'The vocal pacifists who monopolise the media in India need to answer a simple question: Would they have the Taliban or ISIS take over Kashmir or the rest of the country or let the army do its duty so that we are safe in our beds and free to demonise the soldiers in our cozy drawing rooms and television studios,' asks Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

'Even if someone other than Trump had become president, the US distancing from Pakistan and coming closer to India was already set in motion.' 'With Trump openly declaring his intent to take on Islamic extremism, the days of US political correctness are over,' says Colonel (Dr) Anil A Athale (retd).

One thing is certain: Demonetisation has broken the back of terror funding, says Colonel Anil A Athale.

'India has to understand that the permanent state of war that exists between India and Pakistan has to be expected,,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd). 'The only way to ensure peace or absence of war is to maintain a militarily-dominant position over Pakistan.'

'The interesting point about the choice of the area for the surgical strikes is that it is the most sensitive part of the Line of Control,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

'Terrorism is merely a symptom of a deeper disease in Pakistan's body politic,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

'The only effective defence against a suicide attack is 'pre-emptive' destruction of the attacker,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

'Even if it is difficult to replicate Bangladesh, India can cause sufficient turmoil in Pakistan to keep it off balance,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

There is a great danger of the government getting stampeded into actions in Kashmir that could result in long lasting damage, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

'The Kashmiri identity and its unique blend of Sufi Islam, its culture and language can best survive in a plural and secular India.' 'Neither independence nor merger with Pakistan can achieve that objective.' 'Peace will return to Kashmir only when Kashmiris realise this, else they will be part of the 1,000- year war,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

'Indira Gandhi proved herself a great war leader, but failed as a statesman,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

'The Gita was propounded on a battlefield and regards the use of force to establish Dharma or righteousness, as not only legitimate but one's highest duty,' says Colonel Anil Athale (retd).

The real issue in India is not between Make or Made/Create in India or basic or applied research. We need both. The solution is to create an eco-system where new ideas can flourish and convert themselves into new technologies and products, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

'Pakistan has been successful in convincing the rest of the world that the Pakistani nuclear terrorists are meant to target only India. This is myopia at its worst,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

'Increasingly, there is a tendency to magnify 'victimhood' of the minority for electoral gains and vote bank politics.'
'There is no doubt that there is a worldwide rise in Islamophobia. There is a tendency amongst some in India to react to this in the Indian milieu,' says Colonel Anil A Athale(retd).

Do the students who chanted pro-separatist slogans and their teachers/supporters want the army to withdraw from Kashmir or not fight the terrorists?

'All this talk of 'tactical nuclear weapons' or a limited nuclear war are 'false flags'! It looks like India and Pakistan are slowly but surely inching towards this realism,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

'If India employed a strategy of a 'thousand cuts', Pakistan will wither away.'

Bajirao, an unorthodox leader, faced much opposition during his lifetime from the Brahmins of Pune. In the last hundred years or so, he has been ignored due to caste politics in Maharashtra where he has become a 'non person' for having been born a Brahmin, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

'If religious scholars and preachers declare suicide attacks as un-Islamic and decree that suicide bombers will be denied an Islamic burial and funeral rites, it may dissuade some would-be terrorists who dream of an afterlife in heaven,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).