About 1,600 soldiers are killed every year in India due to accidents, suicides, and ailments. It is due to the prevailing mindset that the conduct of defence forces can't be questioned results in such avoidable deaths.

For Indian interests in Sri Lanka, 1,670 soldiers laid down their lives. However, not a single event is held officially to pay tributes to slain soldiers, which is a stark contrast to Kargil Diwas (Op Vijay) celebrated with gusto.

India will not get weakened by the removal of AFSPA. Far from it.

A member of the army, even if serving in a region where AFSPA is enforced, has to follow the law. The law says that unprovoked, the security cannot shoot to kill or injure any person, civilian or militant – which is what happened in Oting in December 2021.

A book based on the opinions formed by 29 officers of the US army who spent a year in India training with the officer cadre paints a not so rosy picture of the DSSC course over the last 38 years.

There is a growing murmur that the internal affairs of the Army are being controlled by others, raising questions of a seeming decay of the military trait of standing up and being counted in all matters.

Anyone deeply vulnerable himself must not be expected to fight the system. Those who exhort them to do so must first remove the vulnerability.

Most citizens sense that the country is passing through critical times but feel helpless to contribute to get India out of this morass. We citizens can do a lot – individually and collectively.

To deal with the Chinese threat, India has chosen an unaffordable option which will harm its citizens even more.

The veterans simply do not articulate their views on national security. But if they did, this is what they would speak about.

The unrest is the result of the slow accumulation of numerous heartaches given by this government, since its entry in 2014.

The core issue is why are local Kashmiris, many of them relatively well off and educated, ready to lay down their lives in this manner?

The Narendra Modi government's stance on the Citizenship Bill is a glaring example of its official thinking that while people of all other religions are natural friends of India, Muslims are natural enemies.

No one has to ‘trust’ anyone else. Talks do not mean that we must withdraw forces from J&K and send them to peace stations. Nor is this a Bollywood situation where the police chief is expected to go to the den of bad men armed only with ‘trust’.

Fear of getting the sack might dissuade people from speaking against the system, but many forget that there is indeed life after dismissal.

What the current arguments and debates around demonetisation are getting wrong.