Thane (Maharashtra), January 5

The charred body of a retired naval officer was found in his flat in Badlapur township of Thane district in the early hours of Sunday, the police said. The deceased was identified as Guddu Singh (50).

Singh, who lived in Delhi, had come to Badlapur with his wife three days ago to sell off his flat, said a police officer.

Around 1.30 am, neighbours noticed smoke coming out of the house and alerted the police. After breaking open the door, the police found Singh’s completely burnt body, said senior police inspector LM Sariputra of Badlapur police station. His wife was missing, he said.

The police have registered a case of accidental death and the body has been sent for autopsy, he said. — PTI

New Delhi, January 6

No state can lower traffic penalties below the level prescribed under the new Motor Vehicles Act, the central government said on Monday.

In an advisory to states, the road, transport and highways ministry said the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 is a parliamentary legislation and the state governments cannot pass any law or take executive action to lower penalty below the prescribed limit unless President’s assent has been obtained to related state law.

The transport ministry had sought legal advice on this from the law ministry after one of the states had notified amounts for compounding of certain offences lower to what has been prescribed in the new Act.

The new Act with stricter provisions has come into force in the country from September 1, 2019.

“Ministry of Law and Justice has tendered their advice after seeking opinion of Attorney General of India. The Attorney General has inter alia observed as under: “The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (as amended by Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019) is a Parliamentary legislation, the state governments cannot pass any law/take executive action to lower the penalty/fine below that prescribed under the statutory provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, unless the assent of the President is obtained to such state law,” the ministry said in an advisory to states.

The advisory to the principal secretaries of states also mentioned the legal opinion that in case of the failure of states to implement the Act, reference may be made to Article 256 of the Constitution that authorises the Union of India to issue directions to a state as may be necessary for the purpose.

Article 256 provides that the executive power of every state shall be so exercised as to ensure compliance with the laws made by Parliament and any existing laws which apply in that state, and the executive power of the Union shall extend to the giving of such directions to a state as may appear to the Government of India to be necessary for that purpose.

The advisory also quoted Attorney General’s opinion that “the disobedience of these directions could well attract the provisions of Article 356 of the Constitution of India, and one could therefore proceed on the basis that the central law would implicitly be obeyed by the state governments”.

The ministry said the objective of the Act and enhancement of penalties for traffic violations was to ensure greater compliance and enhancing deterrence for violation of traffic rules which is intended to provide for better road safety resulting in reduction of accidents and fatalities on roads.

Earlier, the government had said that for certain offences Gujarat, Karnataka, Manipur and Uttarakhand had reduced the penalties.

Under the amended Act, violations such as drunken driving and dangerous driving attract fines of Rs 10,000 and/or imprisonment of six months to two years.

Penalty for driving without licence was increased to Rs 5,000 from Rs 500 earlier, while riding two-wheeler without helmets will not only attract fine of Rs 1,000 but could lead to suspension of licences for the next three months. — PTI

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When Major Manekshaw was wounded during World War II, his orderly insisted that the doctor attend to his officer, else he would shoot him. Thus, Sam Manekshaw survived to lead the Army to victory in 1971

Lt Gen Harwant Singh (Retd)

IN the military, a soldier is assigned to an officer to attend to his small personal requirements, such as prepare his dress, serve bed tea, keep his room in good order, etc. This sets the officer free to deal with more important issues demanding his attention, more so during operations.

A few years ago, someone thought that the term “orderly” was not in keeping with the democratic norms and decided to rename him as “Sahayak”, though his range of duties and commitments remains the same.

Over time, a strong relationship builds between the officer and his Sahayak. The latter would go to any extent to make his officer comfortable. Thus, an orderly of a Polish officer during World War II would bring hot meals from the enemy kitchen for his officer. He continued with this enterprise for quite some time till one day he was found out and taken prisoner.

When General Musservy came to India to attend the centenary celebrations of his regiment, so did his long-time Sahayak. The two went into a long hug with tears flowing down.

Sahayaks not only attend to the basic needs, but often proffer advice to the officer. While I was working as a staff officer, my Sahayak, finding that I was not regular with the morning physical training, would often lecture me on the need for an officer to remain fit. He continued lecturing me till the annual test of 5-mile run, where I beat him and others in the HQ squadron by a wide margin. After that he never brought up the subject.

During training camps, the officers are accommodated in tents of various sizes, depending on rank. Camp equipment is an essential requirement; such as camp cot, a hurricane lamp, an odd stool or table and in the bath tent, the necessary items like foot board, bucket, mug, stool and a commode, better known as “thunderbox”.

We were at one such camp when a young officer, straight from the academy, arrived late in the evening. He was assigned a tent and a Sahayak. On discovering that the officer had just his bedding and a small box with none of the camp essentials listed above, the Sahayak was in a quandary.

The young officer, after leaving his baggage with his Sahayak, went to the officer’s mess. After dinner, everyone moved to their tents and so did this officer. On opening the flap of his tent, he found that his bedding was neatly laid out on a camp cot, there was a hurricane lamp, stool, a hanger or two and the bathroom was fully equipped with a bucket full of water, “thunderbox”, etc. He felt happy at having come to a regiment where they took such good care of their officers!

He was immersed in these pleasant thoughts when someone shouted that his camp cot was missing and soon more protests were heard. A search commenced and one by one these items were taken away, with this officer helplessly watching. Soon, his bedding was on the grass and there was nothing else left with him.

The officer’s Sahayak remained in the shadow and when every item was taken away, he was overheard telling another Sahayak, “Main taan sub kuch ikattha kar ditta si, par saab kolon sambhaleya hi nahin gaya.” (I had collected everything, but the Sahib could not consolidate his hold on these!)

Finally, when Major Sam Manekshaw was wounded in Burma, during World War II, his orderly carried him to the Medical Aid Post where the doctor declared the patient beyond help and tried to move on to the next wounded soldier. At this, Sam’s orderly insisted that the doctor attend to his officer, else he would shoot him. Thus, Sam Manekshaw survived to lead the Indian Army to victory in 1971.

[General Qassem Soleimani]

The assassination by a killer drone of Iran’s Pas Daran (Revolutionary Guards) chief, Major General Qassem Soleimani, on the express orders of the US President Donald J. Trump is the sort of historical blunder that will rank with President George W Bush’s initiation of war against Iraq in 2001 to takeout President Saddam Hussein on the blatantly false charge of Baghdad readying nuclear weapons. The Bush decision set fire to West Asia, and completely destabilized an already volatile region that Saddam had kept a lid on by strongarm measures.

Saddam was the hinge on which West Asian peace rested. He had for several previous decades somehow managed to balance the interests of the sunni and shia communities in Iraq, and maintain order, often by bloody means, something both the Saudi led sunni bloc and the Iran-headed shia bloc grudgingly acknowledged. That order was upended. Now Trump’s murder of Soleimani is likely start a spiral of violence and targeted strikes against American military presence and US economic interests in the Gulf, in Iraq where shias predominate, and generally in the extended area stretching from the Red Sea and the Gulf of Hormuz to Central Asia in the north, Pakistan in the east, and Syria and the Levant in the west. As it is, the Iraqi parliament is on the verge of voting for a resolution asking the US to get out of Iraq.

Hugely respected in the region as much for his political acumen and military expertise as for his understanding of the religio-ethnic dynamic in greater West Asia, Soleimani founded the al-Quds force for action in Iraq after the US military intervention there. Deployed against what Tehran considers the greatest danger to Islam — the US-Israeli combine, and also to fight the spurious caliphate of the murderous al-Baghdadi, the al-Quds force and the Kurdish paramilitary force, peshmerga, were primarily responsible for reducing the Islamic State to nothing, which actions were discreetly supported by Saudi Arabia — the ostensible guardian of Mecca. The real reason why the people ay-large held Soleimani in high regard was because of his physical courage; he led from the front.

It is very possible that with Pakistan getting dragged into the melee with likely attacks on US targets mounted by Iran-backed elements in that country, India will be asked by Washington to not only share intelligence — and in case Pakistan becomes too hot for the US forces to stage military missions out of, to permit American military units to operate out of Indian air force and army bases along the border with Pakistan. In Jaishankar-Rajnath Singh’s recent 2×2 summit with the Pompeo-Esper duo in Washington, the American side was eager particularly to activate the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) that will allow the US military the use of Indian facilities for, among other things, anti-Iran operations.

Permission under LEMOA will be demanded by the US because, with the general elections coming up, Trump will be compelled for political reasons to up the ante — meeting an Iranian counter thrust with a bigger strike — rather than to cool down the situation by making some sort of friendly gesture and even reparations to Tehran in terms of say, weakening the US-led sanctions regime. With much of Islamic Asia, including Pakistan, now unwilling to be any part of this action-reaction sequence, the only two countries on Iran’s flanks — Russia standing aside for the nonce before jumping onto Tehran’s side should American escalate with too much force — are Turkey to the west and India to the east.

Erdogan began building bridges to Iran with his visit to Tehran in January 2014 that was hailed by the Iranian foreign ministry, “As two neighbors and Muslim countries, ….enjoy[ing] many commonalities and many cooperation opportunities”. Indeed, before meeting with Trump in Washington in November last year, Erdogan had hosted a controversial Iranian diplomat who had a hand in an attack on certain Jews in Buenos Aires. So it is improbable that Ankara, which is already on the outs with the US owing to Erdogan’s purchase of the S-400 air defence system, will allow the NATO base at Incirlik to be used for air or any other activity against Iran. That leaves India exposed to US pressure.

One of Narendra Modi’s major claims of foreign policy success is his supposedly warm personal relations with Trump. It has so far fetched absolutely nothing for India and all the country has to-date witnessed is a one-way relationship where Modi keeps trying to please the US with unending concessions and deals for military hardware but received no consideration whatsoever in return. With a confirmed America-firster — Jaishankar in MEA, moreover, the advice offered Modi is to give the US more and more even if it gets India less and less in return. His natural aptitude for hard bargaining that Modi boasted about is nowhere in evidence, at least not in terms of any hard strategic gains and economic benefits. What benefits anybody can point to are mainly negative ones, meaning things like US restrictions on India techie movement could have been more severe and limitations on imports of Indian manufactured goods more onerous, etc.!

At the heart of the worry about India getting engaged, willy-nilly, in American initiatives hurtful to Iran, is that Modi, like most Indian politicians, is a proven sucker for praise and flattery, and Trump’s laying it on thick will be irresistible to the Indian PM. One need only recall the “Howdy, Modi!” Houston event and how elated Modi seemed when Trump rained accolades on him, to gauge the dangers ahead.

It may be best for the Modi government to, for once, do the right thing and preempt any approaches for help by Washington, by wagging its finger and asking the US and Iran to refrain from doing anything to escalate tension and, as a well wisher, to suggest to Washington that it make amends, by easing economic pressure on Tehran as prelude to negotiations for ending the long US-Iranian diplomatic impasse. It may be the way to regain for an over-US tilted India room for diplomatic manouevre, some slight self-respect and, perhaps, even an affirmation of shared interests with Iran.

Mumbai, January 5

Former Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa has said that after demonetisation in 2016, the Indian Air Force (IAF) transported 625 tonnes of new currency notes to various parts of the country.

The move to scrap the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8, 2016.

Speaking at the Techfest event organised by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay here on Saturday, Dhanoa said, “When demonetisation took place, we (IAF) took the currency and brought it to you. If one crore comes in a bag of 20 kg, I do not know how many crores we moved.”

One of the slides of Dhanoa’s presentation showed that as part of internal services, the IAF carried out 33 missions transporting 625 tonnes of treasury consignment after the demonetisation was announced.

Dhanoa was the IAF chief from December 31, 2016 to September 30, 2019.

During the Techfest event, he also referred to the row over the Rafale purchase deal, saying such controversies slow down defence acquisitions, affecting capabilities of the armed forces.

The Bofors deal too got mired in controversy (during the Rajiv Gandhi government) despite the Bofors guns “being good”, he noted.

He also said that had Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman been flying a Rafale instead of a MiG 21 during the India-Pakistan stand-off after the Balakot strike last year, the outcome would have been different. —PTI