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Sainik School buddies of Col Mahadik send 400 packets to unit jawans in Valley

Col Santosh Mahadik

Mumbai, October 29

Classmates of an Army officer from Maharashtra, who laid down his life battling militants near the Line of Control (LoC) in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district last year, have sent 400 packets of sweets to soldiers in his unit.Col Santosh Mahadik, the Commanding Officer of 41 Rashtriya Rifles, was critically injured during the operation in the Haji Naka forest area of Kupwara near the LoC in November and succumbed to his injuries at a hospital later.“The boxes, weighing just over 300 kg, landed at Srinagar airport and are being sent to 41 Rashtriya Rifles for distribution among the soldiers the martyr once commanded,” a classmate of Mahadik, involved in this initiative, said.Col Mahadik was a student of Sainik School, Satara.“This Diwali, we thought of his comrades-in-arms, who suffer harsh climes and the enemy from across the border, as well as some within. We thought this would be a nice gesture for soldiers, who spend Diwali away from their families,” he said.An officer from the elite 21 Para-Special Forces unit, Col Mahadik was awarded a Sena Medal for gallantry during Operation Rhino in the North-East in 2003.Mahadik’s wife Swati last month joined the Officers Training Academy (OTA) in Chennai as part of the SSCW (non-technical) course for 11 months’ training before she joins the Army as a Lieutenant. An ace football goalkeeper, a skilled horse-rider and a passionate boxer, Mahadik was an all-rounder, his friends recall.Despite the inhospitable terrain that made the Kupwara operation immensely challenging, the Colonel particularly chose to lead his battalion.Mahadik’s classmates, including Manish Manidergi, Giridhar Kole, Deepak Patil and Shashikant Waghmode, have launched the initiative which they are calling ‘Operation Diwali’.Waghmode said, “I, along with my wife, was in his Regiment just before Diwali last year and she carried Diwali sweets for him. We miss him this Diwali.” — PTI

The defence ministry fast tracks ammunition buys to replenish war stocks as the threat of conflict with Pakistan lingers.

Days after the September 18 Uri attack in which 19 Indian army soldiers were killed, the higher echelons of government went into a huddle. Military retaliation was among the options discussed by the cabinet committee on security. This was when the forces revealed to the government the critical voids in its ammunition reserves.

The army was deficient in four to five critical items of ammunition. These included armour piercing fin stabilised discarding sabot (APFSDS) ammunition fired by its T-72 and T-90 main battle tanks for which it held just one day of war wastage reserves (WWR). Ammunition needed to meet war requirements during an operation is termed WWR. The IAF’s Su-30 fighter jets and Mi-35 gunships also did not have ammunition. The revelations galvanised the political leadership into action. Bureaucratic channels were bypassed and emergency powers delegated to the vice-chiefs of the army and air force to push purchases. The MoD under defence minister Manohar Parrikar decided to fast-track imports.

So, in late September, the MoD sent out empowered committees comprising a senior bureaucrat, an armed forces representative and a member of the defence finance wing with wishlists. The committees went to ammunition suppliers in Russia and Israel with indents for buying several million dollars worth of ammunition. The wishlists include rockets and gun ammunition for Mi-35 helicopter gunships and Su-30 fighter jets, 155 mm ammunition for the Bofors howitzers, and 125 mm APFSDS ammunition for the tank fleet.

The urgency was evident in the indents-the MoD was willing to buy up existing stocks as well as off production lines. Factories were asked to identify time-frames of possible delivery, from ‘immediate’, within ‘one month’, ‘two months’ and ‘three months’. Army officials confirmed that several contracts had been finalised and deliveries of ammunition had begun. The value of the contracts is estimated to be close to Rs 5,000 crore, just for ammunition. “The purchases are easily the largest fast-track procurements since Operation Parakram in 2001,” says one official.

Fast-track purchases bypass the regular defence procurement procedure (DPP), a tedious process which takes 5-8 years. Fast-track procedures (FTP) telescope the regular acquisition process, which takes up to a decade, into just nine months.

FTP was first introduced in the 2002 DPP manual which guides India’s military buying. The 2016 manual extended FTP to apply to items “where undue/unforeseen delay… seem to be adversely impacting the capacity and preparedness of the regular and special forces”.

The special forces which conducted surgical strikes across the LoC on September 29, have especially come in for attention. Requirements for limited quantities of assault rifles, thermal imagers, light machine guns and rocket launchers (see box: The Quick Draw) have been put in for them. Procurements like those for imported anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) for the weaponised variants of the Dhruv advanced light helicopter are also being fast-tracked. Through FTPs, senior army officials say, they plan to push up war stocks to cater to 10 days of intense war fighting, eventually building up to 14 days worth of stock. No one is talking war just yet. Not even in the currently tense security situation following the surgical strikes. Restocking, the military says, gives it the flexibility, endurance and confidence in logistics for its operational plans should a contingency arise. “It increases the number of options available to us,” one general says. The army hopes to make good its shortfalls within the next three months. “War endurance for the stipulated period is necessary to deal with all possible operational contingencies and especially for creating military conditions, through strategic offensive manoeuvres that ultimately contribute to the realisation of political ends,” says former army chief General Bikram Singh.

WHY THE SHORTAGES?

The MoD’s notoriously inefficient procurement process is to blame for acquisition delays. It takes the ministry at least seven years to buy new weapon systems. The army, which has found itself unable to acquire even basic items like assault rifles, ballistic helmets and bulletproof jackets for its troops, also shares some of the blame. Ammunition purchases are on the slow track. In May last year, a CAG report tabled in Parliament put the army’s WWR stocks at less than half the mandate calling for 40 days intense fighting. The WWR concept, first approved by the government in April 1979, stipulated a national stockpile of ammunition required to fight a battle for a 30-day intense period and another 30 days at the normal rate. The WWR scales were revised in October 2010 to cater for 40 days ‘intense fighting’.

A 2015 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on ammunition management covered the years between 2008 and 2013. An ammunition roadmap drawn up by the Indian army in 2012 for building up stock to 50 per cent by March 2015 and 100 per cent by 2019 failed. Stocking even at the minimum acceptable risk level (MARL) of 20 days was not ensured. Nearly 74 per cent of ammunition (125 out of 170 types) reserves were below MARL levels as of March 2013. This had seriously impacted the operational preparedness of the army because the void had grown from 15 per cent in 2009 to 50 per cent by March 2013. High caliber ammunition-used by the 155 mm Bofors artillery guns-made up nearly 84 per cent of the shortage in the five-year period.

Senior army officials, however, say stocking 40-day WWR scales is simply unrealistic. “We have neither the storage capacity nor the land to store such vast ammunition stocks,” says a senior army officer. This possibly explains why the armed forces, with their current round of purchases, are only pushing to meet a requirement of stocks for the minimum 14 days of intense war fighting.

The CAG report attributed the reasons for the failure to build the 40 days ‘intense fighting’ WWR to budgetary constraints and also to inadequate production capacity within the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB). The OFB has repeatedly failed to meet targets despite the fact that 10 of its 41 factories are exclusively devoted to producing ammunition and explosives. One reason frequently cited by the OFB for delays is that they are never given adequate time to procure raw material and streamline production. Even this excuse has been exposed now. The MoD placed a five-year order for ammunition to the OFB in January 2010 but it could meet just over 70 per cent of the army’s requirements.

Another major reason for the low ammo stocks is slow imports. The CAG report found that no ammunition procurement took place for nine items of ammunition identified for import between 2008 and 2013. The reasons ranged from a single vendor situation, complexities in transfer of technology, delay in finalisation of qualitative requirements to delays in finalising import contracts. Still more worrisome is the fact that the fast-track purchases have been anything but. Sometimes, they take as long as purchases through the regular procurement route. Fast-track purchases contracted during the Kargil war, arrived long after the conflict had ended. This continued even during Operation Parakram in 2001-’02. A 2006 CAG report noted how fast-track purchases which were to have come in 12 months arrived only after four years. If the MoD has learnt anything from the past, the current round could be different.

Follow the writer on Twitter @SandeepUnnithan

 

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 26

The one-man judicial committee on ‘One Rank, One Pension’ (OROP) submitted its report to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today. The Central Government had appointed the committee under the Chairmanship of Patna High Court Chief Justice L Narasimha Reddy (retd) to look into the anomalies, if any, arising out of implementation of OROP. The judicial committee had held hearings at around 20 cities/towns across the country and interacted with cross sections of ex-servicemen as well as their associations. The committee also received 704 representations from individuals and various ex-servicemen associations and had held extensive interactions with all stakeholders before submitting its report.

CHANDIGARH: Special grant-in-aid of `50 lakh each to 100 left out war-widows or their legal-heirs of the soldiers who had laid down their lives in 1962 Indo-China war and the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars.

The government spokesperson said that this policy had been announced in 1975 and over 1,500 war-widows who had applied in time had been allotted up to 10-acre of rural agricultural land or cash equivalent in lieu of land at the rate notified from time to time.

However, there were nearly 100 cases in which the applicants failed to apply within the stipulated cut-off date. Above 100 such cases had applied till the extended cut-off date January 4, 2010.

This grant will be payable in three half yearly instalments of `20 lakh, `15 lakh and `15 lakh.

The MNS wants filmmakers to contribute money for soldiers. This is unacceptable

T he Devendra Fadnavis government has certainly not covered itself in glory in the incident involving the release of the Karan Johar film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. Instead of firmly telling the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and its leader Raj Thackeray that its threats to attack theatres screening the film would be met with the full force of the law, the chief minister allowed things to come to such a pass that Mr Johar not only had to promise not to use Pakistani artistes in his films again but also to run tributes to jawans who were martyred in Uri at the beginning of the film.

Emboldened by this inaction, Mr Thackeray has now asked that every filmmaker using the services of Pakistani artistes must pay ₹5 crore to the Army relief fund. This is objectionable and unacceptable. He has no locus standi to impose any such condition. This is not just illegal; it also imposes an enormous financial burden on a filmmaker. But more than any of this, it amounts to dragging the Army into the petty politics surrounding the release of this film. Senior army officers have expressed their discomfort with this saying that the Army is apolitical and secular. The Indian Army should reject this proposal outright. In fact, a senior Army official has already said that money extracted through arm-twisting would not be accepted by it. Clearly, he thinks, and rightly so, that the Army’s image would be tarnished by being made part of a political game. Mr Fadnavis’ spectacular failure to act in time brings to mind another chief minister who presided over a similar controversy over the film, My Name is Khan.Former chief minister of Maharashtra Ashok Chavan refused to be cowed down by threats of violence by the Shiv Sena and gave the film’s screening protection. The government cannot allow itself to be dictated to by hyper-nationalists like Thackeray who is trying to regain lost ground on the political front using this film. No one has come out of this smelling of roses – Mr Fadnavis has failed in his duty, the film industry has not been able to stand up to a bully and of course, Mr Thackeray has shown himself and his party to be disruptive and extortionist. Filmmakers and the Producers’ Guild have given Mr Fadnavis assurances that they will not work with Pakistani artistes in future. It is condemnable that Mr Fadnavis accepted this. If this goes unchallenged, parties like the MNS will up the ante. The State must act now to stop this threat to filmmakers and also attempts to drag the Army into politics.

OPEN THE BLOG LINK FOR PUNJAB PRINT MEDIA NEWS

http://voiceofesmpunjab.blogspot.in/

Lt Gen Surinder Singh, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, visits field formations and border areas in Jammu on Friday. a tribune photo

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 14

General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, Lt Gen Surinder Singh, visited the Army’s field establishments in Pathankot, Samba and Jammu during a two-day visit to these sectors.He also inspected forward areas and reviewed the operational preparedness of formations in the border areas and had detailed deliberations on various aspects with the local commanders.He also interacted with troops and appreciated the high state of readiness and high morale of the troops. Exhorting them to remain alert and operationally ready, he emphasised the need to ensure foolproof security measures.

India has to climb down after the triumph of the surgical strikes because Pakistan cannot afford to look any weaker

A nyone who has a child knows the importance of not over-playing your hand. He was up all night playing some game on his smartphone and you feel like saying that if it happens again the phone is gone. Forever. Till he is old enough to buy his own. Till then he can have your old Nokia.

NITIN KANOTRAThe best way to secure the border is to get local people to start looking out for terrorists, which is what ultimately helped us in Punjab

The question is always whether, when it comes to it, you will feel up to carrying out the threat — knowing what his friends will say, realising how delighted the neighbourhood bully will be to get such an opportunity to get to him, worrying about all the other bad things he could get up to. The rational economist in me says why would he, knowing the consequences, ever get to the point where you have to act, but then a rational economist is not a 15-year-old with a fragile sense of himself and a strong desire to be proved that he is a man.

At the risk of sounding patronising, Pakistan is that troubled adolescent, unsure about the kind of country it wants to be, caught between the mad dreams of powerhungry theocrats and the more middle class aspirations of much of its population, a country born in the rejection of its conjoint twin and committed, above all, to step out of its long and looming shadow. China is that neighbourhood bully, secure in its immense power and recently earned economic credentials, happy to play its neighbours off against each other with gentle needling and occasional encouragement. And, we, alas, are the hapless parent, trapped between uncertainties about how to deal with the troubled teenager and our own, not infrequent, childish impulses.

Let me be clear about one thing: I don’t have an opinion, or at least a considered opinion, about whether the “surgical strikes” were a good idea or a bad one. If the strikes were successful in taking out the next group of attackers on one of our army camps or civilian destinations, they would indeed have served an important purpose. What is indefensible is what we have done since — the tom-tomming of our great success — the chest thumping that Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned us against but continues, seemingly unabated, in the media.

If you were the Pakistani government how are you supposed to react to that? Pretend that it never happened? They tried that but it did not stick. Admit that our security forces succeeded in pulling off a fast one over their Pakistani rivals? What Pakistani government could even think of that without risking a coup? The Pakistani army has not only pride riding on the image of their being the one institution that works in dysfunctional Pakistan, but also real money. It is well known that the army in Pakistan controls a substantial part of the country’s GDP (I have heard the number 15%) through its various trusts. According to Dawn, the Fauji Foundation has oil refineries, natural gas companies, power, fertiliser and cement plants as well as a bank. The armed forces are also a leading real estate developer in Pakistan. That gravy train would be upset if people started to question the army’s competence and relevance. Isn’t that why no peace attempt is allowed to go very far?

With the local media not convinced by the State propaganda so far, the Pakistani State is probably under pressure to do something to salvage the army’s honour — not revenge — one cannot take revenge for something that one is claiming never happened — but something definitive and surely violent. The question for us is what if that does happen. More strikes? This time they will be ready for it, happy to have our soldiers walk into a trap and the opportunity to humiliate us. Abrogate the Indus waters treaty? Good heavens no. We forget that we are downstream from China, which is always happy for an excuse to capture more water in dry Tibet, especially if it also helps a friend in need. It may not be a coincidence that just when we were talking about doing something with the Indus waters to punish Pakistan, China announced the building of a dam on the Brahmaputra. So what’s left? All-out war? Nuclear weapons?

Let us face it. We overplayed our hand. The strikes themselves Pakistan might have swallowed as a move in our age-old game of tit for tat. The propaganda, the public display of our delight at their expense, force their hand — it’s the smartphone moment. And we may very well come to regret it.

The question is how to climb down from here. It has to come from us. They cannot afford to look any weaker. The problem is that our present government has often shied away from disappointing its most rabid supporters, which might seem strange, since those supporters have nowhere else to go.

But it is also time to think hard about Kashmir. The best way to secure the border is to get local people to start looking out for terrorists — which is what ultimately helped us in Punjab. For that we need the local people on our side. The most compelling case we can make to the Kashmiri people is that the real alternative for them is to be swallowed up by the mess called Pakistan, and we can surely offer them better than that. But we severely undermine that case every time we tolerate anti-Muslim hysteria, or some arm of the India State shoots an unarmed student in the Valley.

Abhijit Banerjee is Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics, and director, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, MIT. The views expressed are personal.

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, October 10

A soldier was injured on Monday in a gunfight that erupted after suspected Jaish-e-Mohmmad militants opened fire on security forces from a government building in Sempora area of Pampore on the outskirts of Srinagar, the police said.

Two to three militants were trapped inside the seven-floor hostel building of Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI) located on the banks of the Jhelum River, some 12 km from the Srinagar city centre, police officials here said.

Security forces have laid a cordon around the EDI complex after fires were shot from inside one of its multi-storey building and a fierce encounter is under way, they said.

A soldier was hit by a bullet and has been evacuated to a nearby hospital, a police officer said.

The militants launched the “fidayeen” attack early morning today.

The incident came to light when the top floor of the building caught fire and the fire tenders rushing towards the location were fired upon from inside the building, a police official said.

The militants later also fired at the police, the official said.

The militants are believed to have taken position in the rear building of the EDI complex, which served as a hostel and temporarily housed its office.

The EDI complex was the site of a major “fidayeen” attack earlier this year, which had continued for three days.

The institute, situated on the strategic arterial road connecting Jammu and Srinagar, has three buildings — a guest house, a hostel complex and the main office building — on a 3.5-acre land on the Jhelum. With IANS inputs

Major General DN Singh, Chief of Staff, Chetak Corps, interacts with participants before flagging off the expedition in Bathinda on Saturday. Tribune photo: Pawan sharma

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 8

Major General DN Singh, Chief of Staff, Chetak Corps, flagged off a bicycle expedition-cum-camel safari of ‘Team AREN’, the Chetak Signallers, here today.This expedition comprising one officer, two junior commissioned officers and 12 jawans will cover 712 km, traversing through Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, and culminating in Bathinda on October 22.Steering through the sand dunes of the desert, the team will also reach out to the veterans, to know their problems, to brief them about latest schemes.They will also meet school and college students to spread the message of national integrity and educate the youth about opportunities available for joining the Indian Army.The team will also spread awareness various initiatives of the Government of India viz Digital India, Swacch Bharat Abhiyan and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao.An Army official claimed that the bicycle expedition with camel safari would provide an opportunity to the team members to exploit the arid desert, interact with the local population and reach out to the youth.It is an initiative of Sapta Shakti Command at Jaipur to reach out to veterans of the Indian Army.A number of similar rallies are being organised to spread awareness.