In 1893, Swami Vivekananda famously invoked India’s embracing “inclusivity” in his seminal address to the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago by stating: “I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites who came to southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny.”

In 2013, 120 years later, then Israeli President Shimon Peres reciprocated the sentiment while also calling Mahatma Gandhi a “prophet” and stated: “I think India is the greatest show of how so many differences in language and sects can coexist facing great suffering and keeping full freedom…”.

India has a rare record with Judaism before Aaliyah (emigration of Jews to Israel) with its Malabar Jews dating back to the King Solomon era, Paradesi Jews (Spanish and Portuguese), the Bene Israel community who arrived 900 years back, Baghdadi Jews and more recent converts Bnei Menashe (Mizo and Kuki tribesman) and Bene Ephraim (“Telegu Jews”). As Rabbi Metzger presciently put it: “Jews have lived in India for over 2,000 years and have never been discriminated against. This is something unparalleled in human history”. This civilisational-historical fact overcame the official “distance” between the two nations till 1992.

The fructification of the religion-based Zionist movement led to the creation of the modern State of Israel in 1948. This genealogical fact militated against India’s own bloody Partition caused by a religion-based vivisection. Even Mahatma Gandhi had wholeheartedly empathised and sympathised with the Jews over their persecution but couldn’t agree with the forcible occupation of Palestine under the pretext of “sanction for it is sought in the Bible” — so the moral conundrum of forcing out the Arabs was unjustifiable for him, thus the initiation of the Indian position. The “hyphenation” of the “Israeli-Palestinian” context established itself in the immediate aftermath of all the subsequent Indo-Israeli moves. Though the contradictions emanating from the steadfast pro-Pakistan tilt of Arab nations (particularly on Kashmir) posited a genuine conundrum on India to continue favouring the cause of Palestine, at the cost of normalising the relationship with the reality of Israel. India recognised Israel (after opposing Israel’s UN membership in 1949) in 1950, after King Farouk of Egypt had voted in favour of Pakistan over the Hyderabad issue.

Despite the absence of full-fledged diplomatic relations, former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru is said to have reached out to the Israelis over the 1962 Sino-Indian war and got military wares. Despite the utopian notions of the nonaligned movement co-propounded by Nehru and Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, the 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan wars further complicated the situation with the Arabs clearly tilting in favour of Pakistan, while Israel unequivocally supported India, both diplomatically and militarily (as per the P.N. Haksar papers). This despite India supporting Egyptian nationalisation of the Suez Canal, denouncing Israel in the “Six Day War” and the continued support to the Palestinian cause. India, in the 1970s and 1980s, was repeatedly attacked by strictures from the Organisation of Islamic Conference and the period saw substantial moral, diplomatic and financial funding by Arabs towards Pakistan’s India-centric nuclear programme (despite that India was the first non-Arab nation to diplomatically accredit the PLO).

However, Israel’s own history of contradictory rapprochement with arch-rivals like Jordan and Egypt made India’s ostensibly anti-Israel behaviour contextually understandable. Israel was familiar with the spectre of the then Soviet Union and China voting against Israel in UN forums while simultaneously deepening bilateral relations and trade. The realpolitik of the evolving situation in the early 1990s warranted the normalising of India-Israel ties. With this backdrop, rumours of Indo-Israeli talks about doing an Osirak-style-military attack on Pakistan’s Kahuta nuclear facilities gained credibility.

The changing geopolitics in 1990s with the Cold War’s end, the emergence of Islamic terror in the Middle East and gradual warming of India-US ties led to the establishment of full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992, while still retaining the so-called moral position on Palestine. Since then, the balance on the Israel-Palestinian axis has been broadly maintained, with increasing symbolic gestures of tilting towards Tel Aviv. India’s abstention in the vote condemning Israel over the 2014 Gaza war, abstaining again on a Unesco resolution calling Israel “an occupation force in Jerusalem” and the recent Narendra Modi visit, which sought to “dehyphenate” the Israel-Palestinian context with the PM only visiting Israel, not the West Bank: all this is symptomatic of the emerging new order.

Today, Israel is the second biggest foreign military supplier for India, poised to pip the US over the long term. Its cutting-edge military technology is buttressed with crucial intelligence-sharing, strategic tieups beyond military wares into the field of agriculture, commerce and space technology. The burgeoning civilian transactions already make India the eighth largest trading partner for Israel, helping override occasional hiccups like the recent cancellation of a $500 million order for the Spike anti-tank guided missiles. It is this larger narrative, contextual understanding and the obvious portents of “natural allies” which will allow the growing India-Israel equation to overcome India’s recent vote in the UN Security Council against the recent American move to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

For India, supporting the Palestinians is a moral obligation and it needn’t be a deal-breaker in the Indo-Israeli equation. Israel will understand the sincerity and consistency of the Indian position on the “two-nation solution” on the future of Palestine even if it disagrees with the exact means, dimensions and contours of New Delhi’s stand. The future Indo-Israeli possibilities are immense — as even in the military domain the Israeli components are essentially of “systems”, as opposed to complete “military platforms” like tanks, warships or fighter planes, as yet. Israel has shown remarkable flexibility in adapting to topical necessities — such as the recent murmurs of an Israeli-Saudi understanding on Iran. Therefore, for it to sift through the evolving Indian position on Palestine, and yet solidify the Indo-Israeli framework with the impending visit of Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu to India, is entirely possible, justifiable and morally tenable.

THE DUO TEAM RESPONSIBLE FOR LOWERING STATUTU SOF ESM AT NATIONAL LEVEL:: BOTH EQUALLY ADAMANT FOR ANY SUGGESTIONS.

Any Veterans who  wants to learn how to be remain in lime light than Maj Gen Satbir Singh  is a classic example. He is a personality who has started claiming himself to be National Leader of EX-Servicemen only by occupying Jantar Mantar and creating world record with every passing Day.

His Blind followers who owe loyalty to  him of having served as his subordinates in one or the other way are under his close guidance to project him as National Leader and getting  it published in the Newspapers.

Till date he himself does not know what are the balance anomalies left after the steep rise in Pension Scales of all ESM from time to time but his needle is stuck at OROP  with Political ambition in his mind not ready to leave Jantar Mantar.

His so called loyals from various states have left him for good  or  those who could not make grade with any Political Party during State elections in Punjab,Harayana are clubbing and supporting him in order to come to lime light  and further instigating and supporting JM agitation without participation  and in turn Maj Gen Satbir gets morale boost from new ESM organisations  which exists only on Whats app . One such is ESM(P) headed by Col MS Bajwa and Col Rangi and few old stalwarts who keep fighting among themselves on whats app. All followers of APP and Kejriwal.

Maj Gen Satbir came to Chandigarh and met the APP group of ESM , to ensure congress defeat in the By elections and support Major General Suresh Khajuria (Retd)  who only got less tha 25000 votes and security fore-fitted. The result of Maj Gen Satbir support to APP Candidate. 

The Letter below is a classic example showing unwarranted concern other than OROP for which he  is holding  JM Fort. It is his personal ego problem that he refuses to listen to any sensible advise rendered to him

The IESM GB meeting which was almost held on daily basis  at JM has lost its value as he now looks for GB members. He has started   refuting all  veterans who advice him to leave Jantar Mantar but it seems JM is the only place where he comes and keep himself busy and found of hearing his own Voice .

He wrote  only about OROP and some new issue  in his letter knowing full well and non will reply and none of the Minister wants to meet him. This is the Status and respect he has earned and he  has lost GOODWILL of current govt and PREVIOUS Govt defence Minister. Mr Anthony  did not meet him for 9 yeas .The only reason is that he finds  his logic’s only true and claims  himself as ” GENERAL RIGHT”.

Listen to his recent vedio got himself recorded and released among  shows how adamant and proud he is for nothing and wants to keep holding JM Fort for his daily engagement and the only excercise he has to keep fit. Three cheers

Comments welcome at

email :  sanjhamorcha303@gmail.com

Justice SN Dhingra

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 11

Justice SN Dhingra, a former Delhi High Court judge, will head the new Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court to further investigate 186 cases related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi.Justice Dhingra was a trial judge when punishments were handed out in 1990s to those accused of the 1984 Trilokpuri massacre. Kishori Lal, dubbed the “butcher of Trilokpuri”, was among those sentenced by him.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)Almost 3,000 people were killed, most of them in Delhi, in the anti-Sikh riots that broke out following the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra formally passed the order to set up the three-member SIT that would also comprise retired IPS officer of IG rank Rajdeep Singh and serving IPS officer Abhishek Dular.The court finalised the names after the counsel representing petitioner Gurnad Singh Kahlon agreed to the names suggested by Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand.While directing the government to provide all logistical and secretarial support to the SIT, the Bench asked it to submit its first status report in two months and posted the matter for further hearing on March 19. On behalf of the riot victims, senior advocate HS Phoolka too submitted a list of names for the three-member SIT but the court made it clear that it would go by the names suggested by the government.The Bench had on Wednesday said the previous SIT had not carried out further probe into these 186 cases in which closure reports were filed. The top court had taken the decision after perusing the report of a two-judge supervisory panel that scrutinised 241 cases related to the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi closed by an earlier SIT formed by the NDA government for re-investigation.Submitted on December 6, the report of the supervisory committee comprising Justice JM Panchal and Justice KSP Radhakrishnan was perused by the court for the first time on Wednesday.

The ex-servicemen who are getting training in Jalandhar on Friday. Tribune Photo

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, October 13

The government will launch Guardians of Governance (GOG) project on October 16.The project will implement a monitoring mechanism of development works. It will be initially launched in Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Barnala and Tarn Taran districts.The Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Public Administration has provided training to at least 1,032 ex-servicemen in these districts. They will be deployed as cluster heads of a group of villages headed by a district head.Jalandhar district head Maj Gen Sarabjit Singh Powar (retd) said it was the first paperless project in the state as the guardians would be connected to the district administration through a ‘GoG’ mobile application.“The guardians will be asked to rate works on a scale of 1 to 5 in the respective villages,” said Gen Powar. He added that their feedback would be sent to the administrative secretary and the DC concerned.Once the action was taken to upgrade the scheme, the guardians would again be asked to provide feedback on the app and the process would continue till the guardian’s feedback turned ‘satisfactory’, he said.Though the government had initially planned to depute a guardian in each village, it would now have one for each cluster of villages. In Jalandhar, there are only 120 guardians for 956 villages, he said.As the state government had not set any priority of schemes till date to get it monitored by these guardians, it would become an arduous task for them to scrutinise the implementation and success of over 18 development schemes listed in the app in over eight villages simultaneously, he said.When contacted, Lt Gen TS Shergil (retd) said since the programme had been launched as a pilot project in five districts, more recruitment in other districts would soon be made in due course.

Training for Guardians of Governance volunteers ends

A CCTV grab of the killer.

Bijendra Ahlawat

Tribune News Service

Palwal, January 2

Five people were killed as they were assaulted separately with an iron rod by a middle-aged man in this town on Monday night.The accused, an ex-serviceman, was arrested after being identified from CCTV footage, police said.The cause behind the incident is yet to be ascertained.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The assault was carried out at different spots. One of the assaults took place around 2.30 am on Tuesday, as per the CCTV footage.Deputy Commissioner Mani Ram Sharma said a probe was on into the incident.

Jammu, October 12

Army and CRPF officers met here today and discussed strategies to thwart “nefarious designs of terrorists and to maintain law and order” in the region.The General Officer Commanding (GOC) of 26 Infantry Division Major General, Sanjay Singh, met Inspector General of the CRPF Abhay Vir Chauhan at the sector headquarter of the paramilitary force here, an official said.“The discussion was around strategies to thwart the nefarious designs of the terrorists and to meet challenges of counter insurgency and law and order in the region,” CRPF spokesperson Ashish Kumar Jha said in a statement.He said Chauhan apprised the GOC about the role and deployment of the CRPF in the Jammu area.“Both officers appreciated the prevailing coordination between the CRPF and the Army and discussed various steps to enhance the synergy and the level of coordination between the two major forces in the region,” the spokesperson said. — PTI

Sepoy Jagsir Singh. — @adgpi/Twitter

Jammu/Ferozepur, December 31

A pall of gloom descended on Lohgarh Thakran Wala village in Zira sub-division in this district after the news of Sepoy Jagsir Singh’s death reached here.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)Singh (32) was killed after Pakistani troops again violated the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri and Poonch districts of Jammu and Kashmir today.He was posted in a forward area in Noushera sector of Rajouri district.Singh is survived by wife Mohinder Pal Kaur, two daughters and one son, his family said.He had visited his native village last week and had promised to visit again next month.His mother Gurmit Kaur said Singh rang up yesterday night to convey New Year greetings.“Little did we know that this will be our last conversation,” an inconsolable Gurmit Kaur said.The soldier’s family said the couple got married in 2010, and were blessed with three kids, Nigamjit Kaur (7), Gurmeet Kaur (5) and Jagdeep Singh (2).Singh’s last rites will be held tomorrow, Vipin Sharma, a Tehsildar, said. — PTI 

Tribune News Service

Ropar, October 6

Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh Group NCC Directorate who stood first in the All India Nau  Sainik Camp, held recently at the Naval Base at Karwar, were felicitated by the NCC directorate at the NCC Academy, here, today.   The NCC cadets of the directorate won themselves four trophies and 33 medals in the competition.The Punjab, Haryana, HP and Chandigarh Directorate has won this competition the second time after 2015.The trophies won by them were overall best directorate, best directorate in firing, best directorate in seamanship practical and best directorate in service subject (written).Other medals won include bronze in drill, boat rigging, and boat pulling (SD). Silver in best cadet (SD) and seamanship practical (SD), gold in best cadet (SW) and firing (SD).

Govt cuts holidays to half in 2018, Akalis seek rollback

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 28

The state government has decided to reduce the number of gazetted holidays for calendar year 2018 to enable better public service to the citizens and also to ensure more teaching days in educational institutions.“With this reform, state government offices will remain open for 21 more days in 2018 compared to 2017. At the same time, government employees will be able to avail more restricted holidays than previously — in keeping with their preferences,” said a spokesman.The state government has declared 18 gazetted holidays and 39 restricted holidays for 2018. Government employees will now be eligible to avail five restricted holidays compared to two restricted holidays earlier.The spokesman said the state government has tried to strike a balance between its commitment to bettering public service and more teaching days in educational institutions on the one hand and the requirements of its employees to avail holidays on the other.“Now, the number of gazetted holidays in Punjab (only 18) are comparable to the number of holidays by the Government of India which has declared 17 gazetted holidays for 2018,” he said.For 2017, the state government had declared 37 gazetted and 20 restricted holidays. Employees were allowed two restricted holidays.The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), meanwhile, termed the Congress government’s decision to slash the list of holidays as a “totally dictatorial, irrational and insensitive” step taken without taking the other stakeholders into confidence. The party demanded its immediate rollback.In a statement here, SAD spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said deleting occasions from the list like birth and martyrdom day of Bhagat Singh, Baisakhi, Mahashivratri, Parshuram Jayanti, May Day, martyrdom day of Udham Singh, Eid-Ul Zuha, martyrdom day of Guru Teg Bahadur and installation day of Guru Granth Sahib was wrong.Rejecting the state government’s “lame excuse” of providing better governance by slashing government holidays, the SAD leader said that the Amarinder government hasn’t even found time to complete its Cabinet strength by executing the much-needed expansion in the past nine months.

SGPC, akal Takht decry moveAmritsar: The SGPC and Akal Takht flayed the Capt Amarinder Singh government for scrapping holiday on Khalsa Sirjana Diwas. SGPC chief Gobind Singh Longowal said the occasion should again be brought on the list of gazetted holidays instead of the reserved list. He said the occasion carried utmost importance for the Sikh community. He, however, welcomed the gesture of Parliament of paying tributes to Guru’s Sahibzade. He said: “It was for the first time that Parliament paid homage to Baba Zorawar Singh and Baba Fateh Singh along with their grandmother Mata Gujri.” tns

The recent Indo-Japanese bonhomie belies a lesser-known history of Imperial Japan that had once occupied a part of India, the penal colony (‘Kalapaani’) of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. While the occupation lasted about three and a half years (1942-45), the same is a controversial period that elicits mixed response from the locals, since ‘Netaji’ Subhash Chandra Bose was given the nominal charge of the administration by the Japanese. He had set up the Arzi-e-Hukumat-e-Azad Hind (Provisional Government of Free India), and later on a visit to the Islands, renamed them Shaheed (Martyr) and Swaraj (Self-rule), but essentially the control had remained firmly in the hands of the Japanese occupiers. Technically, Andaman and Nicobar Islands became the first territory to be liberated from the British, by flying the Indian Tricolour. The powerful Japanese armada that had landed on the Islands on March 23, 1942, met with no opposition from the depleted garrison of the British Indian Army that had approximately 300 Sikh soldiers and 23 British officers. Most of the British officers were sent as POW’s to Singapore or jailed locally, while the Indian soldiers opted to join the Indian National Army. But, soon the Japanese let loose a reign of unprecedented terror.

While the more publicised atrocities of the Japanese occupation are documented in the Chinese heartland and the Korean peninsula, with events that are compositely infamous as the ‘Asian Holocaust’. The Showa Era (of Emperor Hirohito) is estimated to have caused up to 14 million deaths that are directly attributed to the Japanese acts of torture, massacre, experimentation, and starvation. From conducting biological and chemical attacks, ‘comfort women’ to forced labour – the gory details of the Japanese occupation has led to multiple Japanese apologies for its war crimes, over the years. The Nanking Massacre (killing 300000 civilians and POW’s), Manila Massacre (killing 100000 Filipinos), Sook Ching Massacre (in Singapore that randomly killed ‘suspects’), Kalagong Massacre – follow a pattern of Scorched Earth policy that directed the Japanese victors to “Kill all, burn all, loot all”, and has haunted the conscience of the modern nation of Japan to reconcile with its disturbing history.