At a time when Manipur is burning, voices like Colonel Sapam's serve as a healing balm. 'These are voices that need to heard and their stories of peace and reconciliation must be retold -- over and over again.
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.
The IAF has already set up a dedicated operations direction centre for coordinating various aspects of the arrangements with security agencies concerned, they said.
The police believe a truck loaded with rubber material parked near the godown caught fire, which spread in no time because of strong winds on Tuesday night.
'Unlike on the western and eastern borders where there is an enemy at the gate, here there is an invisible enemy which is building its own capability and can come into play at a time and place of his choosing.'
With alertness very high post the surgical strikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the Uri attack, Indian Air Force is aggressively upgrading infrastructure in the eastern sector specially in Arunachal Pradesh.
India also went on an overdrive in expanding its military engagement with like-minded countries in its neighbourhood and beyond in the face of China's relentless attempts to become a regional hegemon and establish its primacy in South Asia.
In a calibrated operation, the Indian Navy on Saturday 'coerced' 35 Pirates onboard a merchant ship around 1,400 nautical miles from the Indian coast to surrender and ensured the safe evacuation of 17 crew members without any injury, officials said.
'With continued focus on votes, upcoming by-polls and purchasing politicians, the political hierarchy has little time for national defence.' 'They would do well to heed a veteran scholar, who says, "There will be war with China in the next few years. The next full scale war will have the involvement of Pakistan and terror elements, insurgents and intelligence assets operating inside India",' warns Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
The world needs to wake up to this new dimension of war at sea and be prepared to face the 'unknown enemy' who have the advantage of attacking at their choice of location and time, cautions Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
The 1971 war reaffirmed the importance of inspirational senior leadership in battle and heralded the emergence of a new fighting class amongst officers and men of India's armed forces.
The coveted Durand Cup trophy received a grand welcome with two retired Army officers showing their daredevilry by jumping from Kolkata's tallest building -- The 42 -- a 65-floor, 260-metre landmark
Gen Pande, who was serving as the vice chief, became the first officer from the Corps of Engineers to helm the force.
DRDO's failures over the decades have contributed significantly to India becoming the world's biggest weapons importer, points out Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
The use of firearms along the LAC marks a serious escalation in border tensions as the previous instance of shots being fired at the de-facto border was in 1975.
In the early part of the Kargil operations, the army opted to more or less go it alone, sacrificing large numbers of men and officers in almost superhuman struggles against an enemy on higher ground. Some generals seem to think their predecessors would have succeeded better if they had had air resources at their disposal, points out David Devadas.
'We failed as a country because those who should have been there to say goodbye did not show up.'
In a projection of India's growing maritime prowess, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday addressed the top naval commanders onboard the country's first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant in the Arabian Sea and witnessed a mega wargame, amid China's increasing military posturing in the Indian Ocean region.
'The Pakistanis were not the mujahids or terrorists as claimed initially.' .'They were trained soldiers who held state of the art anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down our airplanes.'
It is the first warship to have been named after a city from the Northeastern region, the approval for which was accorded by the President in April 2019.
The retreating Pakistani troops were heading towards Dacca and they had to be stopped at all costs. The Eastern Army Commander, in his orders to General Sagat Singh, had reiterated that he did not want the troops of 4 Corps to cross the Meghna river. But General Sagat had other plans to threaten Dacca and ensure that the pressure would make the Pakistani commanders capitulate. This is where the IAF helicopters came in.
The IAF can take on any one as it has world-class aircraft like the Sukhoi-30 MKIs, Mirages and Jaguars, a senior IAF official said.
Arjan Singh, the Marshal of the Indian Air Force, was a fearless and exceptional pilot and remained a source of inspiration to all personnel of the Armed Forces through the years.
China on Tuesday announced that its Defence Minister General Li Shangfu will visit India this week to attend the meeting of SCO defence ministers from April 27 during which he is expected to hold talks with his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh on ending the prolonged eastern Ladakh standoff which has severely strained bilateral ties.
Major General Sujan Singh Uban, a legendary veteran of the Second World War, was a natural choice to raise, train and command the Special Frontier Force and mould them into a well oiled fighting machine, recalls his son Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd), who led SFF troops during the Kargil War.
The pilot killed in action was Wing Commander Harshit Sinha, the Indian Air Force (IAF) said.
'My adrenalin kicked in and the happiness returned! It was time to go in for the kill again.' IAF Veterans Group Captain Dilip Kumar Dass tells Air Commodore Nitin Sathe about how the IAF decimated tanks in the famous Battle of Longewala.
The military investigator's report found that more than 30 civilians not 5 to 7 as the military has long insisted died in the air strikes against a suspected Taliban compound in Azizabad in western Afghanistan on August 22, the New York Times reported.
If the government of the day would like to set in place a smooth and well-planned changeover and facilitate the incoming chief to chalk out his action plan well in advance, the announcement of a successor needs to be done early, observes Colonel K Thammayya Udupa (retd).
'Naval Aviation has contributed through numerous humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations during which it has provided relief to fellow citizens like the recently conducted rescue operations off Mumbai during Cyclone Tauktae in May 2021.'
He visited areas falling under the operational command of the Rising Star Corps, including Kathua, Samba, Jammu and Pathankot, to review the security situation.
16 Indian Army divisions face China, 20 face Pakistan and two divisions are reserves. This powerful signal can hardly be missed in China or Pakistan, notes Ajai Shukla.
Lt Gen Bakshi announced 'full support' to the new chief and made it clear that he won't resign.
Claude Arpi reveals how Wing Commander Jag Mohan Nath won a second Maha Vir Chakra in the 1965 War.
The black box, comprising the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), of the ill-fated Mi-17V5 helicopter of the Indian Air Force was recovered from the crash site on Thursday.
The unstated aim of a well-publicised airlift operation of this kind is to demonstrate India's ability to rapidly move troops and equipment over long distances.
'Unless India ups the ante, Beijing will continue to believe its transgressions are cost free and will feel encouraged to do more of the same.'
Everyone at the camp was sleeping and Pakistani defence establishment had no clue that the attack was coming so deep into their country.
India's voting pattern in the United Nations with regard to the Israel-Palestine conflict is lately marked by a calibrated distancing from Israel, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
There was a 'fascist threat' to democracy in Sri Lanka and 'we can't let them tear up our Constitution', acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe told the crisis-hit nation on Wednesday, as he vowed to restore normalcy as well as stop the destruction of state property.
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