The billions India invested in dams, schools, etc in Afghanistan will be gone. The Hindu and Sikh population of Afghanistan has already shrunk from some 200,000 to about 500, points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
'She has never advocated people taking to the streets and calling for a revolution.' 'I don't know if that will change now.'
The video shows 21-year-old Bahadur Ali, a resident of Raiwind in Lahore, spilling beans about LeT's role in the disturbances.
The tearing hurry to form theatre commands has to be replaced by a balanced and deliberate approach. We need to accept that this process will take time if executed correctly and in the best interests of the Indian armed forces, argues Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
The Chinese have just one commander for all the forces confronting India. Commanders of all these forces answer to one man, and one headquarter. India, on the other hand, offers a diversity of options that is a military embarrassment in the 21st century. In Arunachal and Sikkim-Bhutan, the Eastern Army Commander is in charge. In the Uttarakhand (central) sector, it will be the Central Army Commander. The Himachal-Tibet border is the domain of the Western Army Commander. And all of Kashmir and Ladakh further on, the Northern Army's. Effectively, an array of at least eight 'three-star' commanders will be arrayed against one Chinese, says Shekhar Gupta.
Delhi has come to accept the Taliban takeover in Kabul as a reality and seems increasingly unsure of its dogmatic view of the Taliban as a mere proxy of the Pakistani military and security establishment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
By jettisoning the seniority principle, the government has sent a strong signal that only merit and suitability will count in occupying posts in the higher echelons of the military, writes national security expert Nitin Gokhale.
Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd), former general officer in commanding, 15 Corps, explains what may have happened during the Indian Army's anti-terrorist operation in Kashmir in which four soldiers and one policemen, including the commanding officer 21 Rashtriya Rifles, made the supreme sacrifice for the Motherland.
On the title page of the Top Secret Report, Henderson-Brooks quotes the Chinese tactician Sun Tzu: 'Know yourself, know your enemy: A hundred battles, a hundred victories', says Claude Arpi, highlighting where the Indian Army and government failed to counter the Chinese attack in 1962.
December 3, 2021 marks 50 years since the beginning of the 1971 War which ended in a decisive military victory for India and the liberation of Bangladesh. Most analysts of the 1971 War agree that the IV Corps dash across the mighty Meghna river led by the brilliant General Sagat Singh was the turning point in the war, recalls military historian Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Before migrating into the theatre command concept, it would be worthwhile to study the shortfalls experienced by the Tri Services Command in the Andaman and Nicobar islands and make good the deficiencies, suggests Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Rediff.com's Manu Shankar caught up with the 'Everest Sisters' in a candid interview, wherein they spoke about their passion for mountaineering and risk and challenges one has to face in the sport.
'It's a matter of great pride that no student of Army Goodwill Schools has ever joined terrorism.'
'No one needs to lose sleep if a person with better operational credentials supersedes lesser endowed peers,' says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
'Modi's finest political legacy ought to be a border settlement with Beijing,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'As for tricky relations with China, India needs less of summitry type event management and more anticipatory analysis and management of events,' says Ambassador Jaimini Bhagwati.
'Once Mohanlal's ever-swelling entourage grasped his enormous worth, once it realized that the innate Mohanlal appeal could be profited from, it set about to exploit, to make uproars, to create the Mohanlal brand.' 'And he wasn't meant to be a brand. He was meant to be an artist, a tireless explorer of the unique seas inside him,' asserts Sreehari Nair.
'India has to understand that the permanent state of war that exists between India and Pakistan has to be expected,,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd). 'The only way to ensure peace or absence of war is to maintain a militarily-dominant position over Pakistan.'
The mortal remains of the nine Siachen bravehearts, who were buried alive on February 3 in an avalanche in the world's highest battlefield, were on Monday brought to New Delhi.
'We have not seen even during Vajpayee's time what Modi and the BJP has adopted now.'
30 years ago, after India sent in troops to resolve a crisis in the Maldives, Ambassador B S Prakash was part of an Indian government team assigned to the islands to help the then president. This is what he discovered. A Must Read!
'Earlier it was a stigma to discuss mental problems. But I get more patients for past life regression as in India people believe in rebirth and karma,' Dr Prakriti Poddar, who uses hypnotism to treat illnesses, tells A Ganesh Nadar.
'There were moments when you didn't know if you will get out of there alive.'
'You don't control who you love. Love happens. You don't decide you're going to love this person.' Love talk from Priyanka Chopra.
'She's not going to keel over.' 'This is the kind of difficult situation that she thrives in.'
'Pakistan's security establishment, despite its appallingly immoral approach to conflict, has worked with limited resources to maximise its national defence resources to continue bleeding India,' says Ajai Shukla.
'We should not forget the sacrifice these men made.'
Jaishankar said that the resolution on Kashmir introduced by Jayapal in the House is not a fair characterisation of the situation in J-K. And also said that he has no interest in meeting the Congresswoman.
'Local support is very important, without it the terror attack couldn't have taken place.' 'Explosives were secured, the IED was manufactured, the boy was brainwashed and converted into a suicide bomber... it takes a lot of planning and hard work.'
Authorities shut down schools and other educational institutions in north Kashmir as a precautionary measure for maintaining law and order.
'We think Pakistan has moved decisively against terrorists that threaten Pakistan internally, but still needs to devote attention to those that represent a threat to their neighbours.'
'Indian secularism doesn't deserve a tombstone. It needs a new shrine,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
Union Minister of Environment and Forest Prakash Javadekar on Friday expressed anguish over the unabated poaching of the rare one-horned rhinoceros in Assam's Kaziranga National Park and the rapid shrinking of forest cover in the northeast region.
'There were tears in my eyes when I parted with my medals. I thought was it for this moment did I become a soldier?' In 2008, Captain H Balakrishnan (retd) of the Indian Navy returned all his medals to the President of India to protest the government's failure to implement the One Rank One Pension scheme.
'We could quibble with each other whether there were 25 terrorists killed or 250 killed.' 'The message is more that India undertook such an aerial attack and this attack has actually changed the paradigm.' 'The change in paradigm is that India has shown by the surgical strike in 2016 and the aerial strike of 2019 that we will not just sit back and tolerate terrorism which killed so many of our people.' 'We will hit back and by hitting back we will raise the costs of such activities.'
'Imran and his government have obviously agreed to be subservient to the military establishment.' 'How can we expect him to take a stand on anything?'
'Dev for me embodied all that kind of charm, optimism, energy, vulnerability, awkwardness and yet strength.' 'He's in every scene for two hours.' 'He has to play drama, melodrama, romance, pathos, comedy.' 'It was a relief when he said yes.'
Sunetra Choudhury hopes the Supreme Court will eventually give a fitting punishment to the Uphaar accused.
'The cost of the Rafale contract will be substantially lower than being talked about.' 'If you throw away the price they demand, our coffers will soon become empty.' 'When it comes to spending the nation's money I am very careful and stingy.'
After weighing all the costs and benefits, the next administration is likely to reduce and restructure assistance to Pakistan but not to end it altogether, says Daniel S Markey.
