Army chief's age issue: Government loses face either way

Army chief's age issue: Government loses face either way
January 05, 2012 09:48 ISTFor the armed forces, for whom their chiefs have been the sole leader, the age controversy has eroded their confidence in our State, feels Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).

It's time, he says, for the defence minister and the army chief to sit down and decide the issue based on legally tenable evidence.
There is a lot at stake in New Delhi [ Images ] for the prestige of the nation's most respected institution: The Indian Army [ Images ].
The issue of General V K Singh's age is not just an issue of the government accepting that he was born in 1951 as per his school leaving certificate which remains the basic document for proof of age, but it is also a case of the entire institution of the armed forces watching from the sidelines how the government deals with the man who heads their million plus army.

The general has undoubtedly been a revered leader in every appointment that he has served in the army and boasts a fabulous record of service. That he was destined to be the army chief someday was an opinion entertained by his colleagues even when he was a brigadier. The controversy of age has come to the fore repeatedly in the past, even when he was being appointed army commander of the Eastern Command. With our system of appointing the senior-most army commander as army chief on the army chief's retirement, by and large, he was already in line for the next chief then.

A lot was expected from General Singh when he took over as army chief. Hugely popular in the organisation, as army commander he had led a study to define the contours of transformation that the army requires to undertake. However, there has been very little news of the transformation contemplated while there has been a deluge of reports centered on the age controversy. The episode has been a setback to all but perhaps a few who have always enjoyed an unsavoury spectacle unfolding.

The issue of the army chief's age also influences the succession chain. Should the army chief retire early, Lieutenant General Bikram Singh, currently the army commander, Eastern Command, is the most likely candidate to become the next army chief. However, should the ministry of defence accept the army chief's contention regarding his age, it would be Lieutenant General K T Parnaik, army commander, Northern Command, who could take over the reins.

A lack of trust between the army headquarters and the ministry of defence has existed for decades before the current model of the integrated HQ of the ministry of defence was put in place. The current model has failed to bring in the integration desired, nor has any effort been made to further joint functioning between the ministry and the three services. In effect, the ministry works with minimal representation from the services. For synergy between the military and the politico-bureaucratic combine to be genuinely operative, trust is a big factor. The age episode, as it gets played out in public, erodes the trust even further.

As far as army officers are concerned, a large majority of them feel their chief must get his due. Never have officers of the forces held the bureaucracy in high esteem. But for the odd defence minister like George Fernandes [ Images ], who made repeated trips to the Siachen Glacier and, rarely, if ever, combined his visits to military establishments with any political itinerary, none have ever even tried to earn any respect from the rank and file soldier.

For the men and women in armed forces, for whom their chiefs have been the sole leader, the age imbroglio has only eroded their confidence in our State. If we do have a case of the chief resigning now, as a lot of press reports suggest, it would definitely alienate the rank and file of the defence forces.

With all facts of the case being surely available, it's time for the defence minister and the army chief to sit across the table and decide the issue based on legally tenable evidence. The minister must realise that the government loses face, either way. However, if his decision is an honest one, it will at least be a display of moral courage and uprightness for a ministry surely in need of a more positive image.
Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd)
Army chief's age issue: Government loses face either way

2G Scam impacts National Security and Criminal Justice System

National Security and Criminal justice system on trial.
What the nation should do, what Hon'ble SC should do.
SC should act now. SC should direct the constitution of a Commission of Inquiry and Prosecution on 2G scam. This Commission should be the nucleus of a National Anti-Corruption Commission on the lines of the Commission in Hongkong.
The nation owes a deep debt of gratitude to Dr. Subramanian Swamy, for highlighting the state of the criminal justice system of the country which has reached such low depths that national security has been compromised.
Something is rotten in the state of Hindusthan and the rot seems to have engulfed the criminal justice system.
Kudos to Dr. Swamy for seeking to exercise the rights of a citizen as detailed under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
I think the issue should be seen by the Hon'ble SC in the broader perspective of the intention of the makers of the Constitution when they put in place a Criminal Justice System and related procedures to achieve justice against criminal acts.
The intention is clearly drawn from our dharmashastras and the supremacy of dharma even though the wordings in the Constitution and Acts of Parliament might have drawn inspiration from Roman jurisprudence. Criminal Procedure Code 1898 which followed the Indian Penal Code of 1860 is an Anglo-Hindu Law amalgam. The Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code, 1872, and the Civil Procedure Code, 1909 were part of the system of jurisprudence introduced during the colonial regime. The Indian Penal Code was later reproduced in most other British colonies—and to date, many of these laws are still in places as far apart as Singapore, Sri Lanka,Nigeria, and Zimbabwe.
It is time to turn it to safeguard the security of the nation which is imperilled by the induction of an extra-constitutional authority at the helm of the state affairs.
Read more: 2g Scam Impacts national security and criminal justice system of India

Chile Rescues Miners: Lesson in Disaster and Crisis Management

Chile Miners Rescue Video: Joy as capsule raises trapped men to surface



Chile’s CEO moment by Nathan VanderKlippe, San Jose Mine, Chile— From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published Friday, Oct. 15, 2010 6:59PM EDT

On the morning of Aug. 6, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera spoke to his Mining Minister, Laurence Golborne.

Twenty-four hours before, a small gold and copper mine had collapsed in northern Chile, sending a geyser of dust into the air and plunging the families of 33 men into despair. Accidents are not uncommon in a country with a mining tradition that extends back to the Spanish conquistadors and a blemished safety record nearly as long.
More related to this story

Chilean president brings mine rocks to London for Queen and Prime Minister

Miners sketch fuller picture of ordeal

Miners watched closely for physical and mental health problems

Yet this tragedy struck a chord with Mr. Pinera, who took power in March just two weeks after a devastating earthquake struck the country. He immediately dispatched Mr. Golborne to the mine.

His instructions: Fix this. Spare no expense. Baldo Procurica, a Chilean senator who was present, recalls the leader saying that there was “no limit to the resources” to be spent on the effort.

It was a critical executive decision by a man whose long walk through the halls of a different kind of power – the world of business – made him uniquely qualified to make a gamble that anyone with political savvy would have avoided.

It didn’t hurt that Mr. Pinera’s mining minister happened to have a similar pedigree.

What followed was what might be called the MBA rescue.

It was a $10- to $20-million exercise in crisis management run by a Harvard-educated billionaire President and his Stanford-educated retailer lieutenant, each only recently transplanted into government office.

It ended this week, of course, as a brilliant political masterstroke, one that has vaulted to immense popularity the first conservative government to reach power in this country since far-right dictator Augusto Pinochet’s reign ended in 1990.

But behind the scenes, it was a carefully directed exercise by men whose pasts have given them an uncommon appetite for risk – and an uncommon expectation of success.
Chile’s CEO moment by Nathan VanderKlippe

Lessons Learnt: Deploy or Employ Professionals for Crisis and Disaster Management rather than depend on Bureaucrats whose interests are focussed mainly on making a fast buck on the tragedy rather than saving lives of citizens.

The creeping menace versus talkative generals

Ref article by Maj Gen Rajendra Prakash, VSM, dated 13 Sep 10 click here. The concluding sentence of AG Noorani’s article, ‘Only the moral and intellectual authority of the political leadership can nip the creeping menace in the bud’ is indeed a profound statement and deserves serious consideration, both in letter and spirit. He must have implicitly meant it and has offered this as solution/conclusion/recommendation- any or all of these. This last sentence, however, has rubbished his entire article completely. Let me explain how. The ‘menace’ is creeping, as per him, for the last several decades. Thus, by now this poisonous creeper should have entangled and immobilized anything and everything including Noorani. That has not happened. So it is not a menace at all. And where is the bud (to nip) if the off shoot is creeping for tens of years. So much for the snide remark about ‘pious’ and ‘holy’. Next, let us examine the ‘moral’ and ‘intellectual’ ‘authority’ of the ‘political leadership’. Authority is there and is being used with impunity and gay abandon. As for the qualifying attributes of authority, those are conspicuous by their absence as portrayed in TV and newspapers daily. Their ‘intellect’ is confined to the first letter of the word and does not go further, though, mind you, many of them are very well qualified educationally, but ‘morally’? No, sir. For proof refer to TV and newspapers. So, Nooraniji may like to withdraw the last sentence, or better still, the whole article. Therefore, ‘the creeping menace’ is neither creeping nor is a menace. There is no bud to nip. And, of course, there is no political authority with ‘moral’ and (even or) ‘intellectual’ attributes. ‘Mera Bharat’ is really ‘Mahan’.
Veteran Col BN Ratha
14 Sep 10

MPs: Crorepatis or underpaid public servants?

30/08/2010
New Delhi: A 300% salary hike plus doubling of generous allowances is in the offing for our MPs, never mind that the majority of them are 'crorepatis', or millionaires as revealed by their declared assets! The MPs, of course, insist what they get is woefully short of what is required to discharge their duties as people's representatives.

According to available data, 315 of the 543 MPs in the current Lok Sabha are crorepatis. They include 275 male MPs and 40 women, as per data compiled by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW). There were 156 crorepatis in the 2004 Lok Sabha and the number increased by 102% in the present Lok Sabha.

The average asset of an MP in the previous Lok Sabha was Rs.0.86 crore, which shot up to Rs.5.33 crore in the present house. Among MPs who contested both the 2004 and 2009 elections, the percentage growth in assets has been 289%.

Among the 183 Rajya Sabha MPs whose asset details were analysed by ADR-NEW in April this year, 54% are millionaires. Most parties preferred nominating candidates with high assets during the June Rajya Sabha biennial elections, according to an analysis of the affidavits of 49 of 55 seats.

Out of 54 contesting candidates, 43 (79.6%) were millionaires. Of the winners, 38 out of 49 (77.6%) had assets in millions of rupees. The average asset for the candidates was Rs.24.45 crore, and for the winners it was Rs.25.24 crore. This will cost the exchequer a recurring annual expenditure of Rs.103.76 crore, according to available figures and compiled data.

Except for the Left parties, none of the political parties has voiced opposition to the salary hike. And what is more interesting: none of them has said their MPs will forgo the increase.

A few MPs who spoke on condition of anonymity justified the hike in salaries and allowances saying what they got were far below what their counterparts got in other democracies. They said while it was easy for MPs with business backgrounds to serve their electorate and meet office expenses, it was difficult for members with limited means to do so.

A Lok Sabha MP from Punjab said a parliamentarian has to maintain at least two offices- one at his home and other at his residence in Delhi. "Each of these offices requires staff of about four people- a cook, a driver and assistants. Their salaries are to be paid by the MP. Some MPs also maintain offices in different areas of the constituency," he said.

An MP from Uttar Pradesh said they also have to attend to their electorate who visit their offices and incur fuel expenses on travel within the constituency. The Lok Sabha last week cleared the bill, seeking amendments to the Salaries and Allowances of Members of Parliament Act, 1954. It will now have to be cleared by the Rajya Sabha, the upper house.

It seeks to hike MPs' salaries from Rs.16,000 to Rs.50,000 per month and double their daily allowance of Rs.1,000 for each day when parliament is in session or for taking part in house committee meetings.

Besides, a constituency allowance of Rs.20,000 a month and an office expense allowance of Rs.20,000 each month has also been raised to Rs.45,000 per month. The MPs' conveyance allowance will now be Rs.4 lakh from Rs.1 lakh earlier. The legislation also enhances pension for former members from Rs.8,000 to Rs.20,000 per month.

The increase will be given with retrospective effect since the beginning of the current Lok Sabha, the 15th, which means MPs will get arrears from May 2009. A one-time expenditure of Rs.118 crore would be incurred on account of the arrears of salary and pension from May last year to July this year. Jagdeep Chhokar, a founding member of ADR, suggested that the emoluments to MPs should be measured on "cost to nation" basis as is done in companies where the concept is of "cost to company".

"After factoring in the cost of all the perquisites- including housing, travel, loans and allowances- it should be decided if there should be a hike in MPs' salary," Chhokar said. He said a commission with transparent and objective mechanism should be set up for the purpose.

BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said the hike was necessary but an index- based mechanism should be evolved to decide the quantum and timing of hike. Congress spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said the government had decided on a hike only after proper consultations with all parties.

Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Basudeb Acharya said the party was against the hike as common people were already having to cope with the price rise and would find such demands from their political representatives unjustified. Source: IANS
MPs: Crorepatis or underpaid public servants?

Elections and the Indian Military: A perspective

The results of the 15th General Elections have already had major influences on a number of entities, from political parties to the stock exchange, the media and the very large number of military veteran organisations that abound in our country

THE RESULTS of the 15th General Elections, announced on May 17, 2009, have already had major influences on a number of entities, from political parties to the stock exchange, the media and the very large number of military veteran organisations that abound in our country. This piece will confine itself to the military veterans.

For starters, it is obvious that in the election jungle, the military veterans are novices. Elections in India require money - lots of it, including masses of the ‘black’ variety; a well-oiled organisation; loyal workers who are either ideologically motivated or kept on the pay-roll for long periods; a ‘vote bank’ well nurtured and kept ‘satisfied’ over a long period; ‘gumption’ and ability to work in the hurly-burly environment, where gentleness has no place and street-smartness is the order of the day. Can you imagine a military veteran being weighed against ‘ladoos’ or some such culinary delight and smiling through the ordeal for the benefit of the media! During this election, the few who were brave enough to stand for the elections fared miserably, as was expected. I think all must have lost their deposits. Two I know – Lt Gen BKN Chibber (Amritsar) and Colonel Suri (Chandigarh) surely did.

The veterans political party, a minnow really, the Rashtriya Raksha Dal (RRD) did field a few candidates, but they were also nowhere, although a very senior and highly respected veteran, Col MS Krishnamoorthy , had put his heart and soul in bringing up this party in the last six to eight months. However, political parties need a great deal of time, dedication, large number of volunteers and of course funds to come up to a stage where they can give the established parties a run for their money. The veterans should be thinking of a timeframe of 20 to 25 years and not just a few months, as was the case this time.

Over a period of time, the military veterans created a myth and started believing that if they decided to participate in the political process, they will have a ready-made vote bank of nearly 25 lakh veterans, 13 lakh of active duty military personnel and nearly four times these numbers comprising the families and dependents, making it a tidy one and a half crore. It was conveniently forgotten that all these numbers are spread throughout the length and breadth of the country, resulting in very few numbers available in different constituencies. In addition, all veterans are already associated with one party or the other or vote in the same fashion as their brethren or kin. Weaning them away would need sustained efforts. As far as the serving persons are concerned, a large number are still not registered as voters, as the service headquarters dilly-dallied in conveying detailed instructions and the civil authorities, in any case can not be hurried.

Till 2008, most retired military officers were fairly blasé about political activity in the country. That is not to say they were ignorant, but their thinking continued to be influenced by their in-service experience of being apolitical. The prevailing political culture of corruption, vote banks, emphasis on castes and classes, exploitation of religion to whip up emotions, distributing largesse selectively and downright nepotism also resulted in the veterans distancing themselves from the entire political process, as an exercise in futility. Consequently, the retired rank and file were left to their own devices and as a natural progression they adopted the culture of their civilian counterparts. A large number did, however, coalesce into small veteran organisations within their own villages or surrounding areas. This had little effect on their ability to take advantage of the political dispensations, as they were not organised strongly.

It was the highly skewed recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission of March 2008, that proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the camels back and activated the military veterans, especially the veteran officers. The recommendations of the Commission were so unjust and so heavily biased for the civilian bureaucracy that there was no other course left to the military veterans but to vehemently oppose the recommendations by all means. There was a sudden awakening amongst veteran officers, which soon percolated down to the rank and file. The credit for this must go to a newly formed organisation called the Indian Ex Servicemen Movement (IESM), which galvanised the veterans. Here, it needs to be recorded that the internet became the vehicle for both dissemination of information and for net-working. An existing blog started by the Signal Officers of the Indian Army a few years back, “Report My Signals,” played a sterling role and continues to do so, in bringing together the veterans spread far and wide throughout the country. However, predictably the reaching out to the rank and file had to be based on more conventional means of communications.

At this stage, it may be useful to have a reality check of the existing veteran organisations. All are involved in pursuing the issues affecting the veterans but each has adopted a different methodology. Their primary and other objectives are also different. These are conditioned by the agendas of their organisations, the environment in which they operate, the extent of official patronage, if any, that they get, which is actually pitifully little when compared to what even the run of the mill (and mostly fake) non-government organisations (NGO’s) get.

The oldest veteran organisation is the Indian Ex Services League (IESL), founded by two early and highly respected Chiefs of the army – Field Marshal Carriapa and General Thimayya. This is the only veteran organisation that is recognised (whatever that means!) by the government and gets funds from the Central government. Most, if not all state governments, have not considered it fit ever to assist or nurture any veteran organisation, on the specious plea that they assist the veterans officially through their departments of defence. Without sounding offensive, most activities of these departments are in actuality designed for furthering the cause of the politicians in power! An offshoot of the IESL is the All India Ex-Services Welfare Association (AIEWA), which had carried out considerable work in the past to get equal pension for the veterans. Then there is the Sainik Sangh, also known as All India Ex Soldier’s League. The Navy and Air Force have Foundations, which have a well laid out agenda, and they seem to work only within this.

The IESM comes next. It is a comparatively recent organisation, which has only one aim – to get One Rank One Pension (OROP) at the earliest. It is the first veteran’s organization to adopt an agitational approach to meet their objective. They have captured the imagination of a large number of veterans and it continues to increase its membership. It professes to represent all ex-servicemen of the country, a claim disputed by many. They are in the eye of the storm at present because of the manner, in which they pushed their Advisory supporting a particular political party during the elections, disregarding the sensibilities of a large number of their members. Other groups are really local, as their membership and agendas have a predominantly local colour.

The military veterans of the nation are as fractured as the verdict that was expected to be delivered by the electorate according to all pundits. While the polity has proved them wrong, the veteran organisations continue to be fractured. Despite the past failures in efforts to forge unity, it continues to remain the goal of all veteran organisations, as they do understand that without unity they will continue to be marginalised. Let us hope they succeed.
Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi, PVSM, AVSM, VSM (Retd)
President
War Wounded Foundation
Elections and the Indian Military: A perspective

India's Greatest Failure

INDIA JOURNAL
MAY 20, 2009, 3:25 A.M. ET.
By PAUL BECKETT of Wall Street Journal/ U.S.
NEW DELHI -- Since he retired as India's most senior civil servant in 1998, T.S.R. Subramanian likes to say that he can be spotted frequently on a golf course. Recently, using a stenographer (four decades climbing the bureaucratic ladder means you don't learn to type) he put his mind to a question that appears to nag him as he marches the fairways: What has gone wrong in official India?

Paul Beckett
It is a timely question, given that we are at the start of a new administration. And it is one Mr. Subramanian is eminently qualified to address, given his rise through the Indian Administrative Service to become Cabinet secretary under three prime ministers. It is also one he is eminently capable of fudging, given that same resume and the many vested interests he might feel obliged to protect.

Fortunately, he takes the attitude that if you're going to go to the trouble of thinking and writing, why coat it in gloss? The result is a pithy tome, almost a Victorian-style treatise, called "GovernMint in India." It assesses whether the Indian government is up to par when measured against the mandate of the Indian constitution. His verdict, if I may paraphrase: If the Indian government were a golfer, it would score quadruple bogeys on every hole, cheat on the score card, then grab the stakes the other players had bet with.

The average Indian, Mr. Subramanian says in a chat over lunch, just wants the basics from his government. "I don't think Indians care about disparity but they want a minimum standard of living, food, a place to stay and clothing," he says. These are all things that the government has singularly failed to provide to the masses in the 62 years since independence.

“Since no part of the Establishment has an interest in punishing corruption, trying for a more sweeping solution quickly leads into the realm of blind hope.”
Why is that so? We start with history. The British may have committed many atrocities here but Mr. Subramanian speaks admiringly about the efficiency with which they ran the civil service and the caliber of those who inhabited it. An important factor in their success, however, was the fact that their political masters were thousands of miles away and unable to interfere.

Then India minted its own constitution. The well-meaning framers, he says, failed to appreciate what would happen when the civil service and politicians operated in close quarters without significant checks -- legal, administrative or otherwise -- on how far the legislative class could influence the executive.

Thus the framework was set for a steady, and alarming, transformation in the balance of power and the purpose of government. Politicians, unleashed by the knowledge that they are very unlikely ever to be called to account for their actions, have come to dominate the civil service and twist it for their own gain.

T.S.R. Subramanian
The executive, staffed by bright men and women schooled in the limits of their authority, have proven no match. As he writes: "Sadly, many of the middle-level officers, with growing children to educate, elderly parents to look after, cannot bear the constant pressure, and buckle; they either switch off and become irrelevant to the system, or they join the politician, and all is well thereafter!"

The judiciary comes in for equally scathing criticism for its failure to bring politicians to heel and to exempt bad behavior that ordinary citizens would be jailed for. I sense no love lost between Mr. Subramanian and his brethren on the bench. At one point, he offers a theory as to the root of these judicial shortcomings. Judges and bureaucrats traditionally stemmed from the same English-educated class of graduates, he says. And "most people who came to the judiciary were people who failed the civil service exams."

Where does all this leave us? "The political class," he writes, "is the only one which is not constrained by any checks or balances, follows no effective code of conduct and considers itself a king or an emperor, while extolling the virtues of democracy." In person, he puts it more starkly: In the last government, there were three Cabinet-level ministers making money. Yes, that kind of money. And nothing was done about it.

GovernMint is a narrow polemic that doesn't go much beyond Mr. Subramanian's purpose of a governance scorecard. He is the first to admit that it doesn't seek to provide big answers partly, I suspect, because that is really where the hard thinking begins.

He does offer a few practical suggestions: Suspend politicians facing criminal charges, as civil servants are suspended pending trial. Establish a fast-track court just for government officials so that cases are resolved expeditiously. Persuade judges to make an example of a few political wrongdoers as a public flogging for the rest.

Since no part of the Establishment has an interest in punishing corruption, trying for a more sweeping solution quickly leads into the realm of blind hope. Mr. Subramanian believes the best way to retake the government and re-bend it to the will of the people is through what he rather surprisingly terms "a messiah."

"Could one hope that there will be a new messiah, who will rise from the political class, to deliver the nation?" he asks in the final paragraph of the book. At a book launch party last week, some members of a panel filled with The Great And The Good (Retd.) of Delhi lambasted that notion, suggesting it was hopelessly naïve.

The criticism seems to have stuck. Over lunch a few days later, Mr. Subramanian suggests that no one else on the panel had any better answers. And he makes a point of explaining that he did not mean "a person falling from the sky" but someone from within the system with the will and the public backing to cleanse it.

Does that person exist today? Maybe, he says, we just don't know yet. Maybe it's Rahul Gandhi, maybe its Nitish Kumar. One thing, he says, the public is starting to send a message with the election's focus on development that if that person emerges, he or she will have mass backing. Of course, the flip side is also true: "This government, if it doesn't look into development, will bite the dust and anger against the political class will come."
—Paul Beckett is the WSJ's bureau chief in New Delhi
India's Greatest Failure

Window on Pakistan Press: 'Pak is reviewing dossiers'

Window on Pakistan
“The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” Albert Einstein
As United States Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher landed in Pakistan a short while ago on Monday, to discuss terrorism issues in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, the Pakistan foreign office announced it was "reviewing a dossier India handed over regarding the deadly Mumbai attacks".

The announcement by Pakistan foreign office came quickly after India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in New Delhi that evidence regarding Pakistan's unpardonable crime has been handed over to the Pakistan High Commission. Urdu daily Jang and The News said quoting official spokesperson the material has been received in Pakistan now and is being examined by concerned authorities.

The papers said Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told reporters in New Delhi that India has handed over evidence on the Mumbai attacks to Pakistan on Monday, and it expected a prompt investigation.

On the other hand quoting diplomats The Nation said 'US is pressing upon Pakistan to act in the light of "evidences provided to Islamabad by the Indian authorities regarding the Mumbai attacks and involvement of Pakistan-based militant groups".
Read more: Window on Pakistan Press: 'Pak is reviewing dossiers'