Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 7

Two alumni from institutes in the tricity bagged top honours during the passing-out parade held for the newly commissioned Lieutenants at the Officers Training Academy (OTA) in Chennai on Saturday.

Lt Harpreet Singh, an alumnus of Maharaja Ranjit Singh Armed Forces Preparatory Institute (AFPI), Mohali, received the coveted Sword of Honour and the gold medal for standing first in the overall order of merit in the course, while Lt Vaibhav Mahajan, a cadet with No 1 Chandigarh NCC Air Squadron, was awarded the silver medal for standing second. Lt Mahajan had the distinction of commanding the parade.

In all, 167 gentlemen cadets, including 31 lady cadets, became officers on Saturday. The passing-out parade was reviewed by Admiral Karambir Singh, Chief of the Naval Staff.

Lt Singh, who held the rank of the Academy Cadet Adjutant during the training period, has been commissioned into the Scinde Horse, an elite armoured regiment that dates back to the pre-Independence era. His father, Risaldar Sukh Ram (retd), is a veteran tankman having served with the Hodson’s Horse. The family belongs to Abiana Khurd village near Ropar.

Lt Mahajan, on the other hand, has opted to be a foot soldier and has been commissioned into the Parachute Regiment. An alumnus of Postgraduate Government College in Sector 11 here, he had represented Chandigarh in the NCC Republic Day Camp in New Delhi in 2016. Later, he went to Moscow as part of the Youth Exchange Programme.

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 9

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force (ITBP) has opened up its medical facilities located in forward areas to civilians residing in border regions for availing routine medical treatment.

Director General, ITBP, SS Deswal said during his visit here that the practice was initiated recently to reach out to people residing in remote areas who do not have ready access to medical aid.

Earlier, civilians could get medical help only during an emergency or during special camps organised by the force from time to time. Now, they can routinely walk up to any ITBP medical centre and avail treatment.

According to an ITBP officer, over 40 battalions are deployed in the vicinity of the mountainous border with China, with each battalion controlling a number of border outposts (BOPs) situated along the border.

Each battalion HQs as well as BOPs are equipped with medical facilities. Besides catering to general illness, these can also be lifesavers during a medical emergency by providing first aid. The officer said the ITBP move would benefit thousands of civilians.

The ITBP has also been involved in screening persons evacuated from China for Covid-19.

Tribune News Service
Srinagar, March 9

Former decorated Commander of Srinagar-based 15 Corps Lt Gen Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon has been appointed as Director General, Defence Intelligence Agency, and Deputy Chief of Integrating Defence Staff (Intelligence) under the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) in the Department of Military Affairs, sources said.

The DIA also forms part of the Multi Agency Centre, an umbrella of organisations which looks into infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The 57-year-old Lt Gen Dhillon, who is from the 1983 batch of the Indian Military Academy, handed over the charge of 15 Corps to Lt Gen BS Raju on February 29.

Officials in the Defence Ministry said the order for Lt Gen Dhillon has been issued and he will assume the charge soon. The former decorated Commander of 15 Corps has been appreciated for three major people-friendly operations during his tenure in Kashmir, including ‘Operation Maa’ (mother), ‘Taleem se Taraqqi’ (Education leads to success) and ‘Humsaya hain hum’ (co-habitatants).

Lt Gen Kamal Davar (retd)

Having adorned the uniform for 41 years with great pride, it was truly a memorable moment to be with the ‘Defenders of Punjab’ — the Vajra Corps — in Jalandhar, celebrating on March 1 their 70 years of matchless service to the nation. That I could attend the Raising Day celebrations of the new raising I had commanded, 86 Armoured Regiment at Nabha, made my trip all the more nostalgic.

Meeting battle-hardened veterans who have given their all to this nation is indeed an unforgettable experience which only a soldier can fathom.

Following the bloody Partition of India, the 1947-48 Kashmir war clearly brought out that to thwart Pakistani perfidy, many more units and formations were urgently required to be raised. Thus, the first Corps HQ to be raised in free India on March 1, 1950 was HQ 11 Corps at Ambala. Lt Gen Kulwant Singh was given the honour to do so which he did with aplomb and alacrity. In mid-1951, the Corps was moved and headquartered in Jalandhar cantonment where it is situated now in impeccable surroundings, a majestic yet modern headquarters building to carry out its task to defend Punjab.

Raising a Corps is no mean task as it involves marshalling, training and synergising the capabilities of diverse units and formations. 11 Corps (nicknamed Vajra Corps, attributable to its formation sign), over the years, did that with professional precision and operational effectiveness. Pakistan had unleashed ‘Operation Gibraltar’ in July-August 1965 to foment an uprising against the Indian state. That the loyal Kashmiris followed by the Indian Army decisively threw out the Pakistani infiltrators prompted the Pakistanis to launch ‘Operation Grand Slam’ on September 1, 1965 in the Akhnoor sector. As the Indian Army defended valiantly and successfully in J&K apart from the loss of Chhamb, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave his permission to our Army to open a new front and cross the international border in Punjab to teach the Pakistanis a lesson.

11 Corps mounted a three-pronged counter-offensive along the GT axis, the Burki axis and from the south to converge towards Lahore. The Corps met with substantial success getting across the formidable Ichogill Canal, and along the GT axis; 3 JAT under the dynamic leadership of Col Desmond Hayde had captured the border town of Dograi and entered Batanagar on the outskirts of Lahore. However, lack of complete information to the higher leadership prevented 11 Corps units to further their advance into enemy territory.

Meanwhile, the Pakistanis with their formidable Patton tanks counter-attacked south of Amritsar and made some gains in the Khem Karan sector. Notwithstanding being outnumbered and outgunned, units of 2nd Armoured Brigade withstood the enemy onslaught and created mayhem among the invading Pakistani tanks. The battle of Asal Uttar (later famously re-interpreted as the Right Response) became the graveyard of Pakistani tanks. It was here that Havildar Abdul Hamid destroyed four Pakistani tanks. The battles of Dograi, Burki, Asal Uttar bear testimony to the overall success of the Vajra Corps.

I too, as a young subaltern, was wounded in action in the Khem Karan sector and thus have an emotional connect with 11 Corps — no wonder that destiny later gave me the chance to be its 22nd Corps Commander from 1999 to 2002.

In the 1971 operations against Pakistan, 11 Corps troops once again exhibited themselves with valour and professionalism in the battles of Sehjra, Dera Baba Nanak and Burj-Fatehpur, among others.

As many veterans gathered at Jalandhar to commemorate the deeds of the Vajra Corps, the most solemn ceremony was held at the Vajra Shaurya Sthal to pay their tributes to those fallen in battle. Among those who attended were veteran corps commanders like former Army Chief Gen Ved Malik, Lt Gen BT Pandit and the elderly Mrs Gowrishanker, whose husband had won the Maha Vir Chakra in the 1965 ops. An event, immaculately organised by Lt Gen Sanjeev Sharma, the present Corps Commander, will be cherished by all.

The Vajra Corps, over the years, has truly lived up to its motto as the ‘Defenders of Punjab’.

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 5

The Union Government has extended the status of “ex-servicemen” to short service commission (SSC) officers who leave armed forces after the completion of initial service period of 10 years, but before completing the extension period of another four years.

A notification issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension a few days ago states that Rule 2 of the Ex-servicemen (Re-employment in Central Civil Services and Posts) Rules, 1979, shall be amended to insert the clause that SSC officers released from service after completing initial terms of engagement, otherwise than by way of dismissal or discharge on account of misconduct or inefficiency, and having granted gratuity shall be eligible to ex-servicemen status.

This implies that SSC officers who chose to leave the services between 10 and 14 years of service will now be eligible to get post-release benefits on a par with those released from service on the completion of the mandatory 10 years of service or those who leave after exercising the option for continuing till 14 years. benefits that these officers will now be entitled to include job quota in government organisations and other schemes.

The US was not too inclined to hold these elections before the agreement so that the Taliban could also have put up their candidate. The conclusion of the Afghanistan election process has complicated the situation. Instead of power-sharing between the two major contenders, there is also a third player to be accommodated, who cannot be ignored. This is likely to weaken the Afghan government’s position, which may become an advantage to the Taliban.

Lt Gen NPS Hira (retd)

Former Deputy Chief of Army Staff

The United States and the Taliban have signed an agreement, which both are happy to sign for their own reasons. A reduction of hostilities by the Taliban was a good face-saving clause for the US to sign the agreement and start withdrawing its forces. The Taliban are happy to see the US troops pull out. The essence of the agreement is that the Taliban will not permit the Afghan soil to be used for launching attacks on the US and the US has agreed on a time schedule of withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.

There is no guarantee about peace in Afghanistan or the contours of a future political set-up. Down the line, if the hostilities re-escalate, the gainer will be the Taliban, who will have to fight the weakened Afghan government forces due to the partial or full US pullout. Trump will also not be unhappy either to have found a reason to extricate a part of his forces in the election year, this being a part of his election manifesto in the last elections. The Taliban having refused the ceasefire, the United States agreed for a ‘reduction in violence’ as a pre-condition for the pullout. Since the Taliban are keen to see the US exit from Afghanistan, they did reduce the violence to give them a reason to exit.

Another stage-managed development coming out of Afghanistan is the words of Sirajuddin Haqqani, deputy leader of the Afghan Taliban. He wrote a letter to the New York Times expressing the Taliban’s desire for peace in Afghanistan. He stated that the Taliban were committed to working with other parties in a consultative manner, to form an inclusive political system, in which the voice of every Afghan is reflected. He espoused that in future, the support of the international community would be crucial to stabilising and developing Afghanistan. After the US withdraws its troops, the US may play a constructive role in the post-war reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Sirajuddin is the head of the Haqqani faction of the Afghan Taliban, which is one of the most dreaded militant groups in Afghanistan. No one may believe that the Taliban have had a change of heart, but these good words do indicate the new posture of the Taliban, who want to project themselves as a mature political force to take over the reins of Afghanistan.

The only baton available with the Taliban to achieve their agenda on their own terms is their military pressure on the Afghan government. The peaceful postures besides, they cannot afford to let the military pressure go, nor can they slow it down for a long time. They are likely to maintain adequate pressure on the Afghan government till their objectives are met.

The new spanner in the works seems to be the recently concluded Afghan presidential elections. The election commission has declared Ghani to be the winner. The elections have been anything but smooth. The initial voting was 2.7 million. After about one million votes were purged, only 1.8 million votes were counted.

Abdullah Abdullah has lost out by only a 10 per cent vote share. He has already declared the elections to be a fraud by Ghani. He has declared that he will form a parallel government. He is supported by General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the vice-president in the previous government, and some other warlords, with a sizeable following.

The US was not too inclined to hold these elections before the agreement so that the Taliban could also have put up their candidate. As per indications, the US has not accepted the legitimacy of these elections so far. The conclusion of the election process has complicated the situation. Instead of power-sharing between the two major contenders, there is also a third player to be accommodated, who cannot be ignored. This is likely to weaken the Afghan government’s position, which may benefit the Taliban.

Subsequent to the signing of the agreement, a new development is that Ghani has refused to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners which is a part of the deal between the US and the Taliban. This clause is indeed a precondition for the talks between the Taliban and Afghan political groups. Ghani’s apprehensions are valid that if peace talks do not fructify, releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners will be counter-productive for him.

Secondly, these prisoners are an important bargaining chip with him during the talks. In response to Ghani’s stand, the Taliban have expectedly responded with a tough stand by announcing re-commencement of operations against government forces. Such a stand by the Taliban appears to be the harbinger of the things to follow.

Should India agree to send a peacekeeping force to Afghanistan, if so requested? This is a subject on which opinion could be divided. If India agrees to induct some troops in Afghanistan, it will give India an enhanced leverage on the Afghan situation in future. However, this request from the Afghan government is also an indication that in case hostilities do not come to an end, the Afghan government is not confident of holding the Taliban on its own. India has so far not built enough confidence with the Taliban for them to treat India as a neutral force. Therefore, there are inherent risks in the situation, which can boomerang on India. It could lead to a direct confrontation with the Taliban, which India has been able to avoid so far by design or default.

It is difficult for any army to operate in another country in a fluid situation like the existing forces operating in Afghanistan. An Indian contingent with a peacekeeping monitoring mandate may be acceptable. But if the situation turns to peace enforcement, the military operations tend to cause unavoidable collateral damageto civilians. Such incidents tend to anger the local populace against the security forces of the outside countries.

We have had a similar experience in Sri Lanka. Afghanistan is more volatile. Pakistan will be happy to fight India in Afghanistan through its proxies. India would find itself sucked into the quagmire. Therefore, we may like to avoid such a situation.

The US-Taliban agreement has given a leg-up to the Taliban over the Afghan government. The agreement is unlikely to end the conflict immediately. But whatever time frame it ends in, the Taliban are likely to emerge as the dominant player in the future political set-up. To defeat Pakistan’s long-cherished design of strategic depth in Afghanistan, India may rather build on the goodwill of Afghan people and the resurgent Taliban. This agreement has further enhanced the political legitimacy of the Taliban. It’s time for India to be pragmatic.

Jammu, March 6

At the moment, J&K is caught in a vortex of an unprecedented spell of political instability, with no blueprint in sight to revive the democratic institutions. It has been reduced to a theatre of absurd, the choreography of which is making the revival of political process more complex.

Political inertia

The Congress has lost its moorings. It is suffering from political inertia plaguing the party at the national level. The BJP, the most vibrant national party, that until June 2018, was an active partner in the coalition government with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), is unable to drive the narrative of stability for it is lost in its own contradictions in J&K. It is uncertain whether J&K should stay as UT or return to statehood.

The Congress has lost its moorings. It is suffering from political inertia plaguing the party at the national level.

The BJP, the most vibrant national party, that until June 2018, was an active partner in the coalition government with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), is unable to drive the narrative of stability for it is lost in its own contradictions in J&K. It is uncertain whether J&K should stay as UT or return to statehood. The local unit of the BJP is split into countless groups, where each leader is waiting to become Chief Minister, without any plans for the Assembly polls.

It is a situation with an unbridgeable vacuum. No amount of stop-gap arrangements or experiments without any defined roadmap can chart the course for the revival of the political landscape.

The truer statement, as many agree, is that J&K is politically most unstable. The problem lies with the policy failure. A visibly and palpably animated democracy is a must in this part of India. It is a national necessity.

Post scrapping of the special status granting Article 370 and doing away with the statehood on August 5 last year, it also is a prerequisite to blunt the mounting international criticism on Kashmir.

The chronology of the events is self-speaking.

The BJP withdrew support to the Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government without having a plan B. It was nebulous and based on speculative politics of attracting lawmakers from here and there to cobble a set-up without testing its stability for future.

Even that was a half-baked approach, the events that followed proved the naivety of the whole plan.

On receiving fax from the BJP leaders about the withdrawal of the support to the Mehbooba Mufti government, the then Governor NN Vohra invoked the Constitution. He called leaders of different political parties, followed it up by convening an all-party meeting wanting to know whether they could set up a group to form the government. Since all of them declined, he recommended Governor’s rule and announced the Assembly to be kept under suspended animation.

His act of consulting political groups and imposing the Governor’s rule was appreciated by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on June 29, 2019, on the floor of Parliament, where he had stated: “The Governor (Vohra) had consulted all parties before imposing the Governor’s rule.”

Vohra had also refused to install any government made of defectors, for he knew how the Kashmir situation had taken a turn for the worse when a government of defectors was installed in July 1984 within hours after the dismissal of the duly elected government of Farooq Abdullah.

He had the record of holding elections in 2008 in the immediate aftermath of the massive Amarnath land row agitation that year. He had proved the doomsayers wrong. That was done within six months of the Governor’s rule to avoid the state sliding into the President’s rule.

Again, in 2014, when the century’s worst floods hit Kashmir, the elections were held. He did not yield to pressures urging him to impose the Governor’s rule and defer the polls.

Things started sliding after the new Governor Satya Pal Malik dissolved the Assembly on November 21, 2018 – the day when a combination of groups like the NC, Congress and PDP staked their claim to form the government.

The competing claim was made by Sajjad Gani Lone, People’s Conference leader. Instead of judging merit of the two rival claims, Malik dissolved the House. That ended the prospects of early elections. And, on December 19, 2018, the state came under the President’s rule.

The parliamentary elections were held in 2019. But the Assembly elections were not held at all. Security concerns were voiced, overlooking the contradiction that similar concerns were valid for the parliamentary, panchayat – now hanging in balance after massive boycott in the Valley – and municipal polls. The security concerns were a concoction as Malik had himself declared that not even a bird was hit during the (civic body polls), but there were no answers as to why similar narrative could not apply for the Assembly polls.

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 4

Army Chief Gen MM Naravane on Wednesday said the Army was looking at lasers and directed energy weapons for possible military use.

He was speaking at an international seminar on “Changing characteristics of land warfare and its impact on the military” organised by Army-backed think-tank Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS).

The Army Chief said the force was embracing technologies and inducting them with speed into units. “The leveraging of emerging, disruptive domains is also receiving our concerted attention. Capacities in space, cyber and electronic warfare, similarly, are being given a boost,” Gen Naravane said.

Apart from strengthening conventional prowess, the Army was focusing on dynamic response — that would mean actions below the threshold of an all-out war — and plans and capacities are being refined along the Line of Control with Pakistan and Line of Actual Control (LAC).

“We are developing kinetic and non-kinetic responses to address the threat. Technology is also tipping doctrinal cycles. Doctrines are now chasing technologies. We are also looking at tapping ‘block chain technologies’ (these allow digital information to be distributed, but not copied),” the Army Chief added.

Rapidly evolving, dual-use technologies present new opportunities and are changing the character of warfare. Armies, have to be extremely agile to the scale and pace of change.

No change in nuclear policy

New Delhi: Months after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said he didn’t know what would happen in future with regard to nuclear “no first use” policy, the government on Wednesday said in Parliament, “There has been no change in India’s N-doctrine.” TNS