Following a high-level meeting in New Delhi on February 2 between the two sides, India agreed to replace its military personnel operating the three aviation platforms in the Maldives by May 10. The first batch left the island nation well before March 10.
Making a final push to overrun the last patch of territory held by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Sri Lankan forces on Wednesday pushed deeper, capturing six kilometres of the 18 km 'No Fire Zone' as thousands of trapped Tamils civilians continued to flee the northern war zone.
According to the Pentagon report, the PLA is creating options for dissuading, deterring, and defeating external intervention in the Indo-Pacific region.
Krishnakumar P reports how a traumatised 'villager' led forces to the Maoist weapons manufacturing factory inside the forests of Chhattisgarh.
'Revolution is the target. They will organise the people and ask them to revolt against the State,' says Satnam who has interacted with the Maoists.
On the night of July 5, the Tigers launched their first kamikaze operation. Miller took the wheels of the explosive-packed truck, smiled at everyone as he turned the ignition key and drove it slowly towards the Sri Lankan military camp. A few moments later all of Jaffna heard a thunderous explosion that brought the complex crashing down in clouds of dust. Miller had given birth to a deadly tactic that Prabhakaran would employ time and again with devastating consequences to Sri Lanka -- and India. A fascinating excerpt from M R Narayan Swamy's must read new book, The Rout Of Prabhakaran.
They realised that the Portuguese were better prepared to defend Daman than Dadra and Nagar Haveli. If reinforcements from Daman were to reach Silvassa, there was no chance of defeating the Portuguese. They decided that cutting Daman's communication lines would have to be their top priority before attacking Silvassa. A fascinating excerpt from Neelesh Kulkarni's new book, Uprising-The Liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
According to the MND, 15 of the 26 People's Liberation Army aircraft were observed in Taiwan's Air Defence Identification Zone.
'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).
About 25,000 protesters on Sunday, a month after Qadri was hanged for shooting Taseer, prayed for him in Rawalpindi, and then marched towards Islamabad's Red Zone, breaking barriers that had been erected.
The United Nations on Friday said that more than 50,000 civilians were still trapped in Sri Lanka's war zone and renewed its call to Colombo to allow an assessment mission into the area to facilitate relief operations and evacuation procedures. The Sri Lankan government had said that an estimated 15,000 people still remained in the war zone.
Deva recently replaced Hidma as commander of the Maoists' battalion no. 1, the IG added.
India's tactical and operational response demonstrated its ability to prosecute tri-service operations, even without a formal tri-service doctrine or the higher command structure needed to coordinate it, points out Ajai Shukla.
The International Crisis Group, an advocacy group based in Brussels and Washington, said despite its promises to protect civilians and aid workers, the Sri Lankan government had bombed relentlessly in areas where it knew unarmed people were present. ICR said it has reasons to believe that senior government and military officials were aware of the attacks, but failed to protect the civilians.
The order said that zonal railways should have by now assessed their vacancies and planned for filling them up as per their fresh selection calendars.
China on Monday dismissed the existence of a 'median line' in the volatile Taiwan Strait after Taiwan's defence ministry said it detected a record 103 Chinese warplanes flying around the self-ruled island in a 24-hour period.
'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.'
'China is playing the big global game.' 'Their ambitions lie far beyond the Line of Actual Control.'
It is only the Indian approach of holding on to multiple realities and contradictory ideas simultaneously that is likely to deliver peace and progress. Binary logic is out of sync with reality, notes R Jagannathan.
All the six packs in the world can't compensate for an unenthusiastic performance, sighs Sukanya Verma.
In the 76 years since India gained independence, 53 recipients of the Bharat Ratna have been there. That's less than one every year, which is a healthy ratio given there is the sanctity of this gem of an award to preserve. But four recipients for the year were announced in a few days in addition to one announced earlier. That took the total number in 2024 to five in less than a month, the highest for any year, post-Independence, notes Shyam G Menon.
Any miscalculation and miscommunication are fraught with the risk of a major catastrophe, warns Rup Narayan Das.
...close to the 2024 general election. The BJP calling the Congress 'seasonal Hindu' is as laughable as the saffron party sparing itself the title of 'seasonal extreme Hindu.'
How else should one describe its election campaigns of the past years?
It was typically obsessive religion and personality cult with economic development for fig leaf, asserts Shyam G Menon.
The area was a theatre of violence for several years since Naga-Kuki ethnic clash broke out in 1993 and the civilian Kuki tribe population suffered severely in that war zone.
China on Saturday began military exercises around Taiwan to test the capabilities of its forces to 'seize control of the sea, air and information', days after a meeting between the United States House Speaker and the President of the self-ruled island in defiance of repeated threats by Beijing.
With Beijing remaining intransigent on the withdrawal of additional troops deployed by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) since the deadly border clash in 2020 in eastern Ladakh, India's bilateral ties with China remained frozen in 2023 with no forward movement on the horizon despite several rounds of diplomatic and military talks.
'The performance of any government is benchmarked on five parameters -- India's external security, the state of the economy, social cohesion, internal security, and India's relations with the world or its foreign policy. On each of the benchmarks in the past nine years, the NDA-BJP government has come up completely short'
Trudeau, who was in power from 2015 has now won three general elections in less than six years.
China has increased its antics in Taiwan Strait post the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the self-governed island.
Two of Xi Jinping's chosen officials have disappeared from view, an indication of turmoil in Xi's government, months after he installed a collection of loyalist leaders in his cabinet, observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
'The Chinese are retaining geostrategic pressure on India by keeping troops there and building infrastructure continually.'
Taipei on Friday termed China's military exercises around the island nation 'highly provocative' after some Chinese aircraft and warships crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait.
It said that the transit was "ongoing" and that there had been "no interference from foreign military forces so far."
United States President Joe Biden who made an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Monday, days before the first anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion, pledged a $500 million military aid package for the country.
India has been consistently calling upon Sri Lanka to fulfill its commitments to protect the interests of the Tamil community and preserve the island nation's character as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society.
Over 6,000 Tamil youths, including 1,000 women, have responded to a recruitment drive for the ethnic community in the former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam stronghold Jaffna for the first time in three-decades.
The UN says that if permission is granted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and if a lull in fighting permits, the convoy will cross the frontline on Thursday noon, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson said.
Hrishida's Abhimaan captured the real life pair Jaya and Amitabh Bachchan's dazzling chemistry in the many stages of the husband-wife relationship, observes Sukanya Verma.
A day after Dhaka was liberated on December 16, 1971, then US President Richard Nixon was told by his strategic advisor Henry Kissinger that he had 'saved West Pakistan,' according to confidential papers since declassified by the US department of state.
United States President Joe Biden and Chinese's wannabe supreme leader Xi Jinping met virtually a few hours ago.
