Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal, all of 21, blew up a series of Pakistani tanks before laying down his life for the country in the 1971 War. When Arun's father, Brigadier ML Khetarpal (Retd) visited Sargodha in 2001, he was hosted by a Pakistani soldier, Khwaja Mohammad Naser. Naser confessed that he was the one who pulled the tank trigger in 1971 that got his son killed.
While Afghanistan and Pakistan were engaged in a war this month, an image showing an India-Afghanistan border pillar from the 1930s went viral. India and Afghanistan shared a small land border through the Wakhan Corridor before Pakistan wedged itself in through treachery and the illegal occupation of Gilgit-Baltistan in 1947.
After Indira Gandhi's assassination, Rajiv Gandhi reportedly had a secret meeting with then RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras, resulting in its cadre supporting the Congress in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections despite the BJP's presence. There were at least six secret meetings between Sangh members and the party, including one at the residence of liquor baron Kapil Mohan. The Congress registered the biggest-ever Lok Sabha election victory.
Pakistan minister Khawaja Asif said India was "never truly united except under Aurangzeb". Did the sixth Mughal emperor, under whom the dynasty reached the zenith of territorial dominance, indeed unify India? What's the historical fact?
From the 1970 Black September in Jordan when Pakistani troops under Zia-Ul-Haq's command butchered 25,000 Palestinians, to the brand-new defence pact with Riyadh, Pakistan's generals have long fought for whoever signs the biggest cheques. The latest deal with Saudi Arabia, with a promise of a nuclear shield, is the latest chapter in Rawalpindi's long mercenary ledger.
It was the bravery and military campaign of Zorawar Singh Kahluria, a General of Jammu king Gulab Singh, that first brought Ladakh into the Dogra fold in 1834. The sale of Jammu and Kashmir by the British to Gulab Singh in 1846, and his great-grandson Hari Singh's signing of the treaty of accession in 1947, made Ladakh an integral part of India.
After its humiliating defeat to China in the 1962 war, India turned the tables just a few years later. In two little-known battles in 1967 at Nathu La and Cho La, fought weeks apart, Indian forces pushed back the Chinese and restored a measure of pride. Eighty-eight Indian bravehearts laid down their lives, but the toll on the Chinese side was over 300. This victory cemented India's hold over Sikkim, and shattered China's aura of invincibility.
After Gen Z–led protests toppled the Oli government, Nepal once again finds itself in the grip of political turmoil and violence. Just over 15 years ago, Nepal, once the world's last Hindu kingdom, where monarchs were revered as living deities, was transformed by a Maoist-led uprising.
Earlier this week, when speculation over Donald Trump's alleged death was swirling, the Pentagon Pizza Index surged by 800%. Pizza orders near the Pentagon—the headquarters of the US Defence Department—are considered a barometer, hinting at officials at work for hours, during a crunch situation. This was also the case in June when the US bombed Iran. Even Soviet spies kept an eye on pizza orders during the Cold War.
The rock that Taylor Swift flaunted after her engagement brought India's Golconda diamond mines into focus. The Koh-i-Noor, the world's most famous and costliest diamond, was from India's Golconda mines, and was looted and taken to Persia by invader Nadir Shah. About 150 years before that, a Persian oilman's son, Mir Jumla, who helped Aurangzeb in his succession battle, came to rule the Golconda mines, the nest of the Kohinoor.
With eye on China, President Trump has led the US into a tariff war. However, it was the issue of tax on a Chinese export, tea, that sparked the American Revolution, which ultimately led to the independence of the US from Britain. Yes, we are referring to the Boston Tea Party of 1773 when Chinese tea was dumped into the Atlantic Ocean.
On August 14, 1947, midnight, an unlikely hand unfurled the Indian flag. Leonard Stone, the last British Chief Justice of the Bombay high court, unfurled the Tricolour, while interim PM Jawaharlal Nehru was delivering the 'Tryst with Destiny' speech in Delhi. Stone saluted the Tricolour hours before Nehru's ceremonial flag-hoisting at Delhi's Red Fort.
Just 120 Indian soldiers, led by Major Shaitan Singh Bhati, beat back 5,000 Chinese troopers at Rezang La in 1962, preventing China's takeover of Ladakh. A search party found frozen bodies of Indian soldiers still holding guns, showing the last stand in which 110 of the 120 Indians were killed. Revisiting the legendary battle of the 1962 Indo-China war, which is the subject of Farhan Akhtar's 120 Bahadur.
When both engines of Transat Flight 236 from Canada to Portugal died out midair over the Atlantic Ocean in 2001 due to a fuel leak, it was still 120km short of an airstrip. The pilots glided the plane to safety, creating a world record and saving 306 people onboard, in what is now known as the Miracle on the Azores.
After China's first atomic test, the US and India, as part of a covert operation, tried to place a nuclear-powered listening device at 25,000 feet in the Himalayas near the Nanda Devi peak. A blizzard forced the CIA-IB team to leave the device on the route. A recovery mission, and several search operations, failed to locate the device.
A movie on Kanhaiya Lal Teli, a tailor in Udaipur who was beheaded by two Muslim men for sharing a post supporting a BJP leader's comments on Prophet Muhammad, is caught in a storm of controversy. In 1929, publisher Mahashe Rajpal was stabbed to death by a 19-year-old Muslim carpenter for the book Rangeela Rasool. Massive protests over the book resulted in the British introducing the blasphemy law in India.
Though nominated five times, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize. On the shortlist in 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, just days before the committee's final decision. The Nobel Peace Prize wasn't awarded in 1948 as "there was no suitable living candidate".
It was a Great Escape in 1959 from Lhasa's Norbulingka Palace, the summer seat of the Dalai Lama, the head of Tibetan Buddhism. Then just 23, the Dalai Lama had no option but to flee Tibet after it became clear that an invitation to a dance event was communist China's bid to imprison him. Disguised as a soldier, he hoodwinked Chinese soldiers and entered India after a gruelling two-week trek.
Israel, the only undeclared nuclear power, started work on its N-weapons programme within years of the founding of the Jewish nation. One of its clandestine partners was apartheid-era South Africa. While Israel is said to be in possession of 90 warheads now, South Africa signed the NPT and junked its nukes.
More than two decades ago, Hassan Rouhani, a top Iranian negotiator, told global powers that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons. Rouhani later admitted that the idea came to him during the 2004 talks. Amid the Israel-Iran conflict over nukes, a look at if the fatwa exists or is a bid at deception.
