Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 21

Claiming that Air India intended to restructure flights operating to and from the Chandigarh international airport, the airlines today told the Punjab and Haryana High Court that it planned early morning flights between the city and Delhi for providing connectivity to European flights.

It also told the High Court that it planned “additional capacity” only after the airport was 24-hour functional. The Bench was also told that “Chandigarh-Bangkok” was making losses on a monopoly sector from the start. As such, a decision was taken to withdraw the flight. It added that Air India was in a financial crisis and could not afford to operate loss-making routes.

The High Court was also told that Air India had written to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Civil Aviation seeking permission to operate “hub and spoke” flights from the Chandigarh airport. If granted, it would greatly help Air India provide better connectivity and ease of travel to the people of Chandigarh and adjoining areas.

The spoke-hub pattern is a form of transport topology optimisation in which traffic planners organise routes as a series of “spokes” that connect outlying points to a central “hub”. In an affidavit submitted before the High Court, Meenakshi Malik, executive director, sales and marketing, Air India, said it could introduce a new early morning flight on Delhi-Chandigarh-Delhi sector from January next year.

The flight would depart from Delhi around 7 am and arrive at Chandigarh around 8 am. The departure time from Chandigarh to Delhi would be 8.45 am and the arrival in Delhi would be at 9.45 am. This was subject to regulatory approvals and availability of slots from Delhi and Chandigarh. She said the route would enable passengers from five states adjoining Chandigarh to connect to European flights such as London, Paris, Frankfurt, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Rome, Milan, Vienna and Madrid.

The morning flight would also provide connectivity to Bangkok from Delhi in the afternoon. After the restructuring, the number of flights between Delhi and Chandigarh would be 14 per week from the current seven.

The Bench was also told that the Chandigarh-Bangkok flight was incurring losses from the beginning. Air India continued to operate on this sector, thereby giving enough time for the flight to stabilise and generate revenue. However, it did not happen.

Washington, November 21

The US has suspended USD 1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan after President Donald Trump’s directive, the Pentagon has said, in what experts believe is a strong signal of American frustration.

The Pentagon’s statement came days after President Trump said Pakistan did not do “a damn thing” for the US, alleging that its government had helped al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hide near its garrison city of Abbottabad.

“USD 1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended,” Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defence, told reporters in an e-mail response to questions on Tuesday.

No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary Defence for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January this year, is a strong signal of American frustration.

“But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern–that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistan’s neighbours,” Sedney told PTI.

“Pakistan’s leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans,” he said in response to a question.

“This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others,” said the Senior Associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

Previously, Sedney was at the Department of State and the National Security Council, as well as Acting President of American University of Afghanistan. He was part of the Pentagon when Laden was killed in a raid by US commandoes in Pakistan’s Abbottabad.

Over the last few days, Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of Laden.

“I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book ‘The Wrong Enemy’ that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about Laden’s presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan,” Sedney told PTI in an interview.

While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism by Islamic extremists, Islamabad has also enabled extremist groups that attack its neighbours, he observed.

After years of dithering, in recent years, Pakistan’s security forces have moved strongly against the extremists that threaten the Pakistani state, Sedney said.

“What the US seeks, what President Trump is asking for, is for Pakistan to take the same kind of measures against the Taliban, Lashkhar-e-Taiba and against all groups in Pakistan that threaten Pakistan’s neighbours,” he said.

“But, we still see the Taliban moving weapons, fighters and money through Pakistan. We still see Taliban commanders taking refuge in Pakistan, keeping their families in Pakistan, holding meetings and conducting training in Pakistan and shipping explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan,” Sedney alleged, adding that leaders of sanctioned organisations were acting freely in Pakistan and speaking publicly in favour of violence.

If Pakistan took some strong measures against the Taliban, peace would come to Afghanistan quickly, he said.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has roped in former top American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad for peace talks with the Taliban. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan would benefit from a huge “peace dividend”, he asserted.

“Similarly, if Pakistan took strong measures against groups which act against India, Pakistan would harvest huge economic benefits from better economic ties with India,” Sedney added.

Ties between the US and Pakistan strained after Trump, while announcing his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August last year, hit out at Pakistan for providing safe havens to “agents of chaos” that kill Americans in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it had “much to lose” by harbouring terrorists.

In September, the Trump administration cancelled USD 300 million in military aid to Islamabad for not doing enough against terror groups like the Haqqani Network and the Taliban active on its soil. PTI

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 14

Following a four-hour marathon hearing, the Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its order on petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France under an inter-government agreement.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice KM Joseph reserved the verdict on the contentious issue after hearing arguments from counsel for the petitioners, including Prashant Bhushan, senior journalist Arun Shourie and Attorney General KK Venugopal, who defended the secrecy clause.

 Alleging irregularities in the deal, petitioners ML Sharma, Prashant Bhushan, Vineet Dhanda and Sanjay Singh demanded registration of an FIR and a court-monitored investigation.

Venugopal said the decision on the types of aircraft and weapons needed to be procured was a matter for experts and could not be adjudicated upon by the judiciary. “Even Parliament has not been told about the complete cost of jets,” he said, defending the non-disclosure clause of Rafale deal.

“I decided not to peruse it myself as in case of any leak, my office would be held responsible,” the AG said.

“The decision we need to take is whether to bring the fact on pricing in public domain or not,” the Bench said.

Venugopal said though there was no sovereign guarantee, there was a letter of comfort issued by the French Government which was as good as a sovereign guarantee.

Perhaps for the first time, four senior IAF officers — three Air Marshals and an Air Vice Marshal — and Additional Secretary (Defence) appeared in the top court to explain various aspects of a defence deal.

“We are dealing with the requirements of the Air Force and would like to ask an Air Force officer on Rafale jets. We want to hear from an Air Force officer and not the official of the Defence Ministry on the issue,” the Bench said, prompting the AG to assure it that they would be available in 10 minutes.

Air Vice Marshal J Chalapathi told the Bench that the last acquisition was Sukhoi-30 and before that Mirage aircraft were bought in 1985. He said while most of the countries were using 4th and 5th generation fighter planes, IAF was using 3rd or sub-4th generation (3.5) aircraft. After getting answers from the IAF officers, the Bench said they were free to go. “The Air Marshals and Air Vice Marshal can go now. This (court) is a different war room. You can go to the actual war room,” the CJI told them.

Following the court’s October 31 order, the Centre had on Monday submitted in a sealed cover the pricing details of 36 Rafale jets.

The process of acquisition had started in 2001 and India was to purchase 126 Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) but the contract negations reached a stalemate and Request for Proposal compliance was finally withdrawn in June 2015. During the protracted process, India’s adversaries modernised their combact capabilities, the AG submitted.

It was in this background that India signed an agreement with France in September 2016 for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of upgrading process of the Indian Air Force equipment. It has better deliverables, the AG said, adding norms prescribed under Defence Procurement Policy -2013 were followed.

The estimated cost of the deal is Rs 58,000 crore.

Venugopal said at the exchange rate of November 2016, the cost of a bare fighter jet was Rs 670 crore. He, however, said earlier the jets were not to be loaded with requisite weapons system and the reservation of the government was due to the fact that it did not want to violate the clause of the Inter Government Agreement and the secrecy clause.

Describing Rafale aircraft as potent, Venugopal said, “Had we possessed Rafale during the Kargil war, we could have avoided huge casualties as Rafale is capable of hitting targets from a distance of 60 km.”

“Mr Attorney, Kargil was in 1999-2000, Rafale came in 2014,” pointed out the CJI. “I said it hypothetically,” responded the AG.

Vikramdeep Johal
Tribune News Service
Patiala, November 11

Even as India joined nations from Europe and other continents in commemorating the centenary of the end of World War I, the country’s “sword arm” — Punjab — failed to rise to the occasion.

No official event was organised on Sunday to mark 100 years of the Armistice, not even at the Patiala State Forces Memorial, which commemorates the dead from the military units of the erstwhile princely state for both World Wars.

Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, grandfather of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, and other royals had contributed significantly to mobilising troops from undivided Punjab for World  War I.

For the record, Remembrance Sunday was observed in several parts of India, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Puducherry. “The state government and the Punjab-based Army authorities should have hosted functions on November 11 to remember our long-forgotten heroes,” said Kulveer Singh, a history researcher based in Muktsar’s Doda village, which sent 41 men to the war (of whom two died).

Capt Amarinder Singh, a noted military historian himself, had recently paid homage to Indian soldiers at the Helles Memorial in Gallipoli (Turkey) and the Haifa Memorial in Israel. In September, Finance Minister Manpreet Badal had visited the Kranji War Memorial in Singapore, where he had saluted the supreme sacrifice of about 5,000 Punjabi soldiers in World War II.

Talking to The Tribune, Lt Gen TS Shergill (retd), senior adviser to the CM, said, “We will honour the families of WW-I soldiers during the upcoming Military Literature Festival. Moreover, a section dedicated to the conflict is nearing completion at the War Heroes’ Memorial-cum-Museum in Amritsar.”

Punjab was also not in the thick of things when the WW-I centenary commemoration was launched in 2014, even as Capt Amarinder Singh has been attending memorial events organised jointly by the British Deputy High Commission and the Canadian Consulate General in Chandigarh.

Meanwhile, the CM tweeted on Sunday: “As we complete 100 years of World War I, let us remember and salute the thousands of Indian soldiers who fought far from their land, and the millions of innocent lives lost in the senseless violence. And let us vow never to let the world plunge into such a war again.”

Royal celebrations in 1918

The then princely state of Patiala had celebrated the signing of the Armistice on a grand scale, in stark contrast to Sunday’s no-show.

A 1923 publication, ‘Patiala and the Great War’, now digitised by the Panjab Digital Library, reads: “The Maharaja (Bhupinder Singh) ordered the firing of a salute of 101 guns… The day was observed as a public holiday. In the morning, thanksgiving services were held in all places of worship. In the afternoon, the city polo ground was thronged by people to witness hastily-arranged sports. Food was distributed to the poor in the big quadrangle outside the fort, and sweetmeats were distributed to all schoolboys. In the evening, the city and cantonment, which had all day been decorated with buntings and flags, were brilliantly illuminated.”

“The rejoicing spread over to the following day, then there were further sports, a prize distribution, and the release of some 107 prisoners… The programme on Armistice Day was brought to a close by a state banquet at the Maharaja’s palace to which all European officers, civil and military, and the sirdars of His Highness’ government were invited.

THE Moscow round of talks, although the latest addition to a round-the-year shifting caravan of international conferences on Afghanistan, has had the most promising start of them all. Not a single invitee cried off. Nearly all of them were neighbours and so had a direct stake in a stable Afghanistan. Those that had reservations found ways to work around the limitations. The Afghan government found it difficult to attend because it insists that it should lead the talks with Taliban. Besides it had to be mindful of some rightwing American concerns. For India, the Taliban is a proscribed organisation and hence sitting at the same table posed a dilemma. Both instead opted for ‘unofficial’ delegations but headed by heavyweights to convey the gravity they attach to the Moscow meet.

More than India and Afghanistan working their way around, the surprise is Russia’s return to the centre-stage nearly four decades after its military was driven out over the Pamirs. From Syria to Afghanistan, US President Donald Trump’s capriciousness towards steady allies is forcing a hunt for alternatives. And Russia, goose-stepping with regional allies, has used the breach. The Moscow meet is also part of that piece. All invitees, bar two, are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. All of them with no exception share the existentialist fear of Afghanistan again becoming a breeding ground for pan-regional political Islamists.

The Moscow meet provides more than a glimmer of hope because Washington has not yet acted as a spoiler. Still there is a long distance to travel. The Taliban says this is not a formal dialogue for peace, even the hosts have the limited aim of creating conditions for direct talks and influential countries such as Saudi Arabia are still out of the mix. However, success will be assured only if external players resist the temptation of taking ownership of the process. Their end goal ought to be to ensure that the sense of ennui among Afghans does not turn the country into a bridgehead for the expansion of ISIS into South and Central Asia.

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, October 30

The Northern Command chief, Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, on Tuesday visited the forward areas of the Kashmir region to review the prevailing security situation on the Line of Control.

Lieutenant General Singh visited the forward posts in the frontier districts of Kupwara and Baramulla and was accompanied by the Chinar Corps General Officer Commanding Lt Gen A K Bhatt.

A defence spokesman said the Northern Command chief, on the second day of his visit to the Kashmir valley, was briefed on the counter-infiltration grid and the operational preparedness of the formations.

“The Northern Command chief was appreciative of the measures and the standard operating procedures instituted by the units and formations to meet the challenges posed by the inimical elements,” the spokesman added.

General Singh also visited High Altitude Warfare School in Gulmarg and interacted with the troops undergoing specialised training in snowcraft and winter warfare.

He commended the high standards of training provided by school, the spokesman said.

Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 29

India will finally exorcise the ‘Bofors ghost’ and formally induct its first artillery guns in three decades.

Two types of guns are to be inducted at a ceremony at Deolali, Maharasthra, on November 9. Deolali is the location of Indian Army’s artillery training school. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to be present.

India had not inducted any new 155 MM artillery guns since March 1986 when 410 pieces of the Swedish company Bofors’ FH-77B 155mm/39 calibre howitzer were purchased for Rs 1,437 crore.

The first gun to be inducted is the 155 MM (same as Bofors) M777 ultra-light howitzer (145 guns) produced by the BAE systems for $737 million. This is through the foreign military sales (FMS) route from the US. Five of these guns have arrived. From June next year starts the next batch arrives and then on in phases. The induction rate is expected to be five guns per month till complete consignment is received by mid 2021.

Made of titanium, each gun weighs 4,000 kg making its transportable by CH-47 Chinook helicopters, C-17 Globemaster and the C-130 Hercules aircraft or on trucks with ease to provide increased mobility in the mountains.

The second is the self-propelled tracked gun Vajra K-9-T costing nearly Rs 4,500 crore. Ten pieces of the 155 MM guns are available now. It will have up to 50 percent local content under a joint venture between Larsen and Tourbo and South Korea’s Hanwha Techwin.

Firepower 

• The first gun to be inducted is the 155 MM (same as Bofors) M777 ultra-light howitzer (145 guns) produced by the BAE systems for $737 million
• Five of these guns have arrived. The next batch comes in June. The induction rate is expected to be five guns per month till complete consignment is received by mid-2021

Lt Gen Surinder Singh, GOC-in-C, Western command  will interact with veteran offrs

(.)update on current issues related to Indian Army especially veterans

(.)01 Nov 18 at 1100h

at (.)Manekshaw auditorium

(.) Chandimandir cantt

(.)desirous veteran offrs please confirm attendance at whatsapp on 9456182042.

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.

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.