for some more time. Pakistan will forced to stop firing.
'The RSS doesn't intervene, interfere or try to dominate government policy-making... The responsibility of running the government is entirely in the hands of the BJP.'
The efforts by the organisers to show that the reception for Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Madison Square Garden was an event organised by all sections of the Indian community has led to deep divisions and heartburn among Sangh Parivar organisations in the US.
There is speculation that China released the White Paper on Tibet in a hurry after a Spanish court agreed to hear charges of genocide against former Chinese president Hu Jintao. Ajai Shukla reports
Accusing the Congress of failing the country's farmers and soldiers, Narendra Modi on Monday said the ruling party should be given such a "farewell" that India does not see it in power "for seven generations".
'If we can award Madan Mohan Malaviya who died in 1946, then why not the Mahatma who died in 1948?' 'Why not go a little further back in time and give the award to Rabindranath Tagore who died in 1941?' 'And should we mark Lokmanya Tilak's 100th death anniversary in 2020 by giving him a Bharat Ratna,' asks Amberish K Diwanji.
For debt-laden Jet Airways, bitter foe Tata may turn into timely saviour.
The Modi government has to embrace the history of Tamil conquests in South East Asia and stop obsessing about Babar/Humayun, argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'It seems that the BJP in its desire to catapult Modi onto the international stage, knowing the image deficit due to visa denials, has caused unhappiness in Tamil Nadu, uncertainty in Bangladesh and a churning in Pakistan that Sharif may or may not be able to control,' says Ambassador K C Singh.
'When he has been retired against his will, Advani appears to have found the merits of tolerance.' 'It took his one-time pupil to teach the old man his own lesson,' says Aakar Patel.
Praising the US for turning barriers into bridges of partnership, he said that America had stood with India when the support was needed the most, like when terrorists attacked Mumbai in November 2008 and in other economic endeavours as well
Niti Aayog's plan to create a 'New India' in less than four years should invite scepticism, argues T N Ninan.
Ambassador B S Prakash has fond memories of Vinod Khanna, his minister.
'The fact that she kept her faith in the power of doing good all through the thick and thin in her life, that she worked sincerely for the upliftment of the tribals, the downtrodden and the backwards, is one of the most inspirational aspects of her life.'
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
New Delhi has repeatedly missed opportunities for political engagement in Kashmir in the past. It must seize the next one, says Ajai Shukla.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Sunday said with slew of graft cases surfacing during the UPA government, corruption has taken the shape of a "small scale industry", and the upcoming Lok Sabha polls will be a fight between morality and immorality.
'If Yogiji has to run this government without any problems, he has to remain in power, and if he has to keep the BJP bosses in Delhi and the RSS happy, then he has no option but to do it.'
Being a pragmatist Modi is not likely to give preference to China over Japan. Both security and economic aspects are likely to shape Modi's decision in terms of engaging the two biggest economies of Asia, says Sana Hashmi.
'Will Modi at least visit the victims of the Gujarat genocide, apologise for the massacre, wipe their tears which may never dry, extend State help to rehabilitate them, and give them the dignity they deserve?' asks Najid Hussain.
Here's a look at some of the hashtags that trended during the first year of the Modi regime.
'The BJP has bent. Pakistan has not changed a single thing. It is the BJP and its supporters who have changed. And this is a very good thing,' says Aakar Patel.
'Now that the Ram mandir is done, we need to move on. And grapple with COVID-19, a sputtering economy, a belligerent China...' 'The temple may win a few more elections for the BJP, but by itself it won't solve the nation's growing problems of economic and social distress,' notes Virendra Kapoor.
'It is a well-entrenched belief in the downtrodden, the deprived sections, that Modi cares for them. He has come to occupy their mindspace as their messiah.' 'And it is this deprived, dispossessed section that is powering his electoral performance, breaking ancient shibboleths and shackles like religion and caste and region and language,' argues Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
India's freedom, its rambling but working Constitution, its parliamentary democracy, its lumbering administrative machinery all have many a father, but its greatest claim to fame, especially today, that of being a modern state, is due to but one person: Its first and longest-serving prime minister, Nehru, says Shreekant Sambrani.
'He knows India is going nowhere.' 'India will never let go of Kashmir, so he wants to settle with India.' 'Settle honourably with peace, dignity and justice.'
For successive governments the Election Commission remains a 'holy cow', where unhealthy precedents are allowed to be nurtured since Independence, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
While PM Narendra Modi-Amit Shah dominated the national executive, senior chief ministers and 'margdarshaks' LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi were ignored
Sidhu said that the corridor would promote peace and erase "enmity" between India and Pakistan and create infinite possibilities between them, including the resumption of cricket ties.
'They fear their caste privilege will be exposed if there is an OBC caste census.'
'Pakistan has responded with appropriate contempt -- hrowing our national dignity into the waste paper basket.'
Brigadier M P Bajwa (retd), commander of the troops that captured Tiger Hill, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih how a band of young soldiers won the Kargil War's most famous battle with their blood and grit.
If one were to go by the degree of clout, Jaitley was the undoubted No. 2 in the Modi government.
'The extended Bose family is insisting that the Japanese government must release all the information they have on Bose's ashes. It cannot be forgotten that Bose was in Japanese care when his 'death' occurred. Ultimately, it is the Japanese who hold the secret about what happened to him.'
