Our Correspondent

UNA, JANUARY 8

The Una district administration and Army authorities have made elaborate arrangements for the Army recruitment rally at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex here. The arrangements for the rally were reviewed today by Additional Deputy Commissioner Arindam Chaudhary and Army Recruiting Officer Col N Satish Kumar.

The recruitment rally will be held from January 9 to 20 for the youth belonging to Una, Hamirpur and Bilaspur districts. The ADC informed that 35 additional police personnel have been deployed to ensure law and order and for traffic duties near the venue.

The authorities dispelled social media rumours regarding cancellation of the rally in view of the inclement weather. Col Kumar called upon the aspirants not to miss the opportunity. He also cautioned them to be wary of touts promising to get the tests cleared in exchange for money. He said 30 CCTV cameras have been installed at the venue to ensure transparency.

In view of the cold weather, some social organizations of the district have pooled their resources to provide free food and shelter to the aspirants. Social activists have advertised contact numbers 9816052394, 9364700000, 7018873859, 9418033806 where the aspirants can contact for boarding and lodging.

Free ‘langar’ service for morning tea, lunch and dinner has been arranged at the adjoining ground of Government College, Una, while stay arrangements have been made at various places like Baba Bal Ashram, Gurdwara Shaheed Singh, old bus stand, Town Hall, Mahadev temple, Kotla Kalan and Gurdwara Dharamsala Mahantan in Una city, said an activist.

New Delhi, January 8

The Indian Navy will showcase its might at sea through models of state-of-the-art assets like Boeing P8I maritime patrol aircraft with harpoon missiles, Kolkata class stealth destroyer displaying a BrahMos launch and Kalvari class submarine launching the Exocet missile.

On the trailer, the tableau showcases indigenous aircraft carrier Vikrant under construction at Cochin Shipyard Limited, along with its complement of MiG 29K fighter aircraft. This not only depicts the strength of the Navy but is representative of its total commitment to the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the government.

The tableau of the Indian Navy, to be showcased at the Republic Day Parade on January 26 at Rajpath, was unveiled here today. The tableau is in pursuance of the Navy Week theme ‘Indian Navy — Silent, Strong, and Swift’. The forward part of the tableau showcases the might and fire power of Navy in all three dimensions — surface, sub-surface and air.

Navy’s role in safeguarding offshore economic assets as well as rendering humanitarian assistance is portrayed through the murals on the sides. These include flood relief operation on Mahalaxmi Express (Op Varsha Rahat) in July 2019, escort operations in Persian Gulf (Op Sankalp) and defence of platforms by Fast Attack Craft. — TNS

Shillong, January 9

Suspected Bangladeshi nationals attacked a border outpost in Meghalaya, assaulting two BSF jawans and snatching their weapons, resulting in injuries to one of them, police said.

Another group from the neighbouring country barged into the house of a Meghalaya resident and looted money, mobile phones and a gun, besides injuring the head of the family, a senior officer said.

The incidents took place at around midnight on Wednesday at Amdoh and Rongtila, which are about 5 km from the India-Bangladesh border, West Jaintia Hills SP Lakador Syiem said.

“A group of 10-15 Bangladeshi nationals allegedly surrounded two BSF personnel near the Rongtila border outpost (BOP), assaulted them and snatched their weapons, causing injuries to one of them,” he said.

The weapons snatched from the BSF personnel were later recovered from a nearby forest, Syiem said.

Prior to the incident, another Bangladeshi group had barged into the house of Pratap Bareh at Amdoh village near the Rongtila BOP and looted money, mobile phones and a gun, he said.

Bareh had fired a round at the intruders in self-defence before his gun was snatched and he was assaulted, Syiem said.

Both Bareh and the injured BSF jawan were taken to Dawki Primary Health Centre.

The deputy inspector general of police (Eastern Range) met the injured persons and visited the places of occurrence along with the district deputy commissioner and senior officers of the BSF and police.

After the incidents, the BSF lodged a protest against the intrusion of cross-border criminals from Bangladesh during a flag meeting with its counterpart, the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB).

The BGB has promised to intensify patrolling to ensure that no Bangladeshi national crossed over the international border with India, a senior BSF official said.

The incident comes a week after another group of persons, also suspected to be from Bangladesh, attacked a car at an area 10 km inside India and decamped with money and mobile phones after injuring the occupants.

Meghalaya Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui, also the local MLA, condemned the incidents.

“I condemn the dastardly and daring attacks on the BSF and villagers living close to the India-Bangladesh border and urge the authorities concerned to step up vigil and thwart attempts to create fear among the border residents,” he said. PTI

Group Captain Murli Menon (Retd)

Group Captain Murli Menon (Retd)
Defence analyst

Countries such as Israel and the US have traditionally believed in targeted killing of its enemies, be they in the form of spies or terrorists in nature. These nations have thus bestowed the requisite authority for such killings on their executive heads.

India, on the other hand, has lived for decades with terror elements operating from across the border with virtual impunity. Our counter-terror campaign perforce was limited to ground operations within our territory. Besides the inability to do precise counter-terror targeting across borders for want of intelligence-gathering and hard kill wherewithal, there was always the fear in the minds of the decision-makers, of escalating to an all-out war from a counter-terror strike.

The January 4 MQ 9 Reaper attack by the US at the Baghdad airport, reportedly using upgraded Hellfire missiles, killing Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Qudds Force and his aides, has

lessons galore for the political and military analysts alike.

Whilst the political and moral correctness of the Soleimani killing is a matter for a different discussion, the military lessons of the drone strike are very revealing. If the video footage doing the rounds in the social media is indeed a genuine one, the drone strike was militarily perfectly executed to take out a high-value target, with no collateral damage and no involvement of large-scale air or ground military assets. Use of close- in laser designation by friendly forces is well-nigh a possibility, given the apparently high accuracy of the strike. The accompanying radio chatter of the video clip is revealing too, in terms of the lethality of the unmanned weapon system.

The advent of hard kill drones such as the Predator and Reaper has indeed morphed the aerial targeting arena dramatically, as we well know. India is in the midst of negotiating the purchase of MQ 9 Reapers, initially for the Indian Navy and possibly follow-ons for the other two services. Hellfire missiles are already on order with the IAF Apache attack helicopters.

Given the security scenario in our neighbourhood, there is no gainsaying the importance of having this weapon system in the inventory of our Army, Navy and the IAF. The deal for the Indian Navy is being negotiated by the Americans who clearly have their own interests in mind, possibly to target international terrorists in the maritime domain around India.

But India knows better: our main targets are the likes of Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim. Whilst the deal with the Americans is being negotiated, caution needs to be exercised to avoid tricky end-user agreements that stymie our targeting options. Despite imposing a hefty $10-million bounty on Hafiz Syed and declaring him an international terrorist, the US has not yet prioritised him as a target for neutralisation.

For India, his urgent killing is a political signal for greater strategic dominance in the war on terror. So, let’s assume that we work around the American penchant for protecting the vested interests of their erstwhile Cold War ally Pakistan, tailoring our tactical intelligence gathering network to obtain real time intelligence on desired targets within Pakistan, and elsewhere in the neighbourhood, should it so warrant.

India already has the signal intelligence capability in terms of our Phalcon AWACS, space assets and other ground and air sensors with our agencies and armed forces. These need to be optimised to facilitate timely hard intelligence on our intended terror targets. This would be a challenge, given the existing lay of the land in terms of the international border, LoC and the hard fact that humint (human intelligence) would be hard to obtain in most cases. That’s where the ingenuity would be called for to optimise our sensors and their triangulation capabilities.

The other important aspect is the fact that deniability of a drone hard kill would be difficult in our context, tending to push such anti-terror missions into the realm of a hot shooting war. This, of course, would not be a desirable option, given that ideally, we would like to emulate the modus operandi of the Americans in Afghanistan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) or the Israelis in the Middle East.

Having our strategic ally Israel on board would be highly desirable. The mistakes made earlier by our then leadership in not enlisting Israel’s assistance in neutralising our adversary’s nuclear capability before the Kahuta reactor went critical in the eighties, cannot be allowed to be repeated. We need to train with Israel to carry out such anti-terror missions effectively. So, the challenge in our context is to train for such missions realistically and tailor our mission within the operational parameters of our air war strategy.

Given the uncanny political situation in our country, such high-profile targeted attacks may not find the political sanction across the aisles in our Parliament (as indeed is being witnessed in the US these days). Therefore, it is imperative that we have a gutsy political leadership to go through with such missions. Peacetime counter-terror missions employing drones would be even more challenging in this context.

Though it is not part of the brief as yet for the newly created Chief of Defence Staff, the government may consider bringing counter-terror ops under his ambit, mainly so the equipment induction and operational training could be dovetailed in a truly tri-service manner. Drone warfare has come to stay.

So, whilst aiming for indigenous technology to bear fruit, India should exploit the windfall in terms of the expected Reaper acquisition from the US to build capabilities towards indigenisation and an effective counter-terror campaign. Pre-emptive aerial targeting of national terror enemies has become an accepted norm in modern geopolitics. Having made a beginning with our Uri and Balakot strikes, it is high time India extended its capabilities to the realm of targeted drone kills.

Our Correspondent
Jammu, January 9

On his maiden visit to the world’s highest battlefield, Siachen, Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane on Thursday said “soldiers serving in Siachen are close to his heart” and they (soldiers) would be provided better facilities to make their life comfortable.

“My message to all soldiers serving here (Siachen) is that you are always in our prayers and thoughts. You might be far from us but you are close to our hearts,” General Naravane said during his first visit to Siachen.

General Naravane was accompanied by Lt-Gen YK Joshi, Chief of Staff, Headquarters, Northern Command, and Lt-Gen Harinder Singh, General Officer Commanding, Fire and Fury Corps. He was briefed on the operational readiness being maintained in the sector by Commander at Siachen Brigade.

“We are aware that everyone is operating here in very tough conditions, inhospitable terrain and weather. We are doing our best to make sure that whatever is required by the troops on ground is made available to them, be it clothing, better rations and facilities to make life comfortable,” General Naravane said.

General Naravane said, “It has always been my intention to come here immediately after taking over, but unfortunately the weather wasn’t excellent. But I am happy that I have been able to visit Siachen Brigade as the Chief of Army Staff.”

“This is strategically very important location at the very head of our defences and it is absolutely essential for us to remain ever-vigilant and in control of these strategic heights because they form the key to the rest of defences of Ladakh and rest of J&K,” he said.

Earlier, the General met and interacted with troops deployed at the forward posts in the Siachen sector and complimented them for their tenacity and high morale, despite the extreme challenges posed by inclement weather, difficult terrain and super high altitude conditions.

At the Siachen Base Camp, General Naravane laid a wreath at the iconic Siachen War Memorial in honour of all the brave Siachen warriors who have made the supreme sacrifice in the defence of the nation.