The kidnapping—followed by the killing of four Indian Air Force officers soon after, and the executions of Intelligence Bureau personnel—made the triumph of jihadism seem inevitable.
Part of a CIA-trained zero unit, Rahmanullah Lakanwal was evacuated to the US before the fall of Kabul in 2021. But his long journey failed to wash the blood from his mind.
Even as India, Pakistan have seemed on the edge of war, their intelligence services have often sought to find space to de-escalate tensions and reduce risks for the two countries.
Cutting trade ties with Pakistan is easier said than done: the neighbouring country is Afghanistan’s largest single trading partner, taking in 45 per cent of Afghan exports in 2024.
Fourteen million refugees, and 25 million facing acute hunger, should be reason enough for the world to dismantle the dystopia in Sudan — even if the sadism of its rulers is not.
Pakistan massively enhanced the funding for Islamists in Afghanistan, hoping to bury ethnic nationalism. That strategy has now backfired spectacularly.
The test raises a question. Why have Russian nuclear strategists now invested in the Burevestnik, when the US abandoned nuclear ramjet propulsion in 1964?
The words she wrote in our autograph book echo in my mind now: 'Mar kar bhi jo jeete hain, wohi jeete hain'—The only lives worth living are those remembered long after death.
We now live in a world order that will keep shifting. India must use this window. This also means we remain disciplined enough not to be knee-jerked into reacting to what Pakistan sees as its moment in the sun.
Swami spends an entire essay mourning the death of the Geneva Conventions — the same conventions that also ban using hospitals as military bunkers and hiding rockets in schools. Hamas does exactly that, on camera, repeatedly. Yet Hamas gets zero mentions. Gaza appears once, solely to blame Israel.
So apparently, humanitarian law is sacred — just not sacred enough to apply to everyone breaking it.
Nice sermon, Praveen. Kudos about the blind spot.
Swami spends an entire essay mourning the death of the Geneva Conventions — the same conventions that also ban using hospitals as military bunkers and hiding rockets in schools. Hamas does exactly that, on camera, repeatedly. Yet Hamas gets zero mentions. Gaza appears once, solely to blame Israel.
So apparently, humanitarian law is sacred — just not sacred enough to apply to everyone breaking it.
Nice sermon, Praveen. Kudos about the blind spot.