How to create a state of suspended animation On August 5, the Indian government declared that Jammu and Kashmir is no longer an exception. On August 5, the Indian government decided to make Kashmir an exception. Why am I saying contradictory things about the same event? Because they are both facts. Bear with me. Removing…
Stop taking CRPF for granted & get real about how we police our nation Chalte Raho Pyare Fauj. That is what the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is fondly called in police parlance. Cynics would call them cannon fodder. The CRPF is the dogsbody of India’s internal security. They are sent to the aid of…
April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain April started with dairy farmer Pehlu Khan’s lynching on a national highway not far from New Delhi, and ended with the killings of two alleged cow thieves by a lynch mob in Assam’s…
There is nobody left in the Valley with the moral authority, the stature and the courage to stand and speak to the angry mobs. The last man who could have, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, died nearly 34 years ago. All of us view the past through a very limiting lens. We move the glass over people…
7 August 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited SRINAGAR, India, Aug 6 (Reuters) – A who’s who of Indian Kashmiris turned out in their finest on Thursday to cheer as the state’s leading politician urged the poor of this violence-scarred city to forget their woes and go see a movie. Eight years after…
6 August 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited SRINAGAR, India, Aug 6 (Reuters) – The general commanding Indian troops in the tinderbox Kashmir valley said on Thursday he did not think cross-border artillery duels with Pakistan would escalate into a nuclear exchange. “There is no linkage between the nuclear tests and the situation…
7 August 1998 Reuters News English (C) 1998 Reuters Limited SRINAGAR, India, Aug 7 (Reuters) – India and Pakistan could wage nuclear war over the disputed territory of Kashmir, the leader of the separatists in Indian-controlled Kashmir said. “The situation is going from bad to worse… Kashmir is the root cause of the tension between…
9 August 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited BARAMULLA, India, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Mahendra Kumar is a typical “sepoy”, the lowest rank in the Indian Army. After 14 years in uniform, the native of the impoverished northern state of Bihar is paid about 5,000 rupees ($117) a month. On paper, he gets…
26 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 25 (Reuters) – Afghan mercenaries, likely commanded by Pakistani army officers, have dug themselves into high positions on India’s side of a ceasefire line dividing Kashmir, a senior Indian defence official said on Tuesday. Three weeks of sharp skirmishing has raised temperatures…
28 July 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 28 (Reuters) – India’s Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral has caused anger and confusion in both his country and neighboring Pakistan with an apparent about-face on talks with Muslim militants in Kashmir. Gujral stunned friends and foes alike on Saturday by announcing during…
26 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 26 (Reuters) – India on Wednesday launched its first peacetime air strikes in Kashmir and warned Pakistan not to interfere as New Delhi used force to dislodge guerrillas. The raids marked the worst turn in ties with Pakistan since the neighbours tested…
27 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 27 (Reuters) – India was on a roll on Wednesday. It unleashed a stunning series of air strikes against Muslim guerrillas holed up in the hostile heights of Kashmir. It successfully test-fired a naval version of its short-range surface-to-air Trishul missile, joined…
28 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 27 (Reuters) – India suffered a sharp reverse on Thursday in its air strikes against high-altitude intruders in Kashmir but lashed out angrily at Pakistan for its “hostile and provocative” act of downing two Indian jet fighters. The bitter foes stood close…
27 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 26 (Reuters) – India unleashed two waves of air strikes on Wednesday to flush out guerrillas dug in on its side of a Kashmir ceasefire line, sharply raising temperatures on the nuclear-armed subcontinent. The use of air power was India’s first…
29 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 28 (Reuters) – India suffered a second setback on Friday in its air campaign to root out infiltrators from its part of Kashmir when guerrillas brought down an attack helicopter with a Stinger missile, killing all four crewmen. The use of the…
29 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 28 (Reuters) – India suffered a second setback on Friday in an air campaign to root out infiltrators from its part of Kashmir when guerrillas brought down an attack helicopter with a Stinger missile, killing all four crewmen. The use of the…
30 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 30 (Reuters) – A top Indian official said on Sunday it was up to Pakistan to “undo what it has done” in Kashmir if the nuclear-armed neighbours were to step back from a growing confrontation over the Himalayan territory. “When other…
1 June 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 1 (Reuters) – India will not halt its air and ground assault against “infiltrators” in Kashmir even if Pakistan’s foreign minister arrives in New Delhi for talks on the crisis, senior Indian officials said on Tuesday. “There is no pre-condition” for the…
2 June 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 1 (Reuters) – India’s External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said on Tuesday there would be “no relenting” on air and ground operations in Kashmir, and accused Pakistan’s military of connivance with “armed intruders”. “There will be no relenting on any ground operations…
13 June 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 13 (Reuters) – India and Pakistan, daggers drawn in Kashmir, held a dialogue of the deaf on Saturday. The stand-off set some Indian newspapers speculating whether they were on the path to a wider war. India is waging a costly air and…
4 July 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 4 (Reuters) – India’s commanders are fighting with “one arm tied behind them” as they contain battles in Kashmir within Indian territory and resist the temptation to widen the theatre of combat, senior defence officials say. In conversations over the weekend with…
8 July 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 8 (Reuters) – India’s army has recaptured key points in Kashmir and eased the pressure on a strategic highway, but there are still more than 1,000 infiltrators clinging to high ridges, a senior defence official said on Thursday. Painting a detailed picture…
18 July 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 18 (Reuters) – Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh on Sunday urged Pakistan to endorse the “inviolability” of a military control line in Kashmir and halt support for Islamic militants in Indian territory. “Inherent in the inviolability aspect of the LOC is certainly…
6 August 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NAMBLA, India, Aug 6 (Reuters) – The people of Nambla are sitting ducks in the world’s deadliest game of target practice, and their fear hangs in the air, thick with the smell of cordite. At least 500 Pakistani shells have landed in this once idyllic…
31 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 31 (Reuters) – India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes said on Monday he had “irrefutable evidence” that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had been kept in the dark by his military commanders about the Kashmir infiltration. But Fernandes, speaking to Reuters in an…
31 May 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 31 (Reuters) – India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes said on Monday he was sure Pakistan’s military chiefs would not resort to the use of nuclear weapons against India because they would “liquidate” their own country In the process. Asked if the Kashmir…
13 July 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 13 (Reuters) – Watching vanquished Islamic guerrillas retreat to Pakistan, India’s top general fears they will return as Islamabad reverts to running a “proxy war” in Kashmir. Chief of Army Staff General Ved Prakash Malik said comments by Pakistan’s political leaders in…
18 July 1999 Reuters News English (c) 1999 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 18 (Reuters) – India’s military intelligence chief said on Sunday that Pakistan’s foray in disputed Kashmir had been “tactically ambitious, but strategically a disaster”. But India would have to keep troops in the area to fend off future attacks, Lieutenant-General R.K. Sawhney…
6 February 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 6 (Reuters) – The leader of India’s Kashmir region said on Thursday he did not think a nuclear war would erupt on the subcontinent over the disputed territory. “I think India has never thought of using a nuclear option, and Pakistan would…
26 March 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 26 (Reuters) – Salman Haidar will be an immovable object facing a resistible force when he sits down this Friday for India’s first talks with Pakistan in three years. Haidar, India’s Foreign Secretary or seniormost diplomat, inspires strong feelings, not all warm,…
28 July 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, July 28 (Reuter) – India’s Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral performed one more of his apparent policy flip-flops over the weekend, this time over the sensitive issue of Kashmir. Gujral stunned friends and foes alike on Saturday by holding out an olive branch…
30 September 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Sept 30 (Reuters) – A militant group in Kashmir on Tuesday said an exhumed body was that of the group’s leader and not one of four missing Western hostages as suspected. The chief of police in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state said forensic…
16 October 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Oct 16 (Reuters) – Queen Elizabeth’s tour of India slid deeper into controversy on Thursday with sources close to the Indian government charging that Britain’s ruling Labour Party had a “hidden agenda” to create an independent Kashmir region. Even as British officials scrambled…
There was the baby-faced ex-pilot, all thumbs as he handled the controls in his political flight simulator; the rough-spun son of the, soil, a man of diamond-hard loyalty to the ruling family. catapulted into a devalued presidency; the freckle faced widow in rebellious flow, queen of the mimics and endowed with a hard nose; the…
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s health more than anything else has been responsible for the sudden thaw in Delhi-Srinagar relations For a while last month Kashmir teetered on the brink of an insoluble crisis while the prickly Resettlement Bill hung fire, the Sheikh grew more belligerent and the Centre seemed trapped in a peculiar inertia. Then, on…
Many anniversaries this year, but few happy ones This is a year of anniversaries , some unpleasant, some prescient, some momentous. CE 2019 is important not only because of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s crushing victory in the world’s biggest election – in many ways a more portentous event than Narendra Modi’s 2014 ascent to prime…