Monthly Archives: August 2018

New Delhi: Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General MM Naravane will embark on a four-day visit to the United Kingdom and Italy from July 5 to 8.

He will be inaugurating the Indian Army Memorial in the famous town of Cassino and will be briefed at the Italian Army’s Counter IED Centre of Excellence at Cecchingola, Rome.

As per the Ministry of Defence, during the four-day visit, he will be meeting his counterparts and senior military leaders of these countries with an aim of enhancing India’s defence cooperation.

His visit to the United Kingdom is scheduled for two days (July 5 and 6) during which the COAS will interact with the Secretary of State for Defence, Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of General Staff and other dignitaries.

He will also be visiting various army formations where he will exchange ideas on issues of mutual interest.

During the second leg of his tour (July 7 and 8), the Army Chief will be holding important discussions with the Chief of Defence Staff and Chief of Staff of the Italian Army.

Also read: Drones pose new challenge, more state and non-state actors will use them: Army chief Naravane

Henceforth, drones may be Pakistan’s preferred means for executing attacks due to the inherent advantages of deniability and economy of effort. Therefore, there can be no let-up on our side in ensuring foolproof protective and counter measures. A strategic message must go to Pakistan that lack of a strong Indian response cannot be taken for granted.

High time: Tech-based counter drone systems should be deployed across vulnerable areas to detect and destroy hostile drones. File photo

Lt Gen Philip Campose (Retd)

The June 27 terror attack on the Jammu airfield, using two small quadcopter drones, could well signify an escalation of the terrorist threat from Pakistan, which employs multiple dimensions — land, air, water and cyber — to reach the targets in India.

In the past, terrorist modules have mostly used the land route to infiltrate and reach their targets. Occasionally, maritime routes have been used — the Mumbai terror attack of November 2008 being the most prominent example.

This drone attack is the first known case of the use of the aerial route, possibly employing ‘off-the-shelf’ autonomous drones equipped with GPS sensors to bypass the checkpoints on the land route as well as the perimeter fencing and protective measures.

Alternatively, if these drones were ground-controlled, it implies that the controllers could be within a few kilometres of the target area. Such use of the aerial route by Pakistani terrorists to deliver explosive payloads to the target area poses special challenges due to the enhanced potential of wreaking damage to sensitive targets and assets — as experienced at the Russian bases of Hmeimim and Tartus in Syria and Caracas (Venezuela) in 2018 and in the Saudi oilfields in 2019. To that extent, the attempted drone strike can be described as a sudden escalation in terrorist capacity and efforts.

Defence installations, especially those close to the border, have been the preferred targets of Pakistan-based terrorist organisations because of the publicity and support it fetches them. Moreover, if these attacks are successful, as has happened on some occasions, it could lead to the lowering of the morale of the targeted units and the general public.

Significantly, the protective measures implemented by the forces after the January 2016 attack on the Pathankot airfield, based on the recommendations of the committee convened to review the security of the defence installations, have largely succeeded in preventing infiltration along the land and maritime routes from reaching the military targets.

To that extent, in keeping with the global trends, the use of armed drones was predictable, more so as there were recent reports of elements from Pakistan using drones for smuggling or carrying weapons across the border.

The Indian Air Force was fortunate that the drone attack against the Jammu airfield caused negligible damage. Nonetheless, the message was clear. Possibly, in view of the recent lack of success of their human terror modules in executing attacks, Pakistan has introduced another low-cost means of carrying out such attacks against Indian targets. The use of drones also enables deniability by Pakistan state agencies, which, predictably, will deny totally or ascribe responsibility to non-state actors.

This latest incident, therefore, can be described as another in the long list of hostile and provocative actions against India by Pakistan, which, as usual, has feigned ignorance about the attack. It appears that the aim of this attack was not only to cause damage/casualties and instil insecurity in military units close to the border but also to try and compel India and its armed forces to divert disproportionate attention and resources to deal with this threat.

On a higher plane, it would not be far-fetched to infer that the strike could be aimed at diverting capital funds from those aimed at modernising the Indian military to further beefing up protective measures opposite the Pakistan borders. Thus, the Indian security establishment and the armed forces must learn the right lessons. What are the lessons learnt from the latest drone-based terror strike?

First, it has been validated once again that Pakistan and its proxies will continue to carry out cross-border terror attacks against sensitive targets in India, especially against security establishments in the vicinity of the border. Henceforth, drones may be the preferred means for executing such attacks due to the inherent advantages of deniability and economy of effort.

Therefore, there can be no let-up on our side in ensuring foolproof protective and counter measures. More importantly, whatever its intent, a strategic message must go to Pakistan that lack of a strong Indian response cannot be taken for granted and Pakistan would invite appropriate retaliation across multiple dimensions if it continues with such misdeeds.

Secondly, it is time that a review of the security of defence and other sensitive establishments close to the border is conducted, this time with focus on the aerial threat from drones. Low-technology drones, due to their small size and ‘dumb’ nature, pose special challenges for detection and engagement by conventional systems. While technology should play a leading role in dealing with the threat, the thrust should also be on low-cost, easily deployable physical measures which would be easier to implement. The responsibility for coordinating measures to deal with the aerial threat should be with the Indian Air Force. Air defence assets and counter-drone measures of the other services should be coordinated by the Air Force.

Thirdly, it is high time that technology-based counter-drone systems are deployed across vulnerable areas to detect and destroy hostile drones. Counter-drone technology involving radars, acoustic mechanisms, radio frequency devices and electro-optical methodology, or a combination of such sensors, should be deployed at the earliest. Priority for such induction should be given to sensitive installations with high-value assets close to the border.

Over the last few years, especially after armed drones achieved a devastating effect in sub-conventional conflicts in West Asia and in conventional war conditions in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict, it is a given that both state and non-state actors would choose to acquire and employ armed drones in conflict situations.

Hence, the efforts to induct armed drones into the armed forces’ inventory should be given an impetus. To that extent, available conventional systems must be reconfigured to deal with this sub-conventional threat.

Finally, this attack should serve as a wake-up call to our security establishment. We have to be prepared for the eventuality that the next attack(s) may be more sophisticated and lethal, using better technology and more dangerous payloads. Nonetheless, our response should focus on simple, easily implementable and cost-effective strategies.

Care should be taken to ensure that our response is measured and nuanced, in keeping with the actual threat that has unfolded or may evolve. A disproportionate response or extensive diversion of the existing resources would only support the interests of our adversaries.

To start with, reactive measures appropriate to the threat as well as some active measures using simple, cost-effective technology should be implemented immediately within the ambit of the protective measures that are already in vogue. Simultaneously, options for possible retaliation should be planned for and honed.

London: Chief of Army Staff Gen M M Naravane has met UK’s Chief of Defence Staff Gen Sir Nicholas Carter and exchanged views on defence cooperation between the two countries.

Gen Naravane arrived on a two-day visit to the United Kingdom on July 5, the Indian High Commission here said in a statement.

During the UK leg of his European tour, Gen Naravane is also scheduled to meet UK Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace and Chief of General Staff General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith.

“General MM Naravane COAS interacted with General Sir Nicholas Carter, Chief of Defence Staff, CDS and exchanged views on bilateral defence cooperation,” Additional Directorate General of Public Information of the Indian Army tweeted on Tuesday.

Earlier, Gen Naravane inspected the Guard of Honour provided by the Grenadier Guards on Horse Guards’ Parade Square as part of his welcome by the British Army.

The Army chief will visit British Army formations and engage on subjects of mutual interest.

During the second leg of his Europe tour on Wednesday and Thursday, Gen Naravane will be holding important discussions with the Chief of Defence Staff and the Chief of Staff of the Italian Army.

“Additionally, the Chief of Army Staff will also inaugurate the Indian Army Memorial in the famous town of Cassino and will be briefed at the Italian Army’s Counter IED Centre of Excellence at Cecchignola, Rome,” the Indian Army had said in a pre-visit statement. –PTI

Also read: General MM Naravane to inaugurate Indian Army Memorial in Italy

Srinagar, July 5

The process of recruitment for two women battalions in Jammu and Kashmir has started with the police announcing their test timetable on Monday.

The chairman of the Police Recruitment Board announced the schedule for conducting the physical standard and endurance tests of the candidates belonging to the Jammu division and Ladakh, who applied under the Scheduled Caste category against the vacant posts in the UT. “The physical endurance test/physical standard test of candidates belonging to Ladakh, who have applied for the post of constables in two women battalions, shall be conducted between July 26 and August 3,” a notification said. — PTI

Shared 900 papers linked to defence, national security

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 6

The Punjab Police today busted a major cross-border espionage network with the arrest of two Army personnel on charges of spying and providing classified documents to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan.

Those arrested have been identified as Sepoy Harpreet Singh (23) from Cheecha village in Amritsar and Sepoy Gurbhej Singh (23), a native of Punian village in Tarn Taran.

Harpreet, who was posted in Anantnag, joined the Army in 2017 and belonged to 19 Rashtriya Rifles, while Gurbhej belonged to 18 Sikh Light Infantry and was working as a clerk in Kargil. He had joined the Army in 2015.

DGP Dinkar Gupta said the Jalandhar (Rural) police led by SSP Naveen Singla, while investigating an NDPS case, recovered confidential documents related to the functioning and deployment of the Army from cross-border drug smuggler Ranvir Singh, who was arrested with 70 gm heroin on May 24.

He said during interrogation, Ranvir disclosed that he got the documents from Sepoy Harpreet Singh, a friend, as they both belonged to the same village. “Ranvir lured Harpreet with financial benefits for sharing defence documents, following which the latter induced his friend Gurbhej into spying activities,” he said, adding since Gurbhej was working as a clerk in 121 Infantry Brigade Headquarters in Kargil, he could get easy access to the classified documents containing both strategic and tactical information relating to the Army.

He said the two had already shared photos of over 900 classified documents — pertaining to defence and national security — to Ranvir over a period of four months between February and May. Ranvir had further passed those on to Pakistan intelligence officers.

The DGP said Ranvir used to send classified documents to either Pakistan ISI operatives directly or through Gopi, the main drug smuggler from Dauke village in Amritsar having links with Pakistan-based drug-smuggling syndicates and ISI officials.

Following Ranvir’s disclosures, the police have arrested Gopi, who has confessed to having transferred classified documents to Pakistan drug smuggler, identified as Kothar and an alleged Pak ISI operative, Sikander, in lieu of supply of heroin and financial benefits, said the DGP.

SSP Naveen Singla said the Army authorities had handed over both Army men to the Jalandhar (Rural) police.

The drug connection

• Jalandhar (Rural) police recovered classified papers linked to Army from drug smuggler Ranvir Singh in an NDPS case
• Ranvir claimed he got documents from Sepoy Harpreet Singh, a friend, who further lured Sepoy Gurbhej Singh
• Gurbhej worked as a clerk at 121 Infantry Brigade headquarters in Kargil and got easy access to classified documents, said DGP
• The documents were shared either with ISI operatives directly or through Gopi, a drug smuggler with links to Pak drug syndicates and ISI

Opposition parties have consistently alleged corruption in the deal

File photo of a Rafale fighter jet.

Ravi S Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 5

The controversy and political polemics on Union government’s purchase of 36 Rafale jet fighters from France gathered storm ahead of Parliament’s Winter Session with BSP chief Mayawati on Monday asking the government to come clean on the matter.

The Opposition parties have consistently alleged corruption in the deal. They had targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Congress and Left parties have made a fresh demand for a probe into the Rafale purchase deal by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) in light of French government instituting a Judicial Commission to probe into allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal.

The Congress and the CPI(M) have given broad hints to raise the issue in Parliament during the Monsoon Session.

However, Mayawati took a jibe at the Congress with regard to corruption in arms purchase deals during its regime, making it clear in public perception that her stand on the Rafale was autonomous, and not influenced by it (Congress).

“Probe into the allegations and counter allegations on commissions in purchase of arms for defence is not new, rather it is a new continuation of the same old chapter starting from the Congress regime,” Mayawati tweeted in Hindi.

She added that the present government should come clean on the Rafale deal and put the controversy surrounding it to rest.

“The news of the institution of judicial probe set up by the French government on allegations of corruption in the purchase of Rafale fighter jets by the Indian government has made national and international headlines due to which the issue has become topic of fresh discussions. It would be better if the Union government takes appropriate cognisance of it,” Mayawati added.

Gen Naravane arrived on a two-day visit to the United Kingdom on July 5, the Indian High Commission in London says

Gen MM Naravane. PTI file

London, July 6

Chief of Army Staff Gen MM Naravane has met UK’s Chief of Defence Staff Gen Sir Nicholas Carter and exchanged views on defence cooperation between the two countries.

Gen Naravane arrived on a two-day visit to the United Kingdom on July 5, the Indian High Commission here said in a statement.

During the UK leg of his European tour, Gen Naravane is also scheduled to meet UK Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace and Chief of General Staff General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith.

“General MM Naravane COAS interacted with General Sir Nicholas Carter, Chief of Defence Staff, CDS and exchanged views on bilateral defence cooperation,” Additional Directorate General of Public Information of the Army tweeted on Tuesday.

Earlier, Gen Naravane inspected the Guard of Honour provided by the Grenadier Guards on Horse Guards’ Parade Square as part of his welcome by the British Army.

The Army chief will visit British Army formations and engage on subjects of mutual interest.

During the second leg of his Europe tour on Wednesday and Thursday, Gen Naravane will be holding important discussions with the Chief of Defence Staff and the Chief of Staff of the Italian Army.

“Additionally, the Chief of Army Staff will also inaugurate the Indian Army Memorial in the famous town of Cassino and will be briefed at the Italian Army’s Counter IED Centre of Excellence at Cecchignola, Rome,” the Indian Army had said in a pre-visit statement. PTI

Gen Naravane has arrived on a visit to the United Kingdom from July 5 to 6, the Indian High Commission here said in a statement

Chief of Army Staff Gen MM Naravane. File photo

London, July 5

Chief of Army Staff Gen MM Naravane arrived here for high-level interactions with his UK counterpart and senior military leaders and a tour of the British Army formations during a two-day visit starting on Monday.

During the UK leg of his European tour, Gen Naravane is scheduled to meet UK Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace and the UK’s Chief of Defence Staff General Sir Nick Carter and the Chief of General Staff General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith.

Gen Naravane has arrived on a visit to the United Kingdom from July 5 to 6, the Indian High Commission here said in a statement.

“During his visit, the COAS will interact with the Secretary of State for Defence, Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of General Staff and other dignitaries. He will visit British Army formations and engage on subjects of mutual interest,” the statement reads.

During the second leg of his Europe tour on Wednesday and Thursday, Gen Naravane will be holding important discussions with the Chief of Defence Staff and the Chief of Staff of the Italian Army.

“Additionally, the Chief of Army Staff will also inaugurate the Indian Army Memorial in the famous town of Cassino and will be briefed at the Italian Army’s Counter IED Centre of Excellence at Cecchignola, Rome,” the Indian Army had said in a pre-visit statement. PTI

Manish Tewari

The current commentary is about this distinctive organisation that lies at the heart of an emerging system of global dominance News.The Communist Party of China (CPC) celebrated a hundred years of its existence on the 1st of July. (AFP Photo)

This July, I complete a four-decade-long association with the Indian National Congress (INC) founded in 1885. An involvement that commenced when I joined the National Students Union of India (NSUI) way back in 1981.

As a grassroots political activist, the philosophy, structure and organisation of other political parties has always been an area of academic interest for me. A curiosity that got further buoyed when I was elected president of the International Students Union (IUS) in the early 1990s. The IUS was then a Prague-based syndical organisation of 155 student organisations across 112 countries and territories. One political party that I have continuously studied and observed is the Communist Party of China (CPC)

The current commentary is about this distinctive organisation that lies at the heart of an emerging system of global dominance. The Communist Party of China (CPC) celebrated a hundred years of its existence on the 1st of July. Ironically, all empirical evidence puts its foundation date as July 23, 1921. July 1 was arbitrarily chosen by party apparatchiks when they were hunkering down in the grottoes of Yan’an in 1941.

The CPC was born during what the Chinese call the century of humiliation 1839-1949. China was back then an impoverished and a pastoral society dominated by imperialist powers through ignominious treaty arrangements.
A clandestine get-together of a handful of people took place in the French concession of Shanghai at 106 Rue Wantz. One of the attendees was Mao Zedong who remained a leading light of this fledgling party for over 54 years. In addition to him, two foreign commissars from the Communist International, a Soviet sponsored structure created for the global spread of Communism, were also present.

These furtive conversations were the precursor to the formal launch of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). A century later not only does it control China with an iron fist, hitherto considered ungovernable for centuries together, but moreover, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union on the 26th of December, 1991, it is the only political system that presents a successful alternative politico-economic model to the Western neo-liberal democratic order.  

In the early 1920s, all kinds of congregations and individuals called themselves Communists in China. It was a fashionable nom de guerre. This new outfit was bedraggled and thinly resourced. They had no arsenal worth the name.
Even in their wildest imagination no keen observer of China back then could have prophesised that this motley collection of virtual nobodies would ignite a successful Communist insurgency that then spread across the countryside like a wildfire consuming everything in its path.  

In a short span of 28 years, this human dynamo not only vanquished a Nationalist Army of more than four million strong kitted out by the Allied forces to fight the Japanese during World War-II but established and consolidated a Communist state in 1949 that no one believed would survive more than a few years.  

For the longest time, the CPC and the Red Army was led by Mao Zedong who, ironically, had never intellectually devoured Marxism. He was tempered in the fury of the May 4, 1919, struggle. A movement triggered by the pronouncement of Western powers to transfer Chinese colonial territory in the possession of Germany to Japan post World War I. That effort stimulated both anti-Western nationalism as well as a Chinese desire to reclaim the glory of its yesteryears — a la Middle Kingdom syndrome. It also established a distinctive ideological basis that fused Chinese nationalism with Marxism.

The skill of the CPC and the reason for its longevity has been its ability to navigate the winds of change with nimbleness, without giving up on its core ideological values. Over a century, it has morphed from being a revolutionary army to a party of governance surviving the vicissitudes of not only domestic turmoil but also international intrigue coupled with the idiosyncratic impulses of its own leadership.

Two of those whims were the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962 and the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. The former resulted in the deaths of over 20 million people mainly due to starvation. The latter was a vicious socio-political housecleaning predicated upon the purging the vestiges of capitalist and traditional elements from the mainstream of China’s thought leadership. Mobs of pupils and Red Guards assaulted people wearing “bourgeois clothes” on the thoroughfares, “imperialist” signage were desecrated, and intellectuals and party officials were either murdered or driven to suicide. Over two million lost their lives as a consequence of these depredations.

Mao Zedong’s ruinous tenure ended with his demise in 1976 leaving China in a state of economic morass and social stratification. However, despite the misery and pain Mao had heaped on the Chinese people, the hold of the CPC on the country remained intact. It did not get undermined even after the Tiananmen Square massacre of protesting students in 1989 that convulsed Chinese society to its very being. The point being that it is not only fear, terror and intimidation that binds the Chinese society to the CPC. The impulses are much more profound and include rigorous ideological indoctrination coupled with a village to national capital structure that functions like a well-oiled machine.

The CPC moved seamlessly from Mao’s tyranny to the model of totalitarian capitalism institutionalised by Deng Xiaoping and his successors that held the field for close to three-and-a-half decades from 1979 to 2012. One of the essential attributes of those years was the cultivated reticence of both the Chinese state and the CPC as it put its shoulder to the wheel of internal consolidation. It once again morphed into an aggressive wolf warrior mode as Xi Jinping took centrestage in 2012.

The beauty of these transitions does not lie in the abrupt U-turns that the CPC took but the fact that they were able to carry the Chinese nation along with them during all these transfigurations.

That is wherein lies the challenge for Indian policymakers as they seek to understand Chinese motivations and behaviour in the 21st century. Till the time they do not understand the functioning of the CPC they will never be able to discern the minds and methods of the Chinese leadership. For, unlike India and other democracies around the world, where political parties and governance systems are distinct, in the case of China, it is a merged mass of dissimulating narratives.

The author is a lawyer, Member of Parliament and former Union information and broadcasting minister. The views expressed are personal. Twitter handle @manishtewari.

Tags: indian national congress, national students union of india, communist party of china

Simmering differences over India’s military reform burst into the open on July 2. Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat called the Indian Air Force (IAF) a ‘support arm’. “The air force is required to provide support to the ground forces,” General Rawat said, speaking at a webinar organised by the Global Counter Terrorism Council. This came as a rude shock to the IAF whose 2012 doctrine prioritises destroying the enemy’s air assets over hitting targets on the ground. It lists counter air campaign and counter surface force campaigns, in that order, as two of its strategic aims. Counter air means destroying the enemy’s fighter aircraft and counter surface includes, among other tasks, flying bombing missions in support of the army.
IAF chief Air Chief Marshal RKS. Bhadauria wisely refrained from joining the issue with the CDS saying the IAF had an important role. Both the CDS and the air chief repeated their statements in interviews to India Today television later in the day. “Do not forget that the IAF continues to remain a supporting arm just as artillery support or engineers support the combatant arm in the army. They will be a supporting arm,” General Bipin Rawat told India Today.
General Rawat’s statement has triggered off dismay in the IAF which enters the 90th year of its creation this October. The IAF has always feared becoming the army’s air artillery, tethered to ground support duties. The CDS is worried that the IAF’s obduracy may delay the creation of the theatre commands. ‘Differing perceptions about (air power) are old as air power itself. But the place to discuss it is the elegant teak-panelled Chiefs of Staff Committee room in South Block. Not in TV studios,” the former navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash tweeted on July 3.
In ‘Defence from the Skies’, his 2007 book on the IAF, one of the service’s foremost minds, the late Air Commodore Jasjit Singh explained the IAF’s solitary nature. It is, he explains, ‘based on the reality that air power can interfere with and affect the functioning and operations of land and naval forces. The nature of the medium is such that the reverse is not true.’
The IAF’s headquarters at the Vayu Sena Bhavan epitomises this standalone nature. It sits 400 metres away from South Block, which houses the CDS and the two other service chiefs. The IAF’s independence could run at variance with the government’s plan to set up military theatres by 2023. The government plans to pare down the existing 17 single-service commands to just four or five military theatres where all the three services will train and fight together. For the IAF, sharing turf with the army and the navy in theatre commands, or worse, losing its precious fighters to them, is anathema. But the anger over General Rawat’s statement bubbled over in WhatsApp groups, IAF veterans worried over what lay in store after August 15, 2021, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to announce the creation of an integrated air defence command (IADC) and an integrated maritime theatre command (IMTC). The IADC will be headed by an IAF three-star officer when it is established on or around August 15, 2022, and the IMTC by a three-star naval officer. The bigger battle lies ahead in the creation of the western and eastern theatre commands by 2023. These two land-centric commands will subsume a bulk of the IAF’s four combat commands. This will require the defence ministry to handle the IAF’s concerns, some of them justified, with greater sensitivity.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh needs to intervene and bring the air force on board with the reform. The last thing the country needs is a sulking service.
This is especially necessary because India’s military reforms are being driven by the political executive. Left to themselves, it can be safely said, the services would never integrate with each other. This is true of any democracy that has attempted military integration. The US political class, after decades of debate, enshrined its reform in the landmark Goldwater Nichols Act of 1986. India has chosen the executive decision route. India’s historic military reforms are commendable, especially because they have zero political appeal and the reason why politicians have been content to let the military do its own thing. The result is that the three services have operated in silos where each trains and plans to fight and win wars independently and has built a powerful raison d’etre. Building a consensus, hence, can be elusive. As late as 2018, the IAF had shot down the idea of theatre commands. The three services could only agree on a weaker but more acceptable permanent Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee rather than a CDS. The government’s 2019 decision to appoint a powerful CDS with a sweeping mandate was hence a surprise even for the services.