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Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, November 10

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is heard saying “Hamaara Sidhu kidhar hai” while enquiring about the coming of former cricketer and Punjab MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu at the Kartarpur Corridor opening on Saturday.

Imran Khan, who arrived in a shuttle bus for the corridor opening, is heard asking other officials in the video “Accha hamaara woh Sidhu kidhar hai, me keh raha hu hamaara Sidhu”.

The Pakistan prime minister is also heard asking “Manmohan aa gya”, referring to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

A woman official is heard in the video saying if Sidhu isn’t allowed to come it would send a negative message for them and Khan says “usko aur hero banayege” and the woman says “woh saare channels ki headline hogi”.

Sidhu had on Saturday thanked the prime ministers of India and Pakistan for the historic move.

During his address at the inauguration ceremony of the Kartarpur Corridor, Sidhu said no one can deny “my friend” Imran Khan’s contribution in making the opening of the corridor possible.

“Imran Khan has made history,” he said.

Calling Khan the king of hearts, Sidhu said, “Sikandar (Alexander) had won the world with fear and you won the heart all over the world.”

Former Indian cricketer-turned-politician thanked the former Pakistani cricket captain for taking the bold step to build the Kartarpur corridor “without looking at gains or losses”.

Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh led the first delegation of Sikh pilgrims as they entered Pakistan through the Kartarpur corridor. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh was also part of the ‘jatha’ while Sidhu was the chief guest at the opening ceremony in Pakistan as he was invited by Imran Khan.

The 9 km corridor links Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan, Guru Nanak Dev’s birth place and the final resting place, to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district.

Charanjeet Singh Minhas

A few months ago, my wife and I decided to do the unthinkable: visit Pakistan.

Before boarding the Philadelphia-Lahore flight last month, I wrote an op-ed for Pakistan’s The Daily Times, but never anticipated the reaction on social media. Some of my fellow Indians — not only Modi devotees — were offended by my positive mentions of Pakistan and Muslims. The Patel community was most upset.

With this uncertain start, how could we believe that our maiden Pakistan visit would be such a joyous experience? From the moment we arrived we were treated like celebrities. Shopkeepers and restaurants would first refuse to accept money.

It is important to mention here that I was in a country and among people I had done my best all these years to avoid.

This side of Punjab has a lot of camels. I also observed rampant pigeon grooming for gambling. In Faisalabad (old Lyallpur), I was awestruck to see its sky blanketed by colourful kites. The city’s Gobind Pura, Nanak Pura and Harcharan Pura show its inseparable Sikh connection.

When we arrived at Lyallpur Khalsa College (now Municipal Degree College) on a late Friday afternoon, the college appeared to be closed. The security guard pointed us towards the principal who was just opening his car door.  One of our local companions hurriedly approached the principal. I will never forget the principal’s words: ‘It is their college, their property. They built it. Who am I to give them permission to tour it?’

Pakistani Punjabi has always been endearing to me, even though my friends and I often made it a butt of our jokes. That its speakers found my Punjabi interesting and original was a pleasant surprise.

Outside Lahore’s Defence Raya Golf and Country Club, I was introduced to Lt Gen Zahid Ali Akbar (retd). Although 88 years of age, he seemed fit enough to finish a marathon. ‘What a joy to speak real Punjabi with you. What they speak here isn’t Punjabi. Teach them some before you leave!’ he said, pointing to my hosts.

At the Punjab Club, Lahore’s colonial hangover is unmistakable. Its dress code and no-photo policy are non-negotiable. Thanks to an invitation from Riaz Ahmad Khan, retired chief justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court, and his wife, we were allowed to visit and eat there.

It was a remarkable journey. I have lived in England as a student and visited many European and Central American countries for business and leisure. I have seen more expansive physical beauty and natural diversity, awe-inspiring infrastructure and impeccable systems. However, never before have I seen such hearty hospitality or experienced an abundance of love that so contrasted with a country’s image abroad. No wonder that we frequently asked each other, ‘Are we in Pakistan?

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, November 4

At a time when Pakistan and its proxies are making every effort to revive terrorism in Kashmir Valley, the Indian Army’s ‘Operation Maa’ has saved lives of about 50 Kashmiri youths who were radicalised and pushed towards militancy.

Senior Army officials, engaged in counter-insurgency operations, revealed that although the Rashtriya Riffles, police and para-military forces had launched sustained anti-insurgency operations, the ‘Operation Maa’, planned by Kashmir-based 15 Army Corps, had saved several lives, which was being appreciated by families of youths, mainly stone-throwers.

The operation, launched by the Army, on the directions of General Officer Commanding (GOC) of 15 Corps Lieutenant General Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon, undertook an exercise in the hunt for missing youths and approached their families.

“A Number of boys have rejoined their families. Some encounters have ended up with a hug between a mother and a son as part of the efforts to save lives of young Kashmiris,” said an Army officer.

“Operations have also been undertaken in situations where a local Kashmiri youth is accompanying foreign terrorists in the dead of the night. Many of my men have even risked their lives in separating a willing-to-surrender Kashmiri local terrorist from a foreigner so that he can be brought back to his family,” the Army commander said.

“The data compiled by the Army showed that 83 per cent of the youths joining various militant groups had a record of stone pelting. Seven per cent of the youths who join terrorism are killed within first 10 days of picking up arms, 9 per cent within one month, 17 per cent in three months, 36 per cent in six months and 64 per cent in the first one year itself,” the Army officer said.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement, if it were to materialise, presents India an opportunity to seek integration into the global supply chains, but has generated fears across the industrial and agricultural spectrum. NZ’s dairy push is a concern, but elephant in room is China. The huge trade surplus will grow if it bounces products via other RCEP nations

Sandeep Dikshit in New Delhi

Tomorrow it will become clear whether India will sign its 11th, largest and most controversial free trade agreement (FTA) with a wide swath of 15 other countries from the Asia Pacific. If the entry of India in G-20 marked the delinking of Pakistan in the economic sphere, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement will be India’s doorway to the global neo-liberal troposphere, where it will share the same trading norms and space as China, Japan, Singapore, Australia and Malaysia, although there are laggards like Myanmar and Laos as well.

Also read:

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• The pact would be suicidal: Jairam
• What can happen
• AT CROSSROADS: How crucial sectors fear they would fare if deal is on

But far from the smooth affair it was portended to be when Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared the stage with 10 ASEAN members in New Delhi last year, its signing has turned into a cliffhanger. The RCEP has become the first test of the tension between Modi’s domestic constituency and his projection outside of a more aggressive, risk-taking ‘New India’. An India that twice knocked Pakistan militarily on the knuckles has no reluctance about breaking bread with Russia and Ukraine; Iran and Israel cannot be expected to tuck in its tail on a mere trade agreement.

But PM Modi can ill-afford to overlook the growing foreboding about a new unknown once RCEP is signed. The fears of being taken unawares are accentuated by past experience. The State has rarely reduced the affected sector’s adjustment costs by informing it about the transition well in time. From Modi downwards, the top leaders cannot assuage the fears explicitly because the negotiations are secret. Though leaks have made it clear where the intrusions in India’s ecosphere will take place, the secretiveness enables fear mongers to project more widespread damage if India signs the RCEP.

At the same time, the threat to livelihood cannot remain an indefinite excuse to stave off integration with global supply chains, the de rigueur of the upper end of the economic world.

The dairy sector in India, where some of the fears lie, is both big and small. Besides single-animal-owning households, there are several dairy-to-builder conglomerates and well-appointed state-funded cooperatives that shelter behind the argument of threat to livelihood. Why is it that NDDB and state cooperatives from Verka to Mother Dairy fear getting swamped by similar farmer cooperatives from New Zealand? The government can manage dumping of milk from New Zealand at artificially low prices, which it may well do as it produces eight times above its national requirement. But if the government manages to get RCEP agree to delay the tariff reduction, the cooperatives will not have any excuse to get their act together.

The theory that India has problems with non-FTA countries gets a knocking when it comes to Japan and South Korea. Both are insisting on tougher norms that will affect India’s pharma industry and data localisation.

Several flags are being raised about the advantages gained by the other party in India’s previous FTAs, the one with ASEAN being a case in point. They overlook the advantage to the consumer from a better quality or cheaper product from abroad but also more crucially that the services component where India is at an advantage was added recently. And it awaits implementation because the Philippines hasn’t ratified the FTA in services as it fears direct competition from India. This tactic by Manila could open the way for India to adopt a similar recourse if its voice goes unheeded in its areas of advantage.

Japan and South Korea have led the charge against the easier movement of people. They are insisting on “Mode 3” type of migration, which means easier visa norms for commercial persons whereas India’s interest is served by “Mode 4 plus” that will benefit its IT personnel.

The Indian textile sector is also under threat from Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam.

WTO is on life support

The all-round American effort to undermine the World Trade Organisation has convinced New Delhi that the builder of the edifice is not interested in the structure anymore. As the stalemate in multilateral trading system persists, there can be no turning back from the criticality of FTAs in foreign trade policy.

This is also an opportunity for India to seek integration into the global supply chains, which course through the exporting powerhouses that form the RCEP. Its own industries too will reduce the transaction cost of negotiating multi-layered regulatory procedures in several countries.

But never were such fears generated when India signed 10 FTAs and six preferential trading arrangements (PTAs) in the past. This is because the elephant in the room is China. It already has a massive trade surplus with India which will grow if China bounces its products to India via the other RCEP countries.

The best case scenario for India while it works out a tilt in its favour in the services sector and ensures tight value addition norms to prevent China from masking its exports is delaying RCEP, just as its signing was put off the same time last year.

But is it possible to stay out of RCEP? India has both security and economic ties with most RCEP countries. Since India will continue to have the Indian Ocean’s largest navy, individual countries will happily deal with India on the security front. The Quad comprising India, Australia, Japan and US too will continue. But a big hole would have been blown in India’s argument that it is participating in the Quad for the economic development of Indo-Pacific region.

Is the opposition for real?

The Congress opposition is tactical and opportunistic, aimed at reaping the whirlwind of rural distress for political gain. Except for the Left, all shades of political opinion were complicit in giving wind to the RCEP sail. Negotiations for the India-ASEAN FTA, the forerunner of RCEP, began during Vajpayee’s government. They were finalised by UPA and expanded by the present dispensation.

Modi will have to countenance the erosion in rural support as he can ill-afford to send signals that he is averse to FTAs. He also risks the loss of political capital abroad if he pulls out of RCEP. After bestowing $1 billion for the Russian Far East, serenading Fortune 500 CEOs in the US and cutting corporate taxes, Modi’s predatory trade and investment instincts can ill-afford to turn vegetarian.

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 1

With the two union territories coming into existence, the Centre has assumed the authority to declare any area in Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh as “disturbed” under the controversial AFSPA, which gives sweeping powers to security forces to act against any suspect.

In the erstwhile state of J&K, the state government through district magistrates was empowered to declare a particular district or police station area “disturbed” under the AFSPA, in which security forces can detain, search and even fire any suspect without warrant and the law gives immunity to the soldiers for such acts.

According to a government notification, the administration of the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 (21 of 1990) in both UTs is now vested with the Department of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh Affairs under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

AFSPA is imposed in areas where armed forces are required to operate in aid to the civil authorities. For the law to become valid, an area needs to be declared “disturbed” either by the Central or the state government under the Act.

AFSPA has been applicable to the erstwhile state since 1990. However, Leh and Kargil areas under the new UT of Ladakh were never declared as “disturbed”.

In the new administrative set-up, the MHA would be responsible for the police and law and order in both UTs, but through their respective Lieutenant Governors.

The nomenclature of the MHA wing, Department of Jammu and Kashmir Affairs has now been changed to Department of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh Affairs.

The notification said the Department of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh Affairs will be responsible for all matters relating to both UTs, including counter-terrorism within J-K and coordination with the Ministry of Defence as regards manning and managing the Line of Control between India and Pakistan, but excluding those with which the Ministry of External Affairs is concerned.

Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
Riyadh, October 31

In a turn of events that could add to India’s diplomatic heft in West Asia and the Arab world, India and Saudi Arabia will do their first-ever joint naval exercise next year.

The two countries are working to have a white shipping information-sharing agreement and New Delhi is looking to sell military-grade vehicles and equipment to Saudi Arabia.

The two sides have had discussions on how the growing Indian defence industry can be roped in to provide the needs of Saudi Arabia. A delegation of Indian industry that included Bharat Forge, Ashok Leyland and L&T among others has been hosted in the Kingdom in the recent past.

The General Authority of Military Industry has visited India. “Initial talks, have been conducted to see what all cooperation is possible,” sources on the Indian side said.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest importer of weapons and equipment. Data released in March 2019 by Swedish think-tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, titled ‘Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2018’ says: “Saudi Arabia imported 12 per cent of all global arms sales during the period 2014-2018.”

Global arms sales are estimated close to US $ 280 billion-290 billion. There are no data on countries like China and North Korea, hence the estimation.

US supplied 68 per cent of these weapons, arms and platforms, followed by the UK at 16 per cent and France at 4.3 per cent, respectively. India itself is the second largest importer but has ambitions of export.

The sharing of information about all cargo vessels in Saudi Arabian waters would entail the Indian Navy getting a wider picture to its west. New Delhi has such agreements with countries to its east and also the west. Information is then collated at the information fusion centre at Gurugram and manned by the Indian Navy.

The naval exercise will be a path-breaker. It’s the first such engagement; the complexity and scope would be decided at a meeting in December, sources said.

For the Indian Navy, the northern parts of the Arabian Sea are important. Since 2008, Indian naval warships have been patrolling the waters off the Gulf of Aden (south of the Arabian Peninsula) as part of its anti-piracy patrol. In June-July this year, naval warships escorted dozens of Indian-flagged cargo and crude vessels through the Persian Gulf when the Iran-US tensions flared up after the Iranians allegedly shot down a US drone. The Indian Navy already has permission to use the facilities at Duqm port in Oman located on the southern side of the Arabian Peninsula.

Successive Indian navy chiefs have defined India’s ‘area of interest’ between Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Malacca–that means largely the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.

The Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca are the world’s busiest shipping choke points, carrying crude oil and cargo.

Almost 200 sorties were flown in 10 days before August 5, when Article 370 was abrogated, for airlifting 12,000-odd personnel to Srinagar, once again. Military power is an insurance policy. It is a huge mandatory expenditure to provide the shield for economic progress and to prevent war, an event that is many times costlier and puts a country back by many decades.

Air Vice-Marshal Manmohan Bahadur (retd)
Defence Commentator

Seventy-two years back, a daring airlift by the fledgling Indian Air Force got India’s map the crown it has depicted ever since. On October 27, 1947, with Pakistani raiders knocking at Srinagar’s door, a three-aircraft Dakota formation of No. 12 Squadron, the only IAF transport squadron then, led by Wing Commander KL Bhatia brought in the lead element of the Indian Army’s 1 Sikh Regiment to the Valley. The airlift, which was to continue for around a year, was ably supported by civilian Dakotas, whose bravery has gone unsung, and cemented the accession of J&K to India.

It needs a little prodding to remember that when the internal map of India is re-drawn on October 31 with the creation of the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the IAF would have played a major part in that too by its airlifting of Central police personnel to ensure security, a la the 1947 airlift. Almost 200 sorties were flown in 10 days before August 5, when Article 370 was abrogated, for airlifting 12,000 odd personnel to Srinagar, once again.

This capability has taken decades to build and it is essential because India reboots to the election mode every now and then and that costs money. The important role played by the nation’s military power back-up in internal governance and foreign policy discourse gets its due — the Indian military’s bite has to remain sharp. 

Military power is an insurance policy. It is a huge mandatory expenditure to provide the shield for economic progress and to prevent war, an event that is many times costlier and puts a country back by many decades, especially one with limited resources. And if there is a fall in GDP numbers and an economic slowdown, the axe usually falls on the military which is told to tighten its belt. This starts happening around the middle of the financial year, which, in India, is around now.

The belt, however, can be tightened only so much and no more, for when it starts affecting capability, the words of Le Comte de Guibert, an 18th century French General, need recounting. He had said, “To declaim against war is to beat the air with vain sounds, for ambitious rulers will certainly not be restrained by such means. But what may result is to extinguish little by little the military spirit and some day to deliver up one’s own nation, softened and disarmed, or badly armed, to the yoke of warlike nations which may be less civilised but which have more judgment and prudence.”

So, even as the financial ministry juggles numbers of allotment to various ministries in the prevalent economic slowdown, as is its wont, it needs to be reminded of historian Paul Kennedy’s deeply researched magnum opus, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. Paul Kennedy wrote that as a nation’s power grows, it has to go offshore for resources, adding further that the history of the past 500 years shows that conflict inevitably follows.

And that is what one is witnessing as both China and India move outward in their spheres of interest. Indian Air Force planners, with the support of the government, have had the foresight to build up transport and helicopter fleets to reach a capability where India can declare itself to be a regional Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) provider. For sure, this competency has come about with excellent sea-lift capability that the Indian Navy possesses.

However, the oft-bandied term, by the uninitiated in military affairs,  that India is looked up in the region as being a net security provider, is still some distance away. It is vital that the hard power element, which along with the substantial soft power HADR capability serves as a bulwark for India’s foreign policy initiatives, is not starved of funds. In these times of a financial crunch, as the mandarins of North Block look for monies to be diverted to the social and economic sectors, any reduction in the already meagre defence budget would be disastrous for the nation’s hard power element and adversely affect the capability plans of the Services.

The Service Chiefs, without exception, have put their faith in the indigenous industry. The Army Chief has said that the “next war would be fought and won with indigenous weapon systems.” The IAF Chief has stopped the further import of Pilatus trainers and decided that HAL’s HTT-40 basic trainer aircraft would be in its inventory. Additionally, he minced no words in affirming that the Air Force was looking towards HAL and DRDO for equipping it with the Tejas MK1A, MK2 and AMCA (Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft). The Naval Chief has reiterated his faith in indigenous ship design and construction and argued for more funds for capability build-up — a refrain from the other two Chiefs too.

Funds will always be a constraint, else why the ‘guns versus butter’ debate of many a century? Wars cannot be fought and won on bravado and ‘refrains’. Money has to be found from somewhere to encourage indigenous defence R&D and the private industry which is slowly showing promise. The order books of Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) are already overflowing and alternative lines of manufacturing need to flourish if the indigenisation thrust of the Service Chiefs is to be met — else imports would have to be resorted to. Just as successive governments have supported the DPSUs, it’s time private players also get that assured support, in terms of policies and funds.

It finally comes down to funds — and it is vital that, just as the IAF’s airlift capability has been diligently built up, its hard power element, as that of the other two Services too, also gets the attention it deserves. Capability development takes decades and the two Srinagar airlifts, seven decades apart, attest to that.

Our Correspondent

Rajouri, October 28

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday like every year celebrated Diwali with soldiers at the headquarters(HQs) of the Army Ace of Spades Division at Rajouri in J&K.

Accompanied by General Bipin Rawat, Army Chief, the Prime Minister flew to Rajouri and spent more than two hours at the headquarters where he interacted with the senior Army Commanders deployed in Rajouri and Poonch district.

Immediately after landing at Rajouri, the Prime Minister paid homage to martyrs of Rajouri and Poonch districts, including civilians at Hall of Fame. He termed it ‘Parakram Bhoomi, Prerna Bhoomi, Paavan Bhoomi’.

Before the arrival of the Prime Minister, Pakistan army violated cease fire in the Sunderbani Sector in the district in which Lance Naik Suresh Kumar was injured.

The Prime Minister addressed about 1,000 soldiers gathered at Raina stadium inside the Division HQs and praised the soldiers for their valour that led the government to take impossible decisions.The Prime Minister spoke on surgical strikes by the Army inside PoK following Pulwama attack, in which 49 CRPF personnel had sacrificed their lives.

He also spoke on the necessity of abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35 A provisions. “Everybody wants to celebrate Diwali with their family members and I am here to celebrate Diwali with my family of brave soldiers” said the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister expressed gratitude to the brave soldiers on behalf of the people of the country in safeguarding the national borders and said, “A large number of people are paying homage to the martyrs at the National War Memorial”.

He also spoke about the steps taken by his government for the welfare of soldiers.“Though we are away from our families but we are happy and feel proud that we are celebrating Diwali with the Prime Minister” said Moen Ahamed, a soldier.

A JCO thanked the people of the country for expressing their gratitude towards the Indian soldiers through the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister exchanged Diwali greetings and sweets with the soldiers deployed on the border.“While interacting with our soldiers, I thanked them on behalf of the people of India for their monumental service. Their vigilance and valour keeps our nation safe” the PM tweeted after the visit.

PROVIDING a silver lining in the otherwise dark cloud of India-Pakistan relations, the two countries have signed a historic agreement on the Kartarpur corridor that will allow Indian pilgrims to undertake visa-free visit to the shrine of the Sikh religion’s founder Guru Nanak in Pakistan, fulfilling a long-pending wish. People in the two countries, Punjab in particular, have always viewed Partition with a sense of wistfulness. The loss of home and hearth in spite of the linguistic and cultural similarities continues to scar bilateral ties, the willingness to trust held back by a nagging negativity, rooted in the mindless violence of 1947 and subsequent skirmishes. The agreement, however, is  a positive development, showing political will on both sides of the Radcliffe line. Disagreement over visa fee remains, though other modalities have been worked out.

While there are misgivings about separatist groups using the facility to their own advantage, especially in view of Pakistan’s tacit backing to militancy in Punjab, in keeping with its philosophy of ‘bleeding India with a thousand cuts’, it may well offer an opportunity to dispel that notion, depending on how Pakistan handles it. The past is, however, not a positive indicator. Indian High Commission officials have been denied permission to meet the Indian pilgrims, leading to misgivings, but Pakistan has continued to allow the visits. An unconventional Prime Minister in Imran Khan, a cricketer, has not helped, and India will have to keep the safeguards in place, for the Pakistan army has always created a web of lies to justify its predominance over civilian governments.

Guru Nanak preached unity of mankind and symbolised values that have stood the test of time. His 550th birth anniversary will be an occasion to redeem commitment to our secular fabric. The irony is hard to miss. Pakistan, created on the basis of religion, is now trying to find a unifying force in religion. The future will be determined by whether they are able to build on the positivity brought about by this bridge-building.