New Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Monday said controlling the 'alarming' COVID-19 situation in the state is his first priority and his aim will be to make the state one of the top five in the country in the next five years.
AFC Cup tie moved to neutral venue after Australia denies Myanmar club visas
Exploiting the killings to ratchet up the tension in the region and harden negotiating positions with the central government serves nobody, least of all the people of Nagaland. The peace process must not be stalled because of this incident or distracted by calls to repeal the AFSPA, argues Vivek Gumaste.
In gifting the submarine to Myanmar, India is competing with China for influence in the region.
Six banned militants groups operating in the north-east India have issued a joint statement calling for the 'boycott of Republic Day celebrations and a general strike on 26 January in the region. The outfits which have called for the strike included United Liberation Front of Assam, National Democratic Front of Boroland, Kamtapur Liberation Organisation, Manipur People's Liberation Front, National Liberation Front of Twipra and Tripura People's Democratic Front.
A day after AFSPA was extended in most parts of Manipur, rights activist Irom Sharmila said the "oppressive law" was not a solution to the conflict in the state.
She said in such a scenario, the Centre and the state must start talking on the matter.
Even as the Centre is trying to restore peace in insurgency-hit Dima Hasao district (erstwhile North Cachar Hill district) of Assam by engaging two factions of the Dima Halam Daogah in the peace process, another militant group is rearing its head in the troubled area.
The Centre should focus on achieving peace either through long-term ceasefire agreements or sustained military operations. Military operations which are just intermittent responses to particular incidents won't lead anywhere, says Devanik Saha.
IS, especially active in northern Sindh and Balochistan, was also behind the abduction and killing of two Chinese nationals last year.
'If the NSCN-IM is cold shoulderd, the chances are that it will slip back into insurgency,' caution Sandeep Pandey, Meera Sanghamitra and Babloo Loitongbam.
Ten Manipur tribal MLAs Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to withdraw Assam Rifles from security duties in the violence-hit state, saying its personnel have been putting their lives at risks to create buffer zones between the two warring communities.
Bose, who was earlier a Lok Sabha MP, pointed out in an interview to PTI that members of all the three communities had joined Netaji's INA in 1944 and fought shoulder to shoulder in the battlefields of Bishnupur and Ukhrul districts in an advance into India.
In South Asia, the intelligence community assesses that the political and security situation in Afghanistan will almost certainly deteriorate through 2018.
'Terrorists have targeted US diplomats and diplomatic facilities in the past, and information suggests they continue to do so'
'There is a list with the Ministry of Home Affairs that has the details and names of the terrorist organisations that attack the Indian Army.'
The key is to act and not wait and watch before the limited window of opportunity shuts, argues Shanthie Mariet D'Souza.
A purported video of the incident showed a discussion between the two sides in which the paramilitary personnel claimed that they had lost their way.
He also held another meeting with a delegation of civil society organisations as part of his outreach and they expressed their commitment to peace and assured that they would work for restoring normalcy in Manipur.
His elder brother Om Prakash Chettri, who recently retired from the Army, said Siddhant was passionate only about serving the nation.
The number is an all time high for the state with south Kashmir emerging as one of the main hubs, providing cadres to terrorist groups.
The government on Tuesday said four youth from Maharashtra have disappeared after leaving for Mosul from Baghdad in Iraq.
Manipur needs an integrated politico, military, socio-economic approach, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
Naga splinter groups impatient with stalled talks as well as rebel Manipuri groups who have a stake in disrupting upcoming elections to the state assembly, are believed to be regrouping in the borderlands of China's Yunnan province and Myanmar, taking advantage of the turmoil in the latter by using it as a transit corridor.
All the terrorist camps and around 15 launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir "are full", according to top army commander Lt Gen B S Raju, who anticipates an increase in infiltration attempts from across the border this summer to replenish the diminishing terrorist cadres in Jammu and Kashmir.
'It is time for all Indians to understand the truth that led to a 10-year long bloodbath in Punjab and not attempt to glorify the terrorists under the garb of human rights violations or scratch old wounds,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd), on the 30th anniversary of Operation Bluestar.
Taking part in the first meeting of Foreign Ministers of the neighbouring countries on Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China will provide Afghanistan with 200 million yuan ($31 million) worth of grains, winter supplies, vaccines and medicines as per its requirements, official media in Beijing reported.
While 63 of the slain terrorists belonged to banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, 24 others were affiliated with Jaish-e-Mohammed.
The sanction by the Government of India is mandatory for intitiating legal suit against any personnel of the security forces for any action taken by them while discharging their duties under section 197(2) Cr.P.C and Section 6 of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), the release said.
'A resurgent Jaish could be a reflection of the Pakistani security establishment's view that with the region moving ever closer to a post-US Afghanistan, it is time to redirect attention to Kashmir.'
Pakistan is a 'haven' for several Islamist terror groups and successive Pakistani governments are widely believed to have supported some outfits.
The NSCN-IM is no longer the force it used to be. Once the 'de facto government' of Magaland, it gradually reduced to an extortion racket. But missteps by the Centre could give it a new lease of life.
Former Central Intelligence Agency South Asia analyst, Lisa Curtis, now a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, recalled how in 1995, when she served in Islamabad as a diplomat, the Pakistan-based terror groups that were funded, armed and supported by the Inter-Services Intelligence specifically to launch attacks in Kashmir against Indian security forces, also had strong links to the Taliban.
At least 23 people were killed and 55 others injured on Sunday when a powerful bomb ripped through a crowded used clothes market in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
The Afghan Taliban is struggling to find a successor to slain chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
Strongly reacting to All India Congress Committee vice president Rahul Gandhi's purported remarks that Asom Gana Parishad was in power for a term allegedly with the backing of insurgents, the Asom Gana Parishad on Friday said it would initiate legal action him.
The Union government has decided to crack down on the operations of the Manipur-based Revolutionary Peoples' Front. The National Investigation Agency will soon draw up a comprehensive plan to neutralise the various modules of this group. The Revolutionary Peoples' Front, which enjoys strong links with extremist groups based in Bangladesh, is becoming a menace for the central government.
The agency had received Rs 946.51 crore to manage its affairs in the Budget Estimates for 2023-24, which was later increased to Rs 968.86 crore in the Revised Estimates.
The cross-LoC surgical strike was carried out by the Indian army after "specific and very definite" inputs about terrorists at launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir planning attacks in this country, the government said on Friday.
Assam's new Director General of Police, Khagen Sarma on Friday said that Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services intelligence and other external forces are behind United Liberation Front of Asom (anti-talks) faction leader Paresh Baruah's efforts to form a common force comprising all northeastern insurgent groups to fight Indian security forces
