A day before the twin blasts at Dilsukhnagar in Hyderabad on February 21, the Multi-Agency Center, under the Intelligence Bureau and tasked with collating, analyzing and disseminating threats to India, sent out an alert to all states including Andhra Pradesh. Read more

A day before the 150th anniversary of the Indian police was being celebrated at the Chanakyapuri Sports Complex in Delhi on December 8, a top officer of elite National Security Guards (NSG) met his counterpart in Intelligence Bureau, the organizers of the event, to say it would be very difficult of the Black Cats Commandos to perform a slithering operation from a Mi-17 helicopter–similar to 26/11 operations–as there were far too many trees and it was windy too. The Intelligence Bureau Special Director looked askance at the NSG officer and said does his force wait for ideal conditions before launching a counter-terror operation. Read more

What is common between Abu Hurera, Abu Qahafa, Abu Al Qama, Abu Usman and Abu Jundal except for the fact that they all have an Arab honorific Abu and belong to dreaded Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist group based in Pakistan? Read more

Unlike her husband and former US president Bill Clinton, who administrated a sugar coated pill to Indian Parliamentarians post-Pokhran on non-proliferation, CTBT and dialogue with Pakistan in March 2001, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton does not mince words or believe in diplomatic parlance of the bygone era. Read more

Localitis often afflicts diplomats on foreign assignments with classical symptoms of routinely defending actions of the host nation. Read more

It has become an annual ritual. Come April 21, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will address the bloated Indian bureaucracy to celebrate the Civil Services Day. Young IAS, IPS officers and their rather cynical seniors will be lectured on the need for a corruption free, meritorious and politically neutral bureaucracy. Read more

The electoral message for the Congress and the BJP in the recently concluded Assembly elections was rather sharp and blunt as regional parties threaten to overtake the two mainstream national parties. In spite of what the political spin doctors may say, weak ruling authority at the centre has always led to chaos in Indian history. Read more

Hold the line and build naval capacities is the common refrain that one hears on the Raisina Hill when it comes to the Indian counter to Chinese assertions over the tedious land border dispute and its muscle flexing on the high seas. It is actually quite a pragmatic solution to deal with China except there is a huge and widening gap between the Indian intent and the reality on ground. Read more

When Home Minister P Chidambaram spelt out the new security architecture for India in his path breaking December 23, 2009 Intelligence Bureau endowment lecture, he envisaged a counter-terror body which would not only create actionable intelligence but investigate terror attacks and even have the capability of vacating them. Read more

After General VK Singh had taken over as Chief of Army Staff in 2010, a retired Lieutenant General, whose name figures in the Adarsh Society Housing scandal called on him at the office ostensibly to discuss developments in Kashmir. Read more