Monthly Archives: August 2018

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, January 2

“Politicians forget the promises made to the families of martyrs. They come to hog limelight at the time of cremation of martyrs and make announcements,” said Komal, daughter of Sanjeevan Rana, a soldier who attained martyrdom in 2016 on this day while defending the Pathankot Indian Air Force (IAF) base from terrorists.

Sanjeevan Rana from Siyunh village in Shahpur area of Kangra district and Jagdish Chand from Gola village in Sihunta area of Chamba district were two soldiers from Himachal who attained martyrdom on January 2, 2016 while fighting terrorists who had attacked Pathankot IAF station.

Ironically, on the Martyrdom Day of the bravehearts these are just the families that remember the martyrs.

Komal, daughter of Sanjeevan Rana, said when her father attained martyrdom a host of politicians came to express remorse. They promised a government job to a family member. However, till date none of the three children of Sanjeevan Rana has been given government job by the state government.

“Our brother after failing to get a job from the state government has joined the Indian army. The family has been pleading with government offices for a government job to my elder sister for the past about four years without any success”, Komal alleged.

She further said that political leaders promised that Government College, Chatri, would be named after her father and a park would be made in his memory. “However, till date neither the college has been named after my father nor the park developed”, she said.

“Shanta Kumar, former Chief Minister, who was earlier a BJP MP from Kangra, had given a grant for installing a tube well and a hand pump in our village in the name of my father. However, neither the tube well nor the hand pump has been installed”, alleged daughter of Sanjeevan Rana. She also said that former minister GS Bali had given a grant of Rs 3 lakh for improvement of facilities at the village cremation ground. However, the funds have been diverted to the adjoining village.

Bindu Rani, village pradhan, alleged that many schemes announced in the name of martyr Sanjeevan Rana had not been implemented as government has not provided land for them.

The family of Jagdish Chand, the other martyr in terror attack, had demanded that the road to their village should be metalled. The residents of Goha village, most of whom were serving in the army, had to walk about two km to reach their village. However, despite announcements by various politicians the demand remains a distant dream.

Mumbai, January 4

Referring to the row over the Rafale purchase deal, former Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa said on Saturday that such controversies slow down defence acquisitions, affecting the armed forces’ capabilities.

Had Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman been flying a Rafale instead of a MiG-21 during the India-Pakistan stand-off after the Balakot strike, the outcome would have been different, he said.

Speaking at the Techfest event organised by IIT-Bombay here, Dhanoa referred to the Rafale row, and said the Supreme Court gave a “fine judgment” on the issue (giving a clean chit to the Naredra Modi government).

“I have always personally maintained that…when the Rafale thing was thrown up, if you politicise the defence acquisition system, the whole system goes behind,” he said.

“All other files also start moving at a slow pace because people start becoming very, very conscious,” he said.

The Bofors deal too got mired in controversy (during the Rajiv Gandhi government) despite the Bofors guns “being good”, he noted.

There are several agencies in the country to look into a deal if there are complaints, he said.

At the same time, the former Air Chief Marshal added that people have the right to ask questions about the price of the aircraft as tax payers’ money is at stake.

“The fact is, because of creating a controversy out of it, the slowing down of defence modernisation later affects you,” said Dhanoa, who retired in September last year.

“Like the Prime Minister made a statement. People are saying it is a political (statement) but the fact is that the statement he made is correct.

“If we had Rafale, the question would have been totally different,” he said.

Modi had said in March last year that the results would have been different if India had Rafale jets during the air strike on terror camps in Pakistan.

Dhanoa said the outcome would have been different had Wing Commander Varthaman, who downed an enemy jet during a dogfight but was captured himself, been flying a Rafale instead of a MiG 21 fighter plane.

“100 per cent it would have been different. Why was he not flying a Rafale? Because you took 10 years to decide which aircraft to buy. So, it (the delay) affects you,” he said, without naming the earlier Congress-led UPA government.

He also reiterated that the governments of the day rejected the IAF’s proposal to carry out air strikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and the earlier 2001 Parliament attack.

“But the decision, like I keep saying, is a political decision. It (the proposal) was not accepted at that time. So it gave the terror-sponsoring state confidence that India will not retaliate to a terrorist attack,” he said.

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) was clueless about the IAF’s strike in Balakot, Dhanoa said.

He said there was a lack of co-ordination between the Pakistani Army and the PAF during the 1971 (Bangladesh) war and the 1999 Kargil war too.

“When Balakot happened, the PAF did not know (about the IAF’s strike). There were no terminal weapons in Balakot.

Even we were surprised,” he added.

Dhanoa also said that terror attacks in Pathankot, Uri and Pulwama indicated that India’s conventional deterrence, “though it is superior to its enemy”, was not stopping the enemy from carrying out terrorist activities on Indian soil.

“Thus, the Balakot strike was approved by the government to send a message to Pakistan that henceforth, such acts will come with a heavy price. The government changed the stand,” he said.

“One of the reasons for the strategic surprise was that they (Pakistan) had always underestimated our leadership.

They never expected our leadership to give a go ahead (to Balakot-like air strike),” he said. PTI

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 30

Army Chief General Bipin Rawat will the first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) of the country, the government announced on Monday. He has been given an extension in service till the period he serves as CDS.

Two days ago, the government had amended service rules to allow CDS to serve till the age of 65. Service Chiefs serve till 62 or have a three-year tenure. General Rawat completes his three-year tenure as Army Chief on Tuesday. He will turn 62 later next year.

Picked as the first CDS of the country, ‘integrating’ the forces will be his prime task. The General, whose father was a senior officer, hails from Uttarakhand. He was commissioned into 5/11 Gorkha Rifles in 1978 on passing out from the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. He was the ‘sword of honour’ of his batch, meaning the best-performing cadet.

In February 2015, when posted as Commander of 3 Corps at Dimapur, he survived a helicopter crash. In December 2016, he was picked as Army Chief, superseding two seniormost Commanders — Eastern Army Commander Lt Gen Parveen Bakshi and Southern Army Commander Lt Gen PM Hariz.

Before that, an Army commander was superseded when Gen AS Vaidya was appointed Army Chief in July 1983. It was during General Rawat’s tenure as Army Chief that India and China were locked in a standoff at Doklam in 2017. It was the second longest standoff between troops of the two countries along the un-demarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The Indian side dug in its heels in the standoff, reminiscent of a similar situation at Sumdorong Chu (October 1986 – May 1987) in the north-western part of Arunachal Pradesh. General Rawat, then a young Major with just eight years of service, watched the moves of General K Sundarji, who launched ‘Operation Falcon’ and moved a brigade, some 3000 men, North of Tawang.

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 3

The Army’s review of its cadre — to decide on strength of officers, pace of promotions and level of ranks — is linked to the outcome of the Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs) which has been proposed to the government, the newly appointed Army Chief Gen MM Naravane told The Tribune on Friday evening.

The last cadre review was conducted in 1984. The recommendations of the Ajai Vikram Singh Committee for reducing age profile of commanding officers by two years following the Kargil war in 1999 had resulted in an increase in higher designations. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission had also suggested periodic review of the cadre.

“A committee is looking into cadre review, but its outcome will depend on the IBGs,” said the Army Chief, adding that the approval for the integrated groups was awaited. “After the approval, it would take two years to set up an IBG,” the Army Chief said.

The IBG is the biggest restructuring of the Army’s offensive capabilities since the ‘Cold Start doctrine’ was drafted after the Operation Parakaram in 2001. It will involve integration of existing elements of infantry, tank regiments, artillery, UAVs, engineers and signals.

The IBG is expected to bring a significant operational change in the Army. The Army has carried out two field tests — one under 9 Corps in the Pathankot sector and the other in the Northeast using the mountain strike corps.

On the issue of the opening avenues for soldiers, General Naravane said training was being given to young jawans who wanted to appear for test to become officers. “We will not lower the selection standard, but are providing them Services Selection Board-level education to take the test and have more opportunities. There is an age limit,” he said.

On being asked if any changes were being considered in policies for grading officers, the Army Chief said, “Every evaluation system has to work. We are keeping an eye on sudden increase or decrease of grading by the seniors.”

On taxing pensions of disabled soldiers, the General said “The matter is with the Ministry of Defence.”

BY MICHAEL KUGELMAN

Turmoil is never far away in South Asia, between disputed borders, acute resource shortages, and threats ranging from extremist violence to earthquakes. But in 2019, two crises stood out: an intensifying war in Afghanistan and deep tensions between India and Pakistan. And as serious as both were in 2019, expect them to get even worse in the coming year.

Afghanistan has already seen several grim milestones in the last 12 months that attested to the ferocity of the Taliban insurgency. Casualty figures for Afghan security forces and civilians set new records. It was also the deadliest year for U.S. forces since 2014.

Ironically, violence soared even as there was unprecedented momentum toward launching a peace process. U.S. President Donald Trump, eager to exit Afghanistan, stepped up efforts to secure a deal with the Taliban that would give him the political cover for a troop withdrawal. U.S. negotiators and senior Taliban representatives held multiple rounds of talks, and by September the two sides were finalizing a deal that centered on a withdrawal of U.S. troops coupled with a commitment by the Taliban to renounce ties to international terror groups.However, in September, Trump abruptly called off talks, giving a recent Taliban attack on a U.S. soldier as the reason. The likelier explanation, as I wrote for Foreign Policy back then, was the administration’s recognition that the emerging accord with the Taliban—which didn’t call for any type of cease-fire—was a lousy deal for Washington and Kabul.

The suspension of talks didn’t last long. Trump announced plans to scale up offensives against the Taliban, but this was more of a bargaining tactic than a battlefield redirection. Washington wanted to increase military pressure on the Taliban so that the insurgents would make more concessions at the negotiating table—such as the cease-fire they had refused to agree to earlier. Indeed, several days after Trump made a surprise Thanksgiving visit to Afghanistan, talks resumed—and this time with U.S. negotiators aiming to get a Taliban commitment to reduce violence against U.S. troops.During the last few days of December, media reports revealed that the Taliban had agreed to a temporary ceasefire to clear the way for a deal with the United States. The Taliban, however, rejected these reports.

Meanwhile, 2019 was a dangerously tense year for India and Pakistan—two rivals that are both neighbors and nuclear states. In February, a young Kashmiri man in the town of Pulwama staged a suicide bombing that killed more than three dozen Indian security forces—the deadliest such attack in Kashmir in three decades. Jaish-e-Mohammad—a Pakistan-based terror group with close ties to Pakistan’s security establishment—claimed responsibility. India retaliated by sending jets across Pakistan-administered Kashmir and launching limited strikes, for the first time since a war in 1971. Soon thereafter, Pakistan claimed it had carried out six air strikes in Kashmir to showcase its might, and it also shot down an Indian fighter jet and captured the pilot. The confrontation, which de-escalated when Islamabad announced the pilot’s release several days later, represented the most serious exchange of hostilities in years.

Then, in August, India revoked the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, the India-administered part of Kashmir, and declared it a new territory of India. New Delhi also imposed a security lockdown in Kashmir that included the detention of hundreds of people and a communication blackout. For Islamabad, which claims Jammu and Kashmir as its own, the move amounted to a serious provocation, if not a hostile act. Pakistan retaliated by expelling India’s envoy from Islamabad and suspending trade with New Delhi. Undaunted, in the weeks that followed, senior Indian officials—including the defense and foreign ministers—turned their attention to Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which New Delhi has long claimed, and suggested they eventually planned to reclaim it.

Bilateral relations remained fraught over the last few months of the year. Islamabad issued constant broadsides against New Delhi for its continued security lockdown in Kashmir. By year’s end, an internet blackout was still in effect. Then, in December, India’s parliament passed a controversial new citizenship law that affords fast-track paths to Indian citizenship for religious minorities—but not Muslims—fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The new law angered Islamabad not just for excluding Muslims, but because of the implication—accurate but not something Islamabad likes to admit—that Pakistan persecutes its Hindu and Christian communities.

These prolonged tensions often overshadowed what was arguably the biggest story in both countries in 2019: economic struggle. India suffered its biggest economic slowdown in six years, and Pakistan confronted a serious debt crisis. The two weren’t unconnected: Given the inability of New Delhi and Islamabad to fix their economies, both governments arguably sought political advantages from the distractions of saber rattling.

Against this tense backdrop, the opening in November of a new border corridor that enables Indian Sikhs to enter Pakistan visa-free to worship at a holy shrine, which in better times could have been a bridge to an improved relationship, amounted to little more than a one-off humanitarian gesture.

Bad as these crises are, they are poised to get worse next year.

The good news for Americans is that a U.S.-Taliban deal likely isn’t far off; both sides are fully invested in a troop withdrawal. For Trump, the importance of troop departures will grow as the U.S. presidential election draws closer, and especially because the Washington Post’s release in December of the “Afghanistan Papers”—documents that feature senior U.S. officials admitting failure in the war—will likely solidify U.S. public opinion in favor of winding down America’s role in the 18-year war.

However, any U.S.-Taliban deal will do little to reduce violence, other than halting attacks on U.S. troops. In other words, the war will continue.

A U.S.-Taliban accord would clear the path for an intra-Afghan dialogue between the Afghan government, other political stakeholders, and the Taliban that aims to produce a cease-fire and an eventual political settlement that ends the war.

The path to intra-Afghan dialogue, however, is fraught with obstacles. Afghanistan held a presidential election in September. The preliminary results—released in December—showed President Ashraf Ghani in the lead, but with barely the 50 percent of votes needed to avoid a second round of voting with the second-place finisher, his bitter rival Abdullah Abdullah (who rejected the results). The close margin suggests that when final results are announced, the loser won’t accept them.

This means Afghanistan is unlikely to have a new government in place for at least another few months, and even longer if the final results are different from the initial ones and require a second vote. Due to winter weather in Afghanistan, a runoff likely wouldn’t occur until the spring. Without a new government in place, it beggars belief that Afghanistan could launch a process to establish an intra-Afghan dialogue, much less negotiate an end to the war. And even if and when an intra-Afghan dialogue is launched, the hardest of sells will be required to convince the Taliban to lay down arms and agree to share power within a political system that it has long rejected and vowed to overthrow by force.

Consequently, Afghanistan in 2020 is likely to see a withdrawal of U.S. forces before a peace agreement is in place—a demoralizing outcome for already struggling Afghan forces that would deliver another boost to the Taliban and further increase violence.

Meanwhile, the underlying tensions between India and Pakistan remain sharp. Pakistan arrested dozens of Islamist militants this past year, but New Delhi wasn’t convinced Islamabad was taking strong and “irreversible” steps against India-focused terrorists and their networks. And New Delhi’s actions in Kashmir in 2019 represented worst-case scenarios for Islamabad.

The two nuclear-armed nations will enter 2020 just one big trigger event away from war. The trigger could be another mass-casualty attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir traced back to a Pakistan-based group, or—acting on the threats issued repeatedly by New Delhi in 2019—an Indian preemptive operation to seize territory in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The two nuclear-armed nations will enter 2020 just one big trigger event away from war. The trigger could be another mass-casualty attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir traced back to a Pakistan-based group, or—acting on the threats issued repeatedly by New Delhi in 2019—an Indian preemptive operation to seize territory in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

In either scenario, escalation would be swift. Bilateral relations are much worse than they were during last February’s confrontation. Ever since its resounding reelection victory last spring, India’s ruling party has pursued its Hindu nationalist agenda in increasingly aggressive fashion—which gives it no incentive to go easy on Islamabad. Pakistan, not wanting to show weakness, will not give in easily.

The doomsday clock for the next India-Pakistan war is at a minute to midnight. Diplomatic intervention from Washington and other third parties, and cooler heads on both sides, may keep it from ticking further forward. But it’s hard to see a path to unraveling such tightly knotted tensions—or to solving Afghanistan’s unending conflict.

Source: Strategic Study India

Tribune News Service
Doda, January 2

At a time when the government and local sports bodies have failed to organise sports events across Doda and Kishtwar, the Army is extending help to the youth waiting to showcase their talent during winter vacations.

Cricket, kabaddi, race and other such events have either been organised or are in the pipeline to tap the talent of J&K.

In November, the Army organised a kabaddi tournament for the people of Doda and a cricket tournament for the age group below 20 is in progress at the sports stadium Doda, which the 10 RR of Indian Army has organised.

“We want the youth to take benefit of winter vacations and showcase their talent in whatever way they can. The 4-sector of the Army is organising different events in Doda and the cricket tournament is one of the events,” said a Major-rank officer.

“On January 26, a 5-km race from Pul-Doda to Doda will be organised to mark the Republic Day celebrations and the winner will be awarded with a cash prize,” he added.

In the past, winter months used to be a blessing for the youth of Doda and Kishtwar as different sports events were being organised to provide an opportunity to the youth to remain engaged. But for the past few years, everything has come to a grinding halt. Neither the government nor the local sports bodies are coming forward to organise such events.

“It is a fact that we have enough talent in this part of the country but we are not being provided the opportunities to showcase it. Like the Army, others should also come forward to help the youth of the area,” said Irshad Hussain, a youth who is participating in the cricket tournament organised by the Army.