u/Silver_Factor4228

Pazhayarai was an important Chola urban centre even before Thanjavur rose to prominence. The historical settlement was much larger than the villages we see today, with several places around present-day Pazhayarai, Patteeswaram, Muzhaiyur, Sakthimangalam and Darasuram forming part of the wider complex.

It was closely connected with the Chola royal family. Inscriptions associate the area with rulers including Sundara Chola, Uttama Chola, Rajaraja I and Rajendra I. Rajaraja I's sister Kundavai is also associated with Pazhayarai, and inscriptions record her issuing grants and orders from there.

The place had more than just palaces and temples. Historical research describes religious settlements, merchant communities and military establishments within the wider Pazhayarai complex. Nandipuram, for example, had a known merchant settlement, while other parts were associated with military establishments.

Another interesting detail is that Pazhayarai wasn't exclusively a Saivite centre. Evidence points to Vaishnavite and Jain communities as well, and archaeological excavations have even produced Buddhist remains.

The city also went by several names over the centuries, including Nandipuram, Ayiratalli and Mudikonda Cholapuram. The name Ayiratalli is traditionally associated with the idea of a place of a thousand temples.

And then there's the strange part: most of that huge urban landscape is gone. What remains today are villages, temples, inscriptions and scattered archaeological traces.

So whenever I pass through my native, there's always that thought in the back of my mind:

this ordinary-looking place ( it's split as six villages now ) was once part of the political and cultural heartland of the Cholas.

That makes Pazhayarai pretty special to me. And the worst part here is there hasn't been a single asi research done there

Attack on Nurse for Not Providing Gold Ring in Kumbakonam it has started lol

Saw this tweet on x we have a emirati mentioning about the battle of rezang la and battle of asal uttar

Mohit Sharma takes over as the bowling coach from Eric Simmons thala assembling guys who performed well under him lol

Source - shail from TOI

Armenia’s Defence Minister Suren Papikyan recently inspected artillery training involving Indian-made MArG 155 mm self-propelled guns alongside Armenia’s domestically produced ATLANT 122 mm MLRS. The Armenian MArG variant is a 155 mm/39-calibre wheeled self-propelled gun developed by Kalyani Strategic Systems/Bharat Forge. It is mounted on a 4×4 chassis and is designed around mobility, rapid deployment and the ability to relocate after firing ( it's modified to suit Armenian environment and battlefield) and the funny thing here is they inducted it before the indian army

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When people talk about the post-26/11 intelligence war, they usually jump straight to Mumbai, Kashmir or the border.

But there was a much quieter game happening in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

One of the more interesting examples is the 2014 espionage case involving an alleged ISI-linked network operating through Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu.

The alleged network was built around recruitment, intelligence collection, communications, money and reconnaissance.

According to the NIA case record, Sri Lankan national Muhammad Sakir Hussain was allegedly recruited by Pakistani diplomat/ISI operative Amir Zubair Siddiqui, who was posted at Pakistan's mission in Colombo. Investigators alleged that the network was being developed to facilitate attacks on the US Consulate in Chennai , the Israeli mission in Bengaluru and the OTA Chennai

And this is where the intelligence side gets interesting.

The network wasn't necessarily going to announce itself with weapons first.

The alleged infrastructure included:

Foreign handler → local operative → reconnaissance → communications → financing/logistics → attack preparation.

Tamil Nadu became the local operating environment while Sri Lanka provided an important link to the alleged Pakistani handler.

The initial break reportedly came from an Intelligence Bureau tip, after which Tamil Nadu authorities arrested Sakir Hussain in April 2014. The NIA subsequently took over the investigation.

Investigators then started pulling the network apart.

Other accused were arrested, including Sivabalan, Mohammad Salim, Mohammad Sulaiman and Arun Selvarajan. Selvarajan was alleged to have acted as an operative for ISI, while communications in the wider investigation included platforms such as Skype and Viber.

Then there is the really interesting part:

The network allegedly wasn't limited to Chennai.

The investigation connected the alleged plot to Bengaluru, where the Israeli mission was identified as a target.

So you've suddenly got an intelligence problem spanning:

Pakistan → Colombo → Sri Lankan operatives → Tamil Nadu → Bengaluru.

That's exactly why counter-terror investigations are less about finding one terrorist and more about finding the relationship graph.

One phone number leads to another.

One handler leads to another operative.

A financial transaction establishes another connection.

A reconnaissance trip gives context to a previously suspicious communication.

And eventually what looked like several unrelated people starts looking like one network.

There was also a financial component. The NIA's case record alleges that ₹5 lakh in foreign counterfeit currency was sent to Tamil Nadu through intermediaries.

And the story didn't completely disappear after the initial arrests.

In 2018, another accused, Noorudeen alias Rafi, was arrested. In 2024, the NIA arrested him again in Mysuru after he had absconded, seizing phones, a laptop, pen drives and a drone from his residence.

As recently as 2025, the Chennai special NIA court was still pursuing proceedings against Amir Zubair Siddiqui, who remained outside Indian custody. Another accused, Noorudeen, was convicted in August 2025 and sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment.

This is the part I find fascinating about post-26/11 intelligence work.

The attack is only the final stage.

By the time someone is standing outside a target with explosives, the intelligence battle has already been largely lost.

The real battle is months earlier:

Who recruited him?

Who contacted him?

Who financed him?

Who gave him the target?

Who conducted reconnaissance?

Who provided logistics?

Who was the overseas handler?

Break enough links in that chain and the attack never reaches the final stage.

And that's why some of the most important counter-terror operations don't look dramatic at all.

There is no 26/11-style firefight.

There is just an intelligence tip, surveillance, arrests, seized phones and documents, interrogation, financial trails and investigators slowly reconstructing a network.

The public sees the arrest.

What they usually don't see is the intelligence work that made the arrest possible.

And in this case, that work appears to have stopped an alleged Pakistan-linked network from progressing toward attacks in Chennai and Bengaluru.

While we criticize the intelligence for failures they are fighting a silent war this hardly had media reporting other than the local tamil media

Academician Igor Dmitriyevich Spassky, the legendary former Chief Designer of the Rubin Design Bureau, was one of the most influential figures in Soviet and Russian submarine design. Over his career, he was associated with the development of nearly 200 submarines.

What makes his story particularly important to Indians is his contribution to India’s nuclear submarine programme. Spassky and the Soviet/Russian design establishment provided crucial technical assistance and expertise at a time when Western countries were unwilling to share many of the technologies India needed to develop an indigenous strategic submarine capability.

The result was not simply another imported weapon system. The cooperation helped India build knowledge and engineering capabilities that eventually contributed to INS Arihant and the foundation of India's sea-based nuclear deterrent.

For many Indians, Spassky represents a different side of Indo-Russian relations not just weapons purchases, but decades of technical cooperation and knowledge transfer.

His birth centenary falls on September 2026. A century after his birth, his contribution remains a significant part of the story of how India learned to build and operate nuclear submarines.

A true friend of India, and one of the engineers who helped make the impossible possible.

Индийско-российская дружба это не союз на один день, а доверие, проверенное временем, испытаниями и взаимной поддержкой.

“Indo-Russian friendship is not an alliance for a single day, but a trust tested by time, hardships, and mutual support.” 🇷🇺🇮🇳

Sriram Krishnamurthy and baba aprajith having a look of Karthik Sharma and Sanju samson play

One of the more interesting episodes in the history of R&AW is its involvement with Iran during the years immediately before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

And the interesting part isn't some Bollywood-style story where RAW “predicted the revolution” and secretly installed Khomeini. The reality was much more complicated and honestly, much more interesting.

R.N. Kao had cultivated an unusually extensive network of relationships with foreign intelligence chiefs. In the mid-1970s, Kao helped establish a trilateral intelligence relationship involving R&AW, France's SDECE and Iran's SAVAK.

On paper, it sounds strange.

India was cooperating with SAVAK, the intelligence service of the Shah precisely the regime that would eventually be overthrown.

But Kao's objective wasn't ideological. It was an intelligence collection but he wasn't comfortable with Shah's relationship with then military ruler of our neighbour.

The three services were interested in monitoring American and Soviet naval activity in the Indian Ocean. France and Iran had their own reasons for wanting greater visibility over American movements, while India wanted independent strategic intelligence about the rapidly militarising Indian Ocean.

This was classic Kao: build relationships with everyone, even governments that may eventually become strategically inconvenient.

B. Raman was one of the R&AW officers involved in facilitating this relationship. According to his memoir, the cooperation produced meetings between Indian, French and Iranian intelligence officials in Paris, Tehran and New Delhi during 1975–76.

Then Iran started changing.

By 1978, the anti-Shah movement had become much larger and more complicated. It wasn't initially a single unified Islamist movement. Clerics, bazaar merchants, students, leftists and other anti-Shah groups were participating in the upheaval.

And this is where Raman's Paris assignment becomes particularly interesting.

Raman says that, after the Iranian unrest intensified, monitoring Iran through Iranian expatriates living in France became one of his priority espionage tasks.

Think about the intelligence problem.

The Shah still controlled the state.

SAVAK still existed.

The Iranian military was still functioning.

But opposition networks were increasingly operating outside Iran, particularly among expatriates and political activists in Europe.

For an intelligence service, that creates a completely different collection environment.

Instead of asking only:

“What is the Iranian government doing?”

you have to start asking:

“Who is actually capable of replacing the Iranian government?”

That distinction is crucial.

Raman's account suggests that R&AW was attempting to understand the opposition ecosystem its personalities, factions, ideological divisions, foreign connections and likely trajectory.

And there was another complication: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was in France after leaving Iraq in 1978.

Suddenly, Paris became an extraordinary intelligence environment.

Iranian opposition figures were moving around Europe.

Journalists were meeting them.

Political activists were establishing networks.

Foreign intelligence services were watching them.

And Khomeini was communicating his political message back into Iran.

For an intelligence officer, this was essentially a live political laboratory.

The Indian government itself was also trying to figure out what was happening.

According to Raman, Prime Minister Morarji Desai had independently concluded toward the end of 1978 that the Islamic Revolution was probably going to succeed.

Desai wanted to establish contact with Khomeini and communicate India's goodwill.

There was even an attempt to arrange a meeting involving Ashok Mehta and an MEA official.

The fascinating part is that the operation apparently reached Raman rather awkwardly.

He describes receiving a top-secret message from the Prime Minister's Office informing him that the Indian representatives were already heading to Paris and instructing him to arrange a meeting with Khomeini.

The assumption was essentially:

“You're in Paris. You know the Iranian networks. Make it happen.”

Raman was surprised because he hadn't been given time to prepare the ground.

That tells you something important about how intelligence diplomacy actually works.

The difficult part isn't necessarily identifying the person you want to meet.

It's establishing enough trust, intermediaries and deniability that the meeting can happen without either side being compromised.

And Khomeini wasn't particularly interested in giving Desai an easy secret meeting.

He reportedly wanted the meeting to be public rather than clandestine because he suspected Desai wanted political insurance in case the Shah somehow survived.

Eventually, the Shah fell.

Khomeini returned to Iran.

The Islamic Republic was established.

And India's relationship with Iran had to be rebuilt around an entirely different political system. And one final detail that really puts the whole arrangement into perspective: India had three listening stations along the southern coast, monitoring Soviet and American naval activity, while working alongside the French and Iranians.

Source : b ramans blogs and books

Something interesting is happening in Beijing.

General Zhao Zongqi, the former commander of the PLA’s Western Theater Command, has now been stripped of his membership in China’s top political advisory body.

This is significant because Zhao wasn't just some retired general.

He commanded the Western Theater Command from 2016–2020, meaning he was the senior PLA commander responsible for the India-facing theatre during the 2017 Doklam crisis and the initial phase of the 2020 Ladakh confrontation.

Indian reporting at the time portrayed Zhao as one of the principal PLA hardliners behind the India strategy, with reports describing him as the commander who had engineered the Doklam confrontation and later oversaw the Ladakh crisis.

Now, years later, his political protection appears to be disappearing.

And this is happening at exactly the same time the indian intelligence chief met his chinese counterpart and the indian Nsa was in Beijing

On August 28, Zhang Youxia, China's powerful CMC vice-chairman, and Liu Zhenli, chief of the Joint Staff Department, were removed from the state Central Military Commission amid investigations into serious disciplinary and legal violations.

Zhao's removal therefore deserves attention.

There are claims circulating in OSINT circles that Zhao has been detained by the MSS and is being held in a secret detention facility.

A general who commanded China's most important India-facing military theatre during Doklam and Galwan has now been politically purged while Xi is simultaneously cleaning out senior PLA leadership.

In the opaque world of Chinese elite politics, the question isn't simply:

"Why was Zhao removed?"

What does Beijing know about the decisions made in the Western Theater Command between 2017 and 2020 that we don't?

Now that mike hussey is going to England cricket we might see new faces in the management at last !!!

New Delhi sending senior diplomatic representation to the Taliban’s Victory Day commemorations marks a striking evolution in its Afghanistan policy.

Five years ago, the Taliban’s return to Kabul was viewed in New Delhi primarily through the lens of terrorism, Pakistan’s influence and the collapse of the Afghan Republic. Today, India is openly engaging the authorities in Kabul on security, trade, humanitarian assistance and regional connectivity.

The symbolism matters. Diplomatic engagement is one thing; appearing at an event explicitly celebrating the Taliban’s return to power is another.

This does not equal formal recognition. But it does show that India is increasingly treating the Taliban authorities as the de facto power in Afghanistan and is willing to engage them directly where Indian strategic interests demand it.

And from an Indian strategic perspective, the logic is fairly clear: Pakistan’s influence over Kabul can no longer be taken for granted, China is expanding its footprint, and India cannot afford to simply abandon Afghanistan to others.

For those who have watched Afghanistan since 2001, the transformation of India’s policy is remarkable.

From supporting the Islamic Republic in Kabul → withdrawing after the Taliban takeover → reopening channels with the Taliban ( there have been talks with the haqqanis and tailban has been busting lashkar cells in afghanistan regularly )→ high-level diplomatic engagement → now participating in their Victory Day diplomacy.

Whatever one thinks of the Taliban, this is a major shift in Indian foreign policy.

New Delhi is no longer treating Kabul as a government it can simply ignore.

Tata Boeing Aerospace’s Hyderabad facility has become a major global Apache fuselage production hub. Yet India remains dependent on the U.S. for the complete weapon system, including its engines, avionics, sensors, weapons integration and other critical systems.

The bigger question is: where is India’s own heavy/medium helicopter ecosystem?

Turkey has pushed ahead with the T929 ATAK-II heavy attack helicopter and T925 heavy-lift helicopter. China is developing the Z-21 attack helicopter and AC313 family. India, meanwhile, continues to struggle to give programmes such as the Indian Multi Role Helicopter (IMRH) the sustained momentum required to reach development and production.

And this isn't simply an argument against the Apache. The AH-64 remains an extremely capable attack helicopter. But India's battlefield experience and the rapid proliferation of drones, loitering munitions and modern air-defence systems raise legitimate questions about spending billions on imported platforms while indigenous helicopter programmes move painfully slowly.

There were also earlier attempts to push Italian attack-helicopter options into the Indian competition, including AgustaWestland's A129 Mangusta. Lucky that sane voices in IAF stopped it.

The irony is that India is capable of manufacturing sophisticated Apache structures, but still lacks sovereign control over the complete helicopter ecosystem.

The problem isn't buying the Apache.

The problem is buying Apaches while failing to build what comes after them.

If Turkey can pursue the T929 and T925, and China can field indigenous heavy helicopter programmes, India should at least be capable of putting the IMRH on an accelerated development path.

Otherwise, we risk becoming very good at manufacturing foreign helicopters for foreign designs without ever becoming the country that designs the next generation ourselves.

Remembering B. Raman

A remarkable intelligence professional with deep institutional knowledge, exceptional recall and a rare ability to connect fragmented intelligence into a wider strategic picture.

B. Raman was among R&AW's early officers after its establishment in 1968. He rose to Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, and headed the Counter-Terrorism Division from 1988–1994. His career intersected with major intelligence challenges including Bangladesh in 1971, Sikkim, Punjab, Operation Blue Star and the evolution of terrorism in South Asia.

One particularly interesting chapter was his work relating to Iran during the 1978–79 Islamic Revolution. Raman described being tasked with establishing a discreet channel to Ayatollah Khomeini's circle in Paris at a highly sensitive moment, when the future direction of Iran was still uncertain. His own account provides a fascinating glimpse into the use of human intelligence, political liaison and covert diplomatic channels during a rapidly changing strategic environment.

His later analysis continued to examine Iran through the lens of Indian strategic interests, Pakistan, terrorism and the wider West Asian balance, rather than viewing bilateral relations in isolation.

Raman's contribution went beyond operations. His strength was intelligence assessment remembering decades of political developments, correlating seemingly disconnected events and translating them into assessments useful to policymakers. He also played an important role in developing intelligence liaison with foreign services and later contributed to debates on reforming India's intelligence architecture.

A formidable mind, a meticulous intelligence professional and a keen observer of his times.

We lost him to Cancer in 2013 he was unmarried and was taken care of by his sister

Remembering B. Raman with deep respect on his birth anniversary. 🇮🇳

The latest UN Security Council monitoring report attributes the November 2025 Red Fort attack in Delhi to Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) adding an international dimension to what had already been uncovered by the NIA in its investigation.

What makes AQIS particularly interesting is its history. The organisation was announced in 2014 as al-Qaeda’s South Asian affiliate and was built around networks and cadres associated with several older jihadist organisations, including TTP, HuJI and HuM, with reported links and overlaps involving LeT and JeM as well.

That makes AQIS more than just another name on the jihadist map. It provides a broader organisational framework through which militants from different South Asian networks can operate under an al-Qaeda banner.

Interestingly, AQIS released a order restricting its cadre to focus mainly on operations outside Pakistan, using Pakistan as a launchpad, and avoiding mass-casualty attacks in Pakistan, thus taking pressure off Pakistan.

The more controversial question is the Pakistan/ISI angle. Pakistan’s intelligence establishment has a long and well-documented history of relationships with several militant organisations operating against India, although claiming that AQIS itself is simply an “ISI cover” would go beyond what the UN report establishes.

Either way, the Red Fort case shows how the old ecosystem of South Asian jihadist groups continues to evolve sometimes through new organisational labels rather than entirely new networks.

According to speculations, Mccullum helped his buddy Fleming getting the job of ENG's new Test Head Coach.

Now Fleming is helping Mccullum secure the job of CSK’s new Head Coach ( he has recommended mccullums name to the csk management)!. 🥶 I am very happy that CSK is looking for agressive coaches

(Cricbuzz)

The reported acquisition of Israeli stand-off weapons and associated technology by the IAF could be far more significant than simply adding another precision-strike weapon.

The real advantage is kill-chain compression: ISR → target identification → sensor-to-shooter link → stand-off launch → terminal guidance → battle-damage assessment.

With advanced EO/IR seekers, INS/GNSS guidance, electronic counter-countermeasures and network-enabled targeting, such weapons can potentially engage high-value targets without requiring the launching aircraft to penetrate the densest part of an enemy IADS.

Against Pakistan, the strategic logic would be to degrade the C4ISR and command architecture, rather than simply conduct traditional airfield or battlefield strikes.

Combined with Indian AEW&C, satellites, EW platforms and long-range fighters, Israeli-origin technology could give the IAF a more sophisticated counter-C2 and strategic strike capability.

The interesting question isn't simply what missile did India buy? This is a classic Israeli way which they used to take out hamas's leadership and the Hezbollah leader Likely the Israelis shared a tip or two

It's what kill chain is the IAF building around it?

Pic credits : wlvn on x