There is import dependence because too many plans, goals and targets have come unstuck

TN Ninan

COTT Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, laid out three maxims in a recent speech: “The nation that cannot produce what it needs is not truly secure. The nation that depends on its adversaries for critical inputs is not truly sovereign. And the nation that reduces its economics to consumption is not truly prosperous.”

Bessent’s context is a world that his country, more than any other, has worked to create — in which, as Thucydides wrote, the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must. Where alliances can be disregarded, friendships become irrelevant and markets subject to unexpected disruptions.

The phrase that characterises this new world is weaponised interdependence. Such weaponisation comes more easily to those in control of the main nodes of the global economy, giving them coercive power. One could even think of panopticon situations (the usual example being a single guard in a circular prison who can watch all the inmates). Think of the SWIFT interbank communication system. Equally, they could offer choke points for coercive use. Choke points can also be points of vulnerability — think submarine cables which, if cut, could cripple an adversary for a while.

For a middle power like India, such a world is more complex and offers many new challenges, and only imperfect answers or solutions. In the spirit of atmanirbharta, can India hope to ensure its security and sovereignty by producing all that it needs — as Bessent asked? Think of the major weapons platforms and technologies that are currently imported. Or not rely on others for critical inputs — something that even the major powers don’t attempt? Most obviously, what price strategic autonomy when 90 per cent of the country’s oil and half its gas needs are imported? And what price sovereignty in the face of penal tariffs and arbitrary trade sanctions?

It is obvious that the goals in such a world have to be not just economic efficiency and competitiveness but also finding ways to minimise vulnerability — without paying too great a price through higher costs that localisation often imposes. Hence the current attempts at domestic chip manufacture and the setting up of data centres. Yet interdependence is written into the scenario and must be dealt with.

The asymmetric conflicts in Ukraine and Iran pose their own urgent questions for the economy. Hundreds of missiles and drones (offensive and defensive) have been fired in a day, for days on end, in both theatres. Can India hope to develop such a supply capability, given its limited manufacturing base, or (as a more sensible alternative) turn civilian industrial units to military use in short order? And how well is the country positioned in the context of wars that will henceforth be fought in the cyber-physical world?

Sensible policies can always provide answers. India could become an electro-state, for instance, by copying China’s example to reduce oil dependence and multiply storage capacity in order to insulate against supply shocks. China can store more than four months’ oil requirements, whereas India’s strategic reserves are for barely 10 days. When availability can trump price in a critical agricultural input like fertiliser, sensible policy can serve to boost the domestic production of an item that does not after all involve rocket science.

India has always been wary of international dependencies. Especially in defence, space and atomic energy, it has sought from the beginning to build national capabilities and be self-reliant. There are some impressive success stories to show for this in the defence arena: the nuclear-powered submarines, for instance (though Russian help has been critical). And the multi-pronged missile programme. A layered air defence system that showed its mettle during Operation Sindoor. Mobile howitzers for the artillery have been developed by the Armaments R&D Establishment in partnership with Kalyani and Tata. Some aspects of electronic warfare capability constitute another success story.

The risk is that overreach can result in failure, or unaffordable delays (which, in defence, is the same thing). Overreach explains why many attempts at self-reliance in defence have failed, such that the country is the world’s second largest importer of armaments (after Ukraine). Major weapons platforms that the country needs are still being imported — those on the current list being Rafales, submarines and long-endurance drones. And imported weapons tend to be far more expensive than indigenous substitutes, when these are developed.

Moreover, the world sends periodic reminders about supply vulnerabilities. The gas turbine engines that have powered the Navy’s main fighting ships have traditionally come from Ukraine, now consumed by war; fortunately, Bharat Heavy Electricals has been producing gas turbines for the frontline warships. But the supply of the S-400 air defence systems has been interrupted by Russian preoccupations. And Hindustan Aeronautics Limited can’t turn out the 180 Tejas fighters that the Air Force desperately needs because (among other things) the engines have to come from General Electric, which has delayed production because (again, inter alia) a South Korean supplier of components has gone out of business.

Ambition is as ambition does. The import dependence is because too many plans, goals and targets have come unstuck. The dependence on General Electric engines for Tejas is because the domestically developed Kaveri engine didn’t measure up. The Army’s demanding specifications for an infantry rifle (such as interchangeable barrels that use bullets with different sizes!) proved too complicated to deliver, resulting in large-scale imports.

The NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) satellite-based system that was to be a regional substitute for the US GPS (Global Positioning System) is non-functional because of a shortage of operational satellites and the failure of an atomic clock.  This has underlined the need for an indigenous system, more than a quarter century after Kargil 1999.

The critical need is for realism on what the country can sensibly do on its own (and deliver at cost and within deadline), while being a part of international consortia where it can’t. As an example of the latter, would India have been better placed if it had stayed as a partner in Russia’s Su-57 stealth fighter programme, especially now that China has developed its own stealth fighter, the J-20?

This is the first of a 2-part series 

Trending Games

Thirty-nine Naga ancestral skulls, some taken more than a century ago during British colonial rule, are to be brought home from Oxford to Nagaland, in what Naga organisations describe as a moment of healing, unity and the return of memory.

The University of Oxford formally approved the return of 39 of the 40 ancestral remains claimed by the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR) last July. The remaining set of remains was excluded because its provenance could not be clearly established as Naga.

Pitt Rivers Museum’s Belgian director, Laura Van Broekhoven, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the remains “have been away from their homeland for far too long”. The museum told AFP that it was “working closely” with the Naga community to agree on a date for the handover ceremony.

In a separate statement to Euronews, Van Broekhoven described the process as “humbling” and said she felt honoured to have worked towards returning the 39 Naga ancestors.

The FNR and other Naga organisations, in a statement sent to AFP welcoming the Oxford decision, said: “Repatriation, for the Nagas, is not simply about bones and ancestral remains finding their way back to the land but importantly about memory returning to where it belongs.”

The decision brings to a remarkable point of closure a process that began in 2020, when Van Broekhoven approached the FNR about the possibility of repatriating the remains.

A date for the handover ceremony has not yet been set. The Pitt Rivers Museum is working with Naga representatives on arrangements for the return.

In June 2025, a 23-member Naga delegation travelled to Oxford and came face to face with ancestral remains held in the Pitt Rivers Museum.

They were shown skulls, tufts of hair, fingernails, long bones and the partial remains of a child.

Some delegates wept. Others prayed in Naga languages.

For the museum, the remains had been accessioned as part of a collection. For the visitors, they were ancestors.

“This was not a museum visit,” one delegate said afterwards. “This was a reckoning — with the dead, with our history, and with ourselves.”

Dr Phyobemo Ngully, a psychiatrist from Kohima who was among the delegates, explained the spiritual significance of the visit. “If we don’t bring them home, our ancestral spirits will be restless,” he said.

On the final day of the visit, the delegates addressed their ancestors directly: “We are here now to reclaim you.”

More than a year later, Oxford has agreed to let them do precisely that.

The formal claim for the 40 remains was submitted to Oxford this year by the FNR, which had been authorised by Naga tribal councils to act on their behalf. Oxford’s own gazette subsequently recorded that the visitors of the Pitt Rivers Museum recommended the return of 39 of the 40 remains.

The historical background is disturbing.

The Tribune has seen correspondence written by British colonial administrator James Philip Mills in 1923 in which he described his intention to “loot” the Naga village of Yungya “to the advantage of the PR” — the Pitt Rivers Museum.

“I should like to fire on it,” Mills wrote. “The men deserve bullets.”

In subsequent correspondence, Mills confirmed that he had shipped a severed human head from Yungya via Calcutta.

Another colonial administrator, JH Hutton, an anthropologist as well as a District Commissioner, was also associated with the collection of Naga human remains and objects. The Pitt Rivers Museum itself says Hutton and Mills brought most of its Naga human remains into the collection between roughly 1910 and 1940, and acknowledges that remains and objects were frequently confiscated during punitive military expeditions rather than freely given.

The distinction between colonial collecting and Naga memory could hardly be sharper.

The museum speaks of human remains and collections. The Naga organisations speak of ancestors, memory, dignity and belonging.

For the Naga organisations, the immediate priority is not the return of artefacts. It is the return of their dead.

The current restitution concerns the 39 Naga ancestors approved for return by Oxford.

The repatriation effort is being coordinated by the FNR and the Recover, Restore and Decolonise (RRaD) research initiative, working with Naga tribal bodies, church leaders and communities. In June 2025, Naga tribal Hoho leaders, elders and FNR-RRaD members travelled to the Pitt Rivers Museum to see and bear witness to the ancestral remains.

The Naga delegation subsequently issued the Naga Oxford Declaration on Repatriation, calling for the remains to be reclaimed and returned to their homeland.

The proposed burial in Nagaland is intended to provide a dignified resting place and, according to Naga representatives, to symbolise the unity of the Naga people. A burial site has been identified and discussions are underway with the Nagaland Government over its allocation.

The Oxford decision is part of a wider international movement challenging the presence of human remains and cultural objects acquired by Western institutions during the colonial era.

But the Naga case has a particular resonance because it involves not merely the return of disputed objects but the return of people.

At Oxford last year, the Naga delegation ended its declaration with a blessing: “May your homecoming bring peace and harmony to our land.”

The words, written when the journey home was still uncertain, now have a different meaning.

The journey has been approved. What remains is to bring them home.

Multiple explosions were heard across Iranian coastal regions, including Qeshm Island as well as Sirik and Minab counties.

According to state broadcaster Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the sounds of several explosions were reported along the coastal areas of Sirik and Minab County.

Addressing the incidents, the Hormozgan Governorate stated that the origin of the sounds heard in Qeshm was determined to be coming from the sea.

Citing Saudi media, IRNA added that at least two strong explosions were heard in the area.

This comes as US President Donald Trump asserted on Wednesday (local time) that the war with Iran will end “immediately” after the upcoming US midterm elections, accusing Tehran of holding out in hopes that a change in political power in Washington will allow it to pursue a nuclear weapon.

Speaking to reporters before departing for a Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, Trump argued that Tehran is attempting to influence American voters to secure a more lenient administration in Washington.

“I think the war will end immediately after the election…They’re desperate to try and affect the election so that we could get a nice, weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapon,” Trump said.

Asked directly why he believes the fighting will cease so rapidly after the vote, Trump reiterated that Tehran is running out of options.

“Because they can’t hold out any longer. They’re desperate to try and affect the election, so that we can get a nice weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapon. All they want is a nuclear weapon, and if they had a nuclear weapon, the whole world is in deep trouble,” he stated.

When pressed on whether he expected diplomatic talks to resume or the military campaign to be restarted, Trump signalled that Washington is in no rush to negotiate, asserting that recent operations have severely weakened the Iranian state.

He added that any ultimate diplomatic resolution would extend far beyond conventional nuclear agreements.

On the other hand, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei on Thursday rejected accusations made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Yemen’s Houthis operate as a proxy for Tehran, stating that the group acts independently and takes orders from no one.

In a post on X, Baghaei accused Washington of driving regional instability through its military presence and hegemonistic policies, emphasising that lasting peace in Yemen requires an end to external intervention.

“Marco Rubio’s lies cannot replace facts. Ansarallah is an independent Yemeni actor that makes its own decisions; it takes orders from no one and acts as nobody’s proxy,” Baghaei said.

Directing criticism toward US policy in the Middle East, Baghaei urged Washington to withdraw its military involvement if it seeks genuine stability in the region.

“The roots of instability in the region lie in US military interventions and hegemonic policies. If Washington genuinely wanted peace, it would take one simple step: end its malign and destabilising interventions in our region,” he stated

The family, originally from Punjab’s Jalandhar and residing in Quebec, had spent nearly eight years in Canada, where the parents worked, paid taxes and raised their two children. Photo provided by Gurmalkiat Singh Kahlon, Vancouver

A Punjabi family that arrived in Canada in 2018 has been deported to India after Canadian authorities rejected its asylum claim and subsequent request to remain in the country on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

The family, originally from Punjab’s Jalandhar and residing in Quebec, had spent nearly eight years in Canada, where the parents worked, paid taxes and raised their two children.

The family’s deportation came after their asylum application was rejected on the grounds that Canadian authorities did not accept their claim that they faced a threat to their lives in India.

Their humanitarian and compassionate application was also rejected before they were put on a flight to India.

Harish, the head of the family and a resident of Goraya in Jalandhar, worked as a truck driver in Canada for several years. His wife also worked while raising and educating their two children.

The family’s two sons, Japesh, 14, and Gaulash, 12, have spent most of their childhood in Canada.

Japesh said his childhood was spent in Canada and that his friends are also there. He said he feared feeling isolated after returning to India.

Gaulash said he was being sent to a country he knew little about. He said he was four years old when his parents brought him to Canada and that he has no clear memories of India.

According to the family, Canadian authorities informed them on September 4 that they would be deported on September 7 following the rejection of their asylum claim.

Mustafa Hennawy, an activist with the Immigrant Worker Centre, criticised the deportation. He said Harish had contributed to the Canadian economy by working as a truck driver during the Covid-19 pandemic and described his deportation as an injustice.

Hennawy also expressed concern over the impact of the decision on the family’s children, saying they had grown up in Canada and had developed their lives and social connections there.

Why did the family seek asylum in Canada?

Harish arrived in Canada on a visitor visa in 2018 and subsequently sought asylum. In his claim, he stated that he had run a grocery store in India and alleged that police, under pressure from a political leader, had harassed him by filing false cases against him.

He also alleged that he was illegally detained between August 12 and August 19, 2017, and subjected to severe torture. He said the experience made him fear for his life and prompted him to seek safety in Canada.

Canadian authorities, however, rejected the family’s asylum claim and did not accept the alleged threat to Harish’s life as grounds for protection.

An official of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said that once a deportation order against an undocumented foreign national is issued and the person is taken into custody, the agency proceeds with removal from Canada.

The family is among a large number of immigration cases involving individuals facing removal from Canada, with preparations for deportation continuing in cases where removal orders are in force.

Inputs from Gurmalkiat Singh Kahlon, Vancouver

Raining Lathees On The Future Of India Regular use of force at Jantar Mantar By Lt General HARWANT SINGH

Sikh Regiment Martyr Sikander Singh given Salute

SARVATRA MOUNTAINEERING EXPEDITION TO MOUNT TRISHUL-I (7,120m)! 

Relief for applicants of property lease transfer, freehold conversion in Chandigarh

CRPF to replace Armymen in Udhampur-Kathua

Defence ministry clears purchases worth `1.1 lakh cr Forces to get advanced choppers, radars; Su-30MKI fighter jets to get major upgrade

Military commanders meet at LAC in Arunachal ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to India

Rajnath: Forces have freedom to strike adversaries in their territory

300-km range Sukhoi missiles on list as MoD approves Rs 1.10L cr buy

https://www.thecitizen.in/opinion/raining-lathees-on-the-future-of-india-1356544

The Constitution gives every citizen the right to protest peacefully. In Delhi, the state has designated exactly one place for it: a stretch of pavement at Jantar Mantar, hemmed in by barricades, within walking distance of Parliament and safely out of its sight. What happens on that pavement tells us what the right is now worth. Consider who has been dragged off it in the last decade: Olympic medallists, decorated soldiers, and schoolchildren. Also Read – A Ceasefire Without Peace In January 2023, some of India’s most decorated wrestlers — Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia among them — sat down at Jantar Mantar and accused Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, then president of the Wrestling Federation of India and a six-term MP of the ruling party, of sexually harassing junior wrestlers over several years. Delhi Police registered FIRs only in April, after months of protest and a nudge from the Supreme Court. DownloadInteractive Maps Also Read – Not A Celebrity, Just An IAS Officer On May 28, as the wrestlers set out towards the new Parliament building, the police did not ask them to leave. They were dragged off the road and detained — national champions, hauled away like contraband, in front of the cameras. On August 3 this year, a Rouse Avenue court acquitted Singh, holding that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. That verdict must be respected; it is also worth stating precisely what it means and does not mean. It closed a trial that ran 127 hearings over 1,133 days. It did not establish that the complaints were false, and the wrestlers’ counsel has indicated an appeal. Nor does it retrospectively license what was done on the road on May 28, 2023. Also Read – Is Siang Dam Construction Advisable? Whether or not the allegations could be proved three years later, the women were entitled to make them from a pavement the state had designated for exactly that purpose, without being manhandled. The strength of the case has nothing to do with the propriety of the policing, and one should not be used to excuse the other. Before the wrestlers came the veterans. The One Rank One Pension dharna of 2015 was the quietest agitation this country has seen; the men sat in ranks, and largely did not even raise slogans. On August 14, on the eve of Independence Day, Delhi Police moved to clear them from the site on grounds of security. They came with lathis. A photograph went around the country of an old soldier with his ribbons torn from his shirt. Among the men handled that way were gallantry award winners and soldiers who had left limbs on battlefields. The outrage was such that within days the Joint Commissioner of Police went to Jantar Mantar and apologised, on the Home Minister’s own direction — an admission, if any were needed, that the force used had no justification. Also Read – Nepal Floods, The Cost Of Reckless Development The veterans had already been sending their medals to Rashtrapati Bhavan, in the thousands, over several years, some with letters written in blood. The Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces never received their representatives. OROP was announced on September 5, 2015 and notified that November in a form the veterans called diluted; more than two thousand of them returned their medals again in protest, and two tried to burn theirs before television cameras. The Defence Minister’s response was to call their conduct unlike that of a soldier, and to say they had been misguided. That sentence deserves to be remembered. Men who had spent their lives being shot at were told by a civilian minister that they were behaving unlike soldiers because they asked for their pensions. The serving officer watched all of it. What was unforgivable was that the Army’s own leadership never once told the government, in the terms it deserved, that this was not done. Our police, eighty years after the British left, still conduct themselves as the colonial force they were trained to be — an instrument for managing subjects rather than protecting citizens. Then came the children. Paper leaks in this country are not a lapse; they are an industry, with lakhs changing hands and coaching institutions inside the trade. In May 2026 the NEET-UG medical entrance was cancelled outright after a leak and handed to the CBI. CBSE’s on-screen marking collapsed at the same time, leaving lakhs of school-leavers with no reliable result. A generation that had staked everything on those examinations discovered that its future was a commodity. Some of them did not survive the discovery. Their parents are still living with that. The protest that followed took its name from the Chief Justice of India, who in May had described unemployed young people as cockroaches and parasites who attack the system through social media and litigation. Within days a movement had adopted the insult as its banner. The Cockroach Janta Party’s first sit-in at Jantar Mantar was on 6 June, with police permission, with the national flag, with copies of the Constitution. The demand was narrow and constitutional: that the minister responsible for the examination system resign. Accountability is a small word. This government does not use it. DownloadInteractive Maps What followed, over seven weeks, is a catalogue worth reading slowly. On June 20 the site’s lights were switched off and access to food and drinking water was cut off to make the students leave. Sonam Wangchuk began a hunger strike on June 28; by the nineteenth day he had lost 9.1 kilograms and could not stand unaided. The Education Minister called the protesters a B-team of terrorists. On July 18 police carried Wangchuk off the pavement to hospital. On July 20, when thousands marched towards Parliament on the first day of the monsoon session, they met lathis and tear gas. Sixteen metro stations were shut. The Internet was shut around Parliament. Twenty companies of CRPF were flown in from Kolkata. More than a hundred injured protesters reached RML’s emergency ward, some with head injuries, one in intensive care. Police denied using pellet guns, calling the reports completely false and misleading — until a Safdarjung medical report recorded pellet wounds and a police station’s own general diary recorded the rounds fired. Policemen were photographed working in plain clothes. An Additional DCP was filmed slapping a woman protester; he was quietly moved off duty, not charged. When students went to court, the High Court declined an urgent hearing and told them not to drag it into this, and the Chief Justice told a petitioner not to waste the court’s time and that he was not interested in the videos. The doors that opened were those of Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, where the injured and the gassed were carried in, treated and fed. It is worth asking why a langar hall did the work a constitutional court would not. Delhi Police say 118 of their personnel were hurt, that stones were thrown, that vehicles were overturned, and there is footage supporting parts of that account. Honesty requires stating it. It settles nothing. Between a crowd of unarmed nineteen-year-olds who lost their tempers and a state that answers with pellets, tear gas, a CRPF airlift and an internet shutdown, only one party is trained, paid and sworn to keep its head. That is the entire point of discipline. Nor is the police case improved by announcing afterwards that 2,873 men with criminal antecedents were present — a claim that conveniently arrives after the batons, and that no student can disprove. The minister resigned on July 25. An anti-paper-leak amendment was rushed through Parliament and cleared by the President on August 2, with the opposition protesting that the debate had been curtailed. The state deployed everything it had against its own children and still lost the argument. That is not a vindication of the crackdown; it is a measure of how unnecessary it was. And despite written assurances that non-violent protesters would not be pursued, cases have continued to be filed and students arrested. None of this is finally about one pavement. Nearly a lakh government schools have been closed. Thousands run with a single teacher, no electricity and no toilet. The midday meal is what it is. Private schooling has been priced beyond the reach of the poor. We are producing a generation that is uneducated or half-educated, and then filing FIRs against the half that noticed. A government that answers its children with lathis has already conceded the argument. It should think very hard about what it is teaching them. Lt.General Harwant Singh (Retd) is former Deputy Chief of Army Staff. Views expressed here are the writer’s ow

https://www.thecitizen.in/opinion/raining-lathees-on-the-future-of-india-1356544

The Bengal Engineer Group & Centre, Roorkee, today hosted the grand Flag-Off Ceremony for the joint Corps of Engineers Mountaineering Expedition to the formidable Mount Trishul-I. Uniting all ranks from the Madras Sappers, Bengal Sappers, and Bombay Sappers, the expedition reflects the true tri-group spirit and high-altitude prowess of the Indian Army.

The expedition was formally flagged off by Lt Gen Anindya Sengupta, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, YSM, GOC-in-C, Surya Command. The event was graced by Lt Gen Vikas Rohella, AVSM, SM**, Engineer-in-Chief and the Colonel Commandant, Bengal Sappers & Military Survey alongside a distinguished gathering of serving and veteran military dignitaries renowned for their achievements in mountaineering and adventure.

Addressing the assembly, the Army Commander lauded the team’s grit and determination in tackling a peak deeply rooted in the folklore and military history of the Garhwal Himalayas. Highlighting the legendary legacy of Sapper mountaineers—from pioneers like Major Nandu Jayal to Major Jai Bahuguna—the GOC-in-C commended the expedition team for upholding the highest traditions.

The Corps of Engineers continues to push boundaries, living up to its motto of SARVATRA, propelled by SADAIV and TATPAR!

The Estate Office, Chandigarh, has done away with the requirement of a separate no-dues certificate (NDC) for two key property services — NOC for transfer of lease rights and conversion from leasehold to freehold tenure — under a new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) approved by the Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Gulab Chand Kataria.

Speaking to The Tribune, Deputy Commissioner-cum-Estate Officer Nishant Kumar Yadav said applicants earlier had to first apply separately for an NDC and, only after obtaining it, file a fresh application for the main service. This led to two applications for the same property, repeated scrutiny of records and delay in service delivery, he said.

Under the revised system, applicants would apply directly for the main service through the online portal. Dues, which were earlier checked at the NDC stage, would now be verified and calculated during processing of the main application itself, Yadav said.

The Estate Officer said the checklists and workflows for both services stood revised on the online portal, with the NDC requirement deleted and replaced with a provision that dues would be assessed during processing and intimated through a single notice.

The integrated procedure would initially apply to the two identified services and might later be extended to other Estate Office services where a separate NDC was presently insisted upon, he added.

Single-window process

Under the SOP, all documentary deficiency, dues and service charges will be consolidated and communicated to the applicant through a single “Discrepancy Memo-cum-Demand Notice”, rather than in a piecemeal manner.

Yadav said the notice would list all deficiencies in documents, the government dues, applicable conversion, transfer or service charges, the total amount payable, the mode of payment and the time allowed to the applicant for compliance. The application would be disposed of within 15 working days of its receipt, he said, adding that the period during which compliance by the applicant was awaited would not be counted, and the clock would resume from the date of complete compliance, including payment of dues.

“The principle is one application, one scrutiny, one discrepancy or demand notice and one final disposal,” Yadav said.

WITH the government declaring that the country is free of the Naxal menace, surplus troops of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) are set to be redeployed to Jammu and Kashmir, where they will gradually take over counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism (CI/CT) responsibilities from the Army in parts of Udhampur and Kathua districts. According to security establishment sources, the government has recently communicated to the CRPF to prepare for and facilitate replacement of Army personnel in designated CI/CT roles. The move is aimed at rationalising the deployment of security forces involved in internal security operations in the region. The transition is expected to cover 21 hyper-sensitive locations across the UdhampurKathua belt, the sources said, adding that the requirement of personnel at each location is being assessed and deployment will be carried out according to a pre-decided, priority-based plan. The formalities are currently under way and the CRPF is expected to assume charge at these locations shortly

The restructuring will also involve the CRPF’s specialised CoBRA unit. Nine CoBRA teams are planned to be deployed in the Udhampur-Kathua sector, while another nine teams will undergo training. Their operational deployment will subsequently be managed dynamically depending on security requirements,” a source familiar with the plan said. The move is part of broader efforts to streamline the deployment of forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir. The sources said the region could witness significant structura

changes in the security architecture in the coming months, including a phased reduction in the deployment of Rashtriya Rifles troops in certain areas and an expanded CRPF presence. However, the changes will not mean a complete withdrawal of the Army’s counter-insurgency force from Jammu and Kashmir. A significant number of Rashtriya Rifles personnel will continue to remain deployed in the region, with the restructuring aimed at recalibrating responsibilities between the Army and the CRPF rather than eliminating the Army’s role, they said.