Threats were often communicated to Pandit homes through notes tied to stones chucked through a window, or a notice pasted on a wall. Those sometimes came from neighbours eyeing that Pandit family's property. Those threats often worked in the atmosphere of terror during that awful season of vacuous exercise of State authority, writes David Devadas, longtime Kashmir watcher and author of two books on the Valley.
Making citizens queue to vote just when the disease is declining, but is still in the air, could just cause a fresh spurt. The logic for this scheduling is inexplicable, especially since the entire process could so easily have been pushed back by three weeks, argues David Devadas.
The days of a thousand cuts are over. These mini wars will remain under the threshold of undeniable war, but will escalate closer to that threshold when their big brother pushes in. Chinese aggression has changed the matrix, the strategies, and surely the objectives too, warns David Devadas.
Squashing erstwhile 'separatists', marginalising the 'mainstream', and squeezing funding channels have all evidently had an impact -- at least for the moment, notes David Devadas after a visit to Srinagar.
The transformative improvement promised in Jammu-Kashmir remains largely a mirage, observes David Devadas on the second anniversary of the Constitutional changes in the former state.
In the early part of the Kargil operations, the army opted to more or less go it alone, sacrificing large numbers of men and officers in almost superhuman struggles against an enemy on higher ground. Some generals seem to think their predecessors would have succeeded better if they had had air resources at their disposal, points out David Devadas.
Women will have a decisive say as chairpersons in seven of Jammu and Kashmir's 20 districts.
What the election demonstrated is that the BJP has a stranglehold on most of the Hindu votes in the Union territory, observes David Devadas.
Future, even present, wars -- at least those involving such tech giants as China -- include hi-tech battlefields, which a Pakistan-obsessed India has not sufficiently prioritised. Today's generals plan on how to disrupt an enemy city's power supplies, rail networks, airports, ports, and government departments, not just by bombing or torpedoing them; they also examine the option of tripping up the computer networks that run these, notes David Devadas.
The Indian Army's Northern Command would be stretched if all three of the corps under it -- based in Leh, Srinagar, and Nagrota (near Jammu) -- were to face hostilities, notes David Devadas.
Some of the BJP panches and councillors who attended the meeting with Manoj Sinha said they were not impressed with what the new lieutenant governor told them.
'Sinha's skills at resolving contradictions will be required to smoothen the functioning of the bureaucracy which has been so fractious that it tripped up even a seasoned bureaucrat like his immediate predecessor, G C Murmu,' notes avid Devadas.
The Chinese probably thought that brutal assault was a knock-out, but they had not counted on the ingenuity, loyalty and courage of battle-trained Indian officers and jawans.
The government must figure out what the Chinese game plan is and thwart the endgame before it is upon us, possibly in early winter, advises David Devadas.
A senior officer confirmed that the Indian soldiers fought valiantly and with tremendous grit "till the last", even to the extent that half of them died in battle, reveals David Devadas.
Lieutenant General Harinder Singh, who commands the 'Fire and Fury' 14 Corps, has the experience and talent to face down the Chinese challenge. The general is a rare combination of thinker and tough-minded doer, observes David Devadas.
'Terrorists are killing ordinary citizens, huge crowds brave a pandemic to attend militant funerals, and artillery is booming on the LoC.' 'This April seems like a run-of-the-terror-mill Kashmiri spring: Violence is emerging like a prickly new bud,' warns David Devadas.
As the campaign peaked, AAP leaders evidently realised they had to deflect their chief opponent's attempts to polarise the electorate over religious identity, explains David Devadas.
Why did RA&W hire a man with a questionable record, wonders David Devadas.
'Those who have not lived and imbibed the social and cultural patterns of Kashmir cannot quite fathom the importance of inter-personal communication in Kashmiri society,' says David Devadas.
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