So technically these were volunteers who relinquished their citizenship and transferred their allegiance to ISIS. So now technically they are citizens of a state that has been dissolved by conquest, whose present leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi is on the run and rumours are rife that he faced a bloody coup last month. To say […]
President Trump declared on his Twitter handle that some 1000 ISIS fighters were held in temporary camps in Syria and if the EU do not soon take custody of these and process them under law, he would perforce have to leave loose. Then we were taken up with the case of one UK origin woman […]
The evil of statecraft is how by design it allocates to itself the supreme power of life and death over an idea. To shore up such an idea, the State can invest in networks, institutions and can be even at odds with its stated goals, making enemies of its own people. In that sense, the […]
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Template at Drawing Board
While the options of another surgical strike or even a limited cross border strike with missiles on major terror camps like Muridke are on the table, Indian Executive must weigh their impact against their fall out. Right now the US backs us, but Saudi Arabia from whom we import most of our oil just extended […]
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Kashmir at crucial crossroads
Post Pulwama, it appears that most military and strategic thinkers, mostly a community of veterans, have swung around to this common ground that we have reached a critical situation in the context of how we operated on ground. Significantly whether it is former Army Chiefs, Corps Commanders and Army Commanders, or veterans who did short […]
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Troika against Terror
Pakistan it would appear has opened a front too many. Afghanistan warned Pakistan over violation in terms of the proposed manner for conduct of talks with Taliban, there is Iran whose Revolutionary Guards have issued warnings over the car bomb that killed Guardsmen in the Isfahan province, and we have India up in arms over […]
When Cambridge Analytica story broke out, we had Mark Zuckerberg called to account which was funny for how could people blame Facebook for voting Brexit or Trump? Actually a Margaret Mead quote needs revisiting:“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” […]
Beyond the narrative of neo-nationalism, foreign observers shared their view that this event would be woven into the national electoral narrative, to be used by Mr Modi for ratcheting jingoism and warmongering, and by the opposition to show the government in poor light. But even before that can play out, I feel our hand was […]
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Pulwama-Aftermath of horror!
It is important to see the event for what it was- an audacious attack, frontal involving a relatively lesser used tactic of a car bomb, driven by a terrorist, in a suicide attack on a convoy of troops. Before we view how as a nation we took this news, consider that military and paramilitary convoys […]
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Elephant in the room!
The sitter of a catch is dropped by the most agile of fielders, is stating the obvious in cricketing analogy of how even the best possible outcome is not always surety. What caused a situation where if one takes away the optics or the high adrenalin cries of neglect, a financial tangle for the Government, […]
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