Monthly Archives: August 2018

Guwahati, June 8

Kargil war veteran Md Sanaullah, who was declared a “foreigner” by a tribunal in Assam last month, walked out of a detention centre today, a day after the Gauhati High Court granted him bail.

After his release, Sanaullah was taken to the office of the Kamrup SP at Amingaon to complete formalities, as per directions of the court, a senior official said. Later in the day, his family members and well-wishers escorted him to his home in the Boko area of the district, the official said. The Foreigners’ Tribunal at Boko had declared Sanaullah a “foreigner” on May 23 and sent him to the detention centre. — PTI

Jammu, June 4

Chief of Army Staff Gen Bipin Rawat on Tuesday reviewed the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir and exhorted troops to remain vigilant against the nefarious designs of anti-national elements.

General Rawat had accompanied Rajnath Singh on his first official visit as the Union Defence Minister to the Siachen glacier on Monday. The Army Chief visited the White Knight Corps headquarters along with Northern Command chief Lt Gen Ranbir Singh to review the operational preparedness of the forces in the Corps Zone, an official said.

He visited operational formations in Kishtwar and Reasi sectors wherein he was briefed on actions being undertaken to ensure peace and stability.

General Rawat also interacted at length with soldiers who are deployed on the Line of Control and obtained ground feedback on operations. — PTI

Pays obeisance at Vaishno Devi shrine 

Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat on Tuesday paid obeisance at the holy shrine of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi in Katra. The Army Chief was accompanied by officers and Simrandeep Singh, Chief Executive Officer, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board.

While the word Panthic has a pervasive, inclusive and all-embracing meaning, it is unfortunately colloquially used in a political context by sectarian forces to try and erroneously divide politics and political constituencies between the Sikhs and non-Sikhs.

Manish Tewari
Member of Parliament, Anandpur Sahib

The Indian National Congress decided to field me from the Sri Anandpur Sahib parliamentary constituency in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.  Sri Anandpur Sahib is steeped in history.

Takht Sri Keshgarh Sahib, situated in the historic city of Anandpur Sahib, is among the most revered places of worship for the Sikhs. On the day of Baisakhi, April 13, 1699, Guru Gobind Singh initiated his followers into the order of the Khalsa. The Guru requested those present to volunteer their heads to him. When five brave men, now known as the Panj Piare (five beloved ones), came forward to lay down their lives, the Guru instead baptised them with amrit (holy water). The city of Anandpur Sahib began life as Chakk Nanaki, and was founded by Guru Tegh Bahadur in 1665. His son and the tenth Master, Guru Gobind Singh, spent 25 years of his life in this city.

The constituency is also home to the notable city of Chamkaur Sahib. The Battle of Chamkaur Sahib was fought between the Khalsa Army led by Guru Gobind Singh and the imperial Mughal forces commanded by Wazir Khan in 1704. It is here that Guru Gobind Singh’s two elder sons, Sahibzadas — Ajit Singh and Jujhar Singh– aged 18 and 14 years old, respectively, attained martyrdom while leading from the front. 

Hindus and Sikhs alike revere the historic shrine of Naina Devi, just 20 kilometers from Anandpur Sahib. Similarly, Khuralgarh Sahib is one of the most prominent places for the Ravidasia community. Situated in Garhshanker, Khuralgarh Sahib is also called Charan Choh Ganga Sri Guru Ravidas ji. The constituency also houses the ancestral village of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh — Khatkar Kalan—where a memorial stands in his honour.  The constituency is also the crucible of the mighty Bhakra Nangal dam that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru described as a temple of modern India.

Into these riveting currents of history and nationalism, I plunged headlong on April 15, 2019, after paying obeisance at the birthplace of the Khalsa. Right from the word go, my opponents started running a malicious and personalised campaign against me. The first attack was that I was an outsider, from Uttar Pradesh, since my surname ‘Tewari’ is found more in UP than in Punjab, who had just no business of contesting from a Panthic seat. Tewari is as much a common surname in Punjab as Pathak, Awasthi and Shukla. While the word panthic has a pervasive, inclusive and all embracing meaning, it is unfortunately colloquially used in a political context by sectarian forces to try and erroneously divide politics and political constituencies between the Sikhs and non-Sikhs. 

What was conveniently swept aside was that this is Guru Gobind Singh’s land who said: “Manas ki jat sabhe eke paihcanbo – recognise all of mankind as a single caste of humanity”.

What was also ignored was that my late mother Dr Amrit Kaur Tewari, a respected doctor, was a Jat Sikh and that my father late Dr VN Tewari was a distinguished scholar of Punjabi and a nominated Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) who fell to the bullets of terrorists. He was the standard-bearer of Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat and had written a widely quoted book in the late 1960s that had established that the pre-eminent language of Chandigarh is Punjabi. It was buried in the sands of amnesia that I had been a Member of Parliament from Ludhiana earlier and had represented Punjab in the Union Council of Ministers.

The next attack came in the form of an anonymous highly defamatory and insidious video that was circulated on social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. The sinister video alleged that the petrol to burn Sikhs in Delhi in November 1984 had come from my late father’s petrol pump. The video went viral in the constituency and across the world.  The fact that my late father was assassinated on April 3, 1984, by terrorists at our residence in Chandigarh a full seven months before the horrendous and macabre orgy of violence that unfolded in New Delhi and the fact that we have never ever owned a petrol pump in three generations did not stand in the way of my opponents spreading lies.  The police registered an FIR and arrested some disseminators of this malevolent video but the authors of it still remain at large.

With defeat staring my opponents in the face, they launched one final assault a day before polling. They faked my voice and put out another revolting video on social media platforms where I was ostensibly saying odious things about certain communities. I registered yet another FIR against the miscreants, though the producers and disseminators of this video still remain at large at the time of writing. All through this sustained assault, no social media platform took any responsibility for the dissemination of content on their platforms that could have brought my family and me to bodily harm in addition to whatever the political consequences could have been.

All through this Bacchanalia of odium and hate, I went about my campaign connecting with the people by looking deep into their eyes. However, in the eyes of the ordinary men and women, Sikh and non-Sikh alike, all I saw was love, care and compassion as I had seen during my earlier parliamentary campaigns in 2004 and 2009. They embraced me, blessed me as a human being surmounting all prejudices of caste, creed, religion and other forms of bigotry that divide us. No repulsive propaganda seemed to have had any impact on them whatsoever.

It once again reinforced what a Hindu father and a Jat Sikh mother had taught me and my younger sister in our growing up years in Chandigarh that the essence of Punjab is — Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat. If there is truly a secular state in India, it is Punjab and I am honoured to be among the torchbearers of our composite culture.

Exchange of firing is on. Tribune file photo

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, June 30

A militant was on Sunday killed in a gunfight with security forces in Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir, the police said.

Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Bugam area of Budgam district in central Kashmir Sunday morning following specific inputs about the presence of militants there, a police official said.

He said as the forces were conducting searches, the militants fired upon them.

The forces retaliated, ensuing an encounter in which one militant was killed, the official said.

He said the body has been recovered along with arms and ammunition, adding the identity and group affiliation of the slain ultra was being ascertained.

The Indian army has revised its policy for the p ..

Read more at:
https://www.businessinsider.in/indian-army-brings-in-new-rules-for-its-officers-and-jawans-for-csd-facility/articleshow/69988073.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

From June 1, only vehicles with an engine capacity up to 2,500 CC and costing up to Rs 12 lakh will be available through Canteen Stores Department for serving and retired officers of Indian defence forces.

http://

Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
Gwalior, June 24

Just 24 hours before the Indian Air Force launched the airstrikes on Balakot in Pakistan, the Mirage 2000 fighter jet base at Gwalior was abuzz with activity.

The young pilots knew something was on since they had been sent on regular combat air patrols at night. Like all other fighter bases in North India, Gwalior was on operational readiness after the February 14 terror attack on a CRPF convoy, that killed 40 troops at Pulwama.

Around 4 pm on February 25, things became clear when technical teams started to ‘feed’ the Spice 2000 bombs with geo-coordinates of the Jaish-e-Mohammad terror camp, which was finally attacked some 12 hours later at 3.30 am on February 26.

A small chip in the Spice 2000 holds the key information on how the bomb will travel and hit the target. After its release, it travels on an inbuilt ‘seeking device’ to hit the target. “No target was missed,” say the teams.

The town hosts three squadrons of Mirage 2000 — BattleAxes, Tigers, Wolfpack.

That night, the strike pack flew off at 2 am, like on a combat patrol. A small number of Sukhoi 30 MKI fighter jets showed up at the western front over Rajasthan. In this backdrop, the Mirage pilots flew almost behind the Himalayan ridge line to avoid Pakistani radars.

The last “90 seconds” of the mission meant every  communication equipment was switched off. The pilots then turned back. Some landed at Agra, some at Adampur. Their mates back in Gwalior were all smiles,  this was the first hit into Pakistan since the 1971 Indo-Pak War.

For feb 26 air attack

The Mirage 2000 jets were armed with two separate types of Israeli ammunition.  While the Spice 2000 is designed to penetrate deep inside the structures, the Crystal Maze was to send back video feed.

When pak tried to repeat kargil in 2002

Gwalior: The IAF on Monday publically admitted that Pakistan tried to repeat a Kargil-type intrusion in July-August 2002, but was rebuffed. IAF jets straffed Pakistan occupation some 3-4 kms on the Indian side of Line of Control in ‘Kel’ sector in north-west part of J&K. Air Marshal Rajesh Kumar, who is commanding Central Air Command, said, “We wanted to send a message without declaring war. It was a secret affair.” TNS

War-footing: Soldiers of 15th Ludhiana Sikhs were among the first Indian troops to disembark at Marseille. Photo courtesy: USI, New Delhi

Singapore, June 21

Sikhs in the United Kingdom have demanded a war memorial to be dedicated to the martyred community members who fought for the British during World Wars I and II, a senior community member has said.

Statistical data has been used effectively to lobby the government and other public authorities to ensure that a space can be found in central London for the memorial, Jasvir Singh, who chaired the British Sikh Report 2019, said.

“A vast majority of Sikhs want to have a war memorial in central London dedicated to Sikhs who died in the First and Second World Wars,” he said.

“There have been memorials that have been made across the country as well and dedicated to those who died in the two wars,” he said.

Singh was in Singapore to attend the International Conference on Cohesive Societies from June 19-21.

Singh leads the ‘Grand Trunk Project’ which brings Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh communities of British-Asian heritage, along with smaller communities from the Subcontinent, together in dialogue and understanding.

In his work on Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims as minority in the UK, Singh hopes “that people are able to see the similarities, respect and celebrate the differences”. Expressing his views on the 100th anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, he referred to the British Sikh Report 2019 and said 85 per cent of British Sikhs believe that events like this should be taught in schools in the United Kingdom.

According to the survey in the report, 79 per cent of respondents believe that the British Government should apologise for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

“This view was shared across the age groups with those aged 19 and under and those aged 65 or more, (who) most likely to want an apology,” Singh said.

The survey included nearly 2,500 respondents spread across the United Kingdom. PTI

New Delhi, June 18

Reversing a two-year-old order, the government today okayed the restoration of ration supply in kind for officers of the armed forces.

In July 2017, the government had stopped rations to officers on peace postings and instead started giving a monetary allowance per man per month as per instructions.

The allowance for the ongoing fiscal was Rs 117.29 per month. The decision had led to confusion as officers on peace posting frequently went out with their units for field exercises, where their troops were getting rations, but they had to make “own arrangements”. 

In the Army, when in a field exercise or on a forward location, the officers are supposed to have the same food as the troops. Similarly, some of the special forces of the Army, Navy and the IAF are based in what are classified as “peace postings” but are constantly training and the troops and officers again eat the same food. A large chunk of the forces, especially the Army, is deployed in forward areas.

The move had outraged the serving community and a serving Colonel sent a legal notice to the government, warning he would go to court if the order was not rolled back. 

Officers are required to have a daily calorie intake of 1,800 to 2,000, which was not possible with the allowance.

And the existing supply of rations was not resulting in a major fiscal outgo as bulk purchases meant cheaper rates of items. The forces have ‘scale’ of ration, which could be two eggs a day, some grams of chicken or mutton, or paneer and fresh vegetables. — TNS

Washington, June 8

The Trump administration has approved sale of armed drones to India and has offered integrated air and missile defence systems aimed at helping the country boost military capabilities and protect shared security interests in strategically important Indo-Pacific region.

The approval-cum-offer from the US came in the aftermath of the February 14 Pulwama attack in which 40 Indian soldiers were killed and the increasing militarisation and assertiveness of China in the Indo-Pacific ocean.

During the June 2017 meeting between PM Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump, the US had agreed to sell surveillance version of the Guardian drones. India was first non-treaty partner to be offered a MTCR Category-1 Unmanned Aerial System, the Sea Guardian UAS made by General Atomics. — PTI