The present government kept its promise within a year of coming to power by settling the 40-year-old one rank, one pension (OROP) issue raised by ex-servicemen. And to address anomalies, if any, they have appointed a judicial commission. It is a just and fair system and mechanism put in place. Returning medals, burning effigies and going on hunger strike has lowered the image of the disciplined soldier. Some disgruntled pensioners are misleading ex-servicemen with a view to creating an anti-government environment. Had they waited for the Seventh Pay Commission report, they would have got better results. Time has come to stop the agitation and sit across the table to settle issues, if any.
COL SK AGGARWAL (RETD), PANCHKULA

Geneva, November 23

Weather-related disasters have grown more frequent over the past 20 years, killing more than 6 lakh people, the UN said today, issuing a further call for nations to strike a landmark deal on climate change.
The report from the UN agency for disaster risk reduction (UNISDR) said: “Floods, storms and other extreme weather events have killed 6,06,000 people since 1995, with an additional 4.1 billion people injured, left homeless or in need of emergency assistance.”
According to the UNISDR data, flooding accounted for 47 per cent of all weather disasters over the past 20 years, affecting more than 2.3 billion people, the vast majority of whom live in Asia.
A full 75 per cent of the 4.1 billion people affected were in either China or India, underscoring the extent to which densely populated areas in those countries were disproportionately vulnerable.
The report noted that while there was no way to establish how much increase in such disasters was caused by climate change, the link between the planet’s changing climate and extreme weather was clear.
“The contents of this report underline why it is so important that a new climate change agreement emerges from the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris,” said UNISDR chief Margareta Wahlstrom, referring to crunch climate talks starting next week.
The talks that open in the French capital on November 30 are tasked with crafting a 195-nation pact to curb greenhouse gas emissions blamed for dangerous levels of climate change. — AFP

R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, November 20
The Supreme Court today issued notice on the Centre’s petition challenging the Delhi High Court judgment directing grant of permanent commission to all women officers in the Navy.
A Bench comprising Justices TS Thakur and V Gopala Gowda, however, restrained the Navy from releasing from service the women officers who had approached the HC, provided they had joined service prior to the permanent commission policy of September 26, 2008.
In its September 4, 2015 judgment, the HC had faulted the government’s decision to restrict permanent commission to women officers in three branches of the Navy — education, law and Naval construction — and to those joining service after the September 26, 2008 policy.
Seventeen Short Service Commissioned women officers, including Lt Cdr Annie Nagaraja, Urmila Bhat and Commander Pritika B Sharma, had approached the HC, challenging the government’s decision to restrict permanent commission to new recruits in three branches. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi and Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh said the HC had presumed that there was gender discrimination in the Navy.

New Delhi, November 15
A PIL has been moved in the Delhi High Court seeking recruitment of gainfully employed women in the Territorial Army, an organisation of volunteers who receive military training in order to be mobilised for the country’s defence in case of an emergency.

The petition said at present only gainfully employed men are recruited into the TA, the second line of defence after the regular Indian Army, and alleged that this amounts to “institutionalised discrimination”.

“At present, the Territorial Army (TA) recruits only males (gainfully employed). Due to this institutionalised discrimination, women are being deprived of their right to serve in the Territorial Army.

“This discrimination on grounds of gender is violative of fundamental freedoms and human rights of the women,” the plea, filed by lawyer Kush Kalra, stated.

Unlike the Indian Armed Forces, TA is not a profession, occupation or a source of employment and is meant for those who are already in mainstay civilian professions, the plea filed through advocate Jyotika Kalra said, adding gainful employment or self-employment in a civil profession is a pre-requisite for joining.

The role of the TA, in which actor Mohanlal and cricketers Kapil Dev and M.S. Dhoni are honorary members holding senior ranks, is to “relieve the regular Army from static duties and assist the civil administration in dealing with natural calamities….”

It also helps in maintenance of essential services in situations where life of the community is affected or the security of the country is threatened, and also provides units for the regular Army, the PIL states. — PTI

Tribune News Service
Panchkula, November 10

About 20 military veterans from the tricity and the adjoining areas handed over their medals to the Panchkula administration as a mark of protest against the “truncated” one rank, one pension (OROP) scheme here today.
Nearly 150 veterans assembled at Major Sandeep Sankhla Memorial in Sector 2 this morning and 20 of them put their medals, totalling about 150, in a box, which was later handed over to Panchkula Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Hema Sharma at the district Secretariat. Those who participated in the event included two retired major generals — Maj Gen Pushpinder Singh and Maj Gen Dhillon, and an aged veteran, Col IJS Ahluwalia, besides several officers of the rank of Brigadier.
The veterans also handed over a memorandum to the ADC for onward submission to Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with the medals. The memorandum urged the Prime Minister to keep his repeated promises made earlier regarding implementing the OROP in letter and spirit as defined by the Parliament’s standing committee on defence and to ensure the well-being of the armed forces and its personnel to ensure national interest.
Brig Kiran Krishan (retd) said a majority of the military veterans from the region had already returned their medals in Delhi during an agitation for the implementation of the OROP. “The veterans are angry, and feel betrayed and cheated by a government that has been shouting from rooftops that it has given the OROP to the military and even issued a full-page advertisement in this regard. What the notification states is anything but the OROP in letter and spirit,” he said.

New Delhi, Nov. 9 (ANI): Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar inaugurated the Central Data Centre, Army Cloud and Digi-Locker for the Indian Army here today.

Complimenting the Army for initiating such steps as a part of the Digital Army programme he said this can be of great use for faster documentation, information and speedy delivery of services. He emphasised the need to educate and sensitise every person in the force on the advantages of such services and technological upgradation. However, he also said that maintaining, checking and securing the system was equally important.

The facility under the Army Cloud includes a Central Data Centre, a Near Line Data Centre, both in the capital and a Disaster Recovery site for replication of its critical data along with virtualised servers and storage in an environmentally controlled complex.

This is similar to the Meghraj; the Cloud of National Informatics Centre (NIC) and will provide all Information Technology Infrastructure including servers for computing, storage, network and network security equipment centrally, for automation of Indian Army. The latest technologies in the field have been incorporated in the implementation of the first ever Software Defined Data Centre, wherein all the resources could be provisioned to different applications on the Cloud, on click of a button. It has already started providing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to the pan Army users as the first Cloud service and will soon provide Software as a Service (SaaS).

With the launching of Digi-Locker, it will provide a secure and exclusive data storage space to all the units and formation headquarters of the Army over its dedicated data network. The Digi-Locker of Indian Army is similar to e-Locker of Digital India program and has all the advanced features like digital signatures and watermarking.

This is an important step towards implementation of cyber security as it precludes carriage of soft copies of data on CDs/DVDs and removable media. Users can store, share and access the data from anywhere any time on the Army Data Network. The infrastructure and platforms being made available for automation and digitisation will catalyse the pace of digitisation in all branches of Army and is a landmark towards transforming Indian Army from platform centric to a Network Centric Force, which would leverage the technology as a force multiplier.

In keeping with the national vision of Digital India, the Indian Army has launched a program for Digital Army with nine pillars for digitisation. Three of the nine pillars of this umbrella program, namely Broadband highways, Universal access to telephones and Army Data Network stress upon Information Technology Infrastructure development. Another three, namely e-governance, electronic delivery of services and online information for all, focus on delivery of services to all units and formation headquarters. For any modern army, the Network Centric Operations are essential for meeting enhanced challenges of asymmetry, lethality, fluidity and non-linearity in the present day battlefield. The Indian Army is addressing this key area comprehensively. (ANI)

Pension to be revised every five years (ex-servicemen wanted revision every two years)
Past pensioners to get benefits on the basis of the ones being given to 2013 retirees
Scheme will be effective from July 1, 2014
Those taking premature retirement in future will not be entitled for OROP benefits
Arrears will be paid in four equal half-yearly installments

Paramilitary solider stands guard near Ganta Ghar at Kashmir. File photo

Sandeep Dikshit
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 15

The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission has decided to ask the US Congress and State Department to pressurise the Indian Government into permitting international journalists and independent human rights organisations to assess the situation in Jammu & Kashmir for themselves.

In a hearing on the situation in Kashmir by the Congressional committee, the decks were loaded against the Indian Government’s stand on J&K — that Internet clampdown was meant to curb terrorism and the abrogation of Article 370 had ushered long-denied social justice norms.

Many of them dwelt on the deniable of religious freedom in J&K after the August 5 clampdown and Congressmen were particularly keen on grilling the witnesses on religious freedom violations. This issue is expected to find greater resonance at the December 4 hearing.The hearing was broken into two sections.

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The apex court dismissed pleas seeking review of its clean chit to the government in the deal.

New Delhi, November 14

The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the review petitions against its verdict in the Rafale deal on grounds that they lacked merit, reiterating its clean chit to the Modi government in the fighter jet agreement with French firm Dassault Aviation.

The apex court also rejected the contention that there was need to register an FIR in connection with the Rs 58,000 crore deal.

The pleas had sought re-examination of the apex court’s December 14, 2018 verdict that there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets.

“We find the review petitions are without any merit,” a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph said.

The rejection of review petitions is tantamount to the apex court giving a second clean chit to the Modi government.

Reading out the judgment, Justice Kaul said the judges had reached the conclusion that it is not appropriate to order a roving inquiry into the allegations.

Maintaining that the review petitions had sought the registration of an FIR in connection with Rafale fighter jets deal, the bench said, “We do not consider it to be a fair submission.”

“We do not find it appropriate to consider passing order for registration of FIR,” the bench said.

Justice Joseph, who wrote a separate judgment, said he agreed with the main verdict written by Justice Kaul subject to certain aspects on which he had given his own reasons.

In December last year, the apex court had dismissed the petitions seeking an investigation into the alleged irregularities in the deal.

On May 10, the apex court reserved its decision on the pleas, including one filed by former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan, seeking a re-examination of its findings.

The review petitions were filed by the trio, lawyer Vineet Dhandha and Aam Aadmi Party lawmaker Sanjay Singh.

While reserving the judgment on the review petitions, the apex court asked the Centre searching questions on its deal with France to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets on issues like “waiver of sovereign guarantee” and the absence of technology transfer clause in the inter-governmental agreement (IGA).

The bench referred to an earlier judgment, which said an FIR is a must when information revealed commission of cognizable offence.

Attorney General KK Venugopal had told the bench that “there has to be a prima facie case, otherwise they (agencies) cannot proceed. The information must disclose commission of cognizable offence”.

Justice Joseph had referred to the earlier deal and asked the Centre why the IGA on Rafale with the French administration did not have the clause of transfer of technology.

“The court cannot decide such technical aspects,” Venugopal said in response. PTI

Rahul Gandhi calls for probe by JPC after SC verdict on Rafale

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 14

The Congress on Thursday rejected BJP’s criticism on the Supreme Court verdict on Rafale and sought a probe into the jet purchase from France.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted after the verdict and sought a joint parliamentary committee probe into the deal.

Justice Joseph of the Supreme Court has opened a huge door into investigation of the RAFALE scam.

An investigation must now begin in full earnest. A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) must also be set up to probe this scam. #

The Congress said the Supreme Court expressed limitations in probing the deal and also observed that nothing stops the police to investigate a cognisable offense.

Rahul Gandhi tweeted today, “Justice Joseph of the Supreme Court has opened a huge door into investigation of the RAFALE scam. An investigation must now begin in full earnest. A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) must also be set up to probe this scam. #BJPLiesOnRafale.”

The Congress made it clear that it would raise the matter in the upcoming winter session of Parliament. Congress media head Randeep Surjewala meanwhile said the party stood vindicated on its stand in the matter and the court had left a room open for a probe.

“It is now up to the government to take this investigation into Rafale forward,” Surjewala said

No probe in Rafale deal: SC dismisses review plea

The Indian Army effectively retaliated. File photo

Jammu, November 13

Pakistani troops on Wednesday shelled forward posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir, an official said.

The Indian Army effectively retaliated.

“At about 0700 hours, the Pakistan Army initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing of small arms and intense shelling with mortars in Keri sector,” the defence PRO said.

The cross-border firing was going on from both sides when the reports last came in.

Pakistani troops had earlier violated the ceasefire on Tuesday by shelling forward posts and villages in Poonch district. In the retaliatory firing by Indian troops, a Pakistani Army soldier was killed, sources said. PTI