Bharat Rakshak

Defence forces begin hunt for Tatra truck replacements.

Against the backdrop of a freeze on procurement of Tatra trucks, the Armed Forces have started looking for alternative vehicles to equip them with their missile systems.

In view of Defence Ministry's decision to put on hold the procurement of Tatra trucks pending the CBI probe into allegations of bribery by former Army Chief Gen V K Singh, several key missile projects of the Army and the Air Force have been held up.

The armed forces are looking at trucks being offered by manufacturers from Russia and Belarus including the Volat trucks being offered by a Belarusian firm, defence sources told PTI here today.

Recently, a meeting under Director General (Acquisition) of the Defence Ministry was held with all stakeholders to discuss the issue, they said.

Due to ban on Tatras, several projects including the procurement of land-based version of supersonic cruise missile BrahMos for the IAF and the Army remained stalled along with projects to supply Pinaka missile regiments to the land forces.

If the trucks offered by these firms are accepted, they would be subjected to field trials by the forces and integrated with the missile systems to be put on them.

More than 7,000 Tatra trucks are in service with the armed forces and after the controversy came to light, the Services are also facing issues with their maintenance and repair.

In March 2012, Gen V K Singh had levelled allegations that he was offered a Rs 14 crore bribe by a retired Lt Gen to clear a file related to the procurement of more than 600 Tatra trucks.

After the allegations, Defence Minister A K Antony ordered a CBI probe into it to verify the charges levelled by the former chief and procurement of Tatras was put on hold.

I do not understand this.

What is so special about the imported trucks. Tata has 8X8, 12X12 offerings. L&T has 8X8 offerings. Mahindra is on the verge of 8X8 offerings. I was checking Tata's 8X8 specs against the Tatra 8X8 specs. They are very comparable.

Then why the import route. Anybody with a technical answer. I know the fetish and the lifafa POV.

indranil: you mean Ashok Leyland and not L&T ?

WTF is wrong here? Why are we again looking at foreign maal when a golden chance has been given to go desi after the tatra millstone has been removed from the neck?

Volta was sister company of Maz once.

well if they offer dedicated Telar than it will welcome decision. but I am optimistic and worry of MTCR

What do folks think cutting army funds for Note for vote Cash transfer scheme.

Do you think the Govt belives because of Aman ki Asha there will no war

Defence modernization funds cut by Rs 10,000 crore; Army operations may be hit

A fool and his cash will soon be parted. If we dont learn to encourage the pvt sector in defence. We will be contunied to be robbed blind. By the arms suppliers.

The Lt Gens carrier is finished. He went by the officel records and the crooks went by a dubious record. The crooks won. They will hound who ever followed VKS.

This also lets us know about current Chief. Although we were questioned then, it is clear that the chief is not averse to letting politicians interfere with army (as with this and other cases).

Why not let the Lt. Gen get to the route of courts for clarity on 'fixing responsibility' part as some kind of ad-hoc criteria, by establishment which itself apparently is clean on diplomacy and policy matters. Let courts decide if one branch of federal govt. can add such ad-hoc criteria in any policy matter for another branch of federal govt.

Can the defense establishment put a criteria of 'fixing responsibility' for govt. in cases such as late acquisitions, corruption, etc.

^^^ beginning to sound like an episode of "Homeland"!

^ One thing that has become more and more clear is that Gen VKS certainly upset powerful people who interfere in the forces' matters and see it as a gravy train for filling their own pockets.

This has ceased to be a matter of a serving Chief taking the MoD to court over an official record. Sad state of affairs. Congratulations Congress, you managed to ruin the one institution that worked in this country.

Nobody comes out smelling of roses on this one ...
Not the Supreme Court ... for telling the General to "blow with the wind", and not even checking who changed the DoB
Definitely not the MoD ... for playing favorites and destroying the integrity of a great institution
Definitely not St. Antony ... for doing nothing and let all of this happen on his watch and not take responsibility for anything
Not the media ... for publishing planted and selective leaks on coups and eavesdropping
And ... I must add highly reluctantly, not the general either ... calling for dissolution of parliament and agreeing to the change in DoB in the first place.

Pakistan says 1 dead in border clash with India



It is an AP news report, which ToI has reported in full. Note the standard disclaimers in the end which the shameless ToI has reproduced in full.

The PTI report is below:

Pakistani troops violate ceasefire again

Though it is a TSP-ian accusation, wouldnt readily disbelieve it.

Cross border raid == SF involvement == High value target or message being sent across?

Wonder what caused such a provocation for even our pair-less higher-ups( not sure if netas sign off such things or its only upto sector commander/IA chief level) to sanction such a raid?

It's strange how quickly Pakistan has reported this incident and has tried to make it an issue given that it hardly even acknowledges any cross-border firing by its troops despite numerous casualties on the Indian side and Indian protests. Suddenly within hours of the incident we have Reuters, AFP and BBC reporting about this incident ? The term cross border raid sounds decidedly ominous when you consider that both India and Pakistan are nuclear states with a history.

The Indian Army has faced numerous cross-border firing incidents at its positions while Pakistan barely acknowledges them. Perhaps the Indian Army decided to respond more forcefully to this firing incident by "removing" the offending Pakistani post ? Would that be far fetched ??

Importing these trucks will be a money spinner for corrupt elements in and out of the army.

We do not have a siberia taiga for the telars to roam in the mud...any old truck like the cheen df31 telar which we already have will do for the bigger missiles and the x conuntry local offerings for the smaller missiles and mlrs.

This is just another sellout...

I think that many more pakis were killed in the raid than is being admitted.

Who has given pukis right to complain, after pigs involved in 26/11 are roaming free, or for that matter Dawood Ibrahim and such murderous gangsters. Or rabid jehadis. All the propagandu is about hiding all this to make this appears quickly as some kind of issue, even while firing mortars from across the border as the article itself says that has already destroyed a home in India. Who will pay for this home destroyed?

There is firing nearly everyday on the border and only some of the incidents are reported in the press.

^especially in the newspapers circulating in regions other than Punjab Haryana & Himachal. I remember firing incidents being regularly reported in papers like TribuneIndia, which were completely absent in other major dailies about 8 years back.
TribuneIndia gives a feeling that it hasbecome now more of congi mouthpiece

Some interesting tidbit from economic times report...

India vs Pakistan: First ceasefire violations of 2013 in Haji Pir sector



So does this mean that the pakis now occupy this post that India had vacated during winter?

^^woooh!!!

some kind of kargil 2? or a mini kargil??

From Pioneer

Fund freezes Cold Start

Monday, 07 January 2013 00:47
Rahul Datta | New Delhi
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In a major setback to Army’s operational preparedness, its ambitious ‘Cold Start’ doctrine to speedily overwhelm Pakistan in the first few days of the war has been hampered by the budget cut of more than Rs10,000 crore this year. With little hope of getting more funds in the next fiscal too, the Army is not in a position to put in place its critical plan to raise an operational corps to sustain unhindered logistical supply of ammunition to the advancing forces in Pakistan.

After the mobilisation of troops took more than ten days for Operation Parakaram in the wake of the terrorist attack on Parliament in 2001, the Indian Army came up with ‘Cold Start’ doctrine to achieve the military objectives in the shortest possible time with minimum collateral damage.

Army chief General Bikram Singh is likely to brief Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shortly about the situation arising out of the budget cut and its impact on the ‘Cold Start’ doctrine. The presentation was to take place last week, but had to postpone due to the Prime Minister’s other commitments, sources said.

The Army chief will also brief the Prime Minister about the critical shortages facing the Army in terms of outdated artillery guns, ammunition, night-fighting capabilities, air defence and lack of specialised equipment for the Special Forces.

The Army’s plan to fight a two-front war at the same time on the western and eastern borders with Pakistan and China respectively have also taken a hit due to resource crunch as the Government was unlikely to give funds for raising two mountain strike corps for China front, sources said here on Sunday.

As part of this Rs60,000 crore project, the Army was supposed to raise these two corps over a period of four to five years and the funds were to be allotted in a phased manner over the same time frame.

The Army felt that the implantation ‘Cold Start’ doctrine is urgent because Pakistan has a distinct geographical advantage over India and can mobilise its forces faster. The first format of this doctrine took shape in 2004 with a clear objective that the Army should be able to make an offensive thrust into Pakistan from various sectors within the first 48 hours after the war broke out. The ‘Cold Start’ doctrine emphasised building capabilities for such an endeavour.

The doctrine said the entire purpose of a military option to take out terrorist training camps in POK or deter Pakistan Army from launching a counter-offensive will be defeated if India did not rapidly mobilise it forced to attack its enemy.

Maintaining the momentum of the offensive through uninterrupted supply of ammunition for tanks and artillery, besides bullets for advancing mechanised infantry, was part of the ‘Cold Start’ doctrine.

As part of the doctrine, it was planned to have an operational corps to ensure logistical support to the Strike Corps comprising tanks, artillery, attack helicopters and infantry. These three corps along with battle groups will be there to rapidly advance into Pakistan by overwhelming its forces and holding territory.

The ‘Cold Start’ doctrine got a boost during then Army chief General VK Singh’s tenure, but things came to a standstill when he took on the Government over his date of birth issue last year.

This spat saw the Army’s efforts to reduce its teeth-to-tail ratio by ensuring fast delivery of ammunition to its fighting men. This slowed down in the last one and half years, and don’t see to get better this year. Sources said the budget cut put the Army’s operational plans hovering around ‘Cold Start’ doctrine and training on the back burner.

The operational corps is short of funds for the last two to three years to put in place a foolproof system of delivery of ordnance even when facing enemy artillery fire or air attack, they added.

In this situation, if ordered to fight a war at this point of time, the elite Strike Corps and armoured columns of tanks will not be able to advance more than ten to 15 kilometres in a day in Pakistan, officials admitted.

^^^ Most of the money is being diverted by Congress thugs into vote gathering corruption ridden schemes like Jawahar Rojgar Yojna. There is no money left for education, defence or healthcare.

I'm trying to understand something here - is the article saying that because of the DOB controversy, the forces modernization was stopped because it didn't receive adequate funding ?

I thought I will add some more misery to this thread:

Watering down the Army's Night Vision systems to satisfy BEL

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130108/main4.htm







CoI FINDINGS

I simply cannot make head or tale of the article about CSD and cut in the Army budget. Which and what Corps is the author talking about? Super confused onlee...

And I thought it was always the corrupt Armd Core chaps who were running down the poor poor PSU wala hard working babu?

It take a village to burn all the houses of that said village.

no ones denies PSU problems

except the army has never rejected more orders because of PSU quality issues.

not to mention that natasha products made by PSU also had quality problems (barrels, ammo ityadi)

so the question mark still remains on Armoured corp decision making!!

Shiv Aroor ‏@ShivAroor
Update: Army confirms that one of its jawans was beheaded (his head was taken away by the Pak Army attackers). The other was not beheaded.

I am hearing in news that 2 IA soldiers have been killed by puki army well within our LOC.. What the hell is happening here...

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/314590/jk- ... atrol.html

I just heard on news that both of Indian soldiers were mutilated. One poor chap has his head missing. Army has not been disclosing the gruesome/gory details. I can only guess what the families of those two soldiers will go through.

Pak army did it in Saurab Kalia (1999 Kargil war) case before and it did it once again.

Its time to send SF to local Pak post where this happened and bring back the Pakistani unit responsible (dead or alive) for trial in India.
Diplomacy, Geneva Convention, International Court of Justice won't have any effect on Pakistan regarding this. They will just keep denying officially. We need to make a strong case so that they lose the habit of mutilating our soldiers and start respecting Geneva convention and fight with some honor.

BTW, for some apparent reasons, I am not hoping for any meaningful response from our great PM Dr. Singh.

no no.. let us just stop playing cricket with them...

Sad, From GOI side things wont go beyond sending Dossiers.