The Chinese leadership's exhortation to the PLA to improve its capability sufficiently to win local wars must be a wake-up call to India's military strategists and operations planners.

The fact that the bulk of whatever aid goes to Pakistan is grabbed by the military and used for terrorism is of little consequence to the US, as is the fact that it was Pakistan that engineered the humiliating withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

The Canadian government is doing a very big mistake by thinking that such separatists and terrorist groups operating in Canada will not harm Canada but only other countries.

It is possible to use the numbers to argue in many ways but what should be reasonable to note is that there is no conspiracy among a certain set of people to grow their numbers. Demographics tells us that as the level of education (particularly of the woman) and the standard of living of the family moves up, the number of children per woman generally comes down.

A mere look at the map of Tripura showed that the insurgents were operating from the hills where there was no police presence as all the police stations and posts were on the main roads. I was convinced that we should move into the hills.

The statue has cost substantial money but is fully funded by the public through a charitable trust managed by a number of Indians residing in the UK. The chair of an advisory group that oversaw the project was former Pakistani-origin mayor and minister Sajid Javed.

An increase in support of free food means cutting back on maybe health, education, infrastructure, military or pension benefits. The government cannot escape these difficult fiscal tradeoffs.

Thus the mantra of development should be spirituality with high technology. Both these things allow us to reduce our greed for resources and live in harmony with nature – something that Gandhi preached intuitively all his life.

But for Gandhi, India's political destiny would have been vastly different and her moral stature vastly inferior.

Clearer commitments and standards on access and quality, making oversight and redressal mechanisms more participatory, and allocating adequate financial resources alone would make the right to healthcare to all citizens a reality. 

The book is a must-read for all policymakers, diplomats, academics and civil and military personnel who have an interest in Siachen.

In a world slowing down due to a recession, even if our share of trade goes up from 3 to 4 per cent, that would be a huge boost for the Indian economy. And that is eminently feasible only if we are less afraid of open and free trade.

The book, in many ways, is the last word on the tragic and defining years of Punjab’s turmoil that took a large number of lives.

There are currently 41 ships and submarines under construction, 39 are being built in Indian shipyards, while in-principle approval is there from the Defence Ministry for 47 ships to be built in India.

The author’s prognosis of a major contestation in the not-so-distant future is situated in the South China Sea. The compelling logic portends China’s proclivity to fight one or possibly two major wars before 2035, either with Taiwan or India before the major US-China war.