Close to China border, refurbished landing ground to aid movement of troops, material

A Boeing C-17 Globemaster III lands at an upgraded airstrip in Mechuka, Arunachal Pradesh. Tribune photo

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 3

More than 54 years after India was caught napping due to poor infrastructure during the 1962 Chinese aggression, yet another airfield in north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh has been opened for military use.This is the fifth such airfield to be upgraded under a long-winded plan for rapid deployment of artillery guns, troops and even tanks.An Advanced Landing Ground (euphuism for British-era mud-paved landing strip) at Mechuka, located in Yargyap river valley of West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh, has been upgraded to a paved runaway. The Indian Air Force today said it had landed its biggest transport plane, the Boeing C-17, at the 6,200-ft-high airfield. The plane can carry some 70 tonnes of load.The airfield is located near the Mcmahon Line (the boundary with China) and the nearest air/rail head is at Dibrugarh, about 500 km through mountains which are landslide-prone, stretching the travel time to two days.The landing of C-17 is a quantum jump from the existing capability of AN-32 and C-130J aircraft. Such airlift capability facilitates critical requirement of transfer of men and material in this rugged terrain of several adjacent river valleys, interspersed by high mountain ranges that inhibit road connectivity.Besides Mechuka, airfileds at Ziro, Along, Walong and Passighat are the other ones which have been opened. Passighat allows fighter jet operations. The last of the ALGs at Tuting is expected to open by the year-end while the helicopter landing ground at Tawang would be ready by mid-2017.The British had created small mud-paved landing grounds during the World War-II for their Burma and east India operations. The existing ALGs are too small in length and allow only very small aircraft to land and have a non-existent ground support. These are rendered unusable during rains.These airfields dot various folds of the Himalayas in Arunachal and cover an east-west axis, bringing the IAF and Army’s rapid deployment capabilities much closer to the Mcmahon Line.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi sits inside a police bus as he is detained in New Delhi on Wednesday. AFP

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 2

No one in Congress circles had imagined how this day would turn out for party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who only few months ago had been turned back from Jantar Mantar by a group of ex-servicemen protesting over One Rank One Pension. Retired soldiers had then said they didn’t want the matter politicised.But today as politics played out around Subedar Ram Kishan Grewal’s suicide with Delhi police providing the fodder by detaining top leaders, including Rahul who wanted to meet the deceased’s relatives. Congress leaders privately said Rahul had made his point and his presence was felt.“Have you seen this kind of energy in the party since Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s Varanasi road show on August 2? The whole leadership is on the streets with Rahul ji who just wanted to express solidarity with the grief-stricken family,” a Congress leader said.Seniors also acknowledged that Rahul had made his point by preferring to be detained for his attempts to meet the wards of the deceased ex-serviceman rather than seek bail.Personally, Rahul made it a government versus Subedar Grewal’s family issue by saying upon his release tonight: “The least government should do is apologise to the family which has made a sacrifice. All I wanted was to meet them and say I am with them in this hour of grief but they detained the family and harassed them just so they wanted to speak to me.” Rahul was detained by the Delhi Police for nearly eight hours.Congress leaders, meanwhile, said OROP would become Rahul’s second major agitation point after the land acquisition ordinance on which the government had been forced to blink.Social activist Anna Hazare, a former soldier, said: “Unfortunate that ex-serviceman committed suicide. On one hand the government t glorifies soldiers and on the other doesn’t fulfil promises.”A group of ex-servicemen, which has been leading the protest at Jantar Mantar over OROP scheme, distanced itself from the case. “The suicide did not take place at Jantar Mantar. Grewal’s friends had informed the police about the suicide bid but it was too late. He was taken to a hospital from where they wanted to bring the body to Jantar Mantar, which we refused,” Col Anil Kaul (retd), media adviser to United Front of Ex-Servicemen Movement was quoted by PTI.

LAHORE (Saeed Chaudhry) – Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa is very likely to be appointed as the new Chief of army staff while Lieutenant General Zubair Mahmood Hayat as the new Chairman of Joint Chief of Staff Committee (CJCSC), sources told Daily Pakistan.

The ongoing battle against the menace of terrorism across the country was the main ground on which the important decision was made, sources told Daily Pakistan adding that the recommended officials were the adequate persons for the task.

Lt. Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa was previously Commander of important Rawalpindi Corps and was presently employed as Inspector General Training and Evaluation, at GHQ, a position General Raheel Sharif held before becoming the army chief.

Lt Gen Zubair Mahmood Hayat is the second in the seniority list of lieutenant generals. He was currently serving as Chief of General Staff (CGS) in GHQ.

Lt Gen Zubair served as Bahawalpur Corps Commander and Director-General of the Strategic Plans Division. He also served as General Officer Commanding, Sialkot. Lt Gen Zubair was due to retire on January 13, 2017.

The present Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif will retire on Nov 28 this year and Gen. Rashad Mahmood, who is the existing Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Committee, will be retiring a day prior to the Army Chief, on Nov 27.

https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/pakistan/government-army-reach-consensus-on-the-next-coas-sources/

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            7th-CPC-DESW 

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 29

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Saturday issued instructions to keep the disability pension of armed forces at previously allowed rates and there would be no reduction in the same.On September 30, the MoD had issued instructions, which had introduced a slab-based system for calculating pensions for disability. The MoD had cited the 7th pay commission for determining the disability pension for Defence Forces. Before September 30, disabled soldiers were getting pensions based on percentage of disability. The new ruling meant pensions were reduced and this had led to protests from the retired soldiers and there was widespread criticism from opposition parties and the military establishment.Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had referred to the matter to the anomalies committee. Instructions issued on Saturday say that disability pensions will continue to be calculated at old rates that are percentage based. The system will continue until the committee submits a report, defence sources said.The Defence Ministry had previously said the 7th pay commission had recommended a slab-based system for determining disability pension, which was accepted by the government.A percentage-based system was followed under the 6th pay commission for calculating disability pension for armed forces as well as civilians. What the military personnel are upset about is that civilians will continue to be paid pension according to the earlier “percentage system”, which means that a civilian employee will get higher disability pension than his military counterpart.

Disability pension for forces under old formula, for now

New Delhi, October 29

The Defence Ministry on Saturday ordered implementation of the 7th Pay Commission’s recommendations on pensions but added the disability pension component will be paid as per the old system until the pay panel’s Anomaly Committee comes out with a solution.A ministry order, issued on the eve of Diwali, announced implementation of revised pension under 7th Pay Commission for pre-2016 defence force pensioners, said an official statement. It also said the issue of disability pensions — which is presently on percentage basis but the panel has recommended making it slab based — has been submitted to the Anomaly Committee, and, for now, the old system will continue.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)“The implementation of 7th CPC recommendation relating to methodology for calculation of disability element has been referred to the Anomaly Committee,” the statement said. “The disability element which was being paid to pre-2016 Defence Forces Pensioners as on December 31, 2015 will continue to be paid pending decision on the recommendations of the Anomaly Committee,” it said.As per the order, for those who started getting pensions before January 1, 2016, revised pension will be calculated by multiplying by 2.57 the old pension drawn in December 2015. A soldier getting disability pension as a percentage of his salary will get a fixed slab-based amount if the pay panel’s recommendation implemented. — IANS

Panel report awaited

• The 7th pay panel favoured a slab-based system for determining disability pension, which was accepted by the government
• But the matter was sent to the Anomaly Committee after pensioners demanded 6th pay panel’s percentage system to stay

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. File photo

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, Oct 27Two days after Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar ordered a cross-checking of facts on rank parity between officers of the three forces and civilians, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Thursday issued a clarification saying there has been no “downgrading” of service officers.The MoD said media reports had “erroneously” stated that the equivalence has been disturbed and status of service officers has been downgraded.“It is clarified that there has been no down-gradation or any change in the existing equivalence of the service ranks whatsoever”, spokesperson for the MoD said. The existing functional equivalence as clarified in 1991 and further reiterated in 1992, 2000, 2004 and 2005 has only been re-affirmed, the MoD said.There have been reports in the media that the central government has issued a new order lowering the status of military officers with respect to their civilian counterparts in the Armed Forces Headquarters.

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

The MoD said: “The present reiteration of rank equivalence, is only for matters of assigning duties and functional responsibilities as is already existing in different offices of the respective service headquarters of the Army, Navy and Indian Air Force having component of service personnel as well as Civilian officers”.This has no bearing on civilian employees outside these offices of the service headquarters.A circular issued on October 18 and reported in media said a Major General (Rear Admiral in the Navy and Vice-Marshal in the Air Force) was at the same level as principal director at the Armed Force Headquarters (AFHQ) Civil Service. Similarly, Colonel had been placed on the same level as joint director on a civil post.

BATHINDA: Slamming the Badal government for failing to ensure the upkeep of war memorials in the state, Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday cleaned the “neglected” statue of Subedar Nand Singh, recipient of Victoria Cross and Mahavir Chakra, at Fauji Chowk here.

Also from the 1st Sikh regiment to which Subedar Nand Singh belonged, Captain described the condition of his statue as “yet another glaring instance of how little the Badals care for our soldiers and their memories”.

Trying to strike an emotional chord with armymen and exservicemen, Amarinder said there was no point of setting up memorials and installing statues if the government could not ensure their proper maintenance. Asking the government to hand over these memorials to the army, he said: “Our martyrs deserve no less.”

Captain, in whose book ‘Lest We Forget’ Nand Singh’s story finds detailed mention, recalled how at the age of 33 this “loyal solider of the Indian Army” (by then a jemadar, who was not even required to go into the battle) chose to lead his platoon in a desperate but successful attack to rescue his battalion from an ambush in Uri in Kashmir in December 1947. He was killed in action but his body was never recovered.“It was later discovered that the Pakistanis recognised Nand Singh because of his decorated VC ribbon and took his body to Muzaffarabad, where, in the most abominable manner, it was tied on a truck and paraded through the city,” said Captain.

“Unfortunately, the Badal government has never shown much respect to our army or its personnel,” said Captain, referring to the prolonged protest of war widows in Punjab and reiterating his party’s and his personal commitment to address their concerns.

On October 20, 1962, within hours 283 Indian soldiers were killed when the Chinese came from the Thagla range shadowing the Namka Chu river

Cold was responsible for the death of many in the then ill-equipped Indian Army. Photo: Thinkstock

On a sunny morning a young shepherd takes his cattle across the lovely winding Namka Chu into the dense pine forests on the ridge above. The cold wind blows in from the north and the boy looks up at the steep mountain ahead of him covered by rhododendrons. He steps on a rusted shell, picks it up, examines it and then flings it into the flowing rapid waters of the rivulet unmindful of the tragedy that took place here half a century ago, a military disaster of the Indo-Chinese War.The 1962 Chinese aggression on India for the most part lies consciously overlooked. That ignominy is best buried, especially since the nation took a beating. Writing must be celebratory, we feel, especially when we speak of national pride. That is one possible reason no one is expected to re-think of the defeat and the military slipups of our generals. But my mind goes back to it having lived through the Sixties as a child, listening to stories of the war that have only recently become instances of shocking misrepresentation, vilification or as Salam Rushdie would say, ‘memory’s truth’.The Chinese came as an avalanche at the break of dawn from the Thagla range shadowing the Namka Chu river, wiping out an unprepared and ill-equipped adversary, an instance of the terrible theatre of absurdity in the annals of military history matched only by the Vietnam massacre. On October 20, 1962, within hours 283 soldiers died, hundreds wounded and many forced to spend over nine months in a prison in China in sub-zero temperatures, surviving the long endless ordeal in flimsy winter clothing and three meals a day of unappetising rice and radishes. Some of them came back to tell their story. Sadly, many stories still remain untold.My mind rambles to the agonising moral questions of the brutality and ugliness of war, a negotiation of the military generals with politicians while the subalterns have little say in the shaping of strategic combat warfare. History tells us that it is not the people who demand war; it is the governments that entice and persuade by appealing for sacrifice in the name of a noble cause or the spread of democracy. But the sanctity of the ‘moral crusade’ has to be questioned because at the centre of all wars lies homicide, torture, mutilation and rape of the innocent. War crimes are an aspect of the human history of aberration.Apart from the inadequacy of military solutions, I struggle to understand if it was a war or a massacre. I revisit the Homeric wars that were fought with ethics as the sine qua non of any fair battle. Armies faced each other with an understanding that the opponents would be equally matched. Often the most heroic and brave warrior was pitched against an opponent with corresponding credentials. And if they did not compare favourably, the war stood postponed till more fitting warriors entered the contest. Understandably, needless bloodshed stood circumvented with the outcome of the war dependent only on a well-matched bout.It is for this reason that modern scholars from Jean Braudillard to Paul Virilio have felt that the Gulf War, like other modern wars, did not take place since the cold-blooded end is foreclosed even before the war begins; the enemy is visible only as a speck on the TV screen thousands of miles above the earth or still sleeping in the bunkers. No face-to-face confrontation takes place. These are cold-hearted instances of savagery shameful to the core. But military records, reports and transcripts remain long hidden from public scrutiny and tolerance for war crimes a modern day political expediency. Lesson that wars should be the last resort have yet to be learned by the human race. It takes so long to learn the truth.The writer is a Professor and Fellow at the Department of English and Cultural Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh