The US president is deeply grateful for the honour, courage and determination of the US' men and women who served in Afghanistan for almost two decades, as well as the sacrifices made not just by those troops, but also by their families, a senior Biden administration official told reporters during a conference call.
There will be no let-up in troop deployment or Army operations along the Pakistan borders to fight terrorism and infiltration, military officials said on Thursday after a ceasefire agreement was announced between the two armies which they called a step towards regional peace.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday unveiled a new version of the procurement manual of the premier military research institute Defence Research and Development Organisation featuring simplified procedures for the involvement of the private sector in various research and development projects.
'Elements like the LeT may see the fight against the coronavirus as an opportunity of a lifetime,' warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
In the longest losing streak of 2017, the BSE Sensex has lost 1,270 points, or 3.91 per cent. It fell to a three-month low of 31,154.03 on Wednesday.
Two of his allied parties also withdrew their support and joined the ranks of the rejuvenated Opposition.
According to the data, the total number of persons of concern to UNHCR in India stands at 43,157. Among them, 15,559 refugees and asylum seekers are from Afghanistan.
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.
DRDO plans to build a tank for use in the mountains and in the jungles.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday that India and China are going through a 'particularly bad patch' in their ties because Beijing has taken a set of actions in violation of agreements for which it still doesn't have a 'credible explanation' and it is for the Chinese leadership to answer where they want to take the bilateral relationship.
'We have been bold and innovative on recognition in the past and we do not need to rush,' advises Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The agreement would divert China's attention and keep them busy in the Pacific theatre, probably resulting in a reduction in threat perception in our area of interest in the Indian Ocean, notes Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
'Those who say that conventional war is a thing of the past or that war is not an option, or that diplomacy alone can prevent war -- are wrong and we see that in Ukraine.'
Nadal says Wimbledon ban on Russian and Belarusian players unfair
It will not be to India's advantage to create misperceptions that it is bandwagoning with some Anglo-American project for regime change in Myanmar, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The Chinese are only about 160-170 km behind.' 'It will not take much time for them to bring their troops back, considering that they have better infrastructure -- and the weather is now favourable.' 'They can move in much faster as the terrain favours them.'
The coming together of the Quad and the Australia-UK-US grouping would be a formidable adversary, moving toward the creation of a 'thousand ship navy' that reins in the PLA navy in the Indo-Pacific.
There is disquiet and discomfort in the citizenry that can be touched and felt. No one is talking, but then, the Indian voter has not talked much -- with the conviction that all that goes up has to come down, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
In the Kashmir Valley, we need to begin to make a distinction between an insurgent who fights the security forces and a terrorist who murders unarmed civilians, suggests Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
However, the Trump administration has left it for the State Department to take a final call on the issue.
'China has forcibly occupied territory it had never occupied before, blocked Indian patrols' access to areas they had patrolled for decades and, most provocatively, killed 20 Indian soldiers.' 'Most countries would regard these as acts of war.' 'New Delhi has apparently taken off the table the option of evicting the PLA with force,' observes Ajai Shukla.
'Even though as Xi will seemingly continue to stay in power beyond his third term, competitions for the post-Xi leadership would be inevitably unfolded beneath the surface of water, and that will be a big headache for Xi the dictator.'
"Are they ready to review their decisions? If they do, we can also review our decisions. Review will be on both sides," Qureshi said.
Defence sources had said possible 'action plan' was also discussed about how the Army can respond to the attack.
'India is not the India of 1962. We are not carrying that baggage of history anymore.'
'Pakistan has no strategic depth and is vulnerable to Indian military power without even crossing the border,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Earlier the planning process was services specific, with others coordinating. 'Now we shall have an apex leader backed by a structure, who is accountable to provide single-point advice, based on best of all options dependent on geographical and situational intrigue, and that too, after validation,' says General Anil Chait (retd), the former central army commander.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation's top oil firm, has bought as much as 3 million barrels of crude oil that Russia had offered at steep discount to prevailing international rates, sources said. The purchase, made through a trader, is the first since Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine that brought international pressure for isolating Putin administration. Sources aware of the matter said IOC bought Urals crude for May delivery at a discount of $20-25 a barrel to dated Brent.
'Today's India is fearless and is on track to be a great power. But this is definitely not happening without women, who form 48 per cent of our population.'
The sources said Indian Army had finalised contracts to procure ammunition worth Rs 11,000 crore after the Uri terror attack in September 2016, and it has received 95 per cent of the total order.
'The interesting point about the choice of the area for the surgical strikes is that it is the most sensitive part of the Line of Control,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Pakistan's main objective will be to shepherd India toward resumption of talks, preferably with American monitoring.'
Future conflict will involve bypassing of frontiers to strike at critical vulnerabilities directly and in the hinterland at the appropriate time, explains Lieutenant General Anil Chait (retd), who served as chief of the Integrated Defence Staff and Central Army Commander.
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Wednesday said the government is trying to find out details about the student from Haveri district who was reportedly injured due to the shelling by Russian forces in Ukraine's Kharkiv city.
The Indian Navy plans to acquire a sizeable number of unmanned aerial and underwater platforms in the next few years to significantly ramp up its surveillance capability in the backdrop of China's increasing forays into the Indian Ocean region, people familiar with the development said on Sunday.
On February 24, when Vladimir Putin announced a military operation on Ukraine, few would have thought that Indian government-owned GAIL India would feel the impact. The tensions over gas supplies were essentially a Europe-Russia problem, related to the sanctions western economies imposed on Moscow. But the EU depends on Russian imports for 40 per cent of its gas stocks, an over-dependence that Russia has underlined with Kremlin-owned Gazprom cutting its supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20 per cent, citing maintenance issues.
Tillerson said he hoped that at some point the North Koreans will begin to understand that the US would like to sit and have a dialogue with them.
The India Army troops rose to the occasion to the challenges along the northern border as likely contingencies and possible options were war-gamed beforehand, Army Chief Gen M M Naravane said on Wednesday, referring to the eastern Ladakh standoff with China.
HAL is poised to sell the Philippines at least seven Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters and eight Dornier 228 aircraft for Rs 30 billion, reports Ajai Shukla.
India's top military and strategic brass on Tuesday reviewed the overall situation in eastern Ladakh amid indications that the latest round of talks between senior military commanders of Indian and Chinese armies on the next phase of disengagement of troops may not have produced encouraging results, people familiar with the developments said.
