“War is the highest form of struggle for resolving contradictions when they have developed to a certain stage, between classes, nations, states or among political groups, and it has existed ever since the emergence of private property and of classes.” —Mao Zedong Is China helping insurgents in Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram with arms and ideological…
The first spark flew on 6 June. A Bengali shopkeeper at Lembucchara, 8 km from Agartala, lent a tribal friend of his a dao (sickle) to cut a pineapple with. Joking about the sickle’s blunt edge, the tribal tossed it back to the shopkeeper. It hit another tribal standing close by, wounding him negligibly. But…
It is a war without end, a no-win situation in which nobody can provide answers to some questions: How long will this go on? Which side will eventually prevail? What is the cost to the nation in money, matériel, men?
This was has no name. It is more an endless series of skirmishes than a sustained military confrontation. Yet, this war has been raging intermittently for 26 years in Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram.
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…
Chaitanya Kalbag 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 India and Pakistan. If the problem is not…
Chaitanya Kalbag 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 two months’ vacation every year, and otherwise is…
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…
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…
Chaitanya Kalbag CHANDIGARH, India, Nov 26, Reuters – India’s bloody general election entered its final stage on Sunday with an exit poll from earlier voting predicting that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi faces major losses. The survey, conducted by the independent India Today magazine, forecast neither Gandhi nor the opposition National Front alliance would get a…
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…
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…
19 November 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Nov 19 (Reuters) – India’s lack of “grit” in pursuing its costly military foray into northern Sri Lanka may have led to Rajiv Gandhi’s 1991 murder by a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber, New Delhi’s former envoy to Colombo said on Wednesday. “If…
Reuter 19 January 1987 Sydney Morning Herald MANILA, Sunday: President Corazon Aquino flew to the violence-racked island of Mindanao today, apparently unruffled by a night of tension triggered by warnings that a fanatical military group was plotting a new attempt to topple her Government. In Manila, soldiers, backed by water cannon and armoured cars sealed…
4 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 4, Reuter – The killing of a top official known for his strong anti-communist views has shocked the Philippines and revived a debate over armed vigilante groups. Local Governments Secretary Jaime Ferrer’s murder by three gunmen on Sunday was the latest in a series…
The guns are yet to fall silent in the North-east but in places where development has made an inroad, peace has prevailed. Only by bringing all stakeholders on board can the government hope to end the region’s alienation. “… we have no social affinities with the Hindus or Mussalmans. We are looked down upon by…
The fuse has been burning for almost four years and the mood in the state has passed through all the faces of anger, despair and belligerence to arrive, on election eve, at the explosive. Gauhati has become unrecognisable. Once the citadel of lahe lahe, the Assamese philosophy of languor and peaceability, the capital now rumbles…
Events In Mizoram seems to be moving inexorably towards a resumption of insurgency. The cease-fire agreement, which came into effect at midnight on July 31 last year, has never seemed more fragile than it is now. As the indecisive talks with Mizo National Front (MNF) President Laldenga near the end of their sixth year, the…
Not for nothing has Mizo National Front (MNF) President Laldenga acquired a reputation for being a cool and calculating man. Towards the end of 1981, however, his smooth phrases took on a jagged edge, as his talks with the prime minister’s special envoy G. Parthasarathi entered the final lap. Mizoram-watchers were not surprised, therefore, when…