Hey, y’all… Here’s your linkage… Enjoy.

• Kapil Patel argues that a growing awareness of India’s declining conventional deterrence vis-a-vis China has led it to create a new mountain strike corps of 40,000 men.
• Alec Metz at Registan reviews this year’s Eid message from the sub-literate but charismatic Mullah Muhammad Omar.
• Ajit Sahi argues that despite the very significant flare-up in Indo-Pak tensions last week along the Line of Control, India needs to engage more, not less, with Pakistan to end the conflict.
• Buddhist-Muslim violence has flared in Sri Lanka as the Myanmar conflict continues to spill over.
• Asawin Suebsaeng says Matt Damon shoots his way to universal health care in “Elysium”.  (You do have to hand it to a film which models the evil antagonist on the IMF’s Managing Director, Christine Lagarde.)