Pahalgam and After~II

Given the context that the US will not be comfortable in cozying up to China, and the proximity of China and Russia due to strategic reasons, India should play its cards deftly, as the axis of Russia, China and the USA will be guided by commercial reasons mostly in the coming years. Over the years China and Pakistan have worked very closely to isolate India, and our endeavour should be to keep Russia, a time-tested ally, on our side

- RAKESH ASTHANA The writer, a retired IPS officer, has served in various capacities including as Commissioner of Delhi Police, DG-BSF, DG-NCB, DG-BCAS and Special Director, CBI

The entire security in Jammu and Kashmir has been divided into various grids, and responsibility has been assigned to the security forces accordingly. This arrangement is reviewed, monitored, and coordinated by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Lieutenant-Governor of J&K on a regular basis. That the incident on 22 April happened despite this is a cause for concern, and requires introspection as to where the lapse was, and to correct it to avoid recurrence.

However, the silver lining is that when the Air force hit the terrorists' headquarters, their training centres, and launch pads deep inside Pakistan, precisely and 'smartly' in the intervening night of 6 and 7 May, causing extensive damage to the terrorist infrastructure as well as the terrorists, the accurate ground intelligence of enemy territory was provided by a sister agency.

Evidently, our intelligence agencies are well equipped, and capable enough to be accurate while collecting hard intelligence in enemy territory. They have the right mix of human and tech intelligence in their repertoire.

An important takeaway from Operation Sindoor has been the use of remote technology without a soldier interface. There has been no evidence of any manned aircraft crossing the air space of either India or Pakistan, which shows that both sides had viewed the corresponding air defence threat rather seriously.

However, as the hostilities escalated on 8 and 9 May, India had, with precision, effectively destroyed the air defence system of Pakistan and its other military facilities, which perhaps resulted in the overture of cease-fire from the Pakistani DGMO.