South Asia and Beyond

With More Assets & Upgrades, Air Power In The East Looking Up

ASSAM/ARUNACHAL PRADESH: The Indian Air Force is doing the heavy lifting quite literally when it comes to augmenting military capabilities in the mountainous terrain of the eastern sector. The Chinooks are not just transporting manpower but also firepower (the ultra-light Howitzer M777s) from one remote valley in Arunachal Pradesh to another, thanks to upgrades of […]Read More

Our Partner In Asia Is India, Not China: Portuguese Foreign Minister

NEW DELHI: “The European Union has paid less attention to India than it should have.” With that Portugal’s foreign minister Augusto Santos Silva pointed out how the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy and the outreach to Delhi drew from Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy and the national strategies of Holland, the UK and Germany. “So we needed to focus […]Read More

Afghan Partners Call for Ceasefire, Expedited Peace Effort

KABUL: Afghanistan’s international partners, in a virtual meeting with Afghan officials, have announced their support for the peace efforts, ceasefire and humanitarian values in the country, the High Council for National Reconciliation has said. Abdullah Abdullah, head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, the State Minister for Peace Affairs Sayed Sadat Mansoor Naderi, chief […]Read More

Crystal Gazing Into India’s Security Challenges

NEW DELHI: A new year may have set in but some of the security challenges staring India in the face can’t be wished away. The standoff between Indian and Chinese troops at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh that began in May last year continues, despite a clutch of meetings between the […]Read More

India-France Strategic Dialogue: NSA Level Meet

NEW DELHI: On ‘Talking Point’, the India-France Strategic Dialogue is the topic of discussion with Ambassador Mohan Kumar, India’s Former Envoy to France, Chairman, RIS and Professor, Jindal Global University and Tara Varma, Head of office, European Council on Foreign Relations, Paris, Policy Fellow, ECFR and Board Member, Women in International Security, France (WISS). In […]Read More

America Shamed As Trump Supporters Storm Capitol Hill; 4 Dead

NEW DELHI: His call was to ‘Make America Great Again’. But months after Donald Trump lost the presidential election and refused to concede, his supporters have shamed the world’s most powerful country by storming Capitol Hill, the seat of the U.S. government and home to the American legislature, on Wednesday. Unprecedented scenes like people breaking […]Read More

No Extradition For Julian Assange But What About A US Pardon?

NEW DELHI: In the wake of a UK court rejecting a US plea for the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, two parallel lines of speculation: one, that a diplomatic row between London and Washington is inevitable since extradition pleas from the US are rarely rejected; and two, that Assange could be pardoned by President […]Read More

How India Is Planning For Covid ‘Shot In The Arm’

NEW DELHI: “The vaccines are 110 per cent safe”. With these words and emergency use approvals for two vaccines on a sullen Sunday, India’s drug regulator injected hope into a country that has recorded the second most number of Covid-19 cases in the world (a total of 1.03 crore infected people so far). This paves […]Read More

The Backroom ‘Kao’ Boys Who Helped In 1971

NEW DELHI: It was a 13-day war in which Pakistan was routed by India in December 1971. And Bangladesh was born. India used its military might, helped by the ‘Mukti Bahini’ (liberation force), to take on the Pakistani army that had unleashed a reign of terror in what was then East Pakistan. But the entire […]Read More

R-Day Parade: Rare Honour For Bangladesh

India has decided to celebrate half a century of liberation of East Pakistan and formation of Bangladesh with great fanfare throughout 2021. In December 1971, India had helped the Mukti Bahini and the Bengali people in East Pakistan to break free of Pakistan by winning the 13-day war that started on December 3 and ended […]Read More

Hope For 5G

The Department of Telecom’s announcement of 4G auctions early in the new year appear to have revived dormant sentiments in the telecom industry. There is a view that if 5G spectrum auctions go ahead (assuming the price issue is resolved), it would be possible to install a 5G network in urban India within about 18 […]Read More

A Para Drop That Swung The 1971 War In India’s Favour

NEW DELHI: Forty nine years ago, India notched up a major military success against Pakistan, leading to the formation of Bangladesh. All of this achieved in less than two weeks. One of the decisive moments in the 1971 war came when around 800 Indian paratroopers landed in Tangail, which was then in East Pakistan. In […]Read More

India & West Asia New Footprints In Shifting Sands

NEW DELHI: On ‘Talking Point’ Ambassador Navdeep Singh Suri, India’s Former Envoy to the UAE and currently Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation and Dr. Meena Singh Roy, Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Institute and Former head, West Asia Centre, Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses in conversation with StratNews Global Associate Editor Amitabh P. […]Read More

Imran Khan ‘Unfollows’ All

What prompted Pak Prime Minister Imran Khan to unfollow all the 19 Twitter handles he was following? Was it born of a sense of pique, or vanity, that 12.9 million follow him while he follows none. Among the handles Khan has unfollowed are those of former wife Jemima Goldsmith with whom he has remained on […]Read More

Indian Army Order Of Battle: Time For A Rethink

NEW DELHI: As the standoff between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh completes seven months, the longest ever, the realisation seems to have dawned on policy makers that China, not Pakistan, is the bigger challenge India faces. But when it comes to Indian Army troop deployment along the […]Read More