Tribune News Service

Srinagar, November 23

Buoyed by the killing of six militants in Anantnag, Srinagar-based General Officer Commanding (GOC) of 15 Corps Lt Gen AK Bhatt on Friday said militants would be neutralised no matter where they hide.

He termed the anti-militancy operation in Bijbehara a “surgical operation.”

“It was a surgical operation. The Army and police had full cooperation in the operation and it was carried out swiftly and without any collateral damage,” Lt General Bhatt told reporters in Baramulla after paying obeisance at Chhatti Padshahi Gurdwara on Gurpurb.

When asked as to how he saw the killing of over 200 militants this year, he said it was just a figure and more important for them was restoration of peace.

“More important for us is that we want the restoration of peace. And for restoring peace, we have the cooperation of youth and people. Our effort is to ensure peace in Kashmir just like any other part of the country,” he said.

On surfacing of pictures on the soc-ial media showing Hizbul Mujahideen militants at Lal Chowk in Srinagar, Lt General Bhatt said, “The police are checking whether they are genuine or photoshopped pictures. At the same time, we will neutralise the terrorists wherever they hide.”

On the recent arrest of two women overground workers (OGWs), the GOC said, “Women should not get involved in this fight.” “In past, there have been women OGWs. Recently two women OGWs were arrested. We will request that women should not get involved in this fight,” he added.

“It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it.”

— John Jay, The Federalist Papers September 17, 1787.

“You must first enable the government to control the g ..

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, November 20

Six persons were killed and 10 injured in a blast at the Central Ammunition Depot (CAD), Pulgaon, in Maharashtra’s Wardha district this morning.

According to the police, the deceased included an Army man, a CAD employee and four labourers.

The incident occurred around 7 am when boxes of ammunition were being shifted to an open field near the ammunition depot where they were to be destroyed.

Initial information indicates that one of the boxes of ammunition caught fire and exploded while being offloaded from a truck.

Those killed were Narayan Shamrao (55), Vilas Lakshman (40), Uday Virasingh (37), Pravin Prakash Munjewar (25), Rajkumar Bhovate (23) and Prabhakar Ramdas Wankhede (40). While four of them died on the spot, two others breathed their last at a hospital. The ammunition comprised of defective shells for Shilka anti-aircraft guns. Contractual labourers were hired by the authorities to dig a pit in the ground where the ammunition was to be packed in sand bags before being exploded.

In a similar incident in 2016, 19 persons, including two Army officers, were killed when a warehouse storing anti-tank mines caught fire following an explosion.

Jammu, November 11

The terror infrastructure in Pakistan remains intact and around 160 terrorists are waiting across the Line of Control (LoC) to infiltrate into the Indian territory, a senior Army officer said on Sunday.

Lt Gen Paramjit Singh, who took over as General Officer Commanding of the Nagrota-based White Knight Corps, commonly known as 16 Corps, also said that cross-border terrorism would stop only if Pakistan changed its policy and intentions.

The officer, involved in the planning of the 2016 surgical strikes on the terror infrastructure in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, said the Army was not letting up on “our preparedness and the counter-infiltration grid is strong enough to deal with infiltrators”.

Lt General Singh, who has served in all three regions of J&K, said: “As many as 140 to 160 terrorists at different locations in Pakistan are being pushed into the state.” “The terror infrastructure is intact, and Pakistan’s intentions have not changed. The Pakistan army and the ISI’s complicity in planning infiltration and terror attacks is evident and it continues,” said the GOC, who has a vast experience in high-altitude warfare.

To a question on the situation along the LoC, he said ceasefire violations had abated after the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO)-level talks. “For troops on the LoC, there is no ceasefire… periodic unprovoked firing by the Pakistan army and attempts to cause harm to forward posts continue. We do not initiate fire, but we give it back in adequate measure. There is no let-up on preparedness and our counter-infiltration grid is strong to deal with infiltrators,” he said.

Talking about challenges during winter, the GOC said the Army anticipated that Pakistani troops would make an attempt to push infiltrators through heavy snow-bound areas and non-traditional routes.

“We have all contingency plans ready. We have coordinated with all security agencies, and plans are being implemented smoothly,” said Lt General Singh, who commanded a special forces’ battalion that participated in the surgical strikes after the attack on an Army brigade in Uri in 2016.

Referring to the recent incident of firing of 107-mm rocket on the Poonch brigade, he said: “Despite the DGMO-level talks in May during which the two countries agreed to abide by the 2003 ceasefire agreement, Pakistani troops targeted these locations.” “In response, we conveyed that Pakistan must exercise caution before indulging in any misadventure,” the General said.

Replying to another question about casualties suffered by Pakistani troops in retaliatory fire by the Indian Army, the officer said, “Pakistan has never been open about its casualties unless the soldier is from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir”. — PTI

Dipender Manta

Tribune News Service

Mandi, November 8

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) opened the Rohtang Pass on Wednesday, bringing relief to residents of Lahaul-Spiti.

The pass was closed on November 3 following heavy snowfall in the region, cutting off the tribal district from the rest of the state.

Talking to The Tribune, BRO Commander Col AK Awasthi said: “The pass could only be restored due to tireless efforts of the BRO. We had engaged our workforce and machinery from Lahaul and Manali to restore the road at the earliest.”

“On Diwali too, BRO men were seen clearing snow from the Manali-Leh highway. By afternoon, they had restored the pass. As soon as it opened, around 150 stranded vehicles passed from the Lahaul side towards Kullu. The vehicles had been stuck in the valley since November 3 because of heavy snowfall,” Awasthi said.

On Thursday, the Kullu administration allowed the movement of vehicles from Manali towards Lahaul, which were stranded in Kullu-Manali.

A large number of Lahaul-Spiti residents, living in Kullu-Manali, keep shuttling between Kullu and Lahaul for various works.

However, the district administration has restricted the movement of tourist vehicles towards the Rohtang Pass for security reasons. They have been allowed to go up to Gulaba.

Raman Gharsana, Subdivisional Magistrate, Manali, said: “We are allowing the movement of Lahaul-Spiti residents towards Lahaul from the Manali side. The tourists can go up to Gulaba only for snow-related activities.”

The people have been told not to take the road between Manali and Lahaul because of frost at several places.

Ashok Kumar, Dinesh Kumar, Gyalchhan, Ravinder and a few other residents of Lahaul-Spiti thanked the BRO for opening the road despite several challenges in sub-zero temperature. “It will help us transport potato seed out of the district,” they said.

JAMMU: The Indian Army has targeted Pakistani military admin ..
http://

http://

http://

Subhas Chandra Bose

New Delhi, October 20

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will join a flag-hoisting ceremony at the Red Fort on Sunday to mark the 75^thanniversary of the ‘Azad Hind government’ headed by Subhas Chandra Bose.

Interacting with BJP workers via video-conference on Wednesday, Modi had announced his plans to attend the ceremony.

Traditionally, the Prime Minister hoists the national Tricolour at the historic Red Fort on Independence Day on August 15.

Modi said that BJP respects everybody who served the country, irrespective of party affiliation. He said his government celebrates the contributions of many great personalities who were neglected by the Congress in its rule of several decades.

While the Congress neglected the likes of Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Bose and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the BJP believed in remembering everybody who contributed to nation-building, he said, citing his government’s works, including constructing museums for noted tribal personalities and developing five places linked to Dalit icon Ambedkar.

“We respect everybody who served the country,” he had said.

The Prime Minister would also lay the foundation stone of a museum dedicated to the Azad Hind Fauj.

On October 21, 1943, Bose had announced the formation of the country’s first independent government. PTI

While India can claim credit for surgical strikes and other operations, the fact is that the defence services do what they are supposed to do without grumbling. Government must ensure their faith remains intact

Data and the tax department don’t lie, to paraphrase a saying. IndiaSpend is the torchbearer of new journalism. It specialises in data-crunching, rather than relying on vague, perception-based analysis. In a report about a new study, it backs up with data what we always knew but could not prove. The Azim Premji University and Lokniti (the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies or CSDS) in 2018, conducted a study covering eight States to map trust in institutions. The study covered 22 Assembly constituencies with more than 16,000 respondents. It revealed that nearly 77 per cent respondents showed the most trust in the military, followed by 54.8 per cent in the Supreme Court and 48 per cent in the High Courts.

On an average, elected offices and institutions, such as the President, Prime Minister, Chief Minister, Parliament, State Legislature, et al, enjoyed an “effective trust” of 40 per cent. Effective trust is the difference between percentage of respondents who opted for a “great deal of trust” at one end of the scale and “no trust at all” at the other. According to the study, political parties garnered low trust, at minus 1.75 per cent. Political parties polled the lowest in the list of 16. The average “effective trust” in Parliament was 36.6 per cent in the eight States surveyed. Government officials scored 4.8 per cent trust while the police managed only 0.9 percentage points more.

Why do you think this is? It could be because the military in India has proved time and again to be free of political influence, unlike the police, administration and other institutions. The study suggests the Indian people believe the effect of political parties is toxic (reflected in the low ranking to political parties) and, therefore, they trust the courts more than the Prime Minister and Parliament. The military does not hide or lie to cover up unpleasant realities — although sometimes, it might highlight certain parts of truth: Like what a wonderful aircraft the Rafale is (true) and that India could never have made such a wonderful aircraft (false).

The main thing is, the military does what it is supposed to do without grumbling or complaining (although its Chiefs do occasionally go to court about their personal problems — and are quickly absorbed by political parties). It is often weighed down by crippling shortages, but it gets the job done, no matter what the difficulties, even though it doesn’t get paid enough in relation to the other arms of the Government, tends to be bossed over by them, and is frequently denied state-of-the-art equipment.

It is true that no Army in the world has a full inventory — it is a mix of modern, mature and legacy/obsolete equipment. In 1995, Army Chief Gen Shankar Roy Choudhury was fed up writing letters to his superiors about critical deficiencies and was forced to go public. “The Army should not be held responsible for failing to meet its mandate.” In the same period, Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral VS Shekhawat, concerned about the shrinking size of the Indian Navy, warned over dangers at sea in the event of hostilities. His outburst resulted in the then Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav calling him to a breakfast meeting and immediately placing orders on Naval Dockyards for ship construction. In France this year, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) resigned because of arbitrary reduction in the defence budget. By this yardstick, many of our service chiefs ought to have resigned. Last year, the defence budget was lowest since 1962.

One is periodically reminded that China has risen, while India is still rising and no one will come to India’s help in the event of conflict. India will have to fight its battles alone. But is it equipped to do so? A strategic reset is essential to meet the emerging security challenges. Of the 340 recommendations by the Kargil GoM, many are unimplemented, including the appointment of CDS. A headless Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) created more than a decade ago is an exercise in futility. Integration of the three services with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has not even begun while jointness is only in name. Defence planning on the basis of 15, five and one year plans is compartmentalised and offers no strategic choices. The IDS simply collates the three services’ plans and lets the MoD determine priorities.

The service chiefs have consistently complained about inadequate say in decision-making. The military is seen to be subservient to the political class and civilian bureaucracy. Speaking at a public lecture some years ago, the then Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) Vinod Rai urged the Government to repose trust in the Armed Forces by giving full financial powers to the service chiefs. He said the Defence Procurement Policy (DPP) (which has undergone seven upgrades and become very complex) involved the participation of 13 agencies.

The ghost of Bofors is a B, (you could add an R for Rafale) plus the three Cs — CAG, CVC and CBI — these are retarding the procurement process. Are we surprised that the Army has not added a single new gun to its inventory since 1986 when it is required to deter a two-front war? Transformation of the Army — like the Navy and the Indian Air Force (IAF) — is underway independent of a tri-service operational plan. There is no long-term Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) to derive national security and defence strategies and then evolve doctrines. We have put the cart before the horse.

During the limited war in Kargil, Army Chief Gen Ved Malik despairingly announced: “We will fight with what we have.” But for Israel’s strategic intervention with 155 mm Bofors ammunition, UAVs and PGMs for the IAF, vacation of Pakistan’s aggression would have met cost, time and casualty overruns. Fast-tracked acquisitions arrived only after the war was over. One of the reasons for Operation Parakram not taking off was the discovery that the military was not combat ready, probably an alibi for lack of political will which got translated as strategic restraint. Not fighting a war since 1971 and acquisition of nuclear weapons have willy nilly undermined the conventional deterrence.

We can feel good about surgical strikes and claim credit for such piecemeal operations in elections. But remember: The faith of the people of India resides in the defence services, because like the people of India, the services make do with what they have; and do a damn good job in it. That faith, Governments must ensure never breaks.

(The writer is a retired Major General of the Indian Army and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the revamped Integrated Defence Staff)

The saga of oil price rise goes back to October 6, 1973 when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat decided to restore the self-esteem of his armed forces and the nation by launching the Yom Kippur war. Today is the 45th anniversary of that event.

Lt-Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd)
Chancellor, Central University Kashmir

Forty five years ago, most of us never thought twice about filling the fuel tanks of our vehicles. A full tank of my Vespa scooter cost me Rs 6. My parents’ Ambassador car needed Rs 50 to be brimful.  Fuel was the last of our worries and we consumed it as if the good times would never end. They did, on October 6, 1973, the day of Yom Kippur, the holy day of atonement of sins by the Jews. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt launched one of the best ever conceived, planned and coordinated military offensives in history, into his own territory. That territory was then held by Israelis along the Suez Canal front with the entire Sinai under them, having captured it in the lightning offensive of the Six Day War of June 1967. That Sadat’s offensive floundered at the altar of execution, the bane of the planner, is a different story. Importantly, it upset the breeze of a life we lived in those times. Prices of fuel shot up and very soon my scooter’s full tank was costing me  Rs17; that’s an increase of three and a half times almost overnight. Imagine if petrol were to suddenly cost you Rs 275 a litre! A heart-stopping development for most of us.

What’s the connection between Sadat’s Yom Kippur war of October, 1973 and oil prices? That’s what I will endeavour to explain in brief.

The Yom Kippur war: The conflict itself is one of the most studied and analysed conflicts of the Cold War period. It stood out for three things in terms of military technology. One, the first serious use of anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) in the mechanised battlefield, the SS 11B1 and the shoulder fired Malutka of the Soviet family and the American TOW (developed in 1970) which worsted the Israeli, Egyptian and Syrian armoured assaults in the war. Two, was the use  of Surface to Air Guided missiles (SAM6 and shoulder fired SAM7, again of the Soviet family). The third was the first demonstrated employment of the T-72 tank and the BMP-1, both iconic combat vehicles of the Soviet era.

Anwar Sadat put together a beguiling plan to deceive the ever-prepared Israeli armed forces and achieved almost total surprise. A young Egyptian military engineer developed a method of hosing down the high banks of the Suez Canal to provide access to Egyptian bridging and mechanised war fighting material even as hordes of Egyptian infantrymen with ATGMs went rushing across the canal and fanned into the desert to take on the Israeli armoured counter-attacks. SAM launchers were also rushed over the bridges to their pre-designated sites and kept at bay the attacking Israeli air force, thus creating a 10-km air defence umbrella. Despite the early success, the Egyptians floundered as the plan desisted from further ingress, diluting into a defensive holding action with the canal behind the Egyptians. In the end, the Egyptians were roundly defeated due to the massive airlift of state-of-the-art military equipment by the US to support Israel; TOW missiles were deployed from the airfields directly into action.

The connection with the oil crisis: Arab oil producers seething at the western support to Israel imposed an embargo on any nation seen to be with Israel. The decision to boycott and punish the US and the West led to the price of crude to rise from $3 per barrel to $12. The price of petrol all over the world shot up drastically, making transport more expensive. The demonstrated power of energy and its crunching effect on international economics first came to be realised in the wake of this embargo.

It sent the international political stock of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran much higher. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in 1960 by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Venezuela with the principal objective of raising the price of oil. Others soon joined them. For the first decade, OPEC had little impact on the price of oil, but by the early 70s, the demand for oil was increasing. Japanese and US car production was exponentially increasing and although the world was in the Cold War mode, a period of peace in the troubled 20th century was ensuring better quality of life for people. That meant an increasing dependency on travel as cities expanded along with motorised transportation and international travel. OPEC did not succeed in increasing the price of oil even till the early 70s. The Yom Kippur War came as a trigger and OPEC suddenly acquired a larger political clout. It threatened to also cut back production to create an oil crisis, sensing an opportune moment.

Spur to alternative energies:  Although US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did manage to negotiate with the Arabs on the availability of oil for the US, this crisis effectively spurred the world towards greater development of alternative energies and localisation of energy resources. The UK, for instance, developed its North Sea facility to eventually become an oil exporter. The US research led to the discovery and development of shale gas, making it self-sufficient and no longer dependent on Middle Eastern oil. However, there can be no denying that the oil boom, which later tapered, led to the rise of the Gulf countries, some of them very appropriately as trading and business development hubs. The flocking of the 7.5 million Indian diaspora to these countries began just after these developments. The Persian Gulf received a strategic boost out of proportion to its geostrategic location, which multiplied further during the disastrous Iran-Iraq war of the 80s and the two Gulf Wars.

India’s struggle: China and India’s economic boost through the 90s and the early millennium was courtesy the dependence on Middle Eastern oil. That situation has hardly changed as both struggle with alternative energies; renewable resources such as solar and wind have not sufficiently made a dent, although steps are afoot. Electric surface transport resources are developing; electric air transportation seems yet afar.

Unless a comprehensive shift to alternate sources takes place, it is unlikely that the geopolitical and geostrategic importance of the Middle East can wane, the US independence in energy notwithstanding. Already, India is reeling under the weight of rising fuel prices with social, economic and political ramifications.

It all goes back to October 6, 1973 when Anwar Sadat decided to restore the self-esteem of the Egyptian armed forces and the nation. Today is the 45th anniversary of that event.