B D Pande was Punjab's governor during Operation Bluestar. In this excerpt from his memoir, In the Service of Free India: Memoir of a Civil Servant, Pande reveals what really went on behind the scenes during those dark days in India's history.
'More so, if it is their daughters wanting to marry someone of their own choosing.' 'Children are seen as property. That's why the problem is so messy.' For young Indians wanting to marry outside their religion, expressing their right to love and live as they choose is becoming increasingly hazardous.
Pathankot residents expressed anger over frequent cross-border strikes and sought enhanced border security and strengthening of the police set-up.
Sources told Rediff.com that the terrorist captured alive provided information about the absconding terrorists.
In the wake of the killing of 18 Armymen in Manipur, government plans to deploy either Indo-Tibetan Border Police or Assam Rifles for manning the 389-km-long Indo-Myanmar border in the state.
The navy, police, the anti-terror squad and the army are involved in a massive search operation. Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore reports
India on Wednesday commemorated the sixth anniversary of the Mumbai attack with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders paying homage to the victims, recalling the "horror" over which the country still felt "endless pain" for the loss of 166 lives.
They batted for better coordination between the Indian Air Force and the Army in guarding the air bases in case of exigencies like the one at Pathankot in Punjab.
Islamist arrested over Dortmund bus attack was IS member in Iraq
'A deadly combination of money and religion lures them into the murky world of terrorism.' 'You will reach heaven if you kill -- what a doctrine!' Professor Ajoy Roy, whose son blogger Avijit Roy was brutally murdered in Dhaka last year, tells Rediff.com's Indrani Roy.
Israel on Monday unleashed more airstrikes on Gaza and shot down a drone used for the first time by Hamas militants even as international pressure mounted on both to end the week-long conflict that has killed 177 Palestinians.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday opposed bail application moved by suspended Indian Police Service officer D G Vanzara, an accused in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, saying he may tamper with evidence as he is "politically well-connected".
Kejriwal blames Sukhbir Badal for blast, while Sukhbir, Amarinder blame the AAP chief for it.
On the run for over 10 years, Sikh militant Jagtar Singh Tara, convicted for life in the then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh's assassination, has been deported by Thailand.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday assured the Centre of all cooperation to fight terrorism and promised to work together, as the country's security and intelligence chiefs including National Security Advisor Ajit Doval discussed with her the Burdwan blast case.
The Bihar government on Wednesday issued shoot-at-sight orders against troublemakers and made tight security arrangements to ensure violence free polling in 6 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats to be held on Thursday.
A day after the Taliban freed over 250 prisoners from a high-security Pakistani prison, a top commander of the terror outfit has said they took a month to plan the assault and spent Rs 1 crore to execute it with military-like precision.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on questioned Gujarat Minister of State for Law Pradeepsinh Jadeja in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, sources in the central agency said in Ahmedabad.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday questioned former Gujarat Minister of State for Home Praful Patel in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, sources in the central agency said in Ahmedabad.
'The Indian and Israeli rabbis were singing a small departure song for brave little Moshe, who had spent many, likely, heartbreaking but bittersweet hours at this home of his babyhood, looking at the drawings his mother had made for him, that were still up in his room.'
Army can detect terrorists who might be hiding in wall cavities or false ceilings.
'Indian secularism doesn't deserve a tombstone. It needs a new shrine,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
The trial court declined the plea of Kumar's lawyer that he be sent to high-security Tihar Jail.
The deadly Maoist ambush, claiming the lives of 14 Central Reserve Police Force personnel in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district, was planned and supervised by local Naxal leaders who were reportedly camping in south Bastar for past few days, a senior police official said on Tuesday.
She also asked them to differentiate between stone-pelters/militants and their families.
While the Chhattisgarh police charged the well-known academic with a tribal man's murder, those who know her say it is vendetta at play.
Mumbai's Chabad House, which was attacked in the 26/11 terror attacks, is unlike any other Jewish centre, Rabbi Israel Kozlovsky tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
Since Balakot strike, India is trying to build maximum pressure on Pakistan on the issue of terrorism, sources said.
For him going into the Taj was his duty just as it was controlling angry rioters at Azad Maidan in August 2012.
'You can't go on creating division and rhetoric of hate.' 'It comes to roost. We are seeing the first glimpses of that in the state elections.'
A five-member JIT from Pakistan reached Pathankot on Sunday to carry out a probe into the attack at the IAF base at Pathankot.
India plans to provide the probe team from Pakistan access to all witnesses in the Pathankot terror attack case but not security personnel from the National Security Guard or the Border Security Force.
The NSG, aided by the Garuds and the Army, conducted a chain of surgical 'step by step' operations to eliminate the six terrorists.
The Indian Army on Monday mourned the demise of two young officers in the ongoing encounter with terrorists at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute in Pampore, Jammu and Kashmir.
'The Naxalite strategy is to periodically attack police forces to provoke a reaction.' 'Once the security forces over-react and cause suffering to innocents by high-handed actions, the people will be alienated and support the revolution.' 'This appears to be the Naxalites' strategy and hence, their recent brutal killings of policemen,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
A first-of-its kind 'battle field hospital' is being set up deep inside the Naxal hotbed of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh which will provide immediate first aid to injured Central Reserve Police Force and other security forces officials undertaking anti-Maoist operations.
'Once you set up a tweet-storm of vilification, labelling individuals anti-nationals, traitors, blasphemous, and foreign agents, you are creating enough justification for somebody with a gun to kill, or for a mob to lynch,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
A veteran of anti-insurgency operations, Head Constable Sanjewan Singh was martyred with Colonel M N Rai in Kashmir. He leaves behind a pregnant wife and a three-year-old son.
'When you read that for the first time, areas in Gujarat dominated by Patidars/Patels have been declared 'sensitive' for the civic polls that were held this week, you sit up and take note,' says Jyoti Punwani.
'The one thing India has over these two States, whose toughness awes us, is our ability to embrace diversity with ease. 'The way ahead lies in learning from Vajpayee's method, not in Xi Jinping's,' says Shekhar Gupta.
