'Any future course of action towards active participation in the alliance when formed would need a lot of deliberation, long term vision and should be in our best national interests,' notes Commodore Vengalil Venugopal (retd).
China remains in firm control of an estimated 600-800 square kilometres of Indian territory.
'Many misunderstood non-violent satyagraha as a passive strategy; it was anything but that,' notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Days after a Pentagon report said Beijing built a large village in a disputed territory in the Arunachal Pradesh sector, India on Thursday said it has neither accepted any illegal occupation of its territory by China nor has it accepted unjustified Chinese claims.
President Ramaphosa contracted COVID-19 infection on a day when the country recorded a new high of 37,875 new infections overnight, dramatically up from the previous day's 17,154 new cases.
More than India's alignment with the Quad, India's defence cooperation and partnership with the USA is of critical importance, notes Rup Narayan Das.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged on Friday that China was preparing for war and the Indian government is sleeping over it and trying to ignore the threat.
The former Chief of Army Staff said India faces the most complex threats and challenges spanning a full spectrum of possible conflict -- from nuclear to sub-conventional -- but asserted that the armed forces are ready to deal with them.
The Chinese military is now desperately attempting to give "ex post facto strategic meaning" to its actions in eastern Ladakh.
'The PLA has continued to do exercises and drills and recently carried out air exercises with fighter jets.'
When we look at the pension expenditure of the states, so far, there has been no gain from the NPS reform. Pension expenses as a share of total state revenue expenditure rose from 4% in 1991-1992 to 10% at the time of the NPS reform, and have risen further to about 12%, observes Ajay Shah.
Gen Rawat carried out an aerial recce of certain areas and was briefed about key aspects of the security matrix in the region by senior military commanders.
It currently has between 140 and 150 nuclear weapons in its control and stockpiled around 200 to 300 kilogram of plutonium.
'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.'
'We are facing the most critical military situation with China in the last 50 years.'
The possibility of the use of weaponised drones for terrorist activities against strategic and commercial assets calls for serious attention by the global community, India has told the United Nations General Assembly, a day after two explosives-laden drones crashed into the Indian Air Force (IAF) station at Jammu airport.
'It is crucial today to realise where we have reached in this 15 year-period in order to fully and properly assess the profundity of what General Rawat has said,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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.
In the test, a space rocket boosted a hypersonic glide vehicle, one capable of carrying a nuclear device, which circled the globe before impacting.
'China is constantly probing India's weaknesses.' 'The challenge is to implement a strategy that will allow India to buy time, gather its strength, and eventually counter China,' recommends Harsh V Pant and Vinay Kaura.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said that decision on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) should have been taken during 1971 war between India and the neighbouring country.
Giving an account of India's overall military modernisation, Lt Gen Pande also said that an in-principle approval has been given to new combat formations called the Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs) which can mobilise fast with a more effective approach.
'If the Chinese military gets hold of some western sectors on the India-China boundary, it will give them added military advantage.'
The demand for OROP has been projected as an unambiguous issue but a good policy argument must have a sound economic element.
The agenda of the talks will be to firm up a roadmap for disengagement of troops from all the friction points in eastern Ladakh, the sources said.
The military preparations underway show that the PLA may undertake operations this summer to achieve whatever objectives they could not achieve last May, asserts Jayadeva Ranade, the distinguished China expert and retired RA&W officer.
All that India must aim for is to match China's military prowess adjusted to equal Beijing's India-specific military capability, argues Vivek Gumaste.
The reforms include relocation of 229 officers from the Army headquarters, creation of a new post of deputy chief for military operations and strategic planning.
The Indian Army has shown it can face down the PLA, but is too often held back by a political leadership that lacks boldness, asserts Ajai Shukla.
With tensions between China and Taiwan rapidly increasing, the tone of China's official media has also become progressively more strident, observes former senior RA&W officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
Gokhale has said that China used its "close connections" with the Left parties in India to "build domestic opposition" to the Indo-US nuclear deal.
'Unless India ups the ante, Beijing will continue to believe its transgressions are cost free and will feel encouraged to do more of the same.'
The Defence Ministry on Friday inked a nearly Rs 20,000 crore contract with Airbus Defence and Space of Spain to procure 56 C-295 medium transport aircraft which will replace Avro-748 planes of the Indian Air Force.
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 world is seeing an "explosion" in seizures of power by force and military coups are back, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told world leaders on Tuesday, lamenting that geopolitical divisions are undermining international cooperation as he called for strengthening global governance and re-igniting multilateralism.
The Chinese coercion and aggression spans the globe, but it is most acute in the Indo-Pacific, it said.
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).
Top Pentagon officials have shown an understanding of India abstaining at the UN on resolutions against the Russian aggression against Ukraine but had a hard time pacifying many US lawmakers during a Congressional hearing on the Indo-Pacific on New Delhi's repeated abstention at the world body in New York.
"Relevant countries should abandon the obsolete Cold War mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical rivalry concept and view correctly and respect people's aspiration in the region and do more things conducive to regional solidarity and cooperation," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.
Indians at large harbour a notion that their country is cherrypicking out of the American basket of goodies, but the policymakers in Delhi and the political leadership are well aware that it can only be a pipe dream since a military alliance with a superpower is a profound irrevocable commitment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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