क़स्बा - the suburbia

The recent death and mutilation of two Indian soldiers by the Pakistani army-backed border action team, followed by the abduction and brutal murder of Lieutenant Umar Fayaz by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists in Kashmir, has placed the Indian government on the political back foot. It is time India firms up a response to the policies of the Pakistani army. Any further continuation of the “headless chicken” syndrome as a measure of policy will only embolden Islamabad and its proxies in Kashmir and elsewhere in India. Readers can share their thoughts in comments below  

In 1600 when the East India Co. was established, Britain accounted for only 1.8 percent of the world’s GDP while India was generating some 23 percent. By 1940, Britain was producing nearly 10 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) and after the British had left, India’s GDP stood at 4 percent. How did one of the wealthiest countries turn into one of the poorest and most backward in the world? “Inglorious Empire” gives a scathing account of what the British really did to India. This brilliant reassessment of the Raj began, in fact, as a debate. At the end of May 2015 Shashi Tharoor was invited by the Oxford Union to speak on the subject “Britain Owes Reparation to Her Former Colonies.” In early July, the debate was posted on the web and Tharoor tweeted a link to it, which went viral. Without any apology, the author tackles the true story of the Raj: The looting of India. India’s gradually dwindling share of the world’s economy begins when the East India Co. was incorpo

A hypothetical war between India and China would be one of the largest and most destructive conflicts in Asia. A war between the two powers would rock the Indo-Pacific region, cause thousands of casualties on both sides and take a significant toll on the global economy. Geography and demographics would play a unique role, limiting the war’s scope and ultimately the conditions of victory. India and China border one another in two distinct locations: Aksai Chin in India’s north, and Arunachal Pradesh in the country’s northeast. China has made claims on both locations, which from China’s perspective belong to the far western province of Xinjiang and China-occupied Tibet. China invaded both Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh in 1962, with both sides fighting a monthlong war that resulted in minor Chinese gains on the ground. Both countries’ “No First Use” policies regarding nuclear weapons make the outbreak of nuclear war very unlikely. Both countries have such large populations, each over

India was all set to master Russian cryogenic rocket technology when the United States – in cahoots with its moles in the Indian Intelligence Bureau – set in motion a series of events that implicated India’s leading space scientists on cooked-up charges. To understand the extent of damage caused to India’s space programme because of the ISRO spy case, one has to first look at how close India was to mastering cryogenic rocket technology. Cryogenic rocket technology involves the use of super-cooled liquid fuels to produce massive amounts of thrust in order to lift heavy payloads into space. It will be at the heart of India’s GSLV rocket, which will carry future Indian astronauts to the moon. Without a reliable GSLV India will continue to pay heavy launch fees to foreign space agencies. Because it takes several hours to fuel up a cryogenic rocket, such a rocket cannot be used as a ballistic missile. This leads to two questions. One, if the United States is really concer

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pro-actively pursued India’s agenda of modernising and indigenising its defence sector by clearing several long-pending demands of the Indian military for equipment. India’s rapidly-obsolescing military hardware has made this push imperative—the ageing of the hardware has been prominently highlighted by a string of naval accidents in the last two years and the rapidly depleting strength of the air force squadron, with the de-induction of old aircraft and delays in inducting replacements. Externally, raging border disputes with China and Pakistan, and the growing presence of the Chinese Navy in the Indian Ocean region, continue to be threats that call for an updating of the Indian defence sector. Rapidly evolving security threats in India's neighbourhood and a number of accidents means it is critical for India to invest in the modernisation as well as the indigenisation of India's rapidly obsolescing defence equipmen

wo jo hum me tum me qaraar tha tumhe yad ho ki na yaad ho wahi yaani vaada nibah ka tumhe yad ho ki na yaad ho wo jo lutf mujhpe tha beshtar wo karam ki tha mere hal par mujhe sab hai yaad zara zara tumhe yad ho ya na yad ho wo naye gile wo shikayatein wo maze maze ki hikayatein wo har ek baat pe ruthna tumhe yad ho ki na yad ho kabhi hum mein tum me bhi chaah thi kabhi humse tumse bhi raah thi kabhi hum b tum b the aashna tumhe yad ho ki na yad ho suno zikr hai kayi saal ka kiya ek aapne waada tha so nibhane ka to zikr kiya tumhe yad ho ki na yaad ho jise aap ginte the aashna jise aap khte the baawafa main wahi hu momin e mubtala tumhe yad ho ki na yaad ho....