作者： bharat.cn

Despite Western claims that the freezing of military contacts with NATO would lead to international isolation, Russia signed deals on military cooperation with 39 countries in five years – and India could be a main beneficiary.
Russia’s Deputy Minister of Defence Alexander Fomin announced recently that cooperation agreements – including for sales of military hardware – have been signed with countries in the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific region and Latin America.
Yet, the agreements in Southeast Asia have the potential to be particularly beneficial to Russia, as they offer fresh opportunities for collaboration with India – a long-time buyer of Soviet and, latterly, Russian military equipment – which may offer training and maintenance services in the region for Russian-made systems.

Taking a dig at the United States in particular, Fomin said countries often prefer to deal with Russia due to its record of not imposing damaging sanctions on its international partners. “The strengthening authority of the [Russian] Armed Forces is confirmed by the increasing number of visits to our country by defense ministers of other countries,” he said.

Indian PM Narendra Modi says the Indian military could take down neighboring Pakistan within a week – 10 days at most. Both regional rivals are nuclear-armed powers.
Speaking at the National Cadet Corps Rally in Delhi on Tuesday, Modi lamented the “inaction” of his predecessors who were reluctant to use military force against Pakistan. He said that even when India’s top brass “asked for action,” the political leadership “would not go ahead,” but instead conducted what he called “a proxy war” with Pakistan as a law and order issue, rather than one requiring a military solution. The prime minister said he believes Pakistan would not stand a chance if a military confrontation broke out between the two.
The Indian armed forces won’t take more than a week-10 days to make Pakistan bite dust

The two regional archrivals have fought three major wars and have been involved in numerous smaller skirmishes, most of them over the disputed Kashmir region, since both gained independence from Britain.

While India’s conventional military might is no match for Pakistan, India’s army of 1.2 million vastly outnumbers Islamabad’s 560,000 troops. Pakistan levels the playing field with its sizable arsenal of nukes.

At least 27 people, including a 7-year-old girl, were killed after the speeding bus they were travelling in crashed with an autorickshaw and fell into a well in Maharashtra state in western India, officials said on Wednesday.
Both vehicles fell into the roadside well after the crash late on Tuesday.
Emergency crews worked through the night to rescue survivors and retrieve bodies and used a crane to remove the red-and-white bus from the well, as hundreds thronged to the crash site in Nashik district, around 254km (158 miles) from India’s financial capital Mumbai.
Rescue operations ended early on Wednesday.
“We conducted rescue operations throughout the night and recovered 26 bodies. Another 32 injured have been sent for treatment,” National Disaster Response Force spokesman Sachidanand Gawde said.
Other reports put the death toll at 27. The bus driver was among the dead.