'Captain Haneef-ud-din, pulling his sinewy body forward, crawled, rifle in hand, in the snow on 6 June 1999. He died on this craggy mountainside exactly two years after he had passed out of the IMA...'
Honorary Captain Bana Singh won the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest ranking gallantry award, for recapturing a Pakistani post on the Siachen Glacier. Living a retired life in a quiet village in Jammu & Kashmir, he makes you feel that his act of phenomenal courage was part of a soldier's day at work.
The atmosphere at the funeral was highly emotional with friends, relatives and locals bidding tearful farewell.
After spending 40 years in the Indian Army, Lieutenant General Subrata Saha marches into the electoral battlefield as the BJP candidate from Rashbehari.
'Geological processes occur at time scales that are beyond human imagination, but we need to understand these events.'
Mumbai teen Siddharth Pillai has designed and patented a technology that prevents coral bleaching and will save hundreds of marine species from extinction.
Burnt remains of the pilot of the ill-fated MiG-29 fighter aircraft have been found by Indian Air Force search teams, 19 days after the plane crashed in Lahaul Valley in Himachal Pradesh.
'Captain Vikram Batra, PVC and his unit 13 Jak Rif did stand out because of the sheer magnitude of the task allotted to them but also the exceptional professionalism with which it was executed and completed,' recalls Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
It was a brutal test of helicopter and pilot. As the Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter shuddered towards the icy helipad on a 21,000-foot ledge overlooking the Siachen Glacier, the pilots could see wreckage from earlier helicopter crashes dotting the base of the vertical ice walls on either side.
Any nation that yearns to fulfil the aspirations of its people needs two emotional nutrients: Sense of pride and sense of shame. Wonder whether the sight of military veterans protesting governmental injustice will prick the national conscience, asks M P Anil Kumar.
'The difficulty of coordinating the response in Uttarakhand suggests that the country is ill-equipped to deal with a large earthquake in a mountainous area. The effects would be many times worse,' warns Dave Petley, expert on landslides
Check out the spunky actor's bucketlist of things to do in the country.
With contentions over important dates like the melting of the Himalayas being disputed, the scientific studies, which contradict each other are losing credibility.
Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com gives you the lowdown on the latest Redmi phones in the market.
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.
Flying ash from Iceland's erupting volcano has forced Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special aircraft to change its planned route and now he will return to home via Johannesburg in South Africa.
Modi's hardline policy towards Pakistan and J&K has created numerous leverages and bargaining positions that New Delhi can bring to the bargaining table and translate into concessions, argues Ajai Shukla.
The standard line that is used for anyone -- academics, minorities, farmers, dissident industrialists -- who points out that what the government is doing is wrong is being anti-national and separatists, reveals Aakar Patel.
Notwithstanding Pakistan's vociferous protests, India will organise a civilian mountaineering and trekking expedition to the forbidding Siachen Glacier for the fourth year in a row in October-November this year. "The Siachen trekking expedition this year is in its planning stage and is likely to take place some time in October-November," an Army officer involved in the planning of the trek said. The expedition has now become an annual affair.
'Attempts at long-term rapprochement have been rather feeble from both sides. The primary cause of the lack of progress is that these efforts do not appear to have the support of the Pakistan army,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Wife of Siachen braveheart Hanamanthappa Koppad, Mahadevi Ashok Bilebal wants their only daughter to join the Indian army when she grows up.
Embattled UN climate panel chief R K Pachauri found support on Friday from world leaders attending the climate change conference in New Delhi as they contended that some mistake in the IPCC report does not change the basic facts of global warming.
Pachauri, who has been under attack from various quarters over the IPCC's 2007 report on Himalayan glaciers, has already ruled out his resignation saying that the mistake was 'unfortunate' and he would go ahead to complete the Fifth IPCC Assessment Report.
After locking horns with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the glacier melting issue, environment minister Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday the research of the Indian panel on climate change would be more 'robust and solid' than the UN body's.
Thirty-one army personnel too have been awarded the Sena (gallantry) medal.
Take a look at some of the most striking images from the contest, and see a full gallery on Smithsonian's website.
'Their failure to take Siachen is an embarrassment to the Pakistan army -- and let them live with it. Our army's shoulders are broad enough to endure the challenge.'
The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change erroneously claimed that the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035.
In his first engagement outside the national capital, the President confers a rare honour on a brave, young, regiment.
North America is experiencing its harshest cold snap in 24 years, so cold in fact that Niagara Falls has frozen over. Photos of the falls on the American and Canadian sides have become a world attraction in recent days as wind chills there fell to as low as minus 14 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. A quick look at the amazing pictures.
Home Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday lauded the sacrifice made by security personnel while combating terrorists during the Mumbai terror attacks.
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Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com tells you what the phone is about.
If you are confused about the severity of human-induced climate change, it might help to focus on the death threat to Gori Ganga, says Rajni Bakshi.
'Storms push a lot of water into land, then there is heavy rainfall due to the cyclone.' 'Along with this, we see the gradual rising of the sea level.' 'We see this during and after the latest Cyclone Tauktae.' 'This kind of overlapping events are increasing and we do not know much about how to tackle them.'
The condition of Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad, the Siachen braveheart who defied death for six days buried under snow, has deteriorated, the army said on Wednesday as a team of experts from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences joined in the efforts save his life.
Cricket is set to touch a new high. Europe's longest glacier in the Swiss Alps will soon host an exhibition match between two all-star teams from India and England, at an altitude of 11,330 feet, surrounded by snow-clad peaks.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi will undertake a yatra to Kedarnath on Thursday, trekking 18 km up into the Uttarkhand mountains to pay obeisance at the temple which faced the brunt of flash-floods two years ago and has since been spruced up.
'Nothing that Hillary Clinton did or said, at least publicly, has attracted criticism. This in itself is a sign of success,' writes T P Sreenivasan.
Climate change is not something only 'they' have to worry about because it is 'their' creation, says Subir Roy.
