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A navy sailor has died in an accident onboard one of Indian Navy’s under-construction nuclear submarines. Considering the secrecy of the project, the Navy has not divulged the name of the submarine.

The Incident happened at Navy’s Vizag-based eastern naval command ship building centre jetty on April 1. Four Arihant class nuclear submarines are based at Vizag, while the first submarine INS Arihant was commissioned in August 2016. In 2017, the second boat of the Arihant class—the bigger, improved and better-armed INS Arighat—was launched and presently undergoing sea-trials. Remaining two submarines of the class are under construction. Naval sources expect that all four Arihant class submarines can be commissioned by 2023.

According to naval sources, 26-year-old sailor Paramajit Singh was on duty when accident happened in the boat.
“An incident of material failure happened onboard at Visakhapatnam on Wednesday. A sailor was grievously injured and taken to hospital. subsequently, he succumbed to the injuries,” said a naval official. Later on, his body was handed over to the family. Since he died while performing duty, he was given full military honour funeral at his home town.

Meanwhile, a Board of Inquiry has been ordered by the Navy to investigate the cause of the incident.

Arihant class submarine, the nuclear-powered submarines with ballistic nuclear missiles (SSBNs), are meant for deterrence with its long legs. Naval experts believe that SSBNs are not meant for fighting wars, but to prevent wars and we need to have at least four of such submarines to have a 24×7 deterrence. However, India’s plan to build six SSNs (attack submarine) with a displacement capacity of 6,000 tonnes is underway.

In 2017, dedicating the boat to the nation as a Diwali gift, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said: “Arihant is an open warning to enemies of India and enemies of peace” and a “fitting response to nuclear blackmail”. With that, India joined another club where the same big five— the US, Russia, Britain, France and China—have been sitting.

INS Arihant, an SSBN category submarine, is both nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed. She is armed with 750km range K15 Sagarika nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. In future, she will get 3,500km (intermediate range) K4 ballistic missiles.

Three of its sister ships of same class are getting ready in the Navy’s secret yard at Visakhapatnam as follow-on ships. And all of which will move around the depths of the waters close to China’s and Pakistan’s coast.

Navy’s fleet of attack submarines, all diesel-powered, has dwindled from an awesome 21 in the 1980s to just 14 at present. Worse still, at least half of the 15 available boats are old and creaking, and undergoing mid-life upgrade. It means India has just seven-eight submarines that are battle-ready at any given time, against 65 of the Chinese navy.

Ideally, the Navy needs at least 24 submarines to meet its 30-year submarine building plan, which was approved by the cabinet committee on security in 1999, months after the Kargil conflict. The plan was to induct 12 diesel subs by 2012 and another 12 submarines by 2030, but repeated delays forced the Navy to rejig the plan.

Now, the plan is to have 18 diesel-powered submarines and six SSNs. The SSNs will be constructed in Visakhapatnam. Meanwhile, to develop skills and drills for operating SSNs, the Navy has got one Akula-class SSN on lease from Russia.

Quarantine centres run by the armed forces in Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and other places, are already up and running. Several thousand people, mostly Indians who have flown in from abroad, are there. Now, the defence ministry in order to ensure more efficient functioning has issued special guidelines— or Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)— relating to COVID-19 related work.

The SOPs relate to emergency powers— mostly financial—to deal with COVID-19. The government document says: “The emergency powers are to expedite the procurement/ repairs for establishing and running quarantine/isolation facilities by the Indian armed forces”.

The powers relate to purchases of “stores, rations, hygiene and chemicals, medicines and transportation.”
An emergency of this magnitude demands immediate action; what is required is required right now and has to be readied almost by yesterday. Normal procedures do not allow for that. If something is required and particularly, large amounts of it, in the age of global short supply in this ‘sellers’ market’ differences in specifications and quality variations, have to be set aside, given the unprecedented emergency.

Which means if masks have to be bought, anything between outstanding to good in terms of quality is acceptable. Purchase from a number of vendors is allowed owing to supply problems because of closed factories or transportation breakdowns even if there are differences in price. Basically, pay more if you have to, but buy something you really need.

Cutting red tape, paperwork and the necessary world of tenders and bid can be avoided right now. It can always be done later. It is a seller’s market, and also, there are considerable logistical challenges.If it is necessary to pay a 100 percent advance, unprecedented in normal circumstances, it can be given to a public sector firm. For the private sector, an advance can be considered, if it is felt necessary. And at this point, additional time-consuming measures like discussions on bank guarantees need not happen.

Also, as these are forbiddingly difficult times, a “post-audit system of accounting” can be followed. Cash transactions are also acceptable. The new guidelines will apply when it comes to the purchase of medical equipment, medicines and other essentials required to establish new quarantine centres and run the ones already in place.

With bureaucratic restrictions on the back burner, patients and all those under quarantine can receive the best possible treatment and importantly, quickly. Lives matter and worldwide, 65,000 people have died and a staggering 900,000 are ill, about 45,000 critically.

Pakistan just appointed its first Hindu Major in the Pakistan Army. It is historic but it is also eye-opening as to the opportunities afforded to the minorities. With not much representation and support for them into the mainstream, incidents like this are still making news after more than 70 years since the birth of Pakistan.

After graduation from Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences , he got selected as a Captain in the Pakistan Army.

He is the first Hindu officer of the Pakistan Army to get selected for the Emergency Medicine course in University Hospital Birmingham.
Dr. Kelash has represented Pakistan in Uganda, Egypt, Dubai, Spain, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland and won a Tamgha-e-Dafa (a medallion given to personnel posted at Siachen) for staying 36 days in Baltoro Sector near K2, which is the world’s highest post saddle, and a major tension point between India and Pakistan.

Dr Kelash has served Pakistan by participating in Operation Aimeezan in Waziristan and Operation Rah-e-Nijat in Swat.

He presented a study on the civilization of Indus valley and won a UN medal. He has also served as a Senior Pakistani Army Officer (SPAO) in a United Nation peacekeeping mission.

Currently, Dr. Kelash is posted in Quetta in the 86 Medical Battalion of Pakistan Army as in charge of health services delivery.

Hindus have been allowed to join the Pakistan Defence Forces, and many have joined and served the country, rising to top-posts like Air Commodores and Naval Commanders in the Air Force but this is allegedly the first high-ranking Army appointment from the community.

In the wake of the tensions in Kashmir, this news is a breath of fresh air and a positive towards acceptance and diversity by Pakistan.

Besides the brigadier, a former lieutenant general, who held crucial positions like Director General of Military Operations, is serving a 14-year jail sentence.

New Delhi: The Pakistan Army Saturday hanged Brig. Raja Rizwan (retd) after he was convicted of spying for a foreign intelligence agency, social media posts indicated.

“We have received reports about the hanging. Currently, there is no confirmation,” a source in the Indian security establishment told ThePrint.

Pakistani journalists said they were awaiting official word from the ISPR. No Pakistani mainstream media has reported about the hanging.

ThePrint had reported in June that the Brigadier, along with Pakistan’s former Director General of Military Operations, Lieutenant General Javed Iqbal (Retd), were accused of spying for American Intelligence Agency CIA during the infamous Raymond Davis saga in 2011.

Court case led to information getting out

Brig. Rizwan was sentenced to death alongside Wasim Akram, a civilian doctor employed by an army organisation. Lt Gen. Iqbal, meanwhile, was sentenced to 14 years in jail.

ISPR chief Major General Asif Ghafoor had confirmed the arrests of the senior officers in a press conference on 22 February.

At the time, he had said that the two cases were not linked to each other, and there was no network of spies as such, a claim that sources in the Indian establishment said was completely untrue.

The case came to light in October 2018 after the Brigadier’s son Ali Rizwan filed a habeas corpus petition in the Islamabad High Court, saying his father had gone missing on 10 October near a shopping centre in the capital city.

Justice Aamer Farooq, who heard the petition, had sought a report from the authorities, and the Pakistani military was forced to admit that the officers were in their custody.

While Lt Gen. Iqbal retired in 2015, Brig. Rizwan, who was the Pakistani defence attaché in Germany, retired in 2014.

It is believed that both officers were recruited by the CIA earlier in their careers and were used by the Americans to get information on the country’s nuclear programme and the Army’s plans and support to jihadi groups.

Also read: This Pakistani General had seen everything by age of 4. He now wants you to read his doctrine

Pakistan authorities on Friday ordered Omar Saeed Sheikh, Fahad Nasim Ahmed, Syed Salman Saqib and Sheikh Muhammad Adil convicted of 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal’s South Asia bureau chief Daniel Pearl to be detained for a period three months despite Sindh High Court’s ruling to overturn their convictions a day before.

Omar was given the death sentence by Pakistan’s anti-terrorism court in 2002 while others were given a jail term of 25 years. The reason cited behind their was that the men may indulge in anti-national activities. Two other involved in the kidnapping, Amjad Hussain Farooqi was shot dead by Pakistan police in 2004 and Mohammad Hasheem Qadir was acquited in 2014.

Who is Omar Saeed Sheikh?

A two-member bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha had earlier found Omar Saeed Sheikh guilty of kidnapping but not of murder and overturned his death sentence to a seven-year jail term saying that he had already spent 18 years in prison.

Omar had also made headlines in 2008 after he called none other than Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari from Hyderabad jail in Pakistan pretending to be Indian foreign minister. Disguised Omar had threatened retaliation in response to an attack by Pakistan based terrorists on India’s financial capital – Mumbai.

The US denounced the decision of overturning the death sentence of British-born top al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh terming the verdict an “affront” to the victims of terrorism everywhere. However, the re-arrest is questionable given that Pakistan is under close scrutiny by anti-terror financial watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for its inability to prosecute terrorists.

Daniel Pearl was kidnapped from Karachi and was killed in captivity after terrorists brutally decapitated his head and shared the video worldwide prompting outrage from all corners.

However, this is where the plot gets murkier. A report by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found Omar Saeed Sheikh guilty of kidnapping only. Daniel Pearl was investigating the role of the main suspect Richard C Reid in the failed attack on a trans-Atlantic flight in December 2001, who was also called as shoe bomber because the accused had placed explosives in his sneakers.

Pearl was lured by Omar who introduced himself as Chaudhary Basheer and promised Pearl of providing access to an Islamic cleric who had ties to Reid. Omar was at the time was associated with Jaish-e-Mohammad a terror outfit.

Pearl is also believed to have discovered a charity link connecting Osama Bin Laden to Pakistan’s intelligence agency which had left the ISI red-faced. Omar is believed to have surrendered on February 5 to an old ISI contact Ijaz Ahmed who is currently the Federal Interior Minister and was later handed to police in February 12 2002.

However, that has not stopped his lawyer from claiming that the alleged delay was because the authorities held Omar in secret and forced his confession after torturing him.

Also, a former CIA captive confessed to the murder of Daniel Pearl which was confirmed by the FBI’s forensic team according to the report by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. However, another CIA officer doubted the finding saying that the captive appeared to be boastful and mentally unstable raising doubts about his confession.

At his initial trial, Omar had said that he did not want to defend his actions and that whatever he did he had his reasons and that he did want his country to be a pawn in America’s hands. Omar after being handed the death penalty had said to reporters, “We will see who dies first, me or the authorities who have arranged the death sentence for me.”

Omar Saeed Sheikh’s Indian Connection

Omar Sheikh was arrested following a shootout in India in 1994 for the kidnapping of one American and four Britons. Omar had introduced himself as Rohit Sharma and invited them to visit his uncle’s property in Kashmir.

Instead of taking them to Kashmir, the American captive was taken to Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh while the British captives were held at Saharanpur in the same state. The captives were rescued and Omar was arrested after Uttar Pradesh police accidentally stumbled across the house which held the American captive while pursuing a case of robbery.

He was placed under arrest in Tihar jail until 1999 when an Indian commercial flight IC-814 en route to New Delhi from Kathmandu was hijacked and taken instead to Kandahar in Afghanistan.

There are also unconfirmed reports that Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI bore the legal cost of Omar’s trial. The hijack forced Indian authorities to release Omar, Masood Azhar the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad and two others in a swap deal for 154 passengers of the hijacked commercial airliner.

Omar’s name had also popped up on American radar after FBI discovered a financial link between Omar and Al-Qaeda’s terrorist Mohamad Atta who was the key conspirator of 9/11 terror attacks. FBI found that Omar had wired $1,00,000 to Atta on the instruction of then ISI chief Mahmud Ahmed who had to later resign.

However, unlike many Pakistani militants, Omar was born to a middle-class business family in east England and spoke impeccable English. He went to Forest School in Snaresbrook and was a member of the British arm-wrestling squad and on his way to Geneva the next year.

According to one of Omar’s classmates, Omar was always near the top of his year but far from a model pupil. The classmate recalls Omar Saeed Sheikh as someone who always wanted to show his strength so much so that he once punched the daylight out of his teacher when he was just eight years old. He also had knocked a guy out who was four years older than him and split open his lips.

Later in 1987, Omar and his parents moved to Pakistan and studied at Aitchison College in Lahore but was expelled for fighting. On his return, his classmate said that Omar had become much more political and religious in his views. His friend recalls a particular instance when the two were playing chess. Omar is believed to have told his friend that playing chess was equivalent to a battle.

However, the turning point came after Omar Saeed Sheikh went to study at prestigious London School of Economics where he came in contact with radical Islamists and dropped out only in his first year. In 1989 Omar discussed the worsening situations in the Balkan region and felt that he needed to do something for Muslims who were being persecuted.

He soon packed his bag and headed for Bosnia where he came in contact with Islamists from Pakistan who later sent him for training in Afghanistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. He began working after his release with Masood Azhar and his terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad backed by ISI and resumed fighting in Kashmir.

After his arrest in Pakistan, he told police interrogators about his deep connections to ISI and tried to convince the interrogators to join the militancy in Kashmir. He also claimed to know the militants who bombed Srinagar Assembly in Kashmir which killed 38 people and also those terrorists who were responsible for the attack on the Indian Parliament.

One of the details that leaked from the interrogation talked about Omar calling the kidnapping as a warning shot against Pakistan Government. The story proved accurate as within weeks terrorists carried out three suicide attacks killing 30 people.

However former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had doubted this claim in his book ‘In the line of fire’ wherein he stated that Omar was recruited by British Intelligence Agency MI6 to operate in Bosnia but at some point, Omar had become a rogue agent.

Amit Shah had once said BJP workers have the power to make anything go viral, even fake news. The IT cell is proving just that during a global pandemic.

In the midst of the Narendra Modi government’s war-like preparations to fight the coronavirus pandemic, the BJP’s IT cell continues to engage in spreading hate and misinformation. It seems that the IT cell has vowed to become an enemy of its own party and the country. Its troll armies have taken to the Covid-19 pandemic as if a Lok Sabha election was going on and they have to make sure the BJP wins, by hook or by crook.

In 2018, then BJP president and now Union home minister Amit Shah had said that his party workers are capable of delivering any message to the public. The BJP’s WhatsApp group has over 32 lakh subscribers. He recounted how an IT cell worker had once pushed a fake news about Akhilesh Yadav slapping his father Mulayam Singh, which went viral.

In his radio programme Mann Ki Baat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recounted several incidents over the years, marvelling every time how they would go viral on social Media. Both Modi and Amit Shah are very familiar with the idea, and the importance, of something going viral. So why is their IT cell not using its abilities to share with the masses correct and useful information on the ongoing health crisis instead of doing what it does best?

Also read: Nearly 18,000 Twitter accounts spread ‘fake news’ for BJP, 147 do it for Congress: Study

What IT cell is doing now

The BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya is leading his pack from the front. Most of his tweets are ridiculous and hilarious. It appears that he wakes up every day with a mission to spread fake news. The resources of most websites involved in busting fake news are spent on misinformation that Malviya and his IT cell team spread when they could have been used to impart useful health-related information to deal with the ongoing pandemic that has locked more than a billion people inside their homes. Malviya’s Twitter timeline shows he isn’t much concerned about the coronavirus.

ut what happened? By March, the coronavirus had spread to many parts of India. The number of cases started to double every five-six days. But for the BJP’s IT cell, which had until then been busy publicising US President Donald Trump’s rally and India becoming a ‘Vishwa Guru’, the pandemic was still a conspiracy by other countries. Until the Modi government announced a complete lockdown, the IT cell continued to mislead the public. It is quite possible that due to this propaganda, people also became casual and many stopped taking the situation seriously.

But it did not stop here. When Prime Minister Modi demanded a 14-hour Janata curfew and asked people to bang pots and pans, the IT cell spread the misinformation that the sound will dispel the threat of coronavirus. On Friday, when the PM asked the people to light diyas and candles “for nine minutes at 9 pm on Sunday”, the IT cell immediately started propagating the ‘scientific’ aspect of lighting diyas.

Also read: Between locked down cities and distant homes, migrants lost their way in own country

The exodus of labourers

Even the poor, working-class labourers weren’t spared. After PM Modi announced the national lockdown with only four hours’ notice, thousands of labourers began walking home from different cities, hungry and without public transportation, to their villages hundreds of kilometres away. The Modi government has repeatedly asserted that the workers were given wrong information “that the lockdown would continue for more than three months” due to which this exodus happened. But who gave them this wrong information? Apart from the IT cell, no one is connected to the public on such a massive scale.

The rumour about the Delhi government planning to disconnect power connection in houses of migrant labourers if they stayed in the city further panicked them.

Also read: Coronavirus was a test of secular nationalism. Then Tablighi Jamaat became the scapegoat

Hitting the mother lode

And then came the Tablighi Jamaat. It was as if the BJP IT cell had struck gold. From the moment some coronavirus cases began to emerge among Muslims linked to Tablighi Jamaat, which had held a religious gathering in Delhi’s Nizamuddin Markaz in mid-march, the IT cell went into overdrive to shame the community and put the blame entirely on them — as if each Muslim in India was responsible for the foolishness of a group. The IT cell had been relentlessly targeting Muslims, even accusing them of “deliberately” spreading the coronavirus. There is no consideration for administrative lapse or behaviours common to all religions; it’s all hate.

Indians are fighting against coronavirus and the BJP IT cell is fighting against Indians on top of everything else it does, such as engaging in vendetta politics and spreading the daily dose of hate against India’s minorities. What can be achieved with this attitude? It is obvious that the well-equipped IT cell with deep pockets hates any semblance of peace in the country. The IT cell must be disbanded after every election because that is the only time when the BJP may claim any need of this machinery.

Not to say it isn’t so during polls, but beyond elections, everything the IT cell does makes it a permanent threat to Indians’ peace and security.

Views are personal.

New Delhi: At a time when doctors across the country are facing shortages of protective gear required when treating patients infected with Covid-19, a Rajasthan-based doctor has highlighted how a district collector was seen wearing full personal protective equipment (PPE), while medical staff standing next to him had none.

A picture tweeted by the doctor, Pankaj Meena Khoker, has gone viral. The picture was accompanied by a short message: “When an IAS officer wears a full PPE kit and doctors wear normal clothes and mask……I don’t think Modi’s promise is working here.”

The picture seems to be from Indore in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, as written on the wall behind the IAS officer in the picture.

In a nationwide survey conducted by the central government in late March, IAS officers from across districts too had highlighted the shortage of medical and protective equipment needed to battle the deadly pandemic.

Also read: What is PPE, and why it is essential in the fight against coronavirus

Should IAS officers’ safety be prioritised over doctors’?

The doctor’s tweet has generated a debate on whether IAS officers can be classified as an ‘essential service’ and need the protective gear, or should the protection of doctors be prioritised.

New Delhi: The Army is in the process of setting up ad hoc isolation facilities with a total capacity of nearly 16,000 people, as India gears up to isolate and test more suspected Covid-19 patients.

According to the Union health ministry figures (updated until Friday afternoon), the number of Covid-19 cases in India has climbed to 2,301, while the death toll has risen to 56.

Sources told ThePrint that in addition to the existing quarantine facilities set up by the Army, all six commands will set up ad hoc isolation facilities, which can cater to 15,700 patients if needed.

A senior Army officer told ThePrint that field hospitals may be roped in for the purpose. Army Public Schools, Kendriya Vidyalayas and other grounds may also be used to create infrastructure for these facilities, which can be made available at short notice.

Also read: IAF airlifts 6.2 tonnes of essential medicines, hospital consumables to Maldives

How the armed forces have been helping

The armed forces have increased their assistance to civil authorities in the last few weeks, since the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Together, the Army, Navy and Air Force are running six quarantine facilities at Mumbai, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Hindon, Manesar and Chennai, in which 1,737 people have been housed, and 403 released so far.

Another 15 facilities are being kept ready as standby for use, if required.

A government statement Friday said three positive Covid-19 cases — two from Hindon and one from Manesar — were referred to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi for further treatment.

The statement said that dedicated Covid-19 facilities including high dependency units. Intensive care unit beds are being prepared in 51 hospitals of the armed forces across the country, including at Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Dundigal near Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kanpur, Jaisalmer, Jorhat and Gorakhpur.

Five viral testing labs, which can carry out Covid-19 tests, have been operationalised, including at the Army Hospital (Research & Referral) in Delhi; Air Force Command Hospital, Bengaluru; Armed Forces Medical College, Pune; Command Hospital (Central Command), Lucknow; and Command Hospital (Northern Command), Udhampur.

Six more hospitals will begin testing soon.

At a recent review of the preparations by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat had said hospitals have been identified to exclusively deal with Covid-19, and more than 9,000 hospital beds have been made available.

Also read: Navy gets battle-ready for Covid-19 with low-cost temperature sensor, oxygen supply system

Help for neighbouring countries

Special flights of the Indian Air Force have evacuated people and carried medical supplies.

A C-17 Globemaster III has carried 15 tonnes of medical supplies to China and, on the return flight, airlifted 125 persons, including five children, mostly Indian nationals and few citizens from friendly countries.

The C-17 Globemaster III also went to Iran and brought back 58 stranded Indians that included 31 women and two children. The aircraft has also brought 529 samples for Covid-19 testing.

A defence ministry statement added: “The C-130J Super Hercules aircraft has ferried around 6.2 tonnes of medicines to Maldives. An Army Medical Corps team with five doctors, two nursing officers and seven paramedics was deployed in Maldives for capacity building measures and assisted in setting up their own testing, treatment and quarantine facilities between 13-21 March 2020.”

The IAF’s transport fleet is assisting in transportation of essential supplies, medicines and medical equipment.

“So far, approximately 60 tonnes of stores have been airlifted to various parts of the country. Twenty-eight fixed wing and 21 helicopters are on standby at various locations across the country,” the statement said.

Six Naval ships loaded with medical team and HADR bricks are kept on standby for assistance at Visakhapatam, Kochi and Mumbai to respond to any requests from neighbouring countries like Maldives, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, it said. Five medical teams are also on standby for deployment in Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan, it added.

Also read: Coronavirus doesn’t stop Indian Army from carrying out its annual cyber security exercise