Lt Gen Harwant Singh
Pak paid a Heavy Price for it’s Misadventure across the Line of Control
On release of Mufti Mohammed’s elder daughter by local dissenters, as-quid-pro quo for this, some of the terrorists in Indian jails were released. This led to, large scale jubilations in the valley.…
J&K Imbroglio
The abrogation of Article 370 and 35A, came as a surprise to some and shock to some others, though many of us have over time been demanding their abrogation. Some…
Balakot Imbroglio: Do tell us what happened at Balakot
Did India over play the “surgical strike” of September 2016 in an effort to draw maximum political millage from that? Pakistan’s reaction had resulted in, increase in cross border firing…
Defence Forces and National Budget
The size of nation’s defence budget is related to a wide range of factors. With GDP as the base, the percentage of it, which should be allocated to defence depends…
Trimming Down the Indian Army
At the Commanders Conference, in Dec 2015, the Prime Minister made a number of points related to outdated military doctrines, financial realities, incompatibility between modernization and expansion of forces, need to…
Soldiers: Waste of highly skilled national asset
More than 80 percent soldiers retire at the age of 36/37 years and their yearly number is almost fifty thousand. They do not even get up to the midway point…
Chief of Defense Staff: An Elusive Concept?
The CDS system would also be able to evolve a mechanism to acquire the right weapons and equipment for integrated and complementary deployment and performance of all the three services.…
The Men Who Saved The Kashmir Valley
Oct 27 is celebrated as ‘Infantry Day’ in the Indian Army. On this day, Indian troops were air lifted from Delhi and landed at Srinagar to protect the airfield and…
Resettling Kashmiri Pandits: A National Responsibility
The need to settle Kashmiri Pandits is unexceptionable. They were uprooted quarter of a century ago and little has been done to resettle them. Most of them still live as internally…
Bargaining with the defence services
First it was the then officiating defence minister shri Jaitley, who, during his meeting with a delegation of veterans, told them to lower their demand for One Rank One Pension,…
Fight against ISIS and possible fallout on India
During his election campaign, President, Obama had promised to the American people that if elected, he would pull out troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. This was perhaps what a war…
Fight alienation and not AFSPA
Periodically Omar Abdullah demands abrogation of AFSPA from certain areas of the state of J and K. He claims that there is complete peace in these areas and therefore there…
Speeding up DRDO output
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called upon Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) to speed up projects and advance delivery schedules. He has opined that India can be world…
Kargil Controversy: Army pinpoints IAF failures
Every military operation carries many lessons. The receptive imbibe some while the obstinate simply ignore. To be in a state of denial or finding alibis for mistakes rather than…
New game plan to deny soldier’s right to cast the ballot
Earlier soldiers (which includes sailors and airmen too) were required to cast their vote by postal ballot. The procedure devised for this was so convoluted, that it was simply inoperative.…
Defence Forces of the nation persistently wronged
Defence forces have been disadvantaged in a wide range of areas. Firstly they has been persistently wronged by successive Central Pay Commissions, (CPCs) While defence forces are the largest single…
Damaging a great institution
As compensation for limited promotions, early retirement and to soften blows of the earlier Pay Commissions, the service chiefs demanded ‘running pay band’ and ‘rank pay’ from the 4th Central…
Drop in standards of probity in military
Recent report in the media brings to light that nearly 180 defence personnel, that is, serving, retired and widows, had submitted false affidavits to HUDA for favour of allotment of…
Military discipline: recast officer cadre
Of late a number of units have experienced trouble between officers and their men. The disturbing aspect is that there have been scuffles between officers and men, which was quite…
From military coup to toppling J&K government
Not long ago a national newspaper, of considerable standing, ‘in headlines’ on its front page had created a stir amongst the public by raising the specter of a military coup,…
Don’t over react to incidents on the LoC
Recent incident of killing of Indian soldiers along the Loc in J and K, has been, somewhat, blown out of proportion, which could possibly impact on the efforts to improve…
Pakistan needs firm handling not niceties
The recent killing of four soldiers and one junior commissioned officer near the LoC in the Poonch sector of J&K is yet another serious violation of peace along this line.…
Blood trail in Red Corridor
The Maoist attack in Bastar on a Congress convoy was one of the more serious incidents. It has been variously described as attack on the nation, an attack on the…
Revival of Insurgency in J&K
Various terrorist groups operating from Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan have declared that once the America ‘draws down’ its troops from the region, they would shift their focus towards…
Defence budgets and national security
For over a decade, allocations for defence in the national budgets have been below 2 percent of GDP. Towards the end of each financial year, instead of allotting additional funds,…
Justice Verma Committee Report and AFSPA
Justice Verma Committee was appointed after the Delhi rape case and the agitations that followed in Delhi and elsewhere in India. The Committee was required to put up recommendations to…
Don’t dishonour a brave soldier
The news that the gurdwara in Panchkula ( Haryana ) had refused to hold the ‘Barsi ‘ ceremony of late Lt-Gen RS Dayal, MVC, has sent shock waves amongst the…
Pak savagery on the Line of Control in J&K
Pakistani troops crossed the Line of control ( LoC ) in the Poonch Sector of J and K and killed two India soldiers. It is not so much the killing…
AFSPA in J&K: Selective withdrawal may be harmful
Speaking to the Press on December 21, 2012, Omar Abdullah, Chief Minister of J and K, once again demanded selective withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from…
There are no ‘Menial’ jobs in the army
Some time ago, a newspaper of considerable standing put out on its front page a story that around a dozen soldiers from a unit at Patiala deserted because they were…
Suicides in the military
Of late, incidence of suicide in the military, have been highlighted by the national press and the issue also came up for discussion in the Parliament. The yearly average of…
MoD’s animosity with the Military
On September 4, 2012 the Supreme Court of India, in a land mark judgment, has finally and irrevocably uncovered the true face of Ministry of Defence (MoD). The 4th Central…
India incapable of conducting Op Geronimo
Consequent to American operation ‘Geronimo,’ at Abbottabad in Pakistan to eliminate Osama bin Laden, many in civil society have been asking whether India can go ahead with a similar…
Is Ministry of Defence anti-Military?
It has been the stance of the MoD to work against the interests of the military. This sustained attitude and practice of the MoD has created deep fissures in its…
Can committee of secretaries do justice to the armed forces?
Often the political executive appears to find solutions to difficult problems with the help of a group of secretaries. In some cases, this group of secretaries may not have complete…
Has the military been given a raw deal on the pay front?
6Th Central Pay Commission (CPC) had, besides a few bureaucrats as part of the commission, approximately 125 officers drawn from various central services, (but none from the defence services) such…
Is corruption wide spread in the military?
A TV channel recently showed a sting operation where a junior commissioned officer is caught on camera handling wads of currency notes obtained from prospective candidates for various jobs in…
Is Army’s profile changing?
The incidence of ill discipline in an artillery unit at Nyoma field firing ranges in the Ladakh sector has drawn nation wide attention. While some of the TV channels went…
Afghanistan: Strategic Alliance vs Strategic Depth
Historically, Afghanistan has been the most difficult country for military campaigns and equally difficult to govern. The nature of terrain, the climate and the tribes that inhabit the land…
Withdrawing AFSPA – A welcome move?
Omar Abdullah’s decision to withdraw AFSPA from some parts of J&K should be taken as a welcome move. However it would have been far better for him to have…
Limited War : A Flawed Concept
It is not clear as to when the idea or perhaps the concept of a limited war was first evolved and articulated in the Indian military. May be it…
Neglect of the Indian Military
In a developing economy, rapid industrialization and a country well on the road to prosperity, preference for government jobs tends to decline. This has not happened in India so…
Pakistan’s Confessions: Shouldn’t go slow on defence modernisation
Pakistan Defence Minister in a recent statement has acknowledged that his country just cannot match India in defence capabilities. This, it is argued, is due to the vast difference…
High Court ruling can make the Armed Forces Tribunal infructuous
The defence services had been clamouring for an Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) for decades, essentially because the civilian courts took years and even decades to decide their cases. These…
Career in the Military: imperatives of attracting right material
Throughout history, the Indian soldier fought in the defence of his motherland with unmatched valour and yet lost to almost every invader: even to those who arrived with an…
Pak nuclear card limits Indian anti-terror options
ITS three decades since Pakistan has been fermenting trouble in India. It started with Punjab and later in Jammu and Kashmir, followed by sporadic terrorist attacks in rest of…
Self-employed Soldier!
I was at the College of Combat, Mhow, when the India-China war of 1962 started. The course was terminated and all were instructed to forthwith rejoin their units. Army Headquarters…
Meeting Maoist Challenge
While Maoists have been slowly but surely spreading their hold over district after district, scoring a total of over 200 districts, the Indian state slept through this phase spanning…
New Delhi’s political incompetence creates a valley of discontent
It was winter- of 1963 when the holy relic at the Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar went missing. News spread like wild fire and a crowd of more than quarter…
