As Asad Durrani and Amarjit Singh Dulat, former spymasters of Pakistan and India respectively, are releasing their much awaited co-authored book THE SPY CHRONICLES: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace, written by journalist Aditya Sinha, in New Delhi, here is a recollection of what A.S. Dulat in his memoir Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years had documented about the Intelligence […]
The recent halt in operations announced by the Delhi has garnered widespread scepticism with both politicians and political experts terming the announcement as ‘futile.’ Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti had suggested a Vajpayee type Ramadhan unilateral ceasefire like the one of 2000. It was accepted by the Centre but with conditions. Far from her claim, is […]
So I hit the South Asia seminar circuit again yesterday. As so often when it comes to that part of the world, the event was held at The Woodrow Wilson Center, a hugely influential foreign policy think tank located inside the massive Ronald Reagan Center and staffed with analysts with direct access to the […]
Of late the J&K dispute has been reduced to a specific narrative. A ‘nominal choice’ of opting for an independent state is being pushed by many quarters. A visible attempt is being made to highlight that option, and there is a deliberate and conscious effort to hide or completely ignore a vast constituency within J&K […]
At this juncture, it is the silence of the self-styled champions of law, freedom of speech, equality, justice and democracy that is echoing most loudly in the Kashmir Valley. This shameful silence of the ‘Great Indian intellectual’ is resonating throughout the slopes of the mighty Hindu Kush and crashing in waves over the simmering […]
Our dear professor, we the students of Kashmir University consider ourselves very fortunate, and are very proud that we had such an erudite and genius of a teacher. Now that you left us forever, we may never hear your scholarly lectures again, but your martyrdom has taught us many other things. The whole campus […]
In electoral politics, especially in the case of voters throwing up a hung assembly, the floor test becomes sacrosanct. Out of 222 Assembly seats in Karnataka Legislative Assembly, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to win 104 constituencies and stake a claim to form a government as a single largest […]
A fact: As Chief Minister of restive Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti is also chairperson of the Unified Command Headquarters (UCH). By definition, she, in her capacity as head of the unified command, should prevail over all the Corps Commanders of the Indian Army, chiefs of all security and intelligence agencies, chief secretary, civil […]
THE fourth estate in India-held Kashmir is in peril. Willing collaborator-journalists have made the institution of journalism the lapdog of the state by not calling out its follies, and by muddying IHK’s political narrative in line with the Indian state’s interests. A recent report by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) highlighted how government clampdowns […]
