You are too kind in your appraisalLuit wrote:antony =
sits for years as indian army's war fighting capabilities diminish
wants written complaints
cant find a js to look after army procurement proposals
doesn't address dob issue
orders a cbi enquiry after issue is made public
he is a failure as DM
Establishment hitting back at the General:In 2003 BEML wrote to the Central Government asking for permission to ink a joint venture with Tatra Sipox UK. BEML's claim was that since the bifurcation of Czechoslovakia Tatra Sipox UK, the marketing arm had become a major shareholder in the Czech Republic-based MS Tatra.
Since BEML had been dealing with the marketing arm for all technical arrangements to roll out the Tatra vehicles there was a need to form a joint venture in national interest.
Surprisingly Tatra Sipox UK records don't seem to match the claims. Details accessed by CNN-IBN show that as late as 2004 Tatra Sipox UK was a company based out of Richmond Surrey, but has no overseas details. No branches exist for Sipox UK and no previous names exist for the company for the last 20 years.
A company that was dealing in contract worth crores had just £30,000 as working capital. The nominal value of each share was just £1.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/army-chiefs- ... 887-3.html
anjan wrote: If he really wants a piece of paper he should have written himself an anonymous complain. After all isn't he the greatest, that paragon of virtue, cleaner than the driven snow, the one and only Saint Antony.
Ex-Army Major is the first disabled Indian at UNICEFTaking note of the apprehensions expressed by the Indian Army, the Bombay high court on Tuesday suggested that the defence force should consider acquiring the land at Cuffe Parade and take over the 31-storey Adarsh building. “The defence forces are empowered to acquire properties
adjoining their facilities, use the power and see if you can acquire the land and take over the building,” the division bench of justice PB Majmudar and justice RD Dhanuka told army counsel Rajni Iyer.
“You can definitely put the building to some use,” the judges added while hearing a petition filed by the general officer commanding (GOC) of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa military areas.
The GOC approached high court seeking immediate demolition of the building structure, as ordered by the ministry of environment and forests in November 2011, citing it a grave security threat for the Colaba military station.
The army also sought orders restraining the local planning authorities – the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) — from granting any building or development permission in the area surrounding the military station without a no objection certificate (NOC) from the defence forces.
At times I can't stop laughing at the state of affairs Shri Antony is heading into ( See, I dropped the word Saint before himBut Gen. Singh, citing the letter from the MP, has asked the premier investigating agency to probe the complaint against the lieutenant general alleging widespread procurement scams in the secretive Special Frontier Force - when Sugah was its inspector general.
Antony said he was aware of the MP's letter but what he didn't know was that the Army chief had forwarded it to the CBI. He said he had asked Gen. Singh to initiate action if the complaint was specific.
"I have regular meetings with service chiefs. The Army chief told me about some complaint against this particular lieutenant general. I told him if there is a specific complaint you must take action. This ended there.
"I don't know about this latest letter to the CBI by the Army chief," the Defence minister said.
) Brajesh Mishra on NDTV was particularly venomous and vehement. He is the guy who alleged bailed out Rahul Baba when he was arrested in Boston with unaccounted for cash.merlin wrote:So who are the people who want him sacked?
1. JD(U)
2. Brajesh Mishra
3. Laloo
4. Congress
5. GoI
6. ?
"Our patience"? Since when cong is India? Shouldn't this statement come from GOI instead of some cent politician?Establishment hitting back at the General:
Our patience should not be viewed as our weakness: Cong to Army chief - http://www.dailypioneer.com/home/online ... chief.html
Pro-establishment media (India Today):
Take away the General's stars - http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/take ... 79884.html
Who is INT PAPA?Maloy @maloy39
Tatra owner Rishi no stranger to controversy. Media friends: INT PAPA says 30% of skush go to Mahatma family
https://twitter.com/#!/maloy39/status/1 ... 1719175169
Brajesh Mishra also backstabbed the nation on 123 by quitely undermining the official BJP position by making statements against it.Pranav wrote:Brajesh Mishra on NDTV was particularly venomous and vehement. He is the guy who alleged bailed out Rahul Baba when he was arrested in Boston with unaccounted for cash.
It was one of ABV's biggest mistakes to rely on this guy and put him in the position he was. The issue goes far deeper than his later betrayal. He was the key person who decided against K. Santhanam's reports on the failed TN test and sided with R. Chidambaram. It was he, who I hold responsible for not advising ABV right on the issue. The less said about his recent comments on the matter the better.Sanku wrote:Brajesh Mishra also backstabbed the nation on 123 by quitely undermining the official BJP position by making statements against it.Pranav wrote:Brajesh Mishra on NDTV was particularly venomous and vehement. He is the guy who alleged bailed out Rahul Baba when he was arrested in Boston with unaccounted for cash.
Maybe ABV could use this guy, but without him, god only knows which interests he serves.
C4 , now that's quite explosive.Murugan wrote:Luit, great video. A must watch.
Very proud that we have such a general. Harbinger of Change and Transformation (introduction in the above video). Very apt!
Character, Courage, Competent, Compassion...
It is hard to say when it is that the military stopped being the paragon of propriety in a social milieu increasingly bereft of basic values that people once saw reflected in the men in olive green (or in Air Force blue and Navy white), such as honour and honesty. There are still many officers of the old school for whom military is a career, yes, but also an orderly world of do’s and don’ts.
There have been service chiefs who after demitting office rode bicycles because that’s all they could afford (Adm. R.L. Periera), or repaired without fuss to small, apartments because anything grander their pensions wouldn’t allow (Adm. Vishnu Bhagwat). But the officer cohorts that produced a Periera or a Bhagwat also threw up service chiefs — no names, please, they have law on their side! — verily Kubla Khans who have built pleasure domes, allegedly on a service chief’s salary and pension.
The Chief of Army Staff, Gen. V.K. Singh, has blown the lid off the comfortable milieu senior military brass cocoon themselves in, where every whim quite literally is a command, revealing just how dirty military life has become, how much corruption has seeped into cantonment life. Of course, there were always officers from the support arms in the Army — the service corps and ordnance corps — who were known for accumulating wealth at the exchequer’s expense. Gen. Singh actually hinted at a conspiracy of Rs 14 crores being dangled as bait by retired officers he identifies as “the Adarsh lobby” in the hopes of implicating him in a bribery scandal. What the Army Chief’s revelations have done is loosening the dirt lining the military acquisitions system, permitting the muck and the scum to float to the top. Now all the rumours one heard about payouts to senior officers over the years can be freely aired.
Over time, one has heard hearsay accounts, for instance, of a system of “under the table” payments by consortia of contractors to officers assuming the highest commands. Thus, an appointee to an Army commander’s post was richer, one was told a decade back, by Rs 3-4 crores. Today the sum may be a multiple of this figure. It’s not clear, however, whether this is a one-time booty or recurring prize-money. The trouble is these sorts of payoffs have come to be viewed by many in Army circles as perquisites. In like vein, pelf at lower level is tolerated as an “equalisation” measure relative to politicians and civil servants who routinely siphon off public funds.
The rot is wide and deep and spreading fast. What Gen. Singh has put his finger on are the vendors, mostly foreign, of weapon systems, spares and service support either directly or through Defence Public Sector factories, involved in assembling imported systems or licensed production, who prop up this system of corruption. With the expenditure on acquisitions rocketing, so have the competitive stakes for foreign Companies, DPSUs (Defence Public Sector Undertaking), and Indian private firms entering the defence business. Consequently, more and more officers up and down the military acquisitions line — in the weapons and quality control directorates, units tasked with testing and short-listing, and in price negotiation committees — are tempted, and many succumb.
The Congress government’s initial response was remarkable for its insouciance and near indifference — the Army Chief should have lodged an FIR. Par for the course, one supposes, for a political party that during its long years in office first perfected and then institutionalised corruption. Defence minister A.K. Antony defended himself in Parliament saying Gen. Singh informed him about the attempted bribery over 16 months ago all right but was remiss in not following up with a written complaint without which, the minister lamented, he couldn’t proceed. Why does that ring false?
For one thing because Mr Antony has turned his programme to root out corruption into a fetish, and someone so concerned with cleansing his ministry surely should not have stood on formalities. In the event, he neither reminded the Army Chief to send his charge in writing nor ordered an investigation, which he could have done. Instead, he waited until now when the story broke and the leads may have gone cold, to bring the CBI into the picture. Was this Mr Antony’s Plan B if all this ever came to light?
In the wake of a tsunami of wrongs in the military, it is time to initiate two major reforms before it is too late. One is to institute “deep selection” of service chiefs — that is, all lieutenant general-rank officers completing two years in that rank be eligible for consideration. This widening of the selection pool will at once weed out those who have advanced in their careers with only seniority to recommend them, leading to just too many duds as service chiefs. This will also incentivise an entire cohort to strengthen their records with genuine achievements rather than coasting in their last few tenures, and prevent “succession planning” by unscrupulous former Army Chiefs as has happened in the case of the designated successor to Gen. Singh.
The other measure is to routinely do thorough background checks of not just the candidates for appointments to corps commander level up, but also their immediate families. It will prevent persons from becoming Army Chiefs, like the one who not too long ago held this post and was known for shedding tears usually for the camera, adorning his golf cart with the four stars of his rank, and deploying a large contingent of soldiers from his parent infantry unit at his residence to help run his wife’s textile fashions and export business. With such a man in the chief’s saddle, what message would have been conveyed to military officers except “misuse your position to the max”?
The writer is a professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.
. ek afsar under the table.. err. I am decades back. now it is all open on the table. but, he changes or a new afsar is employed, who is mr clean, but sits in front a pile of dirt. is he clean still?Murugan wrote:Some tidbit from wiki article
VKS was the first trained commando.
Is the first commando to become a Chief
He is a third generation army man
In the US for the Rangers course, he came first in combat operations.
Singh was awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM) for distinguished service while commanding a counter-insurgency force.
He was honorary ADC to president of India
On 11 March 2011, Singh was inducted into the United States Army War College (Class of 2001 graduate) International Fellows Hall of Fame. He is the 33rd International Fellow and the first Indian Armed Forces officer to be inducted.
YSM - Yudh Seva Medal for his distinguished service during Operation Pawan
*****
He is no mean person
He is the first to bring govt on its weak knees
I think some junior babu in MoD leaked the letter to embarass the General. Its not like he leaked the letter.India: Chief of Army Staff General V.K. Singh warned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a letter that was leaked to the media that India lacked ammunition for its tanks and its air defense systems were antiquated. The letter was published just as Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in New Delhi on the 28th.
Comment: General Singh has had a continuing struggle to remain in office because of an administrative mistake about his birth date. The result is that he will retire in two months, a year earlier than if the mistake had been corrected. He actually took the government to court over this issue and lost, sealing his early retirement.
That does not gainsay his criticism, but helps explain his decision to embarrass the government during the visit by Chinese President Hu. He probably has been influenced by too much US vs. UK training.
Singh is an interesting fellow in that he is the only commando to become Chief of Army Staff. He is one of the few genuine counter-insurgency experts in the Indian Army.
Singh also is an honors graduate of the United States Army Infantry School, a graduate of the Rangers Course at Fort Benning here he came first in combat operations and of the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
The second duty is to safe guard his partynelson wrote:^Rightly said. AKA did what he had to after being forced, like a typical politician. Sorry, that I have to quote an Italian...
'The first duty of a politician is to save his own skin.' ... Niccolò Machiavelli
On top of that, he has an Italian Damad....Ramana wrote:And then add Brajesh Mishra, the family loyalist inside the BJP?
Welcome to the light tejas (pun fully intended) -- you will find some more enlightenment as you stick around BRF.tejas wrote:The reality is far, far more sinister.
Wasn't the middleman Adnan Khashoggi? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Khashoggiramana wrote:Please read and understand what is unstated and why AKA's hands were tied and how VKS has scored with his Tatra charge.
INC fears CBI probe may implicate Rajiv Gandhi
No wonder AKA held his head in his hands.
So it wont explode.
General's Labyrinth
Contrast this army chief with another aggrieved one: K.S. Thimayya
Never since Independence has the Indian army — one of the few institutions respected by the country despite some scandals within it — been subjected to so much gratuitous damage as during recent days. With the leakage of a super-sensitive letter to the prime minister, the situation has taken an alarming turn. Tragically, the architect of this avoidable tragedy is none other than the chief of army staff, General V. K. Singh, now on the verge of retirement. The current brouhaha began with two interviews given by him to a newspaper and a TV channel during which he alleged that he was offered a bribe of Rs14 crore, and that he had mentioned this to Defence Minister A.K. Antony, who had “struck his forehead with his palm” in despair.
What happened or did not happen thereafter he left unstated. Nor was it clear when exactly the alleged bribe was offered. Most significantly, the army chief did not disclose what Antony revealed in Parliament on Tuesday, that having mentioned the matter to him verbally, the general had added that he “did not want to pursue it”. This throws an altogether different and lurid light on General Singh’s sudden and curious decision to go public, albeit in selective interviews a year-and-a-half after the event that he did not want to pursue, in any case.
Another question that arises is — why didn’t Antony, whose reputation for having resolutely fought corruption “all his life” is beyond doubt, take action on his own? He has told Rajya Sabha that he had acted on his own judgement, and if he was wrong, he should be punished.
Others say that in the absence of a written complaint by General Singh, the minister could not have done anything. This is disputed by B. Raman, arguably the man best qualified to speak on the subject as a former Number Two in the Research and Analysis Wing and a leading security analyst. According to Raman, the army chief should have followed up his conversation with the minister with a written report to him and placed the matter also on the files of the army headquarters. For his part, Raman adds, the defence minister should have recorded a note on his conversation with the army chief, started an inquiry and kept the cabinet secretary and principal secretary to the prime minister informed. In his opinion, both the chief of the army staff and the defence minister failed to do their duty. Only after the general hurled the “bribery bomb” into the public domain did Antony refer the malodorous affair to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
{B.Ramanji always does == when ever the INC is involved}
Meanwhile, in the unending cacophony on TV talk shows, in Parliament, in the print media and in the bazaars, the army and its present chief are attracting uncomplimentary attention. Several predecessors of General Singh have said that they are surprised that anyone could dare approach the army chief directly with an offer of a bribe. They have also pointed out that had such an offer been made to them, they would have immediately acted against the offender. At the same time Lieutenant-General (retired) Tejinder Singh, a former chief of the Defence Intelligence Agency, the person accused by General Singh in his verbal report to Antony as well as in an army press note, has filed a case of criminal defamation against General Singh and four others.
The nearest General Singh came to giving a glimpse of his reasoning for unacknowledged inaction was in his elaborate TV interview. The interviewer asked him, pertinently, why hadn’t he got the man offering him a bribe arrested on the spot or at least file an FIR. The army chief had replied: “When someone who had just retired from the army, in the course of a long conversation, told me what I would be given if I cleared a particular file, I was too startled.” This is neither here nor there.
In view of the many murky developments, General Singh has only himself to blame if a large number of his peers and others are openly saying that the “bribery bomb” incident is an offshoot of his frustration over the failure of his painfully prolonged struggle to get his date of birth changed to his satisfaction. In other words, the bribery episode seems to be a continuation of his war with the defence ministry and through it, with the government. He was the first army chief to drag the government to the Supreme Court over a relatively trivial matter. The apex court’s judgment rejecting his petition and forcing him to withdraw it is instructive and should be compulsory reading for future generations of officers of the armed forces.
In the course of its judgment, the Supreme Court did not fault General Singh’s “persistent efforts since 1985 to correct his date of birth”, but it recorded its “disapproval” of the way in which he “wriggled out of his commitments to the then army chief and the ministry of defence that he would accept 1950 as his date of birth and treat the date controversy as closed”. “Having given these commitments”, their Lordships observed, “it does not befit a meritorious officer like you to take such a stand at the fag end of (your) career. Maybe, it is an unfortunate happening or destiny.”
Contrast all this with the exemplary conduct of the iconic General K.S. Thimayya, the fourth army chief, who had grave and legitimate grievances against then defence minister, Krishna Menon. He resigned gracefully but was persuaded by Nehru to withdraw the resignation. Then, during a parliamentary debate, the prime minister, invoking the doctrine of civilian supremacy over the military, backed Menon and said that he “could not congratulate” the general. “Timmy”, the quintessential officer and gentleman that he was, never complained, didn’t go to court and gave no interviews to the press. Quietly, he completed his tenure with dignity.
Now that the CBI is investigating the matter “comprehensively” and the protagonists of the unseemly controversy have had their say, there is an urgent and immediate need to put an end to the hare-brained chatter and motivated mud-slinging.
The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator, [email protected]
Here the root cause of AKA's inaction on things that afflict the 2Gs is not being probed.General versus government
The incompetent A.K.Anthony must go, says N.V.Subramanian.
28 March 2012: By failing to act on the army chief's allegation of corruption in the purchase of Tatra trucks, the defense minister has hurt his honest image and driven one more nail in the coffin of the Congress. A.K.Anthony's notorious reputation for inaction has played out again and reignited fears of a Bofors-like scandal for the ruling party.
Congress managers believe that fixing the Delhi media would take care of the party's mounting image problems and its growing trust deficit with the people. Which is why sections of the media scrambled to give the defense minister a clean chit while questioning the motives of the army chief, General V.K.Singh, in bringing up an eighteen-month-old bribery incident now. It won't wash.
For one, Delhi is not India. And no one should believe Delhi is the repository of all wisdom and the rest of the country is populated by fools. The Congress held the illusion that the notoriety of the 2G scandal would not carry beyond Delhi. During the Uttar Pradesh elections, however, the party was in for a shock. In the remotest villages, the basics of the scam were well-known, and Congress campaigners faced a rough time, according to a party insider.
And there is something else that should worry the Congress as general elections loom ahead. The Rajputs of Uttar Pradesh from where General V.K.Singh comes are upset with his humiliation by the government. The age row has hurt them most because the government sought to taint the army chief as a liar when he is transparently an honourable man. If the army chief's battle with the government worsens, it will produce a backlash in the community against the ruling party, and politicians would be forced to take sides.
It is almost becoming a case of V.P.Singh versus Rajiv Gandhi when Uttar Pradesh's Rajputs rallied in a big way behind the former Raja of Manda.
When Anthony was made defense minister, it was hoped that his honesty would shield the Congress and, more importantly, the Congress leadership from Bofors-like allegations. These allegations hounded Rajiv Gandhi to death and remain the primary cause for the hesitation of this generation of Nehru-Gandhis to take up high office.
But when A.K.Anthony was signed on as defense minister, his reputation for inaction did not merit as close scrutiny as it should have. Congress leaders of Anthony's vintage have exhibited different levels of action and inaction. The late Arjun Singh was known for too much action which proved counter-productive. The former prime minister, P.V.Narasimha Rao, however, had a penchant for inaction, which he saw as a manner of action.
But Anthony's brand of inaction is all about indecision, non-performance, turning a blind eye to corruption, and doing everything to save his own skin. See how quickly he sought to blame the army chief for reporting the bribery attempt by a retired officer. General Singh should have acted on his complaint. But as his minister, why didn't Anthony order a CBI inquiry then and there? If he can take cognizance of the army chief's allegation in a newspaper, why didn't he do likewise when General Singh orally communicated this to him nearly two years ago?
And what about the charges of military unpreparedness contained in General Singh's leaked letter to the prime minister? The letter nearly makes the case that weapons' wise, India cannot get the better of its enemies. What business has Anthony to continue as defense minister after this? This is a man who is sleeping on the job.
But ultimately, all this is damaging the Congress party. It is getting stained on a daily basis. It was wiped out in the recent assembly elections, and it is set to repeat that feat in the national polls. The greatest dread of the Congress leadership is another defense scandal like Bofors. And by his incompetence, A.K.Anthony has brought that nightmare close to life for the ruling family.
Ramana, good post. Here's how I view the situation.ramana wrote:Please read and understand what is unstated and why AKA's hands were tied and how VKS has scored with his Tatra charge.
INC fears CBI probe may implicate Rajiv Gandhi
No wonder AKA held his head in his hands.
So it wont explode.
mmmm.. I am telling this is NOT one can here.The party fears that the probe may open a can of worms as the deal opting for Tatra trucks was signed in 1986 when Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister as well as defence minister.