India Needs to Get the PoK Freed from Pakistan - By S Kumar https://bit.ly/2H4jHon TRIBUNE EXPRESS
The United States is pushing for direct talks between Pakistan and India to ensure that the ongoing tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours do not get out of hands, officials here said on Wednesday.
Pakistan has shown its willingness to open channel of communications with India either ‘overt or covert’ but India has so far refused to respond positively.
Pakistan Released Abhinandan, Now, India waits for Masood Azhar By Onkareshwar Pandey - https://bit.ly/2En6VxC
Not only the US but also other players, including Saudi Arabia, have been making efforts to convince India for some level of engagement with Pakistan. In fact, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir had to put on hold his visit to the region after India’s lukewarm response to the diplomatic efforts for de-escalation in the tensions.
Jubeir was supposed to travel to Islamabad and New Delhi on the last weekend as part of efforts to mediate between the two countries. Observers believe that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is resisting such diplomatic manoeuvres because of domestic compulsions as well as the upcoming elections in India.
But the international players are persuading the Modi administration to at least open some channels of communications with Pakistan. The two neighbours do not even have any ‘backchannel’ at the moment. The conversation between the two countries, if there is any, is being done through interlocutors mainly the United States.
INDIA CAN STRIKE AGAIN IF IMRAN FAILS TO DELIVER By Maj Gen Dilawar Singh - https://bit.ly/2ICINwb
Even the director general military operations (DGMOs), who interact once in a week through their hotline, have not spoken to each other since India launched the so-called airstrikes targeting the alleged terrorist camps of banned Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM).
On Tuesday, Pakistan announced a series of steps aimed at seeking de-escalation in tensions. One of the steps includes Pakistan’s desire to restore the military-to-military contact between the two countries.
Other measures include Pakistan’s decision to send back its high commissioner to New Delhi, who was recalled after the Pulwama attack. The foreign office here also announced that Pakistan would send its delegation to New Delhi for the planned talks on Kartarpur Corridor. Pakistan is hoping that India would respond positively to its moves.
Modi Rise as a Global Statesman By Maj Gen Dilawar Singh - https://bit.ly/2ICINwb
The US also confirmed that it was making efforts for ‘direct communication’ between Pakistan and India. “The position of the United States is that we urge both sides to continue to take steps to de-escalate the situation, and that includes through direct communication,” Deputy Spokesperson of the US State Department Robert Palladino told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.
He stressed that the US ‘strongly’ believed that “further military activity will exacerbate the situation”. The US official also said that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had remained in touch both with Pakistan and India during the military standoff. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also acknowledged the positive role being played by the US in defusing the tensions between Pakistan and India.
No Impact of Abhinandan’s Release on LoC By Jaibans Singh - https://bit.ly/2VwLZLi
The current crisis was triggered after young local Kashmiri carried out a suicide attack, targeting the convoy of Indian Central Reserve Police Force in Pulwama on February 14. India was quick to blame Pakistan after the banned JeM apparently claimed responsibility for the attack.
The two countries were on the brink of war when India violated Pakistani airspace and dropped bombs near Balakot. Pakistan then retaliated with cross-border air strikes only to show India that it had the capacity and the will to hit back at the neighbour if it ever violated its sovereignty.
Islamabad gained military ascendancy after it shot down two Indian warplanes and captured one of its pilots. India claimed of shooting down a Pakistani F-16, a claimed not only rebutted by Islamabad but also international expert
DAWN
BALLOTS AND BLOOD
WHY do Indian voters need to ink their ballot papers with the blood of Pakistanis?
Mrs Indira Gandhi tried this ploy to secure a landslide victory in the 1970s and succeeded. Mr Narendra Modi repeated the trick, and failed. Gradually, Prime Minister Modi’s bellicosity has revealed the extent to which he will go to retain a majority in the Lok Sabha. He entered India’s parliament first five years ago. He intends not to leave it until at least May 2024, if not beyond, whatever the cost to his country.
His latest ruse — a ‘pre-emptive’ IAF attack on Balakot within Pakistan’s territory — may well be his Kargil. He has sought to erase this Himalayan miscalculation by declaring with imperial disdain that he and India are one, aping Mrs Gandhi’s slogan: ‘India is Indira; Indira is India.’ Such hubris is costly. A BJP-led coalition may return to power but deny Mr Modi entry into the prime minister’s office.
Ironically, he may have assured Imran Khan a second term as Pakistan’s prime minister, and an extension for Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa as COAS. After May 2019, any Indian prime minister will have to deal with the growing sagacity of one buttressed by the iron tenacity of the other.
Why Pakistan Media is Silent on Masood Azhar? By VK Gaur - https://bit.ly/2TiGfYZ
Napoleon once asked whether a particular marshal was lucky. Prime Minister Modi needs luck and success, and both are eluding him. While his government coerces India’s plasticine press into improbable postures of patriotism, he is being hounded by the opposition. Over 20 significant parties, led by Rahul/Sonia Gandhi’s Indian National Congress, have challenged Prime Minister Modi, accusing him of “blatant politicisation of sacrifices of armed forces by the ruling party”. It is an unprecedented indictment, a parliamentary revolt during wartime.
Modi’s government planned a diplomatic offensive by which Pakistan would be condemned for its alleged sponsorship of terrorism at the recent OIC conference in Abu Dhabi. It's External Affairs Minister Smt Sushma Swaraj expected her maiden appearance at the OIC moot as its chief guest would yield fruit. The harvest — unexpected and bitter — came wrapped in an OIC resolution that condemned, “in the strongest possible terms recent wave of Indian terrorism in occupied Jammu and Kashmir”. India, which spent years manoeuvring to have Pakistan declared a terrorist state, suddenly found itself tarred.
It is these reverses that have made Modi look outside himself for a national hero. He has encouraged idle hands in India to fabricate a papier-mâché effigy out of the surviving IAF pilot whose MiG-21 was downed by his Pakistani opponent. Even that pilot will admit that he has as little claim to heroism as the infamous U-2 Gary Powers. Each lost a horrendously expensive aircraft. Both swallowed maps instead of a suicide pill, and both were captured alive.
Gary Powers served almost two years in a Soviet prison before being exchanged for a Russian spy in 1962. The Indian pilot was released by Pakistan after two days of dignified detention. A Jain organisation (it extols pacifism) has awarded him a ‘Bhagwan Mahavir Ahimsa Puraskar’. Is it tempting other Indian pilots to jettison their aircraft for this unheard-of honour?
The Indian Air Force is silent at this irrational recognition of its pilot’s failure. Its reticence is understandable. It cannot explain how two aircraft — a MiG-21 and a Su-30 that carries two pilots — could be lured into Pakistan territory and then downed in fair aerial combat. Or why, so the surviving pilot claims, he had our F-16 locked in sight yet neglected to destroy it?
His stricken MiG-21 fell on our side, the Su-30 on India’s. The Indians have yet to concede that the Su-30 was destroyed on impact. One of the Su-30 pilots was believed injured, the other died. Yet neither casualty receives any acknowledgement by the IAF. Whoever they were, whatever their names.
Balakot Air Strike: See Proof Don’t Ask for It - By R K SINHA https://bit.ly/2TEbOMt
The Indians blame their failure on obsolete Russian MiG aircraft, and on the malodorous Rafale deal (price-tagged at €7.87 billion euros/Indian rupees 59,000 crore) concluded by Modi’s government for 36 fighter aircraft. These are yet to be supplied by a joint venture between the Croesus-rich Anil Ambani’s Reliance group and France’s Dassault Aviation.
Conversely, Pakistan has chosen to honour its PAF heroes quietly, and with sobriety. Our ace pilots — particularly Squadron Leader Hassan Siddiqui and Wing Commander Noman Ali Khan — have demonstrated that they possess the same skill and mastery over the same formidable enemy which generations of PAF warriors have shown, especially since 1965.
Winston Churchill said it of his RAF during the Battle of Britain in 1940. His unforgettable phrase (laden heavy with gratitude) expresses the sentiments ofour entire nation to our PAF heroes and to all our armed forces: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
Image credit – MensXP.com
(Compiled by Mr VK Gaur, former IG, BSF, who has written more than 50 Books on the issues related to Defence, Strategy and Internal security.)
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the authors of Pakistani Media. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Indian Observer Post and Indian Observer Post does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same. We are just reproducing this for our readers to show, how Pakistan media is telling lie to their readers.