Indian Army
Britain has had its Chilcot, India should have its Hendersoon-Brooks
Some British voters may already be having buyer’s remorse on voting to leave the EU, and British politicians have since made a mess of the post-Brexit confusion but there is one thing that Britain has done wonderfully well. The publication of its Chilcot report on its Iraq military misadventure, a damning and detailed report of […..]
Why 5,000 cops cant do what 5,000 troops can?
Quiz question: how many police-wallas in Haryana? Answer: 56,979. Yet, when Jat agitators took over its streets, this large force seemed to just collapse in the face of real civic disorder from its own brethren. Much of the Army too comes from the same stock but when it was called in, roughly 5,000 of its […..]
Why India has to fight the world’s most absurd war
The debate over the logic of occupying Siachen glacier is not new. But the recent death of 10 Indian soldiers is a reason to remind ourselves why it continues to be a painful necessity. Few individual military stories have galvanized India as the heroic battle fought by Lance Naik Hanumanthappa and his comrades against terrifying […..]
How ‘Jake sweetie’ conquered Dhaka for India
It must count as one of the most memorable messages ever to finish a war. As he entered Dhaka on the morning of 16 December 1971, Major General Gandharv Nagra sent his ADC with the adjutant of the 2nd Paras, the first Indian battalion to have reached the city, to the Cantonment with a truce […..]
Our security setup is stuck in Mountbatten-Ismay era
The NSG is not Rambo. If Pathankot proved anything, it was this. Unlike chest-thumping, Rambo-type films or what passes for fighting terror in Hindi films like Holiday, defence operations are extremely complex and, when they go wrong, highly emotive. By now, everything that needed to be said about the Pathankot attack has been said — […..]
Questions from Pathankot
The government’s public handling of the Pathankot attack raises several serious questions which show that the lessons from 26/11 or other terror attacks haven’t been learnt. First, why was there no clear communications strategy and why did ministers prematurely rush into congratulatory mode? The primary aim of terror is to spread public panic and clear […..]
Pathankot first big challenge to Modi’s new Pakistan policy
Exactly a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised India by dropping in on Nawaz Sharif in Lahore, comes the first big challenge to his new peace initiative with Pakistan. Imagine if the terrorists had succeeded in blowing up a Mig-21 or a Sukhoi at the Pathankot Indian Air Force base? They failed — the […..]
