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As MS Dhoni’s name was announced, the ex-Indian cricket team captain marched past the dignitaries present at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan before receiving Padma Bhushan award from President Ram Nath K

Exactly seven years after lighting up the Mumbai skyline with an unforgettable six, MS Dhoni again became the cynosure of all eyes as the honorary Lieutenant Colonel received the Padma Bhushan Award, dressed in an army uniform.

It was a happy coincidence for Dhoni as he was conferred with the prestigious civilian honour on the seventh anniversary of their famous World Cup triumph.

The Indian Territorial Army had conferred the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel to Dhoni on November 1, 2011, months after the country lifted its second World Cup under his leadership.

The 37-year-old Dhoni is the second Indian cricketer after Kapil Dev to receive this honour.

Dhoni has been the recipient of many awards, including the ICC ODI Player of the Year award in 2008 and 2009 (the first player to win the award twice), the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in 2007 and the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian honour in 2009.

Sandeep Dikshit

PAKISTAN High Commissioner Sohail Mehmood’s sulk over the harassment of his diplomatic colleagues in New Delhi lasted for just one short week. That is a surprisingly short period in the annals of Indo-Pak ties where estrangement lasts for years. The reason may lie in Pakistan Foreign Office’s desire not to be a spoilsport. Contrary signals would have gone out had Sohail Mehmood stayed put in Islamabad and missed his New Delhi mission’s observance of Pakistan Republic Day on March 23. India too seems to be playing ball. The Foreign Office was restrained, describing Mehmood’s departure as normal. But his return to New Delhi without a resolution of the issue of harassment of diplomats suggests that either South Block has given quiet assurances or was he carrying a message from South Block for the Pakistani leadership.At stake is India’s offer for an ice breaker. Pakistan’s initial response has gone beyond India’s offer of releasing each other’s prisoners on humanitarian grounds. While accepting India’s offer, Pakistan foreign minister Khwaja Mohammed Asif went on to hope that both countries would embark on the road to a comprehensive dialogue and make an effort to de-escalate the “extremely vitiated current environment and the situation on the border”. The significance of India and Pakistan agreeing to reactivate the Joint Judicial Committee of eight retired judges for releasing the prisoners should rank as a major effort in PM Modi’s record of limited breakthroughs in the immediate neighbourhood. The last visit of such a committee had taken place over four years ago; in other words, except for keeping alive the channel of NSAs, both sides have no formal or informal structure to understand each other.Pakistan’s more-than-hearty reciprocation to the Indian offer may not have come at a better time. The mantra of surgical strikes has stopped resonating among people who are now questioning the attrition rate of soldiers and Pakistan’s undiminished appetite for what passes off as Indian punishment for dispatching militants into the Kashmir Valley. The muscularity and tough speak by security forces in the Valley have also given way to implementation of the Kashmir Interlocutor’s recommendations to prepare the ground for a dialogue.  This may be the perfect opportunity for PM Modi to attempt an inspiring moon shot in foreign relations despite the failures of his earlier attempts with both nettlesome neighbours: Pakistan and China. For a person who lays claim for bold and iconic strokes on the foreign policy palette, he is yet to translate the effort into an engaging portrait. Headway on perennial irritants like terrorism, demilitarising Siachen or resolving the Sir Creek dispute will either be politically perilous in an election year or yield meager results because of the frigidity in their respective positions. As a person responsible for giving more momentum to the transport corridors being built by India in the region — Iran to Afghanistan and Assam to Vietnam via Myanmar and Thailand — PM Modi would be aware that this is one area where he could establish his stamp. The breakthrough could be a boon for North India that has found itself increasingly boxed-in because of escalation in Indo-Pak hostility. A community whose ingenuity and adventurous spirit had resonated as far off as the bazaars of Tehran and Astrakhan had the freedom of uninhibited trade and travel after Partition. The 1965 war turned the screws further by scrapping the joint India-Pakistan passport for frequent travellers. The final nail in flexible borders was struck by the Punjab militancy and Pakistan’s deep involvement in the J&K unrest. The subsequent PM braved public opprobrium because of bomb blasts in Indian cities to restore trade but incremental progress has been glacial.The elephant in the room is Pakistani military that has been a spoilsport to all civilian attempts to normalise trade with India. But the situation has changed from a decade back. The Pakistan army’s brains trust in Rawalpindi should feel inclined to loosen their veto on trade ties with India in view of the challenge to Pakistan’s exclusive control over land routes to Afghanistan by two rival transport corridors. There may come a day when the corridors from Pakistan may not find any outside takers and Rawalpindi will lose a bargaining chip with the US over Afghanistan. The time for a course correction may have come especially because despite the revolving door policy for critical advisers and ministers, US President Trump is firm on a closure to the war in Afghanistan. The Pakistan army may not just want to be on his right side but also needs India’s grudging acceptance for its proxies to share power in Kabul.The sticking point will be Pakistan army’s patronisation of militant outfits. Of great interest will be the way India reacts to the integration of the Haqqani network. The clan pulls considerable weight on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border. New Delhi holds the Haqqani network culpable for the considerable Indian blood spilt in Afghanistan, including the deaths of several Army officers and a diplomat. The US attempt at a makeover in Kabul should be salutary lesson for both India and Pakistan who hold on to tales rooted in old grudges.  The US is making the peace overture with Taliban that has accounted for a much greater toll of American lives than the militancy in JK. India’s other nemesis Hafiz Saeed’s dive into legitimate political activity may in fact be a blessing in disguise. Saeed and his cadres are bound to be sucked in by the intensity of political processes as well as be forced to drop their gun-wielding instincts to increase their acceptability base. They also would have realised that the battlefield has tilted because of the sharp step up in Indian surveillance and location finding abilities. Infiltrators from across the border have sometimes extracted a high body count of soldiers, but they have been unable to inflict high value damage for several years now.India and Pakistan’s overtures towards trade may also please the US. Its Permanent Ruling Class has tried to persuade Central Asian states to sell their oil to Asia and Europe instead of rivals Russia and China. They were unsuccessful for the last quarter of a century, in part because of Pakistan army’s obduracy. Now a project once mentored by Reagan’s Secretary of State Alexander Haig has come alive. This proposes to bring oil and gas from the derricks of Turkmenistan to the energy-hungry Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. This TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India ) pipeline may become the harbinger for a relook at the trade routes that have turned frigid because of hostility.Pakistan may also need to dilute the impression that China has complete ownership over the CPEC by involving India, Iran and Russia. China is Pakistan’s Santa Claus for its strategic and elite circles. But incidents of targeted killing of Chinese citizens in Pakistan suggest toxicity in domestic opinion about the unusual Chinese proximity. This has the potential to turn the political tide against the project. The safest course will be to make it an international project. Faith in the government declines when the economy falters and Trump is well on the way to spark a trade war. Economic realities dictate a change of course by both India and Pakistan. The core issues will still remain on the table. But instead of being the director of change, PM Modi will be able to settle for a middling report card.

sandeep4731@gmail.com

Rural Development Minister Virender Kanwar inaugurates the war memorial in Una on Friday. Photo: Rajesh Sharma

Our Correspondent

Una, March 23

A war memorial, depicting the names of 87 defence personnel from Una district, who laid down their lives for the country, was inaugurated on Friday at the Municipal Park in Una town by Rural Development Minister Virender Kanwar.The memorial was constructed by the Una district unit of the Ex-Servicemen Service Council. Lt Gen VM Patil (Retd), national chairman of the council, and BJP state president Satpal Singh Satti were also present. After paying homage to the martyrs at the memorial, he said after coming to power, the BJP government in the state had revived the financial benefits to ex-servicemen, which were stopped by the previous Congress government. He said while the state government provided jobs to one person from the family of a soldier who died fighting for the country, the facility was now being extended to dependents of paramilitary officials also who had been martyred. Kanwar said there would be village honour boards which would describe the names and achievements of the distinguished persons of the panchayat.

Dawood Ibrahim

Washington, March 23

Pakistan-based Dawood Ibrahim-led terrorist group D-company has diversified in many other fields and built a powerful transnational crime-terror organisation in part from drug proceeds, US lawmakers were told on Friday.

Indian underworld don Dawood, wanted in India for a number of terrorist attacks, is now based in Karachi, according to the US and Indian officials. However, Pakistan has denied his presence in the country.

“Pakistan-based crime-terror group D-company, whose origins lie in India, expanded Karachi’s historic role as a drug transhipment point, and built a powerful transnational crime-terror organisation in part from drug proceeds,” Dr Louise Shelley, Professor at Schar School of Policy and Government at the George Mason University told lawmakers.

Shelley claimed that the D-company has diversified.

“D-company, like Mexican drug organisations, has diversified. They traffic weapons, counterfeit DVDs and provide financial services through their extensive system of hawala operators,” he said during a Congressional hearing organised by the Committee on House Financial Services Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit Finance.

India’s sustained campaign against Dawood was finally acknowledged by America in 2003 when the US declared him a global terrorist having links with al-Qaeda. He also faces sanctions from the UN under its anti-terror resolution.

Vindicating India’s position that Pakistan has been sheltering Dawood, the US had said that he was in Karachi and possessed a Pakistani passport under the individual category.

Testifying before the same Congressional sub-committee, Celina B Realuyo, Professor of Practice, William J Perry Centre for Hemispheric Defence Studies, National Defence University, said a number of recent attacks in Kabul were planned and launched from safe havens in Pakistan.

The year 2018 has already witnessed many deadly attacks.

On January 20, at least 22 persons, including four Americans, were killed during a 12-hour standoff with security forces after gunmen dressed as Army men raided a hotel in Kabul, frequented by many foreigners, he said.

On January 27, an attacker detonated explosives in an ambulance in Kabul, killing over 100 people and injuring some 158, according to Afghan officials.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahid claimed responsibility for the attack, one week after the attack on the Kabul hotel attack, Realuyo added.

In June last year during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, India and the US, in a joint statement after talks between Modi and President Donald Trump, vowed to strengthen cooperation against terror outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Toiba and D-Company. PTI

The huge phalanx of protesting farmers has won over Mumbaikars with their self-discipline and compassion. Incredulous urbanites have watched a spectacle of exemplary fortitude as the salt of the earth — the tribal, the landless and the marginal farmer — braved the scorching sun and roofless nights as they silently walked hundreds of kilometres from their farmsteads to the state’s political and financial capital to seek their due. Social media has posted amazing pictures of a sea of farmers walking past populated areas at the break of dawn so as not to inconvenience children during exam time. CM Fadnavis was “technically” correct but  came off looking insensitive and extremely condescending when he said the sea of agitating rural India was “technically” not farmers. Many of the feet are bare, calloused and bruised. This was not merely the tractor-crowd whose sole focus is personal aggrandisement in the form of debt waivers and high crop purchase prices. These sons of the soil seek not just immediate respite from farm distress, but also devolution of the rights-based promises made to rural India by successive ruling arrangements, especially the Forests Act and land rights to the tiller. Another principal communitarian demand relates to the apprehensions triggered by river interlinking projects. Rural India is not asking for the unattainable. It simply seeks an assurance against being left out or being made the victims of the New Delhi’s model of vikas. The massive “Long March” is not the only manifestation of rural India’s resentment over the short shrift given to its fears, suspicions and aspirations. From Tamil Nadu to Madhya Pradesh, people in villages are up in arms against a non-existent public delivery system and denial of a rights-based existence. The discipline displayed by the marchers exemplifies the legendary forbearance of the Indian peasantry. But it is being tested. Successive protests are gathering more and more adherents; the previous edition pales in comparison to the numbers who participated in the current march. The governments at the Centre and the states can ignore these storm clouds only at their peril.

REVIEW MEETING OF GOG WAS ORGANISED AT PATHANKOT BY BRIG PRAHALAD SINGH ON 08 MARCH 2018.

ALL THE GOD OF DISTT  WERE BRIEFED BY LT GEN TS SHERGILL,PVSM ,SENIOR VICE CHAIRMAN GOG CUM Sr ADVISOR OF CM ,PUNJAB

AND

MAJ GEN SPS GREWAL VICE-CHAIRMAN OF GOG CUM CMD PESCO ALSO BRIEFED THE CONSTRUCTIVE AND POSITIVE ROLE THE GOG HAS TO PLAY FOR PUNJAB ADMINISTRATION.

Security personnel take position around the army family quarters at Sunjuwan Military Station during the terrorist attack, in Jammu on Sunday. PTI

Bakrah (Kathua), February 11

He faced a group of heavily-armed desperate terrorists with bare hands, took scores of bullets on his chest and arms, yet ensured that the assailants could not inflict much harm on his family.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)Subedar Madan Lal Choudhary, 50, eventually fell to the AK 47 bullets fired by the terrorists, who attacked his quarter at Sunjuwan Army station in Jammu, but still foiled their plan to cause maximum damage.A pall of gloom descended on this non-descript hamlet after the news of Madan Lal Choudhary’s death reached here.Yet, the people of the border belt of Hiranagar in Kathua district are proud of the brave son of soil who took on armed intruders with bare hands and saved his family and kin.Madan Lal Choudhary’s family had come to his quarter in the Military Station, Sunjuwan, as they need to shop for the wedding of a relative.”He mustered a lot of courage and saved the life of other family members very tactically by not allowing the terrorists to enter his quarter,” his brother Surinder Choudhary said.Surinder Choudhary said his his brother managed to facilitate the exit of family members from the back as he blocked the entry of terrorists.However, Madan Lal Choudhary’s 20-year-old daughter Neha received a bullet injury in the leg while his sister-in-law Paramjeet also received minor injuries. But all of them managed to survive.”I am proud of my younger brother who braved bullets, fought heavily-armed militants with bare hands to save family members and kin. Had he failed to save them, the entire family would have been wiped out. He foiled the militants’ plan to cause maximum causalities,” Surinder Choudhary said.Madan Lal Choudhary, who rose to the post of a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) — a Subedar — belonged to a family of defence force personnel.His elder brother Shamsher Singh is an ex-serviceman, his son Ankush a Captain in the Indian Army, and his nephew Sandeep is in the Indian Air Force.He is survived by father Inder Chand and mother Banti Devi besides three brothers.The elderly parents father and mother were unaware about their loss till last evening even as the people and relatives thronged their residence.It was only when Madan Lal Choudhary’s wife Karamjeet and his elder brother Shamsher reached home, that they were told the news of his death.People of the village, who witnessed the terror of partition in 1947 and are refugees from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), were proud of Madan Lal Choudhary’s sacrifice.”We are proud of him. He has fought armed terrorists with bare hands and save all of the family members and some kin. He should be awarded,” Dhyan Chand, a villager, said.Family members, however, lament that at a time they were preparing for the marriage of his nephew Sandeep in April, they are forced to come to grips with this painful reality.Five Army men, including two JCOs, and a father of another personnel died and 11 injured in a attack by JeM terrorists on the Army camp in Sunjwan in Jammu city. — PTI 

The father of Army Major Aditya Kumar had moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of the FIR against his son.

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 12

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed all proceedings in connection with an FIR registered by the Jammu and Kashmir Police naming Major Aditya Kumar as an accused with regard to Shopian firing incident.

A three-judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India — which had on February 9 agreed to hear the matter — also directed that no coercive measures shall be taken against Major Aditya Kumar.

The Bench issued notice to the Centre and Jammu and Kashmir Government and asked the petitioner — Major Aditya Kumar’s father Lt Colonel Karamveer Singh to serve a copy of his petition to the office of the Attorney General to enable him represent the Union of India.

The order came on a petition filed by Major Aditya Kumar’s father seeking quashing of the January 27 FIR against his son.

The petitioner was represented by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi while Attorney General appeared for the Centre.

Besides quashing of the FIR, Petitioner Lt Colonel Karamveer Singh has sought guidelines to protect soldiers’ rights and adequate compensation for them. Two civilians were killed when Army personnel fired at a stone-pelting mob in Ganovpora village in Shopian, prompting the chief minister to order an inquiry into the incident.

The FIR was registered against the personnel of 10, Garhwal unit of the Army, including Major Kumar, under the Sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code.

The Army had on February 1 presented its version of events contradicting the police FIR. It reiterated that soldiers opened fire on protesters in “self-defence” to prevent imminent lynching of an officer, snatching of weapons by villagers and burning of the Army vehicles.

The petitioner contended that FIR had been illegally filed against Major Aditya Kumar.

In his petition, Lt Colonel Karamveer Singh has contended his son had been “wrongly and arbitrarily” named in the FIR as the February 27 incident related to an Army convoy on bona fide military duty in an area under the AFSPA, which was isolated by an “unruly and deranged” mob pelting stones causing damage to military vehicles.

“The petitioner is constrained to file the present writ petition for quashing of FIR, directly before this court in view of the extremely hostile situation on the ground, whereby an FIR has been registered by local police against the son of the petitioner, who is a service Army officer and was performing bona fide duties as directed by the Union of India,” read his petition. He urged the top court to lay down guidelines to protect rights of soldiers and adequate compensation so that no Army personnel is harassed by initiation of criminal proceedings for bonafide actions in exercise of their duties. He also demanded registration of FIR against those involved in terrorist activities which caused damage to government property.

The petitioner said the intention of his son — a Major in the 10 Garhwal Rifles — was to save Army personnel and property and the fire was inflicted “only to impair and provide a safe escape from a savage and violent mob engaged in terrorist activity”.

The unruly mob was asked to disperse and not to obstruct military in performing their duties and not to damage government property but when the situation reached beyond control, a warning was issued to disperse, the plea said.

As the unruly behaviour of the “unlawful assembly” reached peak and when they got hold of a Junior Commissioned Officer and were in the process of lynching him to death, warning shots were fired fire to disperse the violent mob and protect public property, the petitioner submitted.

Singh also referred to last year’s incident of a mob lynching of DSP Mohd Ayub Pandith to highlight the situation in the troubled state and the condition in which Army officials were working to control violent mobs in Kashmir.