Current Events :
SANJHA MORCHA has gone into joint venture for opening of Departmental store ,Thus created an opportunity for
Self employment of Ex-Servicemen and their dependents as
employees .
A First Sample store is ready at Ambala Cantt in the complex of Golden Loin Canteen has been created under the close supervision of Col Sandeep Bhanot, President Haryana Unit of Sanjha Morcha.
NEW DELHI : The military personnel henceforth taking voluntary retirement as a request shall not be entitled to the One Rank One Pension (OROP) applicable to those retiring up to July 1, 2014, the date fixed for its implementation.
While the pension of the defence personnel will be re-fixed henceforth every five years, the Justice L Narasimha Reddy-headed judicial committee will help remove anomalies that may arise in implementation of the OROP order issued on November 7 last. Retired Patna High Court Chief Justice Reddy was appointed on December 14 to give the report within six months on the references made by the Government in lieu of objections by the ex-servicemen’s organisations.
The government clarifications came on Wednesday when the Union Cabinet gave its ex-post facto approval of implementation of the OROP.
It said: “Pension will be re-fixed for pre 1.7.2014 pensioners retiring in the same rank and with the same length of service as the average of minimum and maximum pension drawn by the retiree in the year 2013. Those drawing pensions above the average will be protected. The benefit would also be extended to the family pensioners, including disabled pensioners and war widows.” The financial implication of the implementation of OROP is Rs 10,925.11 crore for payments of arrears while the annual burden would be Rs 7488.7 crore.
The arrears are to be paid in four half-yearly installments, the first such installment of total Rs 2861 crore was disbursed to 15.91 pensioners till March end, the officials said.
Chandigarh/Gurdaspur, April 6
The Special Cell Delhi Police has sounded a terror alert saying that a grey coloured Swift Dzire with Jammu and Kashmir registration number carrying three Pakistan terrorists with explosives may target Delhi, Mumbai or Goa.“Input received from Special Cell Delhi Police that a grey coloured Swift Dzire carrying three Pak militants and a local …with arms, ammunition and a possibly suicide belt is likely to cross Banihal Tunnel later tonight today,” said DGP Law and Order, Punjab, Chandigarh.Their target could be in Delhi, Goa and Mumbai. Security alert has been issued, said the DGP.Meanwhile, Pathankot and Gurdaspur police districts have also been put on high alert following inputs from Delhi police special cell about possible infiltration of three terrorists into Punjab from Jammu & Kashmir. Check posts have been fortified in both police districts.Punjab has witnessed two major terror attacks in the past nine months.Suspected Pakistani terrorists attacked the Pathankot Indian Air Force base on January 2 and killed seven security personnel.On July 27 last year, three suspected Pakistani terrorists attacked Dinanagar town in Gurdaspur district leaving seven people dead.Both attacks took place in areas of Punjab bordering Jammu and Kashmir. — TNS/Agencies
With Pakistan India can only hope for the best but be ready for the worst
CRICKETERS believe that if India and Pakistan were to play more games, it would help both countries to live in peace. They do not realise that at political and diplomatic levels too, both nations play games. This game is called one-upmanship, with surprise as an important element. Lately, this game has become frequent and intense. We had both prime ministers speaking to each other in whispers in Paris. That was followed by national security advisers and foreign ministers breaking bread with their counterparts. On Xmas day, Prime Minister Modi scored huge points with a surprise stopover in Lahore to greet his counterpart. A week later, Pakistani Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) fidayeen surprised us with a daring attack on the IAF air base in Pathankot. Now, it is the turn of intelligence agencies. While India hosts Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team (JIT), Pakistan is hosting and feting (appears that way in the TV clip released by Pakistan) a former Indian Naval officer as a spy. The JIT visit to the Pathankot airbase will neither compromise our security nor make any dent on Pakistan’s policy of cross-border terrorism. On the plus side, it may lead to matching reciprocity and a small diplomatic advantage. On the minus side, China blocking India’s move to place ban on JeM chief Azhar Masood, the mastermind of the Pathankot terror attack, makes it obvious that Pakistan will take no action against him and his terror outfit. The Lashkar and Jaish perpetrators may feel encouraged with India’s soft, ethical response, which like the 26/11 case will lead nowhere. All this will carry some political cost for the Modi government within India.The spy episode is intriguing, in the revealed details as well as its timing. The revealed details — former Naval Commander Jadhav’s presence in Baluchistan with an Indian passport, his video recorded confession and demeanour — are most unprofessional (for a spy) and unconvincing. Pakistani ‘respect’ for such a spy is hard to believe. I cannot forget the horrible treatment meted out to Capt Saurabh Kalia’s patrol in Kargil, and of Indian soldiers captured elsewhere. Its timing and publicity too raises questions. Was it timed by the Pakistani security establishment to force Sharif’s hand on Modi-Nawaz talks scheduled in Washington? Three days after the spy episode, Nawaz Sharif called off his Washington visit due to Easter Sunday’s terror incident in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, Lahore. Was it to cover its intelligence failure in the Easter terror attack? Or to scuttle joint investigation post Pathankot incident?How will these tactical incidents impact Indo-Pakistan relations or India’s Pakistan policy? For this, we need to coldly assess what is happening within Pakistan.From all accounts, it is evident that the Pakistan army remains Indo-centric and in control of Pakistan’s engagement with India. It challenged the Indo-Pakistan joint statement at Ufa, which gave primacy to counter- terrorism in our disputes. It forced the government to change tack and make Kashmir the number one agenda point. In recent months, it has been obsessed with ‘Indian interference in Baluchistan’. A few days ago, the director-general of Inter-Services Public Relations, Lt Gen Asim Bajwa, had said Gen Raheel Sharif, Pakistan army chief, had shared his concern with Iranian President Rouhani that ‘RAW is involved in Pakistan, especially in Baluchistan, and sometimes it also uses the soil of our brother country Iran’. Such a discussion was promptly denied by the Iranian President and Iran’s ambassador in India.On March 31, 2016, a well-known Pakistan daily wrote that Asim Bajwa’s recent tweets and statements have exposed civil-military tensions. The report observed “This situation tends to undermine the civilian supremacy as guaranteed by the constitution and gives the impression as if the military is acting like a supra-governmental body over and above the country’s chief executive.”When Pakistan introduced the anti-terror National Action Plan (NAP) and amended its constitution, apex committees (ACs) were created to supervise the implementation of NAP. The ACs are dominated by army officers and have become another irritant in Pakistan’s civil-military relations.As evident from the Easter terrorist attack in Lahore which claimed 74 lives, mostly Christian women and children, the sectarian divide within Pakistani heartland has increased considerably. The Sunni ultras were targeting Shias and Ahmadiyyas for some time. Now, armed with blasphemy laws, the Sunni majority has begun to terrorise Pakistan’s religious minorities also.In 2011, when Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri killed his boss Salman Taseer, Governor of Pakistan Punjab, for defending a Christian woman who had fallen afoul of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, he became a hero. A mosque was named after him in Islamabad. People came to see him in prison to seek his blessings. The judge who sentenced him to death had to flee the country. When Qadri was hanged, despite media blackout, over 1,00,000 people poured into the streets of Rawalpindi to bid him farewell. Describing that spectacle, well-known author Aatish Taseer, writing in The New York Times, observed that the ideology of hate had infected the body of the (Pakistani) people. “What do you do when the madness is not confined to radical mosques and madrasas, but is abroad among a population of nearly 200 million?” Last week, Qadri’s supporters launched another agitation outside Pakistan’s Parliament House and other key installations. Led by the Sunni Tehreek and Tehreek-i-Labbaik-Ya-Rasool, over 25,000 supporters demanded the implementation of Sharia in Pakistan and Qadri to be declared a martyr!It is evident that the current Pakistani political leadership is sandwiched between the Pakistan army with its vice-like control over national security policies, and the growing Islamist militant and non-militant movements. Both of them see India as an adversary — for common as well as some different reasons. Atal Bihari Vajpayee once said: “Over the last 55 years, every initiative for a dialogue with Pakistan has invariably come from India.” This statement reflected India’s frustration in its endeavour to develop good neighbourly relations with Pakistan. While there is no alternative to remaining engaged with such a geographical neighbour, dramatic gestures or a few summit meetings with its sandwiched political leadership are unlikely to bring lasting peace. When diplomacy does not work, changes in the psyche and attitude of nations occur through all-out conflicts and/or economic disparities. Since an all-out conflict with Pakistan is ruled out, India must focus on the economic strategy. Meanwhile, it would have to live with the ugly stability and reciprocal violence. One must hope for the best in a gradual, incremental dialogue process, but remain prepared and alert for the worst
. Gen VP Malik (Retd)
— The writer is a former Army Chief
Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 2
The Army has turned over a new leaf by raising a new Gorkha battalion comprising entirely of Gorkha troops of Indian domicile. Traditionally, the majority of troops in Gorkha regiments belong to Nepal.This is the first Gorkha battalion to have come up in 50 years. The new battalion, the Sixth Battalion of the First Gorkha Rifles (6/1GR), christened “Kanchi Paltan”, has been raised at Sabathu in the Shivalik foothills near Shimla, that houses the 14 Gorkha Training Centre.In 1815, the British had raised the first Gorkha battalion, 1/1 GR, from the remnants of General Amar Singh Thapa’s forces following the Gurkha War fought between the Gorkha kings of Nepal and British East India Company.Col Avaneesh Chambial is the battalion’s first Commanding Officer. The recruits for the battalion had been undergoing training at the centre for the past nine months and the battalion’s regimental flag was unfurled by the Colonel of the First Gorkha Rifles, Lt Gen Ravi Thogde, at a ceremonial parade on Friday.The Army has several Gorkha regiments — 1GR, 3GR, 4GR, 5GR, 8GR, 9GR and 11 GR. The stipulated ratio of composition of these regiments between Nepalese and Indian domicile Gorkhas is about 70:30. In some units it is 60:40.The Army’s plans are that each Gorkha regiment will raise an additional battalion in due course as part of the approved force accretions and the ongoing organisational restructuring.A senior officer said more Gorkhas of Indian domicile i.e. those settled in the hilly regions of northern India and the North-East and even other parts of the country would be recruited and Gorkha regiments were envisioned to have a pan-India footprint. The minimum educational qualification for Gorkha troops was also being raised from matriculation to Class XII.Three years ago, the Army had raised the Sikkim Scouts comprising locally recruited youth from the state for deployment in the border regions. The unit has been affiliated with 11 GR.
The writer is Distinguished Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi
The views expressed are personal
Speaking at the Raisina Dialogue earlier this month, Admiral Harry Harris, Commander-in-Chief, US Pacific Command, called for quadrilateral Australia-India-Japan-US consultations for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. He said, “Together, we can develop a roadmap that leverages our respective efforts to improve the security architecture and strengthen regional dialogues. Together, we can ensure free and open sea lanes of communication…”
REUTERSUS military forces engage in an Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAV) manoeuvre in the South China Sea near northern Philippines, April 21, 2015Harris also announced that the next set of naval exercises in the trilateral annual Malabar series, comprising India, Japan and the US, will be held in the northern Philippine Sea, close to the South China Sea. The Chinese perceive such efforts as attempts to gang up on them and, therefore, their reaction was fast and furious. A spokesperson of China’s foreign ministry said, “We urge the US government to put some restraint on them (US commanders) and stop them from irresponsible sensationalisation and hyping up so as to avoid undermining regional peace and stability.”
China senses the emergence of a security vacuum in the Indo-Pacific and is rushing to fill it. Beijing has discarded Deng Xiaoping’s 24-character strategy to ‘hide our capacity and bide our time’. It has dropped the phrase “peaceful rise” while referring to its economic growth and military assertiveness.
China has deep internal fault lines. Its rapid economic growth, now slowing, has been uneven and non-inclusive. There is a deep sense of resentment of the Communist Party for the denial of basic freedoms. The discontent could boil over and lead to an uncontrollable spontaneous implosion. David Shambaugh, a well-known China scholar, is among those in the China-may-implode school. The recent crash of Chinese stock markets and their continuing volatility point to the possibility of a meltdown.
Most Asian leaders are apprehensive of China’s intentions and worry that it may behave irresponsibly somewhere in the IndoPacific. It could decide to intervene militarily in the South China Sea, or to occupy one or more of the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands or decide to resolve the remaining territorial disputes, like that with India, by using military force. Though President Xi Jinping has denied plans to ‘militarise’ the South China Sea, surely China is not building air strips there to fly in Japanese tourists.
Both the contingencies — implosion and military adventurism — have a low probability of occurrence, but will be highimpact events with widespread ramifications should either of them come to pass. In such an eventuality, both India and the US will need strong partners to deal with the fallout and to manage the consequences. Hence, the India-US strategic partnership makes eminent sense as a hedging strategy.
India must join the US and other strategic partners, such as Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam, to establish a cooperative security framework for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific and for the security of the global commons — air space, space, cyber space and the sea-lanes of communication — to enable freedom of navigation and free flow of trade. If China is willing to join this security architecture it should be welcomed. However, it is unlikely to do so as it believes that ‘one mountain cannot contain two tigers’ and sees itself as the lone tiger on the Asian mountain.
US leaders have expressed their support for India’s emergence as a major power several times. They have said the US is committed “to help India become a major world power in the 21st century”. President Barack Obama declared in 2010 that “India is not just a rising power, it has already risen”.
The US hopes India will soon become a “net provider of security” in the region. The expectations include India joining international counter-terrorism and counterproliferation efforts; sharing intelligence; upholding the rules and norms governing maritime trade; providing help to the littoral states to meet their security needs; helping to counter piracy and narcotics trafficking; and, continuing to taking the lead in humanitarian and disaster relief (HADR) operations in the region. All of these expectations are unexceptionable and India has been contributing extensively to achieving these common goals.
India must not hesitate to intervene militarily in conjunction with its strategic partners if its vital national interests are threatened in its area of strategic interest. This extends from the South China Sea in the east to the Horn of Africa in the west. India would prefer to intervene under the UN flag but may join a coalition of the willing in case consensus is difficult to achieve in the UN Security Council. India must develop robust tri-Service capabilities for military intervention.
India-US defence cooperation, a key component of the strategic partnership, must be enhanced to take it to the next higher trajectory to enable the two countries to undertake joint threat assessment; contingency planning for joint operations; sharing of intelligence; simulations and table-top exercises — besides training exercises with troops; coordination of command, control and communications; and, planning for operational deployment and logistics support. All of these activities must be undertaken in concert with India’s other strategic partners in Asia.
Only when a cooperative security framework is in place will the India-US strategic partnership realise its true potential as a force for peace and stability in the IndoPacific.
MODI TO ATTEND TWO-DAY NUCLEAR SUMMIT LIKELY TO BE DOINATED BY CONCERNS OVER ISLAMIC STATE
WASHINGTON: The US expects to deepen cooperation with India on nuclear security as an outcome of the Nuclear Security Summit likely to be dominated by concerns about Islamic State and North Korea.
“We really would like to see a even deeper bilateral cooperation with India proceed going forward out of the summit,” White House official Laura Holgate told reporters on Tuesday. India has participated in all the three previous Nuclear Security Summits, starting 2010, and the issue figures prominently and regularly in bilateral interactions and joint statements.
At a separate briefing previewing the summit for reporters, White House officials outlined an agenda that clearly reflected the IS, in the aftermath of the Brussels terror attacks, and North Korea as top concerns. PM Narendra Modi, currently in Belgium, arrives here on Thursday for the two-day summit being attended by 52 nations, and Interpol and European Union.
Modi is likely to have bilateral meetings on the sidelines — pull-asides or formal sit-downs with other leaders – but a schedule has not been announced yet.
He will visit the White House on Thursday, the day he arrives, along with other world leaders for a working dinner hosted by President Ba rack Obama. The two leaders will be together most of the next day, and may get a chance to meet though a formal bilateral doesn’t appear to be on the cards yet. India expects the summit to raise awareness about nuclear terrorism and bolster global cooperation against terrorists and nuclear traffickers, according to officials in New Delhi.
The Nuclear Security Summit, a US initiative launched by Obama, has been focussed from the start on preventing nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists and traffickers. This year, the focus is largely on IS and North Korea. A “special summit” is scheduled for Friday specifically to discuss the threat from groups such as the IS.
North Korea, the other top concern, will be the topic of discussion at Obama’s first meeting of the summit — a trilateral meeting with counterparts from South Korea and Japan.
PAK’S NUKES CAN RAISE SECURITY THREAT; US
As world leaders gather for the Nuclear Security Summit this week, the US has said that Pakistan’s continued deployment of tactical atomic weapons can increase the security threat.
“Our concerns regarding the continuing deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons by Pakistan relate to a reality of the situation. When battlefield nuclear weapons are deployed forward, they can represent enhanced nuclear security threat,” said Rose Gottemoeller, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security.
“It is more difficult to sustain positive control over systems that are deployed forward. We found this lesson ourselves out in Europe during the years of the Cold War. And so I do think that it is a reality of the situation,” she said. “Wherever battlefield nuclear weapons exist, they represent particular nuclear security problems,” Gottemoeller said ahead of the Nuclear Security Summit being hosted by US on March 31-April 1.
This is not the first time that Gottemoeller raised such concerns about Pakistan. At a Congressional hearing earlier this month, she had said: “We have been very concerned about Pakistan’s deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons.”
Prime Minister N aw az Sharif has cancelled his trip to Washington for the summit in the wake of the terrorist attack in a Lahore park in which 72 people were killed and scores injured.
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, meanwhile, said nucleararmed Pakistan is a “very very vital problem”.
Obama convened the first Nuclear Security Summit in 2010, followed by Seoul in 2012 and The Hague in 2014
SOURCE: WWW.NSS2016.ORGNuclear Security Summit 2016 March 31-April 1, Washington DCSIGNIFICANCE?
This will be the fourth in a series of summits that have brought together leaders from 50+ countries and four international bodies to make new commitments towards reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism
NUCLEAR TERRORISM
One of the greatest threats to world security. If any terrorist networks get their hands on a nuclear device, the consequences for the world would be catastrophic
BEST WAYS TO PREVENT THREAT
Locking down nuclear materials and strengthening global nuclear security
KEY TAKEAWAY
The summits pushed for minimising civilian use of highly enriched uranium (HEU), key component used in nuclear weapons, by eliminating the material
Accomplishments since 2009
Removal of over 3.8 metric tonnes of foreign material by the US and its partners (enough for over 150 nuclear weapons)
Over 29 metric tonnes of US surplus HEU that the US down-blended (enough for over 1,100 nuclear weapons)
Approximately 138 metric tonnes of Russian weapons-origin HEU that US experts confirmed was permanently eliminated under the HEU Purchase Agreement (enough for over 5,500
nuclear weapons)
Over 5.8 metric tonnes of Russian non-weapons-origin HEU that was down-blended with US support (enough for over 230 nuclear weapons)
Tribune News Service
Jammu, March 29
The state government has taken a serious note of filling of posts reserved for settlement of SRO-43 (militancy-related) cases to adjust the candidates outside the purview of the scheme.It has directed the administrative wings of various departments to adhere to the guidelines and ensure that the posts are reserved for settlement of SRO-43 (militancy-related) cases only.The Sadr-e-Riyasat Ordinance (SRO)-43 of 1994 (militancy related) provides for immediate financial support to the family or next of kin of those killed in militancy-related incidents in the form of government jobs or cash compensation in lieu thereof.“On the basis of inputs of the Administrative Secretaries regarding availability of Class IV posts in different departments, two government orders were issued in 2006 and 2009. In the orders, Class IV posts were kept at the disposal of the Deputy Commissioners for settlement of SRO-43 (militancy- related) cases except for the cases which require relaxation as provided in SRO-43,” said an order issued by the General Administration Department on Monday evening.The order said some of the departments had utilised the posts for adjustment of candidates outside the purview of SRO-43.“Such delinquency not only causes inordinate delay in settlement of these cases, but also leads to litigation and defeats the very purpose of the scheme,” it said.
Tribune News Service
Jammu, March 29
Led by a native of Jammu, Lt Col RS Jamwal, an avid climber, the Army’s Everest Massif Expedition to scale the Mount Everest and Mount Lhotse, was flagged off today by Lt Gen MMS Rai, Vice Chief of the Army Staff, at a ceremony held at South Block in New Delhi.The 30-member team, consisting of five officers, four junior commissioned officers and 21 other ranks, will attempt to summit world’s highest peak Mt Everest and world’s fourth highest peak Mt Lhotse. Lt Col RS Jamwal was also the team leader during last year’s Everest expedition when a strong 7.9-magnitude quake had struck Nepal and triggered avalanches in the Himalayan range on April 25.They were at the base camp when the quake had struck. Col Jamwal and other team members had survived the massive quake and had joined the rescue operations saving other climbers.The avalanche had struck the Everest Base Camp from Mount Pumori destroying camps of many expedition teams, killing 22 international climbers and local Sherpas and injuring more than 70.Jamwal belongs to Badhori village in the Bari-Brahmana area of Samba district.The expedition team will reach the Everest Base Camp on April 14 and will make summit attempts from May 16 to 30.Two members of the team would also be attempting the Everest- Lhotse traverse and five members would be participating in the Tenzing Hillary Everest Marathon on May 29.On completion of the expedition the team will return to Delhi on June 10.
For over six decades all types of hurdles were being created to deny a soldier his fundamental right to cast his vote. First, he could cast his vote only at his permanent place of residence. Since that was impractical, he was told to avail postal ballot facility. As per the Representation of Peoples Acts, 1950 and 1951, the provision of casting vote through postal ballot is applicable to Indians living abroad. In any case, to traverse the route designed for a soldier’s vote, through postal ballot system, was such that it never reached in time to be counted. Only around 7% votes, cast through postal ballot, came to be counted.
When these flaws were pointed out to the Election Commission, it came up with the proposal of ‘proxy voting’ for soldiers. Little did it realise that this mode of casting vote was applicable only to those posted abroad and ones under preventive detention. A soldier’s life in India is akin to that of a gypsy. He is seldom at a place for more than two years, and when he is in field area his family is at some peace station in separate family accommodation with children in the local school. So he spends his leave with his family and rarely visits his permanent place of residence.
SC RULING
Finally, the Supreme Court in 2014 ruled that soldiers could cast their vote at the place of posting. Here again the bureaucracy tried to introduce one more hurdle in that a stay of minimum three years at the place of posting was made a qualifying condition, knowing full well that hardly any soldier ever stays at the same location for more than two years or so. So this ploy of the bureaucracy also did not work.
A soldier may be at a station for two years or so, but X number of soldiers are permanently located at that station, (and have what is termed as, ‘Service Qualification,’ in the Representation of Peoples Act as residents of that place–cantonment). So this group of soldiers (X number) as such, are very much interested in the development and in all such activities the elected member of a state assembly and Parliament is expected to carry out in that area. That is the rationale for a soldier to cast his vote at the place of his posting.
Bulk of the Indian army is stationed in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East and certainly not by its own volition. Indian army has been at war with insurgency for nearly six decades in the North East and manning the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir since 1949 and combating terrorism from 1989 onwards. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) was promulgated to give the military necessary legal backing for conducting anti-insurgency and antiterrorist operations in these two regions.
Insurgency and terrorist activities require sympathy and support of local population for sustenance. At the root of anti-India attitude of locals is poor administration and rampant corruption and little economic development. Military, besides fighting insurgents and terrorists in these areas has been providing a sense of security to the local population. It has as much at stake as any other resident of these areas in good civil administration and stable and right political establishment.
Military personnel in these areas exercised their franchise in the best interest of the region and the country. It is the fringe elements, sponsored and financially sustained by foreign powers that have been raising their voice against deployment of the military and the connected AFSPA and lately their voting rights.
NOT IN NATIONAL INTEREST
Military in these disturbed regions without the support of AFSPA will be toothless, and that is exactly what suits these anti-national elements. The latest move to deny a soldier his right to cast his vote in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East, in which the Centre appears to be the prime mover, is yet another attempt to scuttle soldier’s fundamental right to cast his vote and the move is decidedly not in the best national interest.
The argument that a soldier casting his vote in these areas will change the demography of the place and that it will also disclose the strength of the military in these areas, and this will compromise security, is fallacious. A country on the path of economic growth will see mass migrations to areas where jobs are available and that would constantly keep altering the demographic pattern of various regions and there is nothing wrong in this.
According to some estimates, three crore Bangladeshis have crossed over to India, changing the demography in many areas, particularly of Assam. When Pandits were driven out of the valley, did it not change the demography of the valley and what did the government and the Supreme Court do to restore the earlier pattern?
So why this singular move to deny voting rights to own soldiers while they are posted in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East. It is a case of the government cutting the nose to spite its own face. The Supreme Court has directed that in this case, the government is to consult the Election Commission and other stakeholders. The government needs to know that military is the principal stakeholder in this case.
LT GEN HARWANT SINGH (RETD) gen_harwant@hotmail.com The writer is a former deputy chief of the army staff and an expert on defence matters. The views expressed are personal
