Indian journalist Santosh Bhartiya in an open letter to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi published on 'Rising Kashmir' claims that although "the land of Kashmir is with us, the people of Kashmir are not with us." The journalist presents findings from a four-day trip to India-held Kashmir in the letter, addressing the use of excessive force against protesters, the anger of the Kashmiri people, and the mishandling of the Kashmir issue by India ─ particularly, the Modi regime. Below are extracts from the open letter. Aggression, bitterness in every Kashmiri I want to introduce you by the fact that people have painful aggression in them against the Indian system; be it a man of 80 year old or a six-year-old child. This aggression and bitterness is to an extent of rejection of not even willing to talk to anybody who represents it. Their pain and aggression had taken such turn of extremism that they now stand with stones in hands and are ready to face such huge system; not bothering about the outcome. I believe this situation would lead us to the disastrous “massacre” situation. A Kashmiri who do not holds a stone in hand, keeps the stone in his heart. This revolution has taken a shape of mass-movement same as the movement of 1942 or JP Movement in which the contribution of public was more than the leaders. The people who voted in the election of 2014, today none of them is ready to utter a single word of sympathy in favour of the same government. They don't want to be part of Pakistan Honorable Prime Minister [Modi] some people have made you believe that each person in Kashmir is a Pakistani, but honestly we did not find a single man praising Pakistan. On every tree, on every mobile tower, Pakistani flag swirls in Kashmir. We inquired about it and people responded by saying that, “India hates Pakistan. So in order to tease you we swirl Pakistani flags.” Surprisingly, I didn’t find a single person saying that he wants to go to Pakistan as they are aware of the bad...

Indian journalist Santosh Bhartiya in an open letter to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi published on 'Rising Kashmir' claims that although "the land of Kashmir is with us, the people of Kashmir are not with us." The journalist presents findings from a four-day trip to India-held Kashmir in the letter, addressing the use of excessive force against protesters, the anger of the Kashmiri people, and the mishandling of the Kashmir issue by India ─ particularly, the Modi regime. Below are extracts from the open letter. Aggression, bitterness in every Kashmiri I want to introduce you by the fact that people have painful aggression in them against the Indian system; be it a man of 80 year old or a six-year-old child. This aggression and bitterness is to an extent of rejection of not even willing to talk to anybody who represents it. Their pain and aggression had taken such turn of extremism that they now stand with stones in hands and are ready to face such huge system; not bothering about the outcome. I believe this situation would lead us to the disastrous “massacre” situation. A Kashmiri who do not holds a stone in hand, keeps the stone in his heart. This revolution has taken a shape of mass-movement same as the movement of 1942 or JP Movement in which the contribution of public was more than the leaders. The people who voted in the election of 2014, today none of them is ready to utter a single word of sympathy in favour of the same government. They don't want to be part of Pakistan Honorable Prime Minister [Modi] some people have made you believe that each person in Kashmir is a Pakistani, but honestly we did not find a single man praising Pakistan. On every tree, on every mobile tower, Pakistani flag swirls in Kashmir. We inquired about it and people responded by saying that, “India hates Pakistan. So in order to tease you we swirl Pakistani flags.” Surprisingly, I didn’t find a single person saying that he wants to go to Pakistan as they are aware of the bad...

The United States failed to understand the complexities and scale of the mission required to stand up and mentor security forces in a country suffering from thirty years of war, misrule, corruption, and deep poverty, US Special Inspector General John F. Sopko said in the latest of his reports released Thursday. This report details the U.S. experience of  reconstructing the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). The release coincided with remarks by Special Inspector General John F. Sopko at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.   Salient features of the Report:   The United States failed to understand the complexities and scale of the mission required to stand up and mentor security forces in a country suffering from thirty years of war, misrule, corruption, and deep poverty.  Early U.S. partnerships with independent militias—intended to advance U.S. counterterrorism objectives—ultimately undermined the creation and role of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP). S. military plans for ANDSF readiness were created under politically constrained timelines, rather than based upon realistic assessments of Afghan readiness. The U.S. government lacks a deployable police-development capability for high-threat environments, so we have trained over 100,000 Afghan police using U.S. Army aviators, infantry officers, and civilian contractors. One U.S. officer watched TV shows like Cops and NCIS to learn what he should teach. In eastern Afghanistan, we met a U.S. Army helicopter pilot assigned to teach policing. The NATO training mission for the ANDSF was chronically understaffed by more than 50%. Insufficient attention to Afghan institutional capacity meant that the personnel, logistical, planning, administrative, and other functions vital to sustaining the fighting forces remained underdeveloped—as they do to this day. The U.S. government is not well organized to conduct large scale security-sector assistance...

The Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) conducted its fourth Pak-Afghan Youth Dialogue under its Afghan Studies Center initiative on Wednesday, September 20, 2017, as part of its ongoing series of monthly dialogues aimed at enhancing people to people contact between the youth of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The theme of the dialogue focused on ‘Enhancing Pak-Afghan Trade for Peace & Economic Development: Youth Perspective’ which was attended by 30 participants – 19 Afghans and 11 Pakistanis, comprising students enrolled in higher education programs in Islamabad and Peshawar. Honorable Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq, and also Chairman Afghan Studies Center, who served as the Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2008 to 2014, was the chief guest, while Mr. Mozammil Shinwari, former Afghan Deputy Minister for Trade and Commerce, from Afghanistan, and Ms. Faiza, Secretary General of Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PAJCCI) from Karachi, gave presentations on Pak-Afghan trade to the participants via Skype calls. Mr. Aized Ali, Project Director at CRSS, moderated the dialogue while Mr. Essa Naqvi from Dunya TV, and Frank Sun, a CRSS researcher from China, were also present. Ambassador Sadiq in his opening remarks welcomed the young Afghan and Pakistani participants and emphasized that the two countries have been in need of such enterprising young minds who can push for positive change. Speaking on the theme, he stated that trade is indeed a vital aspect of soft power and soft power brings countries closer. Until quite recently, Pakistan was Afghanistan’s largest trading partner while Afghanistan was Pakistan’s second largest trading partner. It was only in recent months that the two lost that position with each other; however, reclaiming that is not difficult, he reminded. An important part of soft power as well as a binding force between the two peoples is increased investment in each other’s country. Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq also...