After 'Operation Sindoor', Pakistan Cricket Board in meeting to decide whether PSL 2025 should…
The PCB has held an urgent meeting regarding remaining of PSL 2025 after India's 'Operation Sindoor'. (Source: X)
Rattled by multiple Indian military strikes in Pakistan, the country's Cricket Board has called an emergency meeting to discuss whether the ongoing Pakistan Super League (PSL) 2025, which features a number of foreign players, should be halted.
The T20 league, which features six franchises and is in its final stages, is currently being staged in Rawalpindi. It is scheduled to wind up on May 18 in Lahore.
A reliable source in the Board said the PCB would follow the advice from the government on continuing the league and it would be holding discussions later on Thursday. 'The meeting will review the situation because of the number of drone attacks by India since Wednesday especially in the Punjab province,' the source said.
PSL CEO Salman Naseer also met with the overseas players in Rawalpindi and assured them that they had nothing to worry about as the PCB is closely monitoring the situation.
Some of the big international names who have signed up for the league are David Warner (Karachi Kings), Jason Holder (Islamabad United), and Rassie van der Dussen (Islamabad United) among others.
'Naturally the current scenario may have come under discussion. The players have been given a heavy security blanket by the Pakistan Army,' PCB spokesperson Amir Mir said.
'There have been surgical strikes on both sides of the border but we don't expect that to affect the PSL. But if, God forbid, things do escalate, we will sit together to decide our next step,' he added.
India's military strikes are in retaliation to the April 22 terrorist attack in which 26 people, mostly tourists, were gunned down in south Kashmir's Pahalgam.
After successful missile attacks on nine locations in Pakistan to dismantle terror infrastructure, India on Thursday said it foiled attempts by the Pakistani military to engage a number of military targets in Northern and Western India using drones and missiles.
The country's defence forces also destroyed a Pakistani air defence system in Lahore, officials said on Thursday. The Pakistani military attempted to target Awantipura, Srinagar, Jammu, Pathankot, Amritsar, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Adampur, Bhatinda, Chandigarh, Nal, Phalodi, Uttarlai, and Bhuj, they said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
25 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Drone warfare came home during Op Sindoor. Where does India stand?
On July 1, 2021, then Army Chief General M M Naravane had warned: 'While we pursue our quest for niche technologies, including AI, it would be prudent to remember that future wars will also involve low technology, which is easy to obtain but difficult to defeat.' These words ring truer than ever in the context of two recent events. On June 1, Ukraine bombed five airbases deep inside Russia using cheap First Person View (FPV) drones, underlining the need to fundamentally reimagine air defences in the age of asymmetric drone warfare. Weeks earlier in May, during the hostilities in the wake of Operation Sindoor, Pakistan had attacked towns and military facilities across India's western front, from Baramulla to Barmer, with swarm after swarm of relatively low cost, low tech drones for four straight days. Apart from inflicting damage, these attacks were meant to overwhelm India's air defences, clutter radars, exhaust ammunition, gather intelligence, and probe for vulnerabilities. Drones, a brief history Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) date back to World War II and the Korean War, where they were used for training anti-aircraft gunners and in specific offensive missions. Their modern military usage took off in the 1990s, after being successfully deployed in the Gulf War of 1991. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of 2020 marked a turning point in drone warfare: Azerbaijan's use of Turkish Bayraktar TB2 and Israeli Harop drones devastated Armenian defences, decisively shifting the conflict's dynamics in favour of Baku. 🔴 Yemen, where Houthi rebels targeted Saudi oil infrastructure using drone swarms; 🔴 Gaza, where Israel has deployed high-tech drones for surveillance and strikes, and Hamas has used drones for grenades and observation; and 🔴 Ukraine, where both Moscow and Kyiv have deployed commercial quadcopters (DJI drones), military drones (Bayraktar TB2, Orlan-10, Shahed-136), and loitering munitions. Ukraine has notably used 'first-person view' (FPV) racing drones to target tanks, chase individual soldiers and small units, and, most notably, bomb Russian air bases. On June 1, Ukraine carried out Operation Spider's Web, one of the most sophisticated drone operations in history, using 100–150 FPV drones, transported clandestinely in trucks deep into Russia. The target: five key Russian airfields. Ukrainian officials claim to have hit more than 40 Russian aircraft, including strategic bombers like the Tu-22 and Tu-95, and inflicted losses of around $7 billion. Meanwhile, Russia throughout the war has used Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones in swarms to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses, and target critical infrastructure such as energy grids. Not one, not two… Swarm drones are autonomous or semi-autonomous UAVs that operate in coordinated groups, much like swarms of birds or fish. They communicate via wireless networks and adjust in real time to achieve shared objectives. Swarms are more resilient than traditional drones due to in-built redundancy — even if one drone is intercepted, others can continue on the mission. Drone swarms are thus used to saturate air defences (a few payloads may sneak through even robust defences), gathering intelligence, and attacking high-value targets. Countries are already developing even more lethal AI-driven swarm drones, capable of making real-time decisions, adapting tactics mid-mission, and coordinating more complex manoeuvres. These are expected to become integral to combined arms warfare, functioning alongside infantry, armour, and cyber units. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global military drone market stood at $14.14 billion in 2023, and is projected to hit $47.16 billion by 2032. Threat of swarms Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan, in a lecture in Pune, flagged the rising drone threat: 'Now we have drones as small as water bottles — and in swarms,' he said, calling these 'undetectable' and 'untargetable'. Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd), former head of the Centre for Air Power Studies, said that while drone swarms deployed by Pakistan were not particularly effective, the Ukraine example offers some major learnings. 'When you use very cheap drones that carry warheads barely weighing a kilo — like Pakistan did — nothing much happens. They're jammed easily… Only a fool would fire expensive missiles at them,' Chopra told The Indian Express. But swarm drone attacks can be carried out anywhere, and at any time. 'If someone moves a truck full of drones near an airbase and launches them [like in the case of Op Spider's Web], defending becomes very difficult. In countries like India, with porous borders and diverse populations, the threat is real,' he said. Chopra emphasised upon the need for integration across the security establishment. 'Your intelligence setup, even the local police, matter. Even a traffic constable could make a difference,' he said, adding that the success of the Ukraine op was predicated on Kyiv being able to transport its drones thousands of kilometres inside Russia undetected. 'Strategic thinking, inventory management — everything must evolve. A $1,000 drone damaging a $200 million aircraft is our new reality,' Chopra said. Countering drone threats Defence against drones begins with detection. Modern systems employ a mix of AESA radars, electro-optical and infrared sensors, acoustic detectors, and AI-powered fusion systems. Once detected, one option is for drones to be neutralised through kinetic means, that is, with missiles and anti-aircraft guns. But traditional kinetic air defences, especially surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), are costly, and less effective against swarms. Automated gun systems such as C-RAM and Phalanx, which track targets and fire autonomously, are preferred in this role. Even more cost-effective alternatives include: Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs): Lasers and microwave pulses that disable drones by damaging sensors or frying electronics; Electronic Warfare (EW): Jamming GPS signals or communication links; Spoofing: Misleading drones about their location or issuing false commands; Cyber Attacks: Taking control of drones and crash them by exploiting software vulnerabilities; and Interceptor drones & nets: For close-range neutralisation, protecting critical assets. The asymmetry in cost remains the central challenge in anti-drone warfare. A drone swarm costing roughly $100,000 might take millions of dollars to neutralise with currently available technology. This is why nations, including India, are investing in more cost-effective solutions like EW and DEWs. The ideal defence is a layered system, integrating multiple modes of interception for redundancy and cost-efficiency purposes. Examples include Israel's Iron Dome and the US's Directed Energy M-SHORAD. India's capabilities Since 2020, India has ramped up its counter-drone infrastructure, deploying a layered defence that blends indigenous technology, EW, and air defence systems. Key systems include: Akashteer Air Defence Control System: Developed by Bharat Electronics Ltd, it integrates with the Indian Air Force's integrated command network for real-time tracking; Bhargavastra: Solar Defence and Aerospace Ltd's weapon system fires 64 micro-rockets in salvos to eliminate drone swarms; DRDO's Anti-Drone System: It offers 360-degree radar coverage, with both jamming (soft kill) and laser (hard kill) capabilities. Drones can be detected up to 4 km away, and neutralised within a 1 km radius; and Indrajaal: An AI-powered grid from a Hyderabad startup that combines jammers, spoofers, and intelligence to protect areas up to 4,000 sq km. Already deployed at naval sites in Gujarat and Karnataka. During the May 2025 swarm attacks, the IAF activated its Integrated Counter-UAS Grid, alongside conventional radars, guns, and missiles, neutralising attempted strikes on 15 military bases and several urban targets. Looking ahead There is currently a race to develop both drone and anti-drone capabilities. 'Even the Iranians are producing more than 20 Shahed drones per day. And these are powerful. India too has set up an ecosystem with 550 startups in the field. Some tech is acquired, but we're developing our own tech too,' Chopra said. The future of warfare is here, and it's unmanned, AI-driven and asymmetric. India's response to the May 2025 drone swarms signals it is rapidly adapting to this future. As CDS Chauhan put it: 'We are at a cusp where war may be between humans and machines — and tomorrow, between machines themselves. Machines that are autonomous, intelligent, and make decisions. We may need a layered and resilient defence system [to counter] this.' With inputs from Amrita Nayak Dutta
Scroll.in
35 minutes ago
- Scroll.in
India's ‘pushback' policy violates domestic and international law – but won't face global censure
India's 'pushback' policy of forcing across the border individuals claimed to be undocumented migrants violates both domestic and international law, experts say. Since India launched Operation Sindoor against Pakistan on May 7, it has 'pushed' more than 2,000 people into Bangladesh, The Indian Express reported. At least 40 members of the Rohingya community have been deported to Myanmar even though many of them had cards issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The legality of the 'pushback' policy has been debated both in India and internationally. But at home, the Supreme Court has not stopped the deportation of Rohingya refugees despite challenges to such actions pending since 2017. Internationally, there is unlikely to be pressure on India from other nations to stop this strategy since many Western nations also employ similar practices, experts say. 'The problem is that most of Europe and the United States are engaged in this,' said Ravi Nair, executive director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre. 'So, who is going to bell the cat and say this is wrong when everybody is doing it?' Human rights lawyer and writer Nandita Haksar agreed. 'The Western states that are so vociferous in taking up human rights' also push refugees back from their shores, she said. 'Therefore, it would be difficult for the Western states to raise the issue of refugee rights with India.' The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow it to use a wartime law to deport Venezuelan immigrants with little to no due process. — The New York Times (@nytimes) March 28, 2025 Assam's claim The most enthusiastic champion of this policy has been Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who said on Monday that his border state had been responsible for 'pushing back' more than 303 people believed to be Bangladeshi. This has been done under the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, he said. This was the first time Sarma cited a legal justification for 'pushbacks' that the state government has been carrying out since May. As Scroll has reported, at least three of the 14 who were allegedly 'pushed out' of Assam on May 27 were later brought home. They had been deported on the basis of decisions by the state's foreigners tribunals. But the Supreme Court had stayed the decisions of the tribunals in the case of at least two of these individuals as their appeals are pending. The pushback policy violates India's own constitutional guarantees and established legal procedures for deportation, experts said. Forcibly detaining individuals and physically throwing them out of the country violates Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, applies to all persons within India's territory, regardless of their citizenship status, said Rita Manchanda, research director at the South Asia Forum for Human Rights. This has been underlined by the Supreme Court in several judgements, she noted. The same article was also violated when the Indian authorities deported Rohingya refugees, forcing them into a country that is gripped by civil war and where they face genocide, experts say. 'Pushing them into an active war zone poses a direct threat to their life,' said Anghuman Choudhury, a doctoral candidate in Comparative Asian Studies jointly at the National University of Singapore and King's College London. Choudhury emphasised that Sarma's statement that deportations will be carried out 'without legal process' violates of Article 14 of the Constitution. This article guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the law to everyone within Indian territory. 'Everyone has a right to be heard as per law,' he said. 'You cannot just pick up any suspected foreigner – even the suspected foreigner needs to go through the legal process.' Besides, these processes have been instituted to ensure that no Indian citizens are expelled from their country, he added. Is this a new policy? Experts told Scroll that while India had engaged in 'push backs' of foreigners before, it had never adopted this as a strategy for deportations. Contrary to Sarma's claim that 'pushbacks' are a 'new innovation', this method has been used on the India-Bangladesh border since at leastt 1979, said Choudhury, the doctoral candidate – but the purpose has changed. Until recently, 'pushbacks' meant that the Assam border police or the Border Security Force would stop individuals they spotted trying to enter India from Bangladeshi territory and force them to return or would 'push back' those who had managed to cross the border into India. 'But those were ad hoc cases,' Choudhury said. 'What we are seeing today seems to be a more large-scale systematic policy.' What is also unusual is India's decision to 'push back' refugees, said Nandita Haksar. 'The rate and cruelty with which refugees, including those recognised by the [United Nations High Commission for Refugees] are being deported even at the risk of their lives is new and disturbing,' she said. Ravi Nair agreed. 'India had pushed back people before…,' he said. 'But this kind of pure abduction and putting them into no man's land is clearly crossing the Rubicon.' Violation of domestic law and due process The legal process for deportations in India is articulated in a Standard Operating Procedure issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in 2011. All deportations must be initiated by the Ministry of External Affairs sending the identity details of the apprehended foreigner to their country's embassy. The person can be deported only after confirmation of the person's nationality has been received through these diplomatic channels. The current 'pushback' policy bypasses these procedures, Nair said. 'We have to submit the names and the documents of alleged Bangladeshi nationals to the government of Bangladesh,' he said. 'Once those are verified and Bangladesh is willing to take them, then they are sent back. That is clearly not being followed.' Last month, Scroll reported that 40 Rohingya refugees who had been detained in Delhi alleged that they had been forced off a navy vessel in the Andaman Sea with life jackets on May 7 and told to swim towards Myanmar. Choudhury pointed out that the deportations of Rohingya refugees in this manner violated a 2021 order of the Supreme Court. In a case requesting a halt to the expulsions of Rohingya refugees, the court had said that they could be deported. But it explicitly mandated that deportations must adhere to due process, a directive that appears to be 'directly violated' by the current policy, Choudhury said. Breach of international law Experts told Scroll that 'pushing back' refugees violated India's obligations under international law and customary international law. The principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits states from returning individuals to a country where they would face persecution, is considered jus cogens – a peremptory norm of international law binding on all states. 'The principle of non-refoulement is also seen as a customary international law,' making it binding even if a country has not ratified specific conventions, Choudhury said. India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. 'But as a member of the UN General Assembly, which is the parent body of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, India is strongly expected to adhere by customary international law,' he said. 'Customary law transcends treaty obligations.' He pointed out that India is a signatory to the Bangkok Principles on Status and Treatment of Refugees, issued in 2001, and the United Nations Global Compact on Refugees, which India signed in 2018. Both mandate non-refoulement as a principle to be upheld by their signatories. India is also a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. These treaties too contain provisions that implicitly or explicitly uphold the principle of non-refoulement, particularly concerning the right to family unity and protection from inhuman treatment, said Aman Kumar, a PhD candidate at the Australian National University who runs the Indian Blog of International Law. 'When you return female refugees back to Myanmar, or you separate children from their parents through deportations, you violate these treaties,' Kumar said. He noted that India had an 'extensive and wide record of accepting refugees as a state practice.' He pointed to asylum granted over the decades to tens of thousands of refugees from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tibet, in stark contrast to the current Indian government's hostility towards Rohingya refugees. Scrutiny of policy unlikely Internationally, India's 'pushback' policy is likely to attract scrutiny from United Nations agencies. On May 15, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Myanmar began an inquiry into alleged deportation of 40 Rohingya refugees from Delhi. The special rapporteur, Thomas Andrews, described these alleged acts as 'unconscionable' and 'unacceptable'. Many experts told Scroll that India is already receiving bad press on the issue internationally. However, direct action against India would face significant hurdles. If a country violates treaty obligations, action could be launched against it in the United Nations' International Court of Justice. But geopolitical realities often deter international action, Kumar said. 'India is too strategically important as a huge market and a potential alternative to China in the global supply chain,' he said. As a consequence, he does not foresee another country taking India to the International Court of Justice. In theory, Bangladesh – the country most affected by this policy – could start proceedings against India in the International Criminal Court, said Nair. 'Even though India is not a party to the International Criminal Court, Bangladesh is,' he said. 'A state party can bring a complaint against a non-state party before the court.' However, he said, that possibility was remote because Bangladesh is unlikely to want to aggravate India at a time of fraught relations between the two. Manchanda said that India may face some heat at the United Nations Human Rights Council's upcoming session on June 16. 'I expect that there will be statements made by civil society groups expressing outrage at what India is doing,' she said. She pointed out that in June 2024, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had called for India to refrain from forcibly detaining and deporting Rohingya refugees to Myanmar. But Manchanda said she was 'unsure about how much traction this would get.' Kumar did not believe the policy would be halted. 'Legally there is essentially nothing stopping India from continuing to carry out such deportations,' he said.
Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Hindustan Times
‘If Bumrah stays fit for four Tests, India will win in England': Sourav Ganguly's ‘cheat code' for Shubman Gill, Gambhir
Jasprit Bumrah's workload will be the biggest headache for the Indian team management heading into the Test series against England starting June 20 — especially after chief selector Ajit Agarkar revealed that the senior pacer is unlikely to feature in all five matches, owing to clear instructions from the BCCI medical team and physios. This has left head coach Gautam Gambhir with the tricky task of figuring out which games would be best to deploy Bumrah. However, former India captain Sourav Ganguly, on Wednesday, offered a 'cheat code' for how India could make the most of Bumrah in their bid to win a Test series in England. Speaking to RevSportz, Ganguly said he has his fingers crossed over Bumrah's fitness throughout the series. He added that even if the management feels the need to rest him for the second game, "so be it" — but stressed that Bumrah must play the final two matches. "Hoping Bumrah remains fit for the five Test matches. Even if it means giving him a break after the 2nd Test match, and then getting him back for the 4th and 5th, because a fit Bumrah will be very important," he said. The India legend then cautioned the new Test captain Shubman Gill on how to utilise Bumrah during the matches and urged Gambhir too keep a close eye on the proceedings and according guide the skipper. "Shubman Gill needs to understand not to bowl Bumrah into the ground. Use him as a wicket-taker, use him in short spells, so that he remains fit for five Test matches. And make sure the others [chip in] – young Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj, has got tremendous fitness and ability, and is a warhorse. Make sure Bumrah is used as a wicket-taker. He has got to understand that, and I am sure Gautam [Gambhir] is there, and the senior players there, they will guide him," Ganguly added. Although the Ben Stokes-led side will be heading into the series as favourites in the wake of the sudden retirements of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, Ganguly reckoned that if Bumrah can remain fit for even four matches, India could claim their first series win in England in over a decade. "Very inexperienced batting line-up at the moment on paper. Obviously, on the field, it's different. With [Joe] Root, [Harry] Brook, [Ben] Stokes, [Ben] Duckett, Jamie Smith and Brydon Carse, it's a good Test team. But still, nothing stops India from winning. There is no one favourite in sports. India, if they work hard and Bumrah stays fit even for four tests, will win this series."
