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.
Raiji, also a cricket historian and chartered accountant, was 13 when India played their first Test match at the Bombay Gymkhana in South Mumbai.
The US spent $1.5 million a day since 2001 fighting the opium war in Afghanistan. After hundreds of airstrikes failed to curtail the Taliban's $200-million-a-year opium trade, the US military quietly ended the campaign when the Trump administration officials engaged in direct peace talks with the Taliban, notes Atanu Biswas.
The massive earthquake in Sichuan struck at 9:19 pm (local time) on Tuesday and the epicentre was monitored at a depth of 20 km, state-run Xinhua new agency reported.
Pak PM Imran Khan said the terror strike was an effort to 'sabotage' the country's economic projects
Two policemen and nine militants have been killed when axe-wielding assailants attacked a police station in China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang province, the latest in a series of deadly attacks amid heightened tension in the volatile western region bordering PoK.
Important for India was Xi's meeting with representatives of PLA officers and soldiers stationed in Tibet. The video of the encounter was interesting to watch, especially the large number of lieutenant generals and major generals, observes Claude Arpi.
Two foreigners, an Italian and a German, were kidnapped by unidentified armed men from Multan district of Pakistan's Punjab province on Thursday, police said.
An interesting phenomenon of the UP assembly elections 2012 is the emergence of many small Muslim political outfits, says Dr Mohammad Sajjad
Presenting some of the most scintillating pictures from around the globe in the last 48 hours.
Michael Knights, a Boston-based Lafer Fellow of The Washington Institute who specialised in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Persian Gulf, spoke to Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa about power of the ISIS and the reasons behind its growth
Cancelling Uighur leader Dolkun Isa's visa could have been a mutual face-saving exercise for New Delhi and Beijing.
A staff member at the town's hospital said 32 people were injured, five of them critically.
We can make a beginning by openly acknowledging the Russian help in 1971 victory when President Putin visits India on 6 December 2021. Showing gratitude to a friend is part of our DNA, notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
All of the top news of the week gone by, in photos.
'We need to retell this history from many different perspectives.'
The US has the distinction of destroying a flawed but functioning State thrice since 1979. Pakistan has been their constant accomplice, explains Shekhar Gupta.
If the initial analysis of this YJ-21 is correct, then China becomes the first country in the world to operationally field such a missile from a naval vessel.
Six persons were killed and as many injured in a blast at a madrassa in Pakistan's south-western Balochistan province on Monday.
In its sheer audacity, the initiative with Russia has the potential to transform world politics in the same way as the 1972 Nixon visit to China and 'Shanghai Declaration' changed world dynamics, says Anil Athale.
Dismissing as "untenable" India linking resumption of talks with action against the Mumbai attack perpetrators, Pakistan said on Thursday, that a "true dialogue" does not come with pre-conditions. It also claimed it had evidence of India's involvement in fomenting trouble in south-western Balochistan province.
For many people, Normandy, a province in North-Western France, conjures up images of the massive armada that descended upon its shores on June 6, 1944 to drive the Nazis out of continental Europe. However, Normandy is a lot more than just that says Siddhu Warrior.
After the Ladakh fiasco where Xi Jinping did not expect the Indian Army to resist his land-grabbing tactics, he has to save face before his colleagues in the Communist party.' To bring the threat of a mega-dam to the northern Indian border is a clever move, observes Claude Arpi.
The results for the People's Choice Award for the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year are in.
According to report in the China Daily, Washington could be furthering its geopolitical interests in the region by acting through its private non-governmental organisation, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Lahore Commissioner Khusro Pervez has blamed India's intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) for the recent riots in Punjab province.The Daily Times quoted Pervez as saying that the recent anti-Christian riots in Gojra and Sheikhupura were orchestrated by the RAW.He added that various American and Western organisations were trying to create 'an Islamic brigade' in Pakistan by supporting the Indian spy agency.
Facing intense pressure from the United States to act against militants thriving in its restive tribal region, Pakistani has blamed India and Afghanistan for stirring trouble in its northwestern areas and Balochistan province.Ruling Pakistan People's Party leader Rehman Malik, who functions as the interior minister and is a confidant of party chief Asif Ali Zardari, appealed to Pakistan's western allies, including the US, to stop India and Afghanistan's alleged activities.
On Saturday, disaster struck the coast of southern Sumatra and the western tip of Java when a volcano known as the "child" of Krakatoa erupted, which in turn, triggered a tsunami - in which powerful waves of a height of 30-90 centimetres (1-3 feet) lashed the area.
With his name or without, Jim Corbett continues to live on in his home in Uttarakahand's Kaladunghi and in the jungles he loved.
As the island heads for elections, two major factors worry Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. One is the division in the Sinhala vote and the other is the prospect of the Tamils and Muslims voting heavily against him.
The son of Sufi Muhammad, a hardline cleric who negotiated the controversial peace deal between Pakistani authorities and Taliban, has been killed in shelling in the Dir district of North Western Frontier Province, where security forces are conducting operations against the militants. Kifayatullah, the son of Sufi Muhammad, was killed while another relative was injured in the shelling at the cleric's hometown of Maidan in Dir.
Islamic courts have started functioning in the Taliban stronghold of Swat in north-western Pakistan as per a peace deal signed by the government with militants in the restive region a month ago.
Taliban rebels are earning up to 2 lakh Pakistani rupees for each Nato soldier they kill, Times Online has said. The money usually reaches commanders via the traditional hawala transfer system which is then shared within the militia.
The wet market was where a variety of live animals were traded until it was shut down following fears that the coronavirus had jumped to humans either from bats or pangolins.
Pakistani journalists on Thursday condemned the killings of scribes in the Taliban-infested North Western Frontier Province and said that these were attempts to scare them away from the restive region.They termed the killing of a scribe Musa Khankhel in Swat on Wednesday as 'deliberate and cold blooded' so that the happenings there do not reach the outside world.The journalists said they would not be cowed down and would continue to operate in the troubled region.
A hardliner religious leader led hundreds of his supporters in a peace march in the violence-hit north-western Swat valley in Pakistan on Wednesday apparently to convince the Taliban militants to honour a new pact reached with the government which envisages their laying down arms.
The New York Times reported that Pakistan was moving 6,000 troops (more than a brigade) to fight militants on its western border with Afghanistan, quoting a Pakistani official who did not want to be identified. The Pakistan military, advancing on three fronts backed by fighter aircraft and attack helicopters in Buner, snatched the vital 8-km-long Ambela heights which overlook most of Buner.
The Indian was abducted along with a Nepali on Monday while they were travelling from Herat to capital Kabul. No militant outfit has claimed responsibility and no arrests have been made so far.
'These tactics are particularly evident in China's pursuit of its territorial and maritime claims in the South and East China Seas as well as along its border with India and Bhutan'
'Sholay wallah kahani hai: 'Gabbar Singh aayega, Gabbar Singh aayega.' 'But what is inside Gabbar Singh nobody knows.'
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances