Indian Army : News and Discussion

[sarabpal.s]

This is new low in life of army set everyday.....

Congress with dirty tricks

[chackojoseph]

Cancelling Eurocopter deal got AK Antony enemies

This with Tatra are Vectra deals. This is the most likely reason why could TS have tried the dirty tricks. Both are army deals and AKA and VKS were at helm. Twice I said in the dabate that the army tender was cancelled and Vectra had a serving army personnel inside.

I had said that VKS statement was not for AKA, but for TS.

The bribe offer, the news of Army vs MoD, statements that "AKA is ignoring the corruption deals," Coup etc were for discrediting AKA. Very calculated move as any corruption slur will lead to resignation.

The 14 cr Rupees bribe offer to VKS was most probably a trap. I gave you a rough calculation few posts before. It was estimated that Rs 14 cr was nearly 10 - 11 % of the likely profit. As the figures are just "estimation," truth may not be far. While opinions will differ, as a business man, i don't think that this will be actually paid and is more likely a trap.

[chackojoseph]

Karan Thapar demolishes Shekhar Gupta's fantastical "scoop"
No surprises here

Second, the story relies on....ck of dawn" and the defence secretary asked to cut short his visit to Malaysia and, on return, "opened his office late at night" and asked the DGMO for an explanation. We have no proof of this. We simply have to accept it.

Journalist go on various beats. Shekhar Gupta (IE), by the way of his position and relations is on a national policy level of beat. A news organisation might not send an inexperienced or lower leve reporter there. Josy Joseph, Rajat Pandit (ToI) etc are on defence beats (not strictly though).

While journos at policy levels meet PMO, MHA etc, the defence journos are more involved in MoD. Hence you see disjointed and conflicting versions of reporting. You can draw many inferences here,as long as you understand the concept.

[chiragAS]

Be very careful about Ramdas. He will be there wherever there are Pakis. In every Bappi-Jappi meet of Pakis and Pseudos this person is there.

^^^
+1

[Austin]

on another note The Week magazine says Pranabda is leading INC choice to be next president so they have a cool player in the seat to "manage the results of the 2014 elections"

He would easily win the president seat as he has support across all spectrum of politics , under him it seem the defence spending was well and fully used all the time

[rajrang]

This is more important than the DOB of Gen VKS

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 579114.cms

[Jaybhatt]

RENAME SHEKHAR GUPTA'S SHOW

As is well known, Shekhar Gupta, the compère of WALK THE TALK on NDTV, is a person whose lack of education and absence of any sense of ethics are perfectly counter-balanced by his pretentiousness.

A colleague has just been sent me an article which suggests that an old American phrase from the 1960s and 70s is coming back into use :

“BULLSHIT WALKS, MONEY TALKS”

Why not ask the NDTV honchos to rename Gupta's show with this much more appropriate title ?

[abhishek_sharma]

Someone may have read too much (into movements of troops): MoS

[Jarita]

Alien interests dictate Intelligence Bureau agenda

A small group of European countries led by Italy and France “operate a seamless web of diplomat-agents, businessperson-agents, NGO-agents and scholar-agents not just to collect information, but to ensure that a policy matrix gets chosen that would ensure that India or its entities never pose a commercial challenge to them.”

http://www.sunday-guardian.com/investig ... eau-agenda

[Yayavar]

One pooch onlee..did Chinese coup story provide inspiration to the Dupatta, or did Dupatta create the ruckus prior to the Chinese coup rumours? Maybe the Dupatta and his 'sources' take inspiration from the cheeni tamasha in the papers.

[krisna]

The corruption in defence deals is going on for long time.(so also in other sectors)
lots of beneficiaries are there including the very top in INC.
Huge criminal network enterprise is built with lots of power to make or break a person who is interested in cleaning the system.
VP singh comes to mind in his crusade against former G. However the Gs are mere pawns in the game. they are there to prevent INC minions from raising voice.
The Gs are controlled by the mafia.
Recall that recent Gs are rarely seen in public, rarely talk to media. careful select media personalities who are more or less in cahoots with the criminal mafia portray a very good positive image of G family. this creates a awe and sympathy to the family amongst the populace.This in turn creates a powerful image amongst cong supporters. They do not betray their leader. Rebels are quickly taken care off. They make sure no one gains stature amongst sdres. YSR was accidented so also others like Rajesh pilot and Madhav Scindia. ysr was corrupt to core but popular. The other two were honest and do gooder but also popular. Their sons are licking thesmelves as small party leaders in awe of G. powerless. Jagan is slowly squeezed all over.
It is firmly entrenched in the system.
Hence AKA and MMS unable to curtail any of the corruption.
Likely the mafia saw in VKS a threat to the established network.He was less easy to work with. Hence the controversy of DOB. This would not have risen if VKS accepted the bribes. The criminal network would have allowed him to stay on. Despite knowing the DOB issue VKS fought like Abhimanyu sacrificng himself in the process.

AKA and MMS are in the loop because of their unwavering devotion to the congress. They have been blind to the party to a fault. They have been shafted royally in their backside by the network. Being what they are ,not able to mount a effective fight back. They do not have street power or staying power any longer.
They are no doubt honest with good personal integrity. hence they are inside the govt as it helps mafia with honest men in their midst. They are sort of useless outside the party but great for the mafia inside.
Mafia can manipulate the insides of their offices to their advantage.Sometimes following the rules and procedures scrupulously can be a disadvantage against clever criminals. This is what has stymied the efforts of AKA and MMS. They are not pushers, would not go extra step forward to help punish guilty, but do when it comes to them. procedurally Hence AKA did nothing to help VKS in DOB nor MMS in various scandals with some emanating from PMO office..
As the saying goes the criminals are always one step ahead of the police.(AKA and MMS). Key ministries have been held by these two as these hold the greatest threat to the mafia. Also both are undermined by the very offices they hold.Hence mafia thought they can play around these good men. Blame falls on these two if something goes wrong. Advantage mafia.Also no future VP Singhs to the govt and people.

If both AKA and MMS are smart operators they would have been pulled out of the govt asap long time ago. They are weak personalities with little street power.
(Recall Raja of Manda.later Madhav Rao Scindia/Pilot/YSR accidented).

The only positive things both AKA and MMS have done to us is -- allowing leaks by default and investigating without fear or favor on any side. This is their personalities built over years and nothing to do with their party devotion..
Time has been fortunate that revelations came now to them. They are doing their work.
They are the quintessential party workers---worker ants who do their job irrespective of their position.

Unfortunately for the mafia-- this has turned into some sort of fiasco for now. they are pulling all stops to prevent from threatening their networks.

Time will tell how far these gentlemen will work to the detriment of the mafia.
They will be kicked out if their usefulness to the mafia becomes less than their destructive potential in unravelling them.

Same with Gs. If they cannot control their hordes(cong party workers and supporters), they will be easily undermined.

a new neta with good credentials will be anointed.

SIL seems to be good choice. as the mafia will have incriminating documents to force his backside.

[Roperia]

RussiaToday report (Youtube video) 'Naked' Indian army triggers weapons buying spree

IBNLive report (Youtube video) Parliament panel to quiz Defence Secretary on preparedness, Army units story

[sum]

From OrBAT:

The situation regarding the movements of two army units toward Delhi which started a flap is clearer now, and sadly, it reflects badly on the Ministry of Defense. Though we will admit the MOD had cause. Yet when everyone is being childish and throwing tantrums, someone has to be the adult. What has been missing is the adult.



First, it wasn’t two units, but one: a mechanized infantry battalion sent on a snap training exercise to see how well it performed in dense fog conditions. If you’ve been in the Northwest Indian plains during winter, you’ll be familiar with these terrific fogs. If mobilization were ordered during a fog, if units didn’t know how best to make the move, there would be problems. The battalion was 20th Mechanized Infantry Regiment. The other “unit” was actually some teams from an Agra-based Special Forces battalion.



Inside Delhi itself there are two infantry and one artillery brigades, 10,000 combat troops, and you have a division sitting at Meerut, 65-km away. If you want to impress the government with a show of force, there is no need to send a single battalion from Hissar, 165-km away, or SF detachments from Agra, 200-km away.



A very reliable person we know talked to a senior officer who happened to have commanded the armored division at Hissar. He agreed that the army orders troop movements for training all the time, and no permission is required from the civil authority. BUT, he says, movements are never made toward Delhi, to avoid possible misunderstandings.



On investigation, it turns out that this is not the case. The Army says it moves troops toward, through, and away from the capital all the time and no one is informed nor needs to be. An example is units rotating to different stations – the Indian Army moves its combat and artillery units to different stations every 2-3 years for a number of operational reasons. Since Delhi is major transportation junction for Northwest India, units are moving through all the time. The officer our reliable source spoke to may have been extra cautious and never sent his units toward Delhi for training, but that would be his individual decision which he is entitled to make, it is neither doctrine nor a rule, written or unspoken.



The press told a story of two battalions moving without authorization toward Delhi, so alarming the government that watchers were activated – more on this. The government went to the extent of recalling the Defense Secretary who was on a trip to Malaysia. He returned, met late at night with the Director General Military Operations, demanded explanations, was given them, ordered the movements reversed and the DGMO complied.

[ramana]

Wonder if this non-coup is a preemptive caution to military not to try anything? Politician-Babu nexus is capable of any stunt. If this so then expect more rottenness from them until VKS retires.

[ramana]

Going cuckoo 
over the ‘coup’
Bikram Vohra (Perspective)

7 April 2012
If it wasn’t so comical, it would be grand tragedy. Except for embarrassing 1.2 billion Indians and providing gales of mocking laughter for India’s detractors and enemies, real and imagined, the report on the ‘coup’ attempt by what amounts to a possible maximum of 4,000 soldiers from two battalions is farcical.

The Armoured Division is really an all tank affair and the Paras generally leap out of aircraft, so there was no real marching Infantry band of brothers making for the capital.

Since nowhere in history has a failed coup been kept a secret, this is a record breaker. Coups, by their very nature, are do or die exercises. A failed coup, ipso facto, produces traitors and a trail that is extremely easy to follow. You just cannot keep it under a lid or pretend it did not happen. Not for a day, certainly not for months. Those sinister plotters involved don’t sort of say, oh well, let’s go back to barracks, maybe on another night. The moment they are on the move they are committed to hell and back.

If you are going to topple the government, you should have done your homework and have some clue where you are going. That would be the basic tenet. Evidently those who wrote it up as a great journalistic expose had no idea of military strategy or how ops work.

One, they have been unable to pinpoint exactly what the target areas were for these men and when they would fan out. Non-specific marches are hardly dangerous and if they were specific the commanders would have known in advance and yet, not one of them said, hey wait a minute, why am I attacking station x or national edifice y? And each one of them would have known he was being a traitor facing the death penalty by firing squad.

Two, in any military adventurism there have to be concentric circles. If two battalions are moving in, who are their leaders, where are the back ups, how many brigades and divisions in the scattered upcountry cantonments were on alert or moving in and how many senior commanders were part of this ‘devious’ plot. None? Ten? Five? Do we assume that halfway there they just sort of got orders to return home and they trotted back and that was that? Not a word about this sortie, no leak, no chatter, no psssttts, all of this natural manna for army mess conversations. For over two months nothing came out and we are expected to believe such folderol.

Now, let’s get serious, where were the air force and the navy? They were not part of all this? Right, so these 4000 soldiers would have been mystified as they took over various locations in Delhi, assuming they followed orders and captured government strongholds. Where were the reinforcements and look at that dust cloud, those are our own guys come to take us out. By any military strategist’s logic, their ability to hold India’s civil government hostage would have lasted about an hour or two with no escape route or end clause and retaliation almost certain and swift.

Why would they do it? They are not terrorists bent on creating chaos. They have no agenda to cause panic. They do not have an open-ended que sera, sera approach, they intend to take over the country according to reports, a coup is just that...taking command. These are trained soldiers untrained to fire on their own people. If there was even the slightest such pressure on their minds there would have been confusion in minutes and January 16, 2012 would have been a night of rampant chaos in the capital.

We are now told that the civilian administration in an incandescent burst of genius reacted by slowing down traffic into Delhi and checking all cars so as to effectively block the soldiers, this great ring of fire being put up in all of ninety odd minutes. So much for the Patriot Missile system. Roll on floor with mirth here. This trick worked. Sure, it did. Let’s see, 4,000 odd men armed ostensibly to the hilt prepared to take on forces of over 2 million strength and attempting a coup against their country (hardened geese, yes) panicked because the Delhi traffic police were putting up road blocks. Wo, that is scary stuff. Actually, the inside story is that they were told Kiran Bedi was manning (?) the traffic block so they turned back for Agra, their morale shattered by this piece of information.

Wake up, stop hurting yourselves. India is not a Latin American Saturday night let’s take over the Presidential Palace sort of country. It is too disparate, too vast and has nearly a million paramilitary forces besides the three major arms. Historically, the armed forces are apolitical. You could not get your ducks in a row for a military coup of any proportion unless you had the three chiefs on the same page (well nigh impossible, these guys are so competitive and covetous of their forces) and for the army, at least half your Principle Staff Officers, no less than five army commanders, at least ten Corps commanders and no less than twenty to thirty General Officers Commanding of Divisions. Not to even get to the hundreds of Brigadiers and Colonels.

The shocking part is how easy it is to con the people. Half of India actually believes there is some truth in it that the military takeover attempt happened. After all, clumsy official responses add to the perception that something stinks in Delhi. True, well said. If nothing, General Singh must have wanted to flex muscle to get his one-year extension. Makes sense, right? Wrong. No General does something so stupid and places himself and the men under his command in jeopardy. Not with only 4,000 men. Stop being so unutterably naïve. And end it here, because in the past few weeks the country is fast becoming a caricature. Time for the General also to stop giving interviews and start packing his bags.

Bikram Vohra is Editorial Advisor at Khaleej Times. Write to him at bikram@khaleejtimes.com

[kunalverma]

Been watching Nitin Gokhale on the tele until now. Admiral Bhagwat forwarded his article on la affaire Shekhar Gupta to me last night! It's on his blog nitinagokhale.blogspot.in
Nevertheless, can't resist pasting it. Nitin has high jacked one of the best quotes from Kautilya, written 2,000 years ago on civil-military relationships.

Friday, April 6, 2012
The Soldier, the State and the Media
In my three decades of reporting on the Indian military, I have never felt more uneasy about the military-media interface as I have in the past three months.
Not because the media has been accused of being sensationalist or because many unsavoury truths about internal rivalry and groupism in the military brass has created bad blood in the top hierarchy.
My unease stems from the damage that events of the past few months have inflicted on the average Indian soldier.
While all dramtis personae are equally culpable in the current controversy, we in the media certainly have a greater responsibility not to add fuel to the fire.
For at least a quarter century now, we have been lamenting the steadily diminishing status of the ordinary Indian soldier in the society.; that soldering is no longer respected as a nobel profession in our rural areas; that the jawan struggles to get his due from the civil administration increasingly contemptuous and apathetic towards him; that he continues to get poorly paid and unfairly treated by a society solely driven by materialism.
Now, following a spate of reports based on half-truths and outright lies, motivated by God alone knows what, we may have done the ultimate disservice to the Indian soldier: planted the seed of suspicion about his loyalty in the minds of ordinary Indians.
While I will defend the right of every media person to report what he or she thinks is right, I am afraid none of us has thought through the consequences of the effect it will have on the psyche of the Indian soldier and more importantly the way ordinary Indians will view the Indian Army.
In the mad race to boost our circulation and viewer ratings, we may have, in one go, started the process of demolishing one last institution that has stood rock solid in defence of idea that is India.
For the first time in my now reasonably longish career in journalism, I feel like hiding from my friends in the military.
I feel we have not paused to think of the long-term damage we have wrought upon the profession of soldiering.
I say this because from disaster relief in floods, tsunami, and earthquakes to rescuing infant Prince from a deep tube well and from quelling rioters in communal strife to being the last resort in internal counter-insurgency operations, the Indian Army has been omnipresent.
It is, what I call, India’s Brahmaastra (the ultimate weapon).
The versatility, adaptability, selfless attitude and resourcefulness of the Indian Army has allowed it to be what it is today: Nation Builders.
And viewed in the context of India’s immediate and extended neighbourhood, its stellar role stands out in stark contrast to its counterparts in other countries.
Remember, Indian and Pakistani Armies originated from the same source, the British Army and yet, six decades since they parted ways, there couldn’t be a bigger dissimilarity in the way the two have evolved.
As they say, India has an Army while the Pakistani Army has a nation!
More importantly, despite India’s increasing dependence on the Army to pull its chestnuts out of fire time and again, the Indian Army has scrupulously remained apolitical.
The contribution of the Indian Army in nurturing and strengthening democracy—with all its faults—can never be underestimated.
It has put down fissiparous and secessionist forces within India with great cost to itself over these 60 years. It has protected India from within and without.
The Indian army also has a unique distinction of helping create a nation (Bangladesh) in the neighbourhood and then quietly walking away to let the people take charge.
By contrast, the Pakistani Army has never really allowed democracy to flourish in its country. Instead, it has created a military-industrial complex that has spread its tentacles in every aspect of governance. Even today, the Pakistani army does not let go of any opportunity to undercut democracy; it nurtures and treats jihadi elements as its strategic asset against India and the United States.
Even in other smaller nations around India—Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh, for instance—the armed forces have had to intervene and run the affairs of those countries at some point.
The Army has also withstood systematic assault on its status from politicians and bureaucrats who are forever looking for ways to downgrade the military’s status. While the principle of civilian supremacy over the armed forces is well entrenched and understood in India, what is incomprehensible is the constant chipping away at the military’s standing.
The nation as a whole and indeed the people at large have the highest regard and affinity for the men in uniform for the yeoman service they render in every conceivable situation, but most mandarins in the Ministry of Defence and some of the politicians do not have the same opinion and are repeatedly trying to run down the military without realising the immense damage they cause to the only available bulwark we have against any attempt to Balkanise India. Now unfortunately, even we in the media seem to have joined these these ill-informed and devious bunch of opportunists.
As former Chief of army Staff, Gen. S. Padmanabhan says in his book, A General Speaks: Even after Independence, India’s political leaders found it convenient to keep the Army, Navy and the Air Force out of the ‘policy’ making bodies. The service HQs were left at the level that the British left them—that of being ‘attached offices,’ of the Ministry of Defence. Even at the level of Defence Minister and Service Chiefs, exchanges on major matters of Defence policy were few and far between…”
Another former Army Chief, Gen. Shankar Roy Choudhury has observed: “It is… essential in the national interest that the armed forces are upgraded and updated on an ongoing basis, something which governments have been traditionally loath to acknowledge and undertake, the Indian government perhaps more so than others in this respect.
”Historically, it is to the credit of the Indian Army that it has fulfilled its role as an organ of the state…It has functioned effectively in every type of role, in spite of the general lack of a supportive government environment by way of adequate finances, resources, equipment, personnel policies, or higher political direction.”
A nation’s military provides what is called a ‘hard-edged’ backup to its international standing. A strong military and especially a powerful, well-trained, fully-equipped army act as a deterrent against adversaries. It is therefore essential that the nation’s decision-makers consciously back the Army and provide it with the support that it needs to meet diverse challenges that exist and are likely to come up in the coming decade.
So far, the Indian Army has fulfilled its role in nation building admirably well. All of us, ordinary citizens, media persons, politicians, bureaucrats, must continue to back the nation’s strongest asset and further strengthen it, if we desire to see India as a global player in the decades to come.
Centuries ago, Kautilya, the wily old strategist told king Chandragupta why the soldier is important for the survival of the Kingdom. If India has to survive as a nation-state, this advice (reproduced from a piece written by Air Marshal SG Inamdar for the USI Journal) is worth repeating in its entirety here.
As the learned Air Marshal says:” It is amazing how clearly those ancients saw the likely faultlines in governance, the intricacies of management of the military by the state functionaries, the nature of the military and the citizenry and the close interplay between them all. It is truly amazing how those observations continue to be so completely relevant today, even after 2000 years.”
Here’s what Kautilya told the king of Magadh:
“The Mauryan soldier does not himself the Royal treasuries enrich nor does he the Royal granaries fill. He does not himself carry out trade and commerce nor produce scholars, thinkers, littérateurs, artistes, artisans, sculptors, architects, craftsmen, doctors and administrators. He does not himself build roads and ramparts nor dig wells and reservoirs. He does not himself write poetry and plays, paint or sculpt, nor delve in metaphysics, arts and sciences. He does not do any of this directly as he is neither gifted, trained nor mandated to do so.
The soldier only and merely ensures that:
The tax, tribute and revenue collectors travel far and wide unharmed and return safely;
The farmer tills, grows, harvests, stores and markets his produce unafraid of pillage & plunder;
The trader, merchant and moneylender function and travel across the length and breadth of the realm unmolested;
The savant, sculptor, painter, maestro and master create works of art, literature, philosophy, astronomy and astrology in peace & quietitude;
The architect designs and builds his Vaastus without tension;
The tutor (‘acharya’), the mentor (‘guru’) and the priest (‘purohit’) teach and preach in tranquility;
The sages (‘rishis, munis, and tapaswees’) meditate and undertake penance in wordless silence;
The doctor (‘vaidyaraja’) tends to the ill and the infirm well, adds to the pharmacopoeia, discovers new herbs and invents new medical formulations undisturbed;
The mason, the bricklayer, the artisan, the weaver, the tailor, the jeweller, the potter, the carpenter, the cobbler, the cowherd (‘gopaala’) and the smith work unhindered;
The mother, wife and governess go about their chores and bring up children in harmony and tranquility;
The aged and the disabled are well taken care of, tended to and are able to fade away gracefully and with dignity; cattle graze freely without being lifted or harmed by miscreants.
He is thus the VERY BASIS and silent, barely visible CORNERSTONE of our fame, culture, physical well being and prosperity; in short, of the entire nation building activity. He DOES NOT perform any of these chores himself directly: he ENABLES the rest of us to perform these without let, hindrance or worry (‘nirbhheek and nishchinta’).
Our military sinews, on the other hand, lend credibility to our pronouncements of adherence to good Dharma, our goodwill, amiability and peaceful intentions towards all our neighbour nations (‘sarve bhavantu sukhinaha, sarve santu niramayaha…’) as also those far away and beyond. These also serve as a powerful deterrent against military misadventure by any one of them against us.
If Pataliputra reposes each night in peaceful comfort, O King, it is so because she is secure in the belief that the distant borders of Magadha are inviolate and the interiors are safe and secure, thanks to the mighty Mauryan Army constantly patrolling and standing vigil with naked swords and eyes peeled for action (‘animish netre’), day and night (‘ratrau-divase’), in weather fair and foul, dawn-to-dusk-to-dawn (‘ashtau prahare’), quite unmindful of personal discomfort and hardship, loss of life and limb, separation from the family, all through the year, year after year (‘warsha nu warshe’).
While the Magadha citizenry endeavours to make the State prosper and flourish, the Mauryan soldier guarantees that the State continues to EXIST! He is the silent ’sine qua non’ of our very being!”
Can we all—people in uniform, civil services, politics, media and society at large-- imbue this spirit?

[kunalverma]

SCREAMING NEWS!

Attn: Shekhar Gupta - MOST URGENT! STOP PRESS etc.

2 RAJPUT, the Army Chief's very own, has truncated it's month long exercise and is HEADING TOWARDS DELHI! God swear, it's true!

[svenkat]

While pontificating on the issue of civil-military relations it is best to be clear about some basic issues.

In the public perception, the Armed Forces are "cleaner" than the politicians, police and the bureaucrats. When the Indian economy was depressed, a job in the Armed Forces meant social, financial and health security at an unprecedented level. It was considered the place for an honest person to go. At a time when most Indian companies could not even pay employees regularly, the Armed Forces offered you and your dependents complete health coverage.

Now India's economy has taken off, and the armed forces no longer offer the same sense of job security that they used to. Also the armed forces are increasingly being called on to die for India - so people's perception of the armed forces as a career choice is changing and with it - the people going to the services is changing also.

There was always corruption in the armed forces and a very powerful arms lobby has existed since before independence. Today the money changing hands is huge and so also is the competition between lobbyists and middlemen. This more than anything else is slowing down acquisitions. BTW this is how it is all over the world - so get used to it.

The involvement of high level officers in corruption in the Army is NOT - I repeat - NOT uncommon. It is always a shock when it comes to light but there have been cases of this kind before.

The Armed Forces are human - yes perhaps exceptional in certain ways but completely ordinary in other ways. It is foolish to expect more of them than we do of ourselves.

The above comment is from a blogger called Mav,who was ex-admn at BRF.The mutual hate between mav(and his friends/cohorts)and our forum members is well known.Yet there are a few who post at both places.I am no mediator and do not support the vitriol posted against BRF there.

But still I felt this should be posted.Are we having too much expectations from our armed forces personnel when corruption and casteism is the norm in our public life.

Mods,if inappropriate please delete part or all of my post.

[nelson]

Maj Gen retd Mrinal Suman flies over the coup-coup's nest

'Coup' rumours: Media's irresponsible reporting dents Army's image

[nelson]

Army Chief has been speaking of hollowness for 2 yrs. We didn't notice. - Nitin Gokhale in NewsWarrior: The General and his thought process...

http://nitinagokhale.blogspot.com/2012/ ... l?spref=tw

[ramana]

Maj Gen retd Mrinal Suman flies over the coup-coup's nest

'Coup' rumours: Media's irresponsible reporting dents Army's image

Is the good officer self flagellating? I mean sit eh Army image so fragile that a pack of lies will dent the image? On the ocntrary the Ind Exp was shown to have prionted lies and not yet apologised for that. Its the Ind Exp image that takes a beating.

I don't understand how the Army image takes a beating when the media prints lies. It should be the media image that should be dented.

Any one who reads Ind Express while Shekhar Gupta is the Editor is a duffer/cretin/moron/idiot (take your pick) and deserves that sort of manufactured news.

As Issac Pulitzer wrote" Accuarcy is to newspaper, as virtue is to a woman!"

To which one lady replied "A newspaper can always print a retraction!"

[Surya]

Soldiers felt terribly let down when a leading media house invited a vicious and remorseless enemy like General Pervez Musharraf and groveled before him. It marked the lowest depths to which journalists could stoop. Instead of castigating him for Kargil war, non-release of numerous Indian prisoners of war rotting in Pakistani jails and barbaric treatment meted out to Lt Saurabh Kalia and his patrol, he was treated as a peace loving guest. Can there be a worse act of insensitivity to the families of those who sacrificed their lives for the country!

Yeah the worthies at IT, Unnithan and Aroor and others had no response to it. Not that I expected these guys to stop it but at least raise this point.

All gave me the usual BS

[svinayak]

Is the good officer self flagellating? I mean sit eh Army image so fragile that a pack of lies will dent the image? On the ocntrary the Ind Exp was shown to have prionted lies and not yet apologised for that. Its the Ind Exp image that takes a beating.

I don't understand how the Army image takes a beating when the media prints lies. It should be the media image that should be dented.

Look how easy is it fool the public. The media is still considered independent and fair in India. This notion needs to be demolished

[ramana]

You guys are the Facebook/Twitter generation.

Instead of whining here why not organize a boycott Ind Express day or a week. Do something while the tempo is hot.

Write to main advertisers of Ind Exp to withhold funding.

For teams to meet with them.


This is a good opportunity to constrain lifafa journalism in India.

[shyamd]

Bofors too hot, new bid for big guns

SUJAN DUTTA
The Israeli Atmos 2000 howitzer and (below) the Slovakian howitzer that are competitors for the Indian order

New Delhi, Feb. 8: The Indian Army this week quietly sent out invitations to at least eight companies to bid for an order for heavy guns mounted on wheels, a development prompted by the cancellation of a competition last year in which Bofors had topped the list.

The requests for proposals for 185 wheeled self-propelled howitzers of the 155mm/52calibre category were issued on Monday.

This follows within a fortnight of another tender that went out to the UK’s BAE Systems and Singapore Technologies for ultra-light guns of the same calibre.

The ultra-light howitzers are distinct from the “wheeled self-propelled” ones. They are lighter and can be lifted under-slung from some helicopters.

The 185 wheeled self-propelled howitzers that the army is now seeking also have to be small and light enough to be airlifted — preferably in the Lockheed Martin-produced Hercules C-130J aircraft that the Indian Air Force decided to buy in January.

This specification has come out of the Indian Army’s experience in the 1999 Kargil war, where artillery guns were in short supply along the front initially.

The price of the guns will be decided based on the bids but is estimated to be upwards of Rs 4,500 crore. The army may also be in the market for an additional 400 towed howitzers — the same variety as the Bofors guns that are already in service.

The drive to buy the big guns — many of which will be on show during a defence exposition in New Delhi next week — is part of the army’s field artillery rationalisation plan. Since India bought 410 Bofors FH 77B howitzers in 1986, there has not been a single new induction into its artillery.

An artillery competition that it opened in 2001 was cancelled ostensibly because the bidders and the guns did not meet the quality requirements. But it is widely acknowledged that Bofors outperformed its rivals, most notably the Israeli Soltam, and the government developed cold feet in giving it the order since the shadow of the commission during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure.

The army was also at that time considering self-propelled guns mounted on tracked chassis — like in tanks — but has now decided on wheeled chassis only. The exact number of competitors who have been invited to bid for the order is not disclosed.

But army sources said they were well-known companies. There are few companies capable of making the guns with the general specifications of the guns that are known. Among them are the K9 Thunder (South Korea), BAE Systems (Bofors), Slovakian firm Kermetal’s Zuzana, French Giat Industries’ Caesar, German Rheinmetall’s Panzerhaubitze 2000, Israeli Atmos 2000 and Israeli Soltam’s TIG 2000.

The original field artillery rationalisation plan envisaged that the army would have a mix of 3,600 ultra-light, wheeled, tracked and towed guns — all of 155mm/52calibre — for around 180 artillery regiments. But the execution of that plan has got delayed.

The Telegraph had reported earlier that defence minister A.K. Antony had ordered a reopening of the artillery competition after Bofors had outperformed its competitors in the last trials. The Bofors guns contracted in 1986 fared well in the Kargil war.

In September last year, the company operating as BAE Systems SWS got back into business in India when it signed an agreement with the Ordnance Factory Board in Calcutta to upgrade anti-aircraft guns for the Indian Army.

[chetak]

Soldiers felt terribly let down when a leading media house invited a vicious and remorseless enemy like General Pervez Musharraf and groveled before him. It marked the lowest depths to which journalists could stoop. Instead of castigating him for Kargil war, non-release of numerous Indian prisoners of war rotting in Pakistani jails and barbaric treatment meted out to Lt Saurabh Kalia and his patrol, he was treated as a peace loving guest. Can there be a worse act of insensitivity to the families of those who sacrificed their lives for the country!

Yeah the worthies at IT, Unnithan and Aroor and others had no response to it. Not that I expected these guys to stop it but at least raise this point.

All gave me the usual BS

He was also paid 50 Lakhs by the India Today group to attend. Khana, peena transportation, accomodation, security and a*** licking free onlee.

[Sanku]

But still I felt this should be posted.Are we having too much expectations from our armed forces personnel when corruption and casteism is the norm in our public life.

Not a mod, but I really feel you should not have posted that here, for various reasons.

In any case, IA and all Indian service arms, have far outclassed the rest of India in terms of dedication to the country, cause and discipline.

Indian citizens in general understand and expect that, that of services being peopled by people who are a "breed apart" -- therefore the expectation is both well earned, and lived upto, over many decades and in some cases more (traditional warrior communities following same ethos)

Sure India is changing, but a lot of it is good, and we see those changes in IA too, changes for the better in terms of people strengths (yes its possible Indian Army can actually get better people)

That said, that piece is also insulting to Indians in general as well.

---- The above remark of "yatha praja, thatha raja" is basically a pathetic attempt by some (coterie of the corrupt) to basically diffuse the guilt of a few corrupt at the very top and spread it by making it everyones mistake.

A variation of this "reasoning" is seen during any anti-corruption drive, arguments like "you gave 5 ruppes to the traffic policeman therefore it is perfectly right for Raja and INC to loot 17000000000 cr, for Devas sell out, for coal chori etc etc"

After all 5 rs == 170000000000000000000 rs (since rs == rs, and corruption == corruption)

Therefore a poor person paying a policeman 5 rs to carry a extra passenger is same as rampant rapine loot, all citizens are equally chor etc etc...

[ramana]

You guys are the Facebook/Twitter generation.

Instead of whining here why not organize a boycott Ind Express day or a week. Do something while the tempo is hot.

Write to main advertisers of Ind Exp to withhold funding.

For teams to meet with them.


This is a good opportunity to constrain lifafa journalism in India.

May 6th Kargil Rememberance Day is coming up. Maybe a good idea to launch a campaign to show Ind Exp there are nationalists still left in India.

[ramana]

A one line summary of the whole non-coup business is

"Army exercises, INC sweats!"

[member_23061]

You guys are the Facebook/Twitter generation.

Instead of whining here why not organize a boycott Ind Express day or a week. Do something while the tempo is hot.

Write to main advertisers of Ind Exp to withhold funding.

For teams to meet with them.


This is a good opportunity to constrain lifafa journalism in India.

May 6th Kargil Rememberance Day is coming up. Maybe a good idea to launch a campaign to show Ind Exp there are nationalists still left in India.

Where do I sign up?

[Philip]

MOD's "Annual Report",last year's copy! TOI.

According to the paper,the MOD "lifted" heavily from the previous year's report with paras on key countries like China and Pak and some others virtually identical in the first chapter "Security Environment".
Example:
"India is conscious and watchful of the implications of China's evolving military profile in the immediate and extended neighbourhood",2010-2011. The same para is repeated in the 2011-2012 report! A similar statement about Pak continuing to support terror is repeated in the 2012 report verbatim.With a budget of 1,83,408 crores,the MOD can't even come up with an original report.This indicates the utter contempt of the MOD babus at the top of the nation's security,their contempt compounded by their falsehood,ignorance,venality and supreme indifference to the armed forces in particular and the people of the country.In Stalin's Russia they would've been tortured and shot. Instead these babu scumbags garner to themselves "Padma awards" by the bagful,apart from looting the exchequer with their corrupt ways.

Sack the blighters responsible,send them on a one-way ticket to Siachen to discover first hand the fate of the Paki soldiers trapped in the avalanche!

[ramana]

Philip the threat hasn't changed and the language also hasn't changed. Unlike TOI journalists who are adept at thesaurus to describe the same threat using new phrases don't see how MoD babus who definitely passed the IAS exams need to dress the threats in new language.

Lets not give TOIlet more hawa then needed.

[Philip]

True,the threats haven't changed,but surely their nuances have and theirs (especially the Chinese) and our capability affected either by increased or decreased capability.One doesn't expect from the IAS oligarchy such a pathetic display of ineptitude.It displays an attitude that "no one will read it or notice the similarities".I shudder to think of what would've happened to the babus responsible for this report had they had Sardar Swaran Singh or Babu Jagjivan Ram in charge of the ministry!

[sum]

The requests for proposals for 185 wheeled self-propelled howitzers of the 155mm/52calibre category were issued on Monday.

This follows within a fortnight of another tender that went out to the UK’s BAE Systems and Singapore Technologies for ultra-light guns of the same calibre.

The ultra-light howitzers are distinct from the “wheeled self-propelled” ones. They are lighter and can be lifted under-slung from some helicopters.

The 185 wheeled self-propelled howitzers that the army is now seeking also have to be small and light enough to be airlifted — preferably in the Lockheed Martin-produced Hercules C-130J aircraft that the Indian Air Force decided to buy in January.

So the earlier FMS deal for ULH also stands scrapped?

[ASPuar]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 602226.cms

Call for action against ‘coup’ scaremonger
TNN | Apr 10, 2012, 12.29AM IST

NEW DELHI: With the government admitting that "mischief" by an insider was responsible for the scare over a routine movement of two Army units, demand for a probe into the matter is gathering momentum amid indications that the Army headquarters itself may seek an inquiry.

The issue figured in the meeting of Parliament's standing committee on defence on Monday. Asaduddin Owaissi of UPA component MIM demanded a probe for getting to the bottom of the mysterious way in which a normal military exercise on the night of January 16 was portrayed as a sinister development fraught with implications for the civilian-Army equation.

Owaisi made the pitch before defence secretary Shashikant Sharma who had to appear before the panel for the second time to clear the air over the way sections of the government cranked up a routine military movement into an extraordinary and dangerous maneuver by sections of the Army.

The UPA member's demand coincided with a similar stand taken by the BJP. "What has the government done about the mischief makers?" asked party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar. The day also saw retired Army and Navy chiefs, Gen. V P Malik and Admiral Arun Prakash, respectively, asking for a probe.

Defence secretary repeated to the House panel the government's stand: the suggestion that the army units involved in the exercise were actually flexing their muscle was based on "wrong inference" drawn from "conjectures". He also rejected the premise of panic that the concerned units did not inform the defence ministry in violation of protocol. Sharma said there was no procedure requiring units to inform MOD of routine movements.

On Sunday, minister of state for defence Pallam Raju confirmed the widespread suspicion in the top echelons of the government that it was somebody, seen as reliable, who misrepresented an exercise by a mere two units consisting of a few hundreds of soldiers as a potentially dangerous situation.

The subsequent alert saw police being directed to slow down the "advancing" columns. Although CRPF sources have denied that their elite COBRA units were deployed and a 'lookout' was mounted at railway stations, many in the government consider it frightening that insiders could precipitate such a situation.

Eventually, it took an intervention by defence minister A K Antony to quell the panic. Antony is learnt to have dismissed the alert sign hoisted by the authorities as misplaced.

Significantly, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi parried a question on Raju's statement in a TV interview.

Sections in the government seem to have come around to suspect that the artificial scare may have been scripted to prejudice the government against the Army chief, General V K Singh As it happened, January 16 was also the very day when General Singh had , in an unprecedented development, moved the Supreme Court to challenge defence ministry's rejection of his claim for the revision of his date of birth.

Several senior military officers are of the belief that the government should promptly fix responsibility and take action against those who created the unnecessary scare over routine military movements. The ``apolitical and disciplined'' Army has been ``insulted'', either because of ignorance or deliberate design, they contend.

This sentiment was also reflected in minister of state for defence M M Pallam Raju's interview to a TV channel on Sunday. Raju said he would "like to read it that way", when asked if someone was trying to create mischief. "It is a possibility that people would try to cr eate a little bit of confusion in the current scenario," he said.

Former Army chief V P Malik called for an inqurity."The incident has had far reaching implications. The fact that there is so much suspicion within the government and panic is itself worrisome. Whoever spread it should be taken to task. People in the army and veterans are feeling insulted. It has affected their morale."

Another Army officer pointed out that a comprehensive inquiry was necessary to ensure that such an alert is not generated again. "When almost every day we have troop movements, why was such a scare created just on that day?"

Another former military chief , who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also supported the demand for an inquiry.``If it happened once it can happen again", he said arguing "something is seriously wrong within the system."

Former Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash, however, is not too sure if a probe would bring out anything. "The Army is right in feeling indignant, asking for a probe. I do not know if anything would come out but I personally feel that we need to find out if someone planted the information and similarly it was also important to know how the Army chief's letter to the Prime Minister came out in the media."

A senior MoD source pointed out that when the IB warning reached Antony, he promptly dismissed it as a misinformed alert. It was at the MoD level that the seeming panic ended. When asked why the MoD has not initiated action against those responsible for creating the scare, one senior official said, "It is not our ministry." The IB, which issued the alert, comes under the home ministry.

A senior officer pointed out that the alert, over the movement of a unit each of the 50 Para Brigade from Agra and the mechanized infantry from Hisar, was reflective of the lack of appreciation for the Army's "commitment to democracy and Indian Constitution".

[ramana]

Looks like IB was sweating while the Army exercised.

IB should try to prevent terrorists instead of looking for ghosts and scaring the politicians.

Has any one heard a peep from Mr Insecurity?

[Dhiman]

Is the good officer self flagellating? I mean sit eh Army image so fragile that a pack of lies will dent the image? On the ocntrary the Ind Exp was shown to have prionted lies and not yet apologised for that. Its the Ind Exp image that takes a beating.

I don't understand how the Army image takes a beating when the media prints lies. It should be the media image that should be dented.

Look how easy is it fool the public. The media is still considered independent and fair in India. This notion needs to be demolished

I used to know someone who worked in a PR agency in Delhi. The guy's job was basically to get favorable stories printed in media for agencies paying clients. It was quite common for the paying client to write something and send it to the PR agency, the PR agency would forward this to their paid so-called journalists who would many time print the writeup verbatim for mass consumption.

After the role media had in 2G scam, I lost all faith in the media. In all seriousness, the system of governance in India can be best described as Kleptocracy, definitely not Democracy. Democracy is a tool that the thieves who control government, media, police, judiciary, etc use to delude the common public. The reality of Indian system is Kleptocracy - look at it that way and everything will make sense. Looking at Indian system as a democracy is self-deluding.

[Dhiman]

Call for action against ‘coup’ scaremonger
TNN | Apr 10, 2012, 12.29AM IST

What a joke. Does anyone here seriously think that the scaremonger(s) would be held accountable? Governance in India would have been very different if this was the case: Indian Express would be well on its way to going bankrupt, its owners would have been hauled up in court, journalists fired and their reputations destroyed so that no one else would have hired them. In a Kleptocratic system such actions are reserved for those very few people who every once in a while want to do some real good, recall income tax investigations against Anna Hazare and team + Baba Ramdev, etc.

Zero accountability for criminals and thieves since these are the people who run the system.

[ManishH]

In the context of Ammunition shortage mentioned in COAS's leaked letter ...

Ajai Shukla on NDTV: "Ammunition shortage has existed since NDA government. George Fernandes wanted an ordnance factory in his home constituency Samastipur; so stalled procurement."

[Karan M]

ManishH,

What you wrote is sadly very mistaken or can even be said to be rubbish. Shukla was perhaps trying to make the broader claim that a systemic issue exists of procurement bungle ups thanks to official apathy or even interference, but what you have interpreted it as with regards to the current situation is absolutely misplaced.

The current shortage is for APFSDS shells. These are specialized shells intended for tank to tank combat. The current shortage here has nothing to do with the NDA. In fact it was under the NDA's tenure that India inked the first contract for Israeli 125mm shells for the T-72 tank fleet. Follow on orders were placed as well, and the Army chose these shells over the DRDO MK1 125mm shells whose production was stopped and replaced by these shells whose variants were also license made by OFB. This production apparently ran into trouble on account of issues with the TOT & in all probability, the OFB's usual competence when it comes to QC with high precision items. One of the reasons the Israeli round was chosen over the local one was that the OFB mixed and matched Russian propellant with significant batch quantities of the DRDO rounds. The propellant leaked & the rounds were declared useless for further use.

To add to the trouble, the MOD in its wisdom has blacklisted IMI - the original 125mm KE round providers, causing a further problem. What this means is that the single most prominent source of the T-72 fleet's APFSDS is no longer available unless some bureaucratic way is sought (IMI is now IWI so we can order from them etc etc).

Meanwhile, even procurement of Russian rounds have been delayed for the T-90 thanks to the MOD's usual speedy procurement process. These are the older Russian 3BM-42 KE rounds in widespread service with their army which are the standard fit for the Russian exported T-90s as well. Per public reports, an order for 16000 rounds is in process. Which Btw works out to only 32 rounds per tank even assuming only 600 T-90s are in IA service till date. Clearly insufficient.

These rounds are required because the Russians arm twisted us over the T-90 deal and the tanks with the original Ballistic computer can only use the Russian rounds. The follow on Indian BC equipped T-90s - once the TATA one gets into regular production may be able to employ Indian as well as Israeli rounds.

The mess can hence be firmly laid at the feet of the current MOD which blacklisted IMI without even seeing what the overall impact on defence preparedness would be, with stocks at 4 days as versus the required 40, per media reports - and clearly rush orders at high costs will be placed to tide us over to avoid Parliamentary censure, or if common sense prevails.

About the only silver lining in the whole mess, is that the DRDO developed MK2 APFSDS round is now getting into firm shape. It was developed without firm GSQR from the Army, in order to take the MK1 experience forward, and in 2010 30 rounds cleared initial trials, leading to the Army agreeing to 500 rounds being put through accelerated trials. If these are cleared for production by the Army, hopefully we will have a stable source for the T-72 for at least a few years, till an improved variant is sought.

Overall, the incident is typical of how the current MOD, with very poor coordination, led by a man who only cares about his "corruption free" rep, has ended up mismanaging a very critical requirement.

1.The OFB is unable to produce these items in number @ the requisite quality.
2.Production rates are abysmal.
3.Stocks are not standardized, the Army buys piecemeal amounts from different vendors for different units.
4.The Army itself did not think about a long term perspective for this item, coming out with proper GSQRs in time for the long term development of this item (especially as it is complex tech and hard to get right, with only few vendors capable of supplying it)
5.The MOD did no coordination for the same or even get other manufacturers involved as versus only OFB
6.No effort in reaching out to other vendors for long term development and viability beyond releasing tenders for the pieacemeal IA orders.


Any other MOD with any common sense would have conducted a root cause analysis into why the OFB had issues with 125mm KE production, fixed accountability, charted out a ten year plan for acquisition and simultaneous local development of this critical item, identified other procurement options and then ensured sufficient reserves were available for any conflict.

The MOD has not done this