'...but from those who control the narrative.' Powerful nations have mastered this art of narrative building. Those nations who aspire to become global powers must do so, observes Shanthie Mariet D'Souza.
'One of R&AW's greatest achievements is in projecting itself as benign.' 'This work -- done in tandem with the Diaspora and the MEA -- sells a story of India as mostly the victim.'
B'desh minister termed as "untrue" the allegations of minority repression in the country.
'Unique' Afghan leg spinner Rashid Khan will have a major impact on this year's Indian Premier League for the Hyderabad franchise, coach Tom Moody has predicted.
There is no doubt that all terrorist organisations like the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Tayiba are operating with impunity in Pakistan. They may be loosely confederated, but their agendas are being synchronised and India after Afghanistan is their prime target.
Osama bin Laden's former cook, Ibrahim al Qosi, has pleaded guilty at a trial in Guantanamo Bay to conspiracy and providing support for terrorism, representing the first conviction of the Barack Obama administration at the controversial war crimes court. According to the BBC, the 50-year-old man from Sudan has admitted that he had worked as bin Laden's bodyguard in Afghanistan and helped him avoid capture by US forces. Qosi was detained in Afghanistan in 2001.
India's national security strategy needs to be revised periodically since the global and regional geopolitical situation is dynamic, points out Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
The conditions are related to Pakistan's support to terrorists and terror outfits.
South Africa defeated Afghanistan by 59 runs in their Twenty20 World Cup group C match on Wednesday.
"I'll tell you one thing--we are hitting the Taliban right now harder than they've ever been hit," Trump said.
'The US-India relationship is in a different league altogether,' Obama administration officials tell Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in Washington, DC.
Al Qaeda has started feeling the heat as a result of the intensification of American efforts against it in the Af-Pak region, a top Obama Administration official has said.
Al Qaeda is trying to seek nuclear secrets from Pakistan and it remains as dangerous as ever, Special United States Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke said on Wednesday. "Al Qaeda is still there in the region, ever dangerous and publicly asking people to attack the US and publicly asking nuclear engineers to give them nuclear secrets from Pakistan," Holbrooke said during a reception hosted by the Congressional Caucus.
New Delhi's candidature was unanimously endorsed by the 55-member Asia-Pacific grouping, including China and Pakistan, in June last year.
Richard Holbrooke, the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, on Tuesday scrupulously eschewed commenting on what the US can do to urge India to ease its tensions with Pakistan to help alleviate the Pakistani military's 'obsession' with India and hence be a catalyst in promoting President Barack Obama's Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.
"Read my lips," said Richard Holbrooke, special US representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, "I am not working on that problem," when asked by a Pakistani journalist if the Obama administration was 'serious to appoint any adviser to resolve this issue,' since as the latter contended, "We all know that deep down, there is no solution of Afghanistan and the South Asia problem, without resolving the Kashmir issue that is controlled by Indian government."
The Obama administration is apparently committed to alleviating India-Pakistan tensions and consequently influencing the Pakistani army to focus on the internal terrorist threat from the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and not India, in order to advance Washington's AfPak agenda.
'We are very grateful that the US takes the trouble to keep us informed and to consult with us as this situation is being managed by them,' Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor tells rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa.
Pakistan strongly believes that dialogue is the "only way forward" to resolve bilateral disputes with India and embark upon peace and prosperity in the region, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Friday, a day after parleys with his Indian counterpart S M Krishna resulted in no major breakthrough.
Pakistan's security forces and its intelligence agency have facilitated the rise of the Taliban, with whom they have an "ambiguous" relationship, a former top American army official, now headed to become the country's representative to Afghanistan has said.
The talks being held at an undisclosed location, involve high-level representatives of the Taliban authorised by the dominant Quetta Shura led by the groups elusive leader Mullah Omar, Washington Post reported quoting Afghan and Arab sources.
Jadhav, 46, filed a mercy petition before Gen Bajwa last month, according to an Inter-Services Public Relations statement issued on June 22. The statement said that the former Indian Navy officer had filed the petition after the Military Appellate Court rejected his appeal.
Richard Holbrooke, the United States Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has asserted that the Obama administration "believes that what happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan is of vital interest to our national security and that India is a country that we must keep in the closest consultations with."
The jump in the sale of American weapons to India comes at a time when sale of weapons from the US to other countries has dipped to USD 50.8 billion in 2020 from USD 55.7 billion in 2019.
Olson was responding to questions from the lawmakers who expressed concern over Pakistan being "selective" in taking actions against terrorist groups.
Representatives of the Afghanistan government and Taliban militia are set to hold talks in the Maldives on national reconciliation, their second such meeting this year. "The government of Maldives confirms that talks are being held this week in the Maldives between Afghan lawmakers and representatives from groups opposed to the Afghan government," President Mohammaed Nasheed's press secretary Mohamed Zuhair said. The Maldivian government has no involvement in the talks.
A day earlier, the House of Representatives voted 326-78 to pass a waiver exempting Austin from the seven-year 'cooling off period' for retired generals taking over as defence secretary. The senate approved the waiver by 69-27 votes.
The US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan James Dobbins is stepping down, Secretary of State John Kerry today said amid a political crisis in the war-torn country.
Yasin was also responsible for the 2009 attack on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore.
'As much as $4 billion in India's start-up companies has come from Chinese funds.' 'Government policy must not remain indifferent to the problems India's start-up ventures are likely to face after the change in FDI rules,' says A K Bhattacharya.
United States President Barack Obama has appointed Bruce Riedel, a veteran Central Investigative Agency analyst for nearly three decades, to chair an inter-agency policy review of US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.Obama's press spokesman Robert Gibbs said that this policy review chaired by Riedel would have to be completed before the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in April.
Describing India's concerns as legitimate, a top United States official has said that there is no immediate danger of foreign fighters from Afghanistan moving towards the Indian border after 2014, when American troops leave the country.
The United States has said that it was aware of the unofficial talks between Taliban and Afghan representatives in Maldives, adding the Karzai government has confirmed that there is no official participant from its side.
India has fleshed out its approach toward the peace talks with the Taliban taking into account the inputs from John Kerry's visit as well as the consultations in Delhi the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan James Dobbins, says M K Bhadrakumar.
The United States has asked Pakistan to prove its seriousness in fighting terrorism by matching their rhetoric with that of action on the ground than by mere "verbal commitment".
The SC issued notice to the Centre on the batch of pleas seeking stay on the operation of the law.
Five countries including India, Pakistan and Afghanistan accounted for more than half of the terror attacks that took place across the globe in 2015, a US official has said.
The foreign ministers from Pakistan and Afghanistan are arriving in Washinton D.C next week for consultations, as part of United States' efforts to contact high-level leaders from the region to frame its new Afghan policy.
After Modi became the prime minister, the Indo-US relationship has seen an upward trajectory, he said.
Condolences continued to pour in from world dignitaries for former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj who breathed her last due to cardiac arrest on Tuesday night.
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