NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced flak from opposition parties for what they term as his “flip-flop” policy vis-a-vis Pakistan. But sources in the foreign policy establishment here said on Thursday that it was Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ’s sudden metamorphosis from a dove to a hawk that has imperiled the resumption of bilateral talks.

There was a “great chemistry” between the two leaders until the Pakistani Premier took New Delhi by surprise, calling slain militant commander Burhan Wani as a martyr and freedom fighter last July. He allowed terror outfits in Pakistan to hold rallies and demonstrations against India. Sharif then dedicated Pakistan’s 70th Independence Day on August 14 to the freedom movement in Kashmir.

New Delhi is still trying to come to grips with a transformed Sharif. On May 31, Modi had called him up to enquire about his health ahead of his open heart surgery in London. Sources said that Sharif called up Modi later, saying, “I am heading to the operation theatre and I need your best wishes.” That was the last time they spoke.

“Nobody know what happened after Sharif went back to Islamabad. He was totally changed. Lihaj khatm, aakhon mein sharm khatm, jahar ugalna shuroo kar diya,” said a source involved in the bilateral dialogue process. The Indian establishment has been wondering about the reasons for this change: Was it to fend off pressure at home after Panama leaks revealed the offshore assets of his three children? Was it the pressure from the army? Was it the local election in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), a fortnight after Wani’s killing? There are no easy answers.

What the foreign policy establishment seems convinced about is that Sharif made efforts to improve bilateral ties. Modi had invited him, along with other SAARC leaders, to attend his swearing in ceremony on May 26, 2014. “Bam dhamakon mein baat-cheet ki awaaz band ho jaati hai,” Modi told his Pakistani counterpart the next day. Sharif agreed and the two sides decided to hold foreign secretary level talks, which were called off after Pakistani high commissioner Abdul Basit met Hurriyat leaders.Modi and Sharif met at Ufa in Russia in July 2015 and agreed to resume talks. There was no mention of Kashmir in their statement, which created a storm in Islamabad forcing Sharif to back off. They had a brief meeting in Paris on December 1. The Pakistani premier urged Modi to send external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to Islamabad to attend Heart of Asia conference.

When the Indian PM expressed difficulties given the stalled dialogue process, it was Sharif who took the initiative that resulted in NSA level meeting in Bangkok, three days before Swaraj’s visit to Islamabad.

NEW DELHI: The government has finally cleared the names of Lt General Bipin Rawat as the new Army vice chief from September 1, while Lt Gen P M Hariz will replace him as the Southern Command chief. The force on Monday also got a new signal officer-in-chief in Lt Gen A R Prasad.

But the suspense over some other top-level crucial appointments continued despite the Chandimandir-based Western Army Command, which is the most critical formation on the western front with Pakistan, becoming headless after Lt Gen K J Singh’s retirement. Normally, chiefs of operational military commands are announced well in advance.

Sources said there was “some delay” since defence minister Manohar Parrikar had asked the Army for “the rationale and reasons” behind proposing certain names for the top posts. “The files have gone to and fro a couple of times. The appointments, of course, ultimately have to be cleared by the appointments committee of the cabinet chaired by the PM,” said a source.Though official announcements are awaited, sources say Lt Gen Surinder Singh is likely to be appointed the Western Command chief, while Lt Gen R R Nimbhorkar will be the new master general of ordnance. Lt Gen D R N Soni, in turn, could be appointed the chief of the tri-service integrated defence staff.

‘CAUSE OF CONCERN’ Navy insists vessels not compromised, report sought from French shipbuilder

NEW DELHI: India was scrambling on Wednesday to assess the vulnerability of its key Scorpene submarines being built in collaboration with a French company after seemingly crucial details of its combat capabilities were leaked.

The government sought a report from French shipbuilder DCNS, which bagged the `23,562crore ($3.5 billion) contract for six submarines in 2005, after The Australian newspaper reported that the documents could prove an “intelligence bonanza” for India’s rivals such as Pakistan and China.The leak runs into 22,400 pages.

The military establishment insisted that the leak was a “cause of concern” but was not serious enough to compromise the Scorpene submarines. However, an official statement issued by DCNS in Paris acknowledged that the sensitive data made public was a “serious matter”.

“This investigation will determine the exact nature of the leaked documents, the potential damages to DCNS customers as well as the responsibilities for this leakage,” DCNS said.

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar sought a report from the Indian Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba on the “extent of the leak”. Parrikar, who said he learnt of the leak at midnight on Tuesday, described it as a “case of hacking”.

“The first step is to identify if it’s related to us, and anyway it’s not all 100% leak,” said Parrikar, who also met the navy chief to assess the situation.

The Indian Navy said the source of the leak was apparently “from overseas and not in India”. A naval spokesman said the “available information is being examined” at the defence ministry and that “an analysis is being carried out by the concerned specialists”.

The main opposition Congress demanded a “complete security audit” of the defence ministry following the leak. Party spokesman Randeep Surjewala said the audit should be done by a sitting Supreme Court judge.

India has ordered six Scorpene-class submarines and the first vessel built at Mumbai’s state-run Mazagon Docks began sea trials in May and is expected to be inducted early next year. The Scorpene is expected to become the main conventional submarine of the Indian fleet and replace the ageing Russian Kilo-class and German HDW vessels that are almost three decades old.

The report in The Australian said the DCNS documents, marked “Restricted Scorpene India”, detail highly classified information such as the levels of noise the submarines make at various speeds, where the submarine crew can speak safely to avoid detection by the enemy, magnetic, electromagnetic and infra-red data, and noise specifications of the propeller and radiated noise levels when the submarine surfaces.

The leak could also trigger alarm in countries that operate a variant of the Scorpene, or have ordered the submarine, including Malaysia, Chile and Brazil, the report said.

The Australian posted several redacted pages from what appeared to be an operating manual for the submarine on its website. It reported it had seen 4,457 pages on the Scorpene’s underwater sensors, 4,209 pages on its abovewater sensors, 4,301 pages on its combat management system, 493 pages on its torpedo launch system and specifications, 6,841 pages on the communications system and 2,138 on its navigation systems.

The report said DCNS had “implied – but did not say directly – that the leak might have occurred at India’s end, rather than from France”. However, The Australian said it had learnt the data on the Scorpene was written in France for India in 2011 and is suspected of being removed from France in the same year by a former French Navy officer who was at that time a DCNS subcontractor.

The data is then believed to have been taken to a company in southeast Asia, possibly to assist in a commercial venture for a regional navy.

Peter Roberts of the Royal United Services Institute in London said the most serious implications from the leak were the “frequency signature details” associated with the Scorpene. “The major risk, following this disclosure, is from the exposure of data related to propeller and radiated noise – as a result, Indian submarines will be more vulnerable after the data breach,” he told HT.

“The implications of the data loss for the arms community are important in the short term, but probably procedural in the medium to long term. DCNS will obviously have to make some reassurances to the Indian government, and possibly undertake some mitigation work.”

Under the plan, the Defence Ministry has set a target of induction of an additional 170 fighter jets apart from other equipment. — PTI file photo

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 23

In a major shift to ramp up military readiness, the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has prepared an ambitious plan to spend some $233 billion over the next 11 years on buying or producing new equipment, including warships, fighter jets, submarines, aircraft carriers and some 500 helicopters.The sum of $223 billion dollars translates into some Rs 15,00,000 crore (Rs 15 lakh crore) and is projected as part of the financial requirements for the long-term integrated perspective Plan (LTIPP) for the period 2012-2027.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)The MoD seeks an annual 8 per cent hike in existing capital spending that allocated in each year’s budget for new military equipment meant for the Army, Navy and the Indian Air Force (IAF).Under the ambitious plan, the MoD has set a target, including induction of an additional 170 fighter jets for the IAF, 12 additional submarines, 500 various types of helicopters, additional artillery guns and tanks for the Indian Army and another indigenous sea-borne aircraft carrier.Though the plan looks very big, the MoD seeks a gradual and assured hike. The capital spending for the present fiscal ending March 31, 2017 is Rs 86,340 crore (approx $12.69 billion). The entire planned hike for the next 11 years will average out to an annual spend of $20.27 billion.The move comes after Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar asked the Ministry to layout the financial cost of the military equipment acquisition planned and bring it ‘within sync’ of the existing average hikes possible in the Union Budget. “An annual hike of 8 per cent for capital spending is within sync of the anticipated hikes that for now vary on a year-to-year basis,” sources said.The LTIPP lists out the equipment that is needed but it did not have the detailed cost of each thing. LTIPP already has a Technology Perspective Capability Road Map (TPCRM) to enable the DRDO, Defence Public Sector Unit and the private industry to plan their research and development.The LTIPP lays down the expected contingencies of the services and what would be the response. It lists capabilities and expected time frames. Further how these options would be achieved whether by indigenous development or by procurement from aboard.In the case of targets form copters, submarines, fighter jets, warships and aircraft carrier, the plan is ‘Make in India’. Various joint ventures are being encouraged with foreign manufacturers.The MoD has also laid down a plan to cut on unnecessary expenditure by clubbing together procurement of three services to prevent duplication of efforts and wasteful expenses.

Junior minister Kiren Rijiju broke from the usual BJP mould of sweeping categorisations and provided a nuanced explanation for entry by the Chinese forces into Indian territory. These were instances of transgression and not of incursion, he explained. Last month, New Delhi rapped Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat on the knuckles when he described the camping of Chinese soldiers as an incursion. Rawat soon recanted, describing the incident as a transgression. But before the Modi government was swept into office, its parliamentarians were routinely railing against the government of the day for the Chinese forces’ entry into India. Most of the time, the word they used was incursion. Pray, what has changed to warrant this sophistry?On its part, China too is putting its best foot forward. It dispatched its envoy on South China Sea for a discussion with South Block mandarins while its media have suggested that the “door is still open” for India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group. This is also totally out of place with Chinese behaviour, especially after India laid the blame for the failure of the Modi-led diplomatic exertions to enter the NSG on Beijing’s door. Both countries are putting their best foot forward because they will host two high-level summits.India needs an acquiescing China at the BRICS summit at Goa to take forward talks regarding the BRICS Bank. India needs huge dollops of investment to build its infrastructure and has decided on a high debt model to achieve the aim. China must keep India in good humour at the G-20 summit at Hangzhou, where they must put up a united front in insisting that the West honours its promise of putting up $100 billion to combat climate change and make the Bretton Woods more democratic. The truce will be temporary because their strategic interests put them on a collision course, be it the South China dispute, the China-Pakistan economic corridor or the border separating them. With new combinations shaping up in the Middle-East and South East Asia, both countries need nimble diplomatic footwork to seize the chances without stepping on the other’s toes.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup dubs Islamabad’s aid proposal ‘absurd’. ANI photo

Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 14

India today hit back at Pakistan for proposing to send supplies to Jammu and Kashmir. It bluntly said India and others in the region had received enough of Pakistan’s trademark exports, including international terrorism, cross-border infiltrators, weapons, narcotics and fake currency.“I can only characterise its contents that propose sending supplies to the Indian state of J&K as absurd,” official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Vikas Swarup said. “We completely and categorically reject this purported communication from the Pakistan foreign Ministry,” he added.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)The India-Pakistan narrative seems to have touched a new low with Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit dedicating Independence Day of Pakistan to the independence of Kashmir. He made these comments at a function at the Pakistan High Commission here today. The Congress called Basit’s remarks the “greatest breach of diplomatic etiquette”, while BJP’s Shrikant Sharma said, “Pakistan is speaking out of frustration after Modi showed it the mirror over atrocities being committed by its army against people in PoK and Balochistan.”With both countries hurling accusations and counter-accusations at one another on an almost daily basis, the much hyped dialogue that was supposed to start with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lahore stopover last December seems to be a closed chapter.Modi on Friday hit out at Pakistan saying, “The fundamental reason for disturbances in Kashmir is cross-border terrorism promoted by our neighbouring country. Due to terrorism, normal life in Kashmir valley is affected.”With the situation in Kashmir worsening and Pakistan determined to internationalise the issue, the bilateral process is likely to be stuck in the foreseeable future.

Pak offer absurd: MEAI can only characterise its contents that propose sending supplies to the Indian state of J&K as absurd… We completely and categorically reject this purported communication from the Pakistan foreign Ministry. – Vikas Swarup, MEA SpokespersonCeasefire violationJammu: After a lull of over four months, the ceasefire on the Line of Control was violated again with Pakistan Army firing at two places and shelling mortars in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday. Indian troops retaliated to the firing which was still going on when last reports came in. TNS

Lt-Gen Shokin Chauhan pays tributes to martyr Capt Pawan Kumar in Jind on Thursday. TRIBUNE PHOTO

Jind, August 11

A statue of martyr Captain Pawan Kumar was unveiled at CRS University here today. Rajbir, father of the martyr, said he was unhappy with the attitude of the state government over the demand of a medical college in memory of his son at his ancestral Badhana village. He said, “I am surprised that our government is taking so much time to take a decision in this regard. The village panchayat has already offered 90 acres for the establishment the college.”The VC said, “The varsity will set up a shooting range in memory of Capt Pawan, for which a foundation stone has already been laid by former governor. — OC

Abdul Basit, Pakistan High Commissioner to India. — AFP file photo

New Delhi, August 9

Amid growing strain in ties, India on Tuesday summoned Pakistani envoy Abdul Basit and issued a strong demarche over Pakistan’s continued support to cross-border terrorism in Kashmir, which has fuelled unrest in the Valley.Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar called Basit to his South Block office and lodged a strong protest over the issue as he made a specific reference to LeT terrorist and Pakistani national Bahadur Ali, who was captured recently in north Kashmir during an encounter.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)“Jaishankar called in the Pakistan envoy and issued a strong demarche on continuing cross border terrorism from Pakistan.”Demarche made specific reference to LeT terrorist and Pak national Bahadur Ali who was apprehended recently,” External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.Ali, born in the Zia Bagga village of Pakistan, was arrested by the Indian authorities in Jammu and Kashmir on July 25 with weapons (AK 47 rifle, live rounds, grenades, grenade launcher, etc.,) as also sophisticated communication equipment and other material of Pakistani/international origin, according to the demarche issued to Basit.“Bahadur Ali has confessed to our authorities that after training in Lashkar-e-Toiba camps, he was infiltrated into India. He was thereafter in touch with an ‘operations room’ of LeT, receiving instructions to attack Indian security personnel and carry out other terrorist attacks in India,” it said.Basit’s summoning comes on a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to people of Kashmir, which has been witnessing widespread unrest for over a month triggered by the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with the security forces.As many as 55 people have lost their lives in these incidents of violence.The ties between India and Pakistan have seen growing bitterness after Pakistan and its Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made provocative statements on the Kashmir situation in the wake of Wani’s killing on July 8.Not only did Sharif praise Wani and hailed him as a “martyr” but he also asserted “Kashmir will one day become Pakistan”, a comment which evoked a sharp reaction from External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who said his dream of the state becoming a part of his country “will not be realised even at the end of eternity”.The chill in bilateral relations was on full display during Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to Islamabad for a SAARC ministerial meet last week when he and his Pakistani counterpart Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan not only avoided a proper handshake but Singh also left without attending the lunch hosted by Khan. — PTI