Lieutenant General Faiz Hamid will take to his new command as duck to water, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
In fact, the Taliban apparently collects about 10 per cent as cultivation tax from opium farmers and 15 per cent as heroin tax from laboratories and smugglers that smuggle narcotics into Pakistan. This, by itself, is a revenue stream estimated at USD 250-300 million.
Hamid Nihal Ansari, a software engineer from Mumbai, returned to India in December 2018 after spending six years in a Pakistani jail for illegally entering the neighbouring country from Afghanistan, reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online. He was arrested in 2012 and lodged at Peshawar jail after Pakistan had slapped espionage charges against him. The decision to release him was on account of relentless pressure from New Delhi and Sushma Swaraj, who was the external affairs minister and was personally monitoring the case. Speaking to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com, Ansari recalls the time he spent with her and says that if it wasn't for her efforts, he would still be rotting away in a Pakistani cell.
Many world leaders on Monday condoled the death of former president Pranab Mukherjee, saying they have lost a true friend who made immense contributions to the strengthening of India's relations with their countries.
Deputy director for the People's Liberation Army Office for International Military Cooperation Major General Huang Xueping held a video conference with his US counterpart Michael Chase last week.
The terrorist attack was carried out by ISIS gunmen, General Kenneth Franklin McKenzie, Commander of the United States Central Command, told reporters at a Pentagon news conference on Thursday, hours after the terrorists opened gunfire at American soldiers standing outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
Barack Obama names his favourite books and songs of 2017.
"If I was the foreign minister, I would have had contact with them. I would have gone out of my way and told my intelligence agency to make a contact quietly," former external affairs minister Natwar Singh said.
A closure of the Indian mission in Kabul will be a Himalayan blunder at this historic juncture when the wheels of diplomacy and politics are set to accelerate in Afghanistan, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
Former President Pranab Mukherjee, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Vice President Mohammed Hamid Ansari, United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi paid tributes to Pandit Nehru at his memorial Shanti Van in the nation's capital.
Images from the T20 World Cup match between Afghanistan and New Zealand, in Abu Dhabi, on Sunday.
Images from the T20 World Cup Super 12s match between India and Afghanistan, in Abhu Dhabi, on Wednesday.
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 66th National Awards have been announced, and Hindi cinema has emerged a major winner.
"You can change friends but not neighbours," Atal Bihari Vajpayee famously said this 15 years ago.
'With the extension issue settled clearly in his favour, Gen Bajwa would be free to fashion a more hardline policy against India. 'We could, therefore, expect a raising of the ante in Kashmir,' says Rana Banerji.
The Taliban had promised an 'inclusive' government that represents Afghanistan's complex ethnic makeup, but there is no Hazara member in the cabinet.
Nationalism only comes second to a writer whose primary morality is as a human being, Mohsin Hamid tells us, as Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, based on his book, hits the theaters this Friday.
'The curtain is coming down on India's leadership role as a regional power even before the drama of the Asian Century truly began,' warns Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The United States, Blinken said, is committed to looking at everything done from day one through the present and draw lessons from it.
How Pakistan army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa deals with the ensuing reshuffle of lieutenant generals would be interesting to watch, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
In super-human acts of valour, Havildar Abdul Hamid personally knocked out five tanks over two days, effectively derailing the enemy offensive in the 1965 Indo-Pak War. 'Decades later, I realised not only how much the nation owed to this great son of India but also that my entire family was probably alive thanks to him,' says Vijay Dandapani.
'He could indeed survive [the no confidence vote] even as he faces his biggest political test.'
The key is to act and not wait and watch before the limited window of opportunity shuts, argues Shanthie Mariet D'Souza.
Like China, India too should connect the dots and move ahead with a long-term perspective in Afghanistan, advises Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday greeted the nation on New Year, hoping that 2016 brings peace and prosperity in everybody's lives.
Pakistan is making efforts at multiple levels for the Taliban government to have a soft landing, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Battling an acute shortage of oxygen, some hospitals in Delhi on Sunday sent out desperate SOS calls to authorities to replenish their dwindling stocks, with one healthcare facility even requesting the government to shift out its patients.
'I am committed to my country if there is respect for democracy and human rights. If not possible then I will prefer to stay in India or any other western country'
The world's attention is on the new Taliban and the imminent announcement of an inclusive government in Kabul, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
The US intends first to cripple the Afghan government financially through sanctions, freezing of assets, denial of access to international banking, etc, and then proceed to do pretty much what it wants to do with scant regard for Afghanistan's sovereignty, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Despite dependence on the ISI for years of sustenance, Taliban leaders may harbour resentment over the ISI's excessive control, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing.
Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency, on the latest changes among Pakistan's top generals.
The Biden Administration on Monday said it was now focused on completing its evacuation mission from Afghanistan by August 31, the deadline for removing all American troops from the country.
Pakistan has too much at stake to allow even an iota of rapprochement between India and the Taliban, says Vivek Gumaste.
Pakistan Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the government's plea to issue an order for the eviction of protesters besieging the Parliament, saying it is an administrative matter and should be dealt with in accordance with the law.
'Nobody in AMU supports Jinnah's two-nation theory.' 'It is shameful we are debating Jinnah and not education or employment.'
In our special series re-visiting great Hindi film classics, we look back at Sanjeev Kumar's Dastak (1970).
The United States has announced the end of its 20-year-old war in Afghanistan as the last American military flight flew out of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul shortly before the August 31 deadline.
Remember the US withdrawal agreement was signed in February 2020. In the intervening period, a proper evacuation plan ought to have been in place. It was not. Consequently, tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked as interpreters, drivers, suppliers of goods and services, etc, face brutal retribution from the Taliban, Virendra Kapoor points out.
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