Monthly Archives: August 2018

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 30

After decades of sustained deployment in some of the highest operational areas in the world, the Army is now exploring the feasibility of developing hybrid vehicles for use in high altitude areas to overcome the problems of degraded performance and high attrition that combustion engines face due to extreme cold and rarified air.

Army Design Bureau (ADB), the nodal agency dealing with the project, has flagged the issue for urgent redressal by the industry or research institutes as there is effective means to mitigate the problem as yet. ADB is the repository of all technical know-how for the Army and is the interface between government and private establishments for design, development and innovations.

At present, special grade fuel and oil is being used in high altitude areas, but these are not very effective during peak winters from November to March, often leading to vehicles becoming off-road.

Many areas where the Army is deployed — Ladakh, Kargil, Lahaul and Spiti, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh — experience sub-zero temperatures for several months in a year.

The engine horse power of conventional vehicles drops considerably in high altitude areas due to lack of air density and pressure. Further, due to extreme low temperature fuel and oil freeze or their viscosity increase, thereby affecting flow through the engine hoses or blocking injectors and filters increasing the risk of seizure, according to an Army engineer. Lubrication of engines and other moving parts is also affected, leading to frequent change of parts.

Hybrid vehicles with dual power source can overcome such problems as electric drive achieves greater efficiency in stop and go mission profiles as compared to conventional engines. The regenerative braking resources stores power as electrical energy resulting in greater fuel efficiency and an electric motor can generate instantaneous power for better off road maneuvering, engineers said.

Hybrid vehicles are a relatively new concept in India that is available in some passenger cars, but it is restricted to start and stop functions rather than drive power. The US Army is also said to be developing hybrid vehicles.

P Stobdan
Former Ambassador 

Protecting Ladakh against prolonged troubles in Kashmir was long overdue and so was the imperative of addressing some of the aspirations of the people there. Ladakh holds 60 per cent of J&K’s territory and plays critical role for national security that can’t be overlooked. Also inconceivable has been how Independent India (at the behest of Nehru) reduced Ladakh’s profile of being one of the five kingdoms in the Himalayas into a mere neglected district of the Valley.

Joseph Korbel, father of former US Secretary of State Madelaine Albright, wrote in 1950 that Kashmiri leadership was playing a trick on the people of Ladakh, if not frightening them to surrender under their control. For seven decades, New Delhi has turned a blind eye to Kashmiri sabre-rattling and the trickery upon the people of Ladakh — perhaps even worse than Pakistanis’ exploitation of the people in Gilgit & Baltistan. In the late 1970s, Sheikh Abdullah drove a wedge between Kargil Shia versus Leh Buddhist, besides creating a nefarious ‘Greater Kashmir’ concept to obliterate Ladakh.

The myth of J&K as a unitary state (a heritage of Dogra fiefdom) has outlived its historical inviolability. India should have thought about doing away with any subjugation links that Ladakh notionally had with J&K. After persistent articulation for the status of a UT, the Union government finally agreed in 1993, as interim measure, to create the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council. In 1995, the Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs announced the Act enacted by the President under the powers conferred by Section 3 of the Jammu and Kashmir State Legislature (Delegation of Powers) Act, 1992, to provide for the establishment of Autonomous Hill Development Councils and an Inter-District Advisory Council in the Ladakh region. 

The Act had to be passed during the phase of the third and longest Governor’s Rule (1990-1996). But the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) Act in 1997, passed by the NC government, was toothless. It was in 2002, during the time of the PDP-led coalition government in J&K, that a semblance of power was devolved to LAHDC of Leh district through an amendment to the 1997 Act.

It was remarkable that then CM, Mufti Sayeed, within two months of his coming to power, decided to delegate greater financial and administrative powers to LAHDC (Leh) and create a similar LAHDC for Kargil as well. Under the new Act, the LAHDC chief executive councillor was given the status and perks of a Cabinet minister and executive councillors of a deputy minister’s rank. The council was empowered to decide on the allotment and distribution of land, superintendence and control over the council employees. 

The LAHDCs of Leh and Kargil have been functioning well, rather in an exemplary way since. But in a major decision on September 27, the State Administrative Council (SAC) — equivalent of a Cabinet in Governor’s rule, under the chairmanship of Governor Satya Pal Malik, has approved yet another LAHDC (Amendment) Bill, 2018, to fully empower the councils with greater administrative and financial powers. Inter alia, the amendments gave more powers to the LAHDC to levy and collect taxes, more administrative control over the staff and more allocation and flow of funds from Centrally-sponsored schemes.

While the people of Ladakh had been seeking a separate legislative arrangement in the form of a UT status since 1951, which the ruling BJP agreed to fulfil prior to 2014, constitutional changes seem unattainable. Since the matter is perceived as linked with the Kashmir issue, it can’t be realised for now. Regions like Ladakh, which are in favour of deeper integration with the national mainstream, cannot be allowed to drift against the current context of destabilising forces in the state.

The Centre also cannot punish the region any longer on the ground of its demographic deficiency (low weight in electoral politics). Considering Ladakh’s geo-strategic significance and in the light of Pakistan recently promulgating the Gilgit Baltistan Order 2018 (entrusting it with an assembly with legislative power) a change in Ladakh is critical. New Delhi has to be mindful of China blustering its way through the region under its CPEC projects which will have direct consequences for Ladakh.

While UT status would remain a long-drawn process, strategic articulation and national security imperative should propel the government to upgrade the administrative status of Ladakh at least to a divisional level. Currently, only a DC-level officer in Leh and Kargil acts as the chief executive officer of the respective council, who, in turn, reports to the Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir and Ladakh based in Srinagar. The Commissioner sitting in Kashmir supervises and controls 12 districts, including Leh and Kargil, in terms of administrative, developmental and law and order situation.

Separating Ladakh from Kashmir Division and setting up a Divisional Commissioner’s office will go a long way in meeting the regional aspirations of the people. The launch of the overarching national vision of a tunnel through Zoji La (11,578 ft), connecting the Valley with Ladakh, in addition to building a high-elevation all-weather Bilaspur-Manali-Leh rail axis and Srinagar-Kargil-Leh axis will go a long way in removing Ladakh’s isolation. The projects are of great strategic, economic and developmental significance. The biggest spin-off will be the region opening up to better influx for tourism.

New Delhi, October 27

The Centre has filed in the Supreme Court details of the decision-making process for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets in a fly-away condition from France’s Dassault Aviation.

The details of the decision-making process were submitted to the Secretary General of the Supreme Court on Friday in a sealed cover as directed by it on October 10 while hearing a PIL by advocate ML Sharma.

The Supreme Court had on October 10 asked the government to disclose details of the decision-making process for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets.

Directing that the information would be furnished in a sealed cover and reach the court by October 29, the court had said that it was not issuing notice to the respondents.

The court had sought information from the government as Attorney General KK Venugopal said the purchase of the French fighter aircraft concerned the national security and described the petition as a “political interest litigation” which had been filed when the government and opposition were locked in a severe political fight.

Addressing the court, PIL petitioner advocate ML Sharma had referred to the pricing of the aircraft that had been quoted at different points of time before different forums to drive home the point that price being paid by India was high.

He had taken the court through the history of deal initially starting in 2008, involvement of a corporate house before finally the deal for purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft in a fit-to-fly condition was signed. IANS

innovative change is the acme of military effectiveness. However, much depends on the circumstances dictating such change and the process adopted.

Lt-Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd)

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, October 29

Setting aside the lateral shifting of an Air Marshal to the post of Director General Medical Services (Army), the Supreme Court on Monday directed that the senior-most officer in line, Lt Gen Manomoy Ganguly, be appointed to the said post.

On August 10, the government posted Air Marshal Rajvir Singh then DGMS (Air Force) as the DGMS (Army) in the rank of Lieutenant General. Medical officers are rotated amongst the three services and don the uniform and ranks of the service they are posted to.

This was challenged by Lt Gen Ganguly, recently promoted from the rank of Major General after a court battle, on grounds of seniority and merit. The issue of the appointment of DGMS (Army) has seen several rounds of litigation in the Armed Forces Tribunal and the apex court that had also resulted in the appointment of another Lieutenant General being quashed earlier.

“We are of the opinion that the process undertaken by the respondents in taking decision to appoint Air Marshal Rajvir Singh as DGMS (Army) does not stand judicial scrutiny. We are constrained to set aside the appointment,” a Bench comprising Justice AK Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan ruled.

Pointing out that the first fundamental error occurred in lateral shifting of Air Marshal Rajvir and considering his candidature along with others, the Bench said it was contrary to guidelines that permitted lateral shifting only in exceptional circumstances, which did not exist in the instant case.

Remarking that it failed to understand why the methodology of Overall Average Performance (OAP) was thought of by the Army Chief to adjudge comparative merit of officers in the fray when, concededly ACR grading has never been used as a criteria for posting of a Lieutenant General officer earlier, the Bench said the OAP mechanism was foreign to the Army’s selection guidelines.

The case

• On August 10, the government had posted Air Marshal Rajvir Singh, then DGMS (Air Force), as the DGMS (Army) in the rank of Lieutenant General
• This was challenged by Lt Gen Manomoy Ganguly, recently promoted from the rank of Major General after a court battle, on grounds of seniority and merit.

New Delhi, October 27

Congress president Rahul Gandhi today met a delegation of ex-servicemen and promised them to implement One Rank, One Pension (OROP) if his party was elected to power. He attacked the PM for “giving a gift of Rs 30,000 crore to inexperienced Anil Ambani in the Rafale deal, but not giving Rs 8,300 crore that would be enough to implement the OROP”.

“All ex-servicemen said the BJP government has not implemented the OROP. They also spoke about the situation in J&K, the non-strategic approach of the government, the divisions created there and the cost being paid by our soldiers. They also discussed Rafale. And these are connected,” Rahul said. — TNS