Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 12

The Army rescued 73 passengers, including women and children, who were stranded at the Nasta Chun pass in frontier Kupwara district due to an avalanche triggered by a fresh snowfall.The passengers were stranded on Friday night at the Nasta Chun pass, also known as Sadhna Gali, on the Kupwara-Tangdhar road.Defence spokesman Col NN Joshi said a report was received by an Army post at Nasta Chun that vehicles ferrying people, including women, children and aged, and an ambulance with a critically ill heart patient was stranded approximately 1.5 km from the Nasta Chun pass.“As the report was received, the Army avalanche rescue team sprung into action immediately despite harsh weather conditions, snow blizzard and zero visibility. The rescue team of the local Rashtriya Rifles unit rescued 73 civilians, including women, children and a critically ill heart patient. The rescue team gave medical aid and provided safe passage to the passengers,” the spokesman said.

ribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 9

A two-day seminar on the topic “Emerging Security Scenario in Af-Pak (Afghanistan-Pakistan) Region: Implications for India” started today at Panjab University. The department of defence and national security studies organised the seminar.The GOC-in-C, Western Command, Chandimandir, Lt Gen KJ Singh, PVSM, AVSM, delivered the inaugural address and Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain delivered the keynote address. PU Vice-Chancellor Arun Kumar Grover, Registrar Col GS Chadha (retd), serving and retired Army officers, foreign diplomat, experts, research scholars and students of the university attended the seminar and deliberated on the issue.Referring to the intervention of the USSR, USA in the Af-Pak region, Lt Gen KJ Singh said anyone who wanted to play the great game in region came out with a bloody nose. The only exception was Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who was successful in ruling the region for more than 40 years, he added.Delivering the presidential address, Vice-Chancellor Kumar Grover talked about the impact of natural disasters due to environmental pollution on human population.

Contest to build combat vehicle kicks off today
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Blow to Tata Motors’ role in combat vehicle project

Tata Motors, India’s biggest vehicle manufacturer, has signed a strategic agreement with Bharat Forge Limited and General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) of the US, for the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD’s) prestigious Future Infantry Combat Vehicle (FICV) program.

Tata Motors will lead the consortium, with Bharat Forge Limited as a partner, while General Dynamics Land Systems will bring in its much proven expertise in combat vehicle platforms.

Tata Motors will play on its strengths related to Design, Development & Integration of mobility platforms, while Bharat Forge’s will bring on board its competence with fighting platforms and manufacturing strengths. General Dynamics’ proven expertise, as SOSI (a system of systems integrator) in various integrational programs, will bring in the required competency enabling Tata Motors, the lead integrator, to offer a truly indigenous solution for this ‘Make’ program.

Ravi Pisharody, Executive Director, Commercial Vehicles, Tata Motors Ltd. said, “Defence particularly needs partners with long-term commitments to see products and solutions through multiple generations of evolution, and we at Tata Motors are proud to have joined hands with Bharat Forge and General Dynamics Land Systems, for a complete FICV solution for the Indian armed forces. Through this partnership we will be better positioned to help the country realize its ‘Make in India’ vision, for the first completely indigenized combat vehicle, at the same time cater to the opportunities available right here in India.”

To be developed under the ‘Make Category’, the FICV is a high mobility armoured battle vehicle, for infantry men to keep pace with new advancements in weaponry system. The FICV needs to be compact, tracked and amphibious, no heavier than 18-20 tonnes, so that it can be air-portable and transportable by other means, onto combat zones. The vehicle must fire anti-tank guided missiles, to ranges beyond four kilometers, with a capability to carry a crew of three and eight combat-kitted infantrymen. The FICV will replace the Indian Army’s fleet of 2610 Russian-designed BMP (Sarath BMP-II) series armed vehicles, that are in operation since 1980.

Baba N. Kalyani, Chairman & Managing Director, Bharat Forge Limited, “Our proposed partnership will constitute an important milestone, to help meet the Indian Government’s objectives to strengthen indigenous defence capabilities, and particularly in land systems, with the FICV. Working with the country’s largest automotive manufacturer, will help us develop new directions for both companies and to address future requirements of the Indian Armed Forces. We look forward to an exciting future”

Donald Kotchman, Vice President, Tracked Combat Vehicles, General Dynamics Land Systems said, “We are proud to have been selected by Tata Motors Limited as a partner in order to meet the requirements of the Indian Ministry of Defence FICV program. At General Dynamics Land Systems, we have established a track record of delivering and sustaining international programs, in a timely and cost-effective manner throughout the platform’s life. Led by Tata Motors, we look forward to working with our consortium partners in supporting the “Make in India” initiative, developing the Indian FICV.”

The FICV is mobility oriented and is established by the fact that 3 of the 5 core technologies and 19 of the 34 critical technologies are mobility related, such as engines, transmission and running gear, which are core to Tata Motors, which as a lead of this consortium, has demonstrated years of experience of integrating key technologies needed in the armoured mobility segment. With around 14 Tata companies engaged in providing cutting edge solutions in the defence and aerospace sector, the group has the capability and ability to deliver on the FICV programme.http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/tata-motors-signs-agreement-for-combat-vehicles-programme-for-indian-army-116030700227_1.html

SHIMLA: In a fresh bid to dissuade Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) from hosting World Cup T20 India-Pakistan match slated for March 19 at Dharamsala, Indian Ex-servicemen’s League has announced to launch “Operation Balidan” to salute the soldiers from the state who had laid down their lives in the line of duty. “League’s position is clear; issue is not negotiable. There is no question of going back on our stance,” said Congress’s former minister and president of the league Vijai Singh Mankotia.

The burned down branch of SBoP at Jhajjar. A mob tried to loot valuables from the bank on February 20, but was prevented by retired Naik Hawa Singh. Photo by writer

Amit R Joshi

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 1

Once a soldier, always a soldier. A retired Armyman proved it by fighting off rioters alone for seven hours and saving cash and valuables worth Rs 137 crore.On February 20, when Haryana was on the boil with Jats out on the streets demanding reservation, Hawa Singh Yadav, who retired as a Naik from the 11 Kumaon Regiment in 1999, was guarding a branch of the State Bank of Patiala in curfew-bound Jhajjar. After 4 pm, nearly 500 men entered the bank premises and broke open the ATM cabin. The 51-year-old guard rushed to the manager’s room and fired shots from his double-barrel gun through a small vent to ward off the hooligans.From an LPG explosion to drilling a hole in the ceiling, the rioters tried everything to break into the bank, but were stopped by Yadav, who refused to give in even after the robbers’ unsuccessful attempts of suffocating him with the smoke of a burning tyre and chilli powder. Witnesses say two persons were seriously injured after Yadav continued to fire shots.Meanwhile, Yadav kept calling up the police and his family members for help. At 6 pm, his son Narender Singh and his friends reached the spot but failed to intervene as the mob was armed with swords, sickles and guns. After they “failed to get any police help”, they called a meeting at their Kheri Khummar village and residents decided to help Yadav. They reached the bank past midnight and found nearly 50 men still trying to enter the bank. They tricked the mob by introducing themselves as rivals of Yadav, who, they said, had killed their brother.   After recognising his cousin Raju’s voice, Yadav let him inside the bank. However, DC Anita Yadav seconded villagers, saying Yadav was rescued by his family without any police help. “I had asked SP Sumit Kumar to help Yadav, but he refused to do so stating that he could not risk the life of many to save only one,” she said. Sumit Kumar, however, said he went to help Yadav and was in touch with him on the phone.  He reached the site to evacuate him with Brig Ajit Sethi and Col Nageshwar Rao, but he had already been rescued by villagers by that time. Kumar was transferred to Kaithal today.At present, Yadav is undergoing treatment at Aarvy Hospital in Gurgaon. No one from the administration has visited him yet. BJP leader Rao Narbir Singh met him on  Saturday and promised adequate help.

Brig Manjt Singh Ex- Director Defence Services welfare Punjab has taken over as Chairman of Ex-Servicemen Joint Action front. Till date he was President Punjab Unit of Sanjha Morcha.

(Sanjha Morcha) from 01 March 2016. He is from Bde of Guards.

He was awarded Punjab Parman Patra in 2013 by the Chlef Minister Punjab for his dedicated devotion as Director of DSW(Pb) at State level function. First ever received by any Director for completing all projects launched by him.

He is a regular article writer in Defence Info.com

http://www.defenceinfo.com/author/manjitsingh

MAJOR NS MULTANI AS

PRESIDENT DISTT MOHALI CUM I/C GRIEVANCES AND PENSION CELL OF SANJHA MORCHA 

A push in roads construction will boost the economy, like it always does.

FINANCE MINISTER Arun Jaitley seems to have been third time lucky this year. This is his first budget which has broken out of the mould of the past. The proposals for 2016-17 give little in the form of an impetus to investment, but he has managed to  stick to the fiscal deficit goals laid down in the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management legislation. The very fact that India has kept to its fiscal deficit target of 3.5 per cent is bound to enthuse global credit rating agencies, for whom meeting this criteria is a vital factor in giving a country a high investor rating. It is a different matter that these same rating agencies remained clueless about the viability of leading western financial institutions just before they crashed and burned in 2008. Nonetheless, it improves the investment climate in India in the eyes of foreign corporates.It will also please RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan who has been persistent in pleas for the government to conform to the fiscal deficit targets. In turn, the central government will now expect the RBI to oblige with cuts in interest rates, which may possibly provide a stimulus to kick-start the investment cycle.The second achievement has been the effort to carry out tax reforms, though these are rather piecemeal and patchy. Undoubtedly, however, Mr Jaitley is finally trying to take power out of the hands of the tax official and bring a system where there are less discretionary powers and thus less scope for corruption. The decision to avoid any more retrospective taxation is also welcome, as are the moves to create a better dispute resolution mechanism to reduce tax litigation.The third positive element is the focus on raising public investment in roads and highways. The investments are pegged at a massive Rs 2.18 lakh crore, though this includes the funding for the railways. A push in roads construction has always provided an impetus to the economy as it did when Atal Behari Vajpayee launched the Golden Quadrilateral project.On the other hand, there is virtually nothing for exporters on the grounds that global headwinds are weak and the country needs to focus on the domestic market. This is a rather defeatist approach as exports are clearly a drag on the economy currently. It is surely time to provide support to export industries which had been growing consistently till about two years ago. The plans for the agriculture sector and the rural economy appear to be more political grandstanding with an eye to the forthcoming state elections, as many targets seem unachievable like the expansion in irrigation over 80.6 lakh hectares. Besides, the aim of doubling farm incomes in five years is laudable, but not possible unless minimum support prices are raised sharply. This could, in turn, lead to a spiralling of food prices and raise prices significantly. Interestingly, the budget proposals also highlight the fact the highest-ever allocation of Rs 38,500 crore has been made for the MGNREGA, UPA’s flagship programme which had been severely criticised by the BJP before winning the elections. It has now been adopted, wisely so, by the NDA as a scheme that can alleviate the problems of the rural populations after two years of failing monsoon.Yet the biggest lacuna in the budget is any real stimulus for the creation of jobs. Barring the proposals for sops to fresh recruitment by companies, there is hardly any incentive for increasing the setting up of manufacturing units. Companies will hire new employees only when they are needed and not just to avail of these relatively minor benefits. In the roads sector, for which big public investments are being made, employment is available largely on a temporary basis and for unskilled workers. The only push to manufacturing, and hence large scale employment, in the proposals are the excise concessions being given to sectors covered by the ‘Make in India’ scheme.As far as the recapitalisation of banks is concerned, the amount of Rs 25,000 crore is far too little compared to the lakhs of crores of stressed assets in this sector. At the same time, the effort to move forward on a new insolvency code as well as the plans for the legislation to prevent illicit deposit scams that ensnare many is laudable. The proposals have little succour for the common man facing rising prices especially of food products. The cost of services will go up across the board with the new 0.5 per cent Krishi Vikas cess. The middle class may welcome the new provisions for pension schemes and the higher deduction for housing loans,  but there is little that is heartening for a segment that used to be the traditional constituency of the BJP. Even the crash in world oil prices has not been passed on by way of lower petrol or diesel prices to consumers. In this context, it is amazing to find a special scheme proposed to lure foreign oil majors to invest in highly expensive projects of deep sea and ultra deep oil and gas exploration. At a time when oil prices are at historic lows, no oil company is likely to venture into the highly risky and costly job of deep sea exploration. Such ventures become cost effective only when prices are ruling at high levels. There are some definite plus points in the proposals, like the scheme to provide LPG stoves to women in rural areas as well as the plan for the modernisation of land records and the digital literacy mission. The allocation for the social sector has also been raised significantly, clearly in response to severe criticism over the cuts made last year. However, it abounds in a mass of trivia about individual concessions especially on the tax side. Mr Jaitley’s third budget is thus a mixed bag. It is a definite departure from the past in terms of presentation, and also in firmly adhering to fiscal goals. But it lacks a holistic vision and, most importantly, fails to provide the much-needed push to investment and employment growth. In the absence of such a stimulus, it may be difficult for the economy to reach the goal of a high growth path of 8 to 10 per cent in the years to come. 

Three students of a Delhi madarasa have been beaten up for refusing to chant the slogan “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”, prescribed lately as a test of patriotism by the BJP. A political resolution to this effect was passed by the party’s National Executive meeting recently. One can take precautions to stay out of trouble like avoiding a scuffle with a gangster or an argument with someone irrational or fundamentalist. But there is no choice when hoodlums force one to do or say something against one’s wish. Again, this is a small, isolated incident and Prime Minister Modi is not supposed to react. Nor is RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat expected to rein in his soldiers.  In these days of intolerance limitations on freedom of speech are imposed not only on the streets, even universities are not spared. Zealots are taking charge of the university arena and muzzling dissent or a free exchange of ideas. It seems the ideological transformation of universities is being carried out successfully through a pliable HRD Minister. JNU’s students are not the only sufferers of bigotry (Kanhaiya Kumar has been forced to cancel his AMU visit); its teachers too are suspected of running nurseries for anti-nationals. It is evident from what has happened in Jharkhand’s Central University, where a teacher has been suspended just because she invited a JNU professor of “doubtful credentials” to a function associated with Sardar Patel. Have the university rules been amended to include such grounds for suspension?  When RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat called upon everyone to chant “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”, Owaisi, a Muslim leader, defied him. His party MLA was suspended from the Maharashtra Assembly for the same reason. They maintained that they could not be forced to say anything against their will. Now that Mohan Bhagwat too says the same thing, his U-turn has left the BJP wondering what to do with its political resolution. Arun Jaitley has already claimed a victory in some kind of “ideological battle”. The BJP-RSS combine is just shrinking India’s space for dissent and democracy, and it runs away from taking responsibility for what its foot soldiers do in the country.http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/editorials/the-bharat-mata-test/215715.html

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 29India today rejected as tutored a video released by Pakistan purportedly showing its arrested former Navy officer Kulbhushan Yadav “confessing to his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan”.In a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs said the six-minute video that purportedly showed Yadav’s “confession” was tutored and had been prepared under pressure.“The video shows this individual making statements that have no basis. That the individual claims to be making these statements out of his own free will not only challenges credulity, but also clearly indicates tutoring,” the ministry said.The ministry said the government “categorically rejects allegations that this individual was involved in subversive activities in Pakistan at our behest”. Sources in the government said it was yet another attempt by Pakistan to deflect attention when an investigation was going on into the Pathankot terror attacks. The ministry said the man’s presence in Pakistan raised the “possibility of his abduction from Iran.”The ministry said despite several requests, Pakistan had failed to provide consular access to Yadav, who was arrested last week.