Lt Gen K Balaram, PVSM: Former VC of Kurukshetra University

DSSC Commandant 1982- 83
Dear Friends,
Jai Hind. The Puja/ Prayer meeting for Late Lt Gen K Balaram, PVSM, will be held on 25 Feb 2010, between 1530h to 1630h, at Som Vihar Central Lawn, Som Vihar Apartments, RK Puram, New Delhi- 110066.
In service of Indian Military Veterans
Chander Kamboj

Former Kurukshetra varsity VC Lt Gen K Balaram expires
C.S.KANWAR Tuesday, 16 February 2010
KURUKSHETRA: Lt General (retired) K. Balaram former vice chancellor of Kurukshetra University expired last night at his residence in New Delhi. The incumbent VC Lt General (retired) Dr DDS Sandhu broke this sad news in a crucial meeting of the Deans and Chairpersons in the senate Hall today.

All those present in the meeting observed two minutes silence to pay homages to the departed soul and prayed to the Almighty to give consolation to the family members of the deceased and give peace to the departed souls in heaven.
Lt General Balaram was only vice chancellor of the oldest university of Haryana who practised austerity and bridled the unbridled in the university whether in the teaching fraternity or in the categories of employees. He was the administrator who suspended an IAS Registrar Rajiv Arora and got his almirahs broke open in his absence where some important files were locked, just a few days before the expiry of his three year tenure. The Fauji Balaram was the VC who denied access to university auditorium to the then Prime Minister late Chander Shekhar who was to address a workers rally in the presence of the then Haryana CM Om Prakash Chautala. Although the District Magistrate used his special powers and acquisited the auditorium. The hand-over and take-over was done by the junior officers of the university and the district administration. Unlike today's vice chancellors in the country, Lt. General Balaram made his way to Delhi to attend a meeting and did not bother even to receive the PM at the helipad in the university sports grounds itself.

Balaram used to walk to his office and back on Thursdays during the Iran-Iraq war to save petrol, a call given by the union ministry those days. He could venture sliding beneath his official car to repair it during the lunch break and then board it after stretching his safari suit which could be seen with torn stitches under the cockpits. He never availed any free medicines from the University Health centre , rather he was the VC who paid a cheque of five thousand rupees to the university in lieu of the reimbursement of medical bills despite the repeated requests to the contrary from the then SMO Dr Mrs S Maleyvar.

He was so popular amongst teaching fraternity and also amongst employees that on his retirement, a ceremonial departure was performed by pulling the ropes tied to his car and a send-off was given at the Oasis at Karnal after which his convoy was escorted upto Delhi by the representatives of teachers and employees. His last words of advice to the university people were : 'Save this prestigious university from unscrupulous people if you can, let it flourish to blossom fully'.
Former Kurukshetra varsity VC Lt.Gen K. Balaram expires

Tributes paid to KU former VC
Tribune News Service Kurukshetra, February 22
Kurukshetra University staff paid tributes to former Vice-Chancellor, Lt- Gen K. Balram, who passed away on February 14, at a condolence meeting.

Gen Balram, who adorned the office of Vice-Chancellor from August 8, 1989, to August 7, 1992, was a visionary and a man of action who took the bold decision to revise the syllabi of all postgraduate courses in tune with modern curriculum of UGC.

Following up his plans to revise the syllabus, he took another major academic decision, asking all chairpersons to prepare lesson plans of the revised syllabi of a semester and put it in the library so that students could know in advance about the schedule of classes.

Paying homage to the former vice-chancellor, the current incumbent, Lt-Gen (Dr.) DDS Sandhu, recalled his contributions in developing the varsity.

"The university was in deficit when Gen Balram joined as its VC but he took bold fiscal decisions and covered the deficit. There was a serious problem of power failure in the hostels. The then VC solved it by getting the worn-out wirings changed, besides ensuring the installation of separate transformers", recalled Prof Raghvendra Tanwar, Registrar.
Tributes paid to KU former VC

Lt Gen K Balaram PVSM, is MTech in Telecommunication Engineering and MSc in Defence Science from UK and Madras respectively. Commandant of Defence Services Staff College from 1981 to 1983. He was the Vice Chancellor of Kurukshetra University, Haryana from August 1989 to August 1992.

Ungrateful Refugees and Immigrants

An incident occurred in a UK supermarket recently, when the following discussion was witnessed:

A Muslim woman dressed in a Burkha (A black gown & face mask) was standing with her shopping in a queue at the checkout. When it was her turn to be served, and as she reached the cashier, she made a loud remark about the English Flag lapel pin, which the female attending the checkout was wearing on her blouse.

The cashier reached up and touched the pin and said, 'Yes, I always wear it proudly. My son serves abroad with the army and I wear it for him'.

The Muslim woman then asked the cashier when the UK was going to stop bombing and killing her countrymen, explaining that she was Iraqi.

At that point, a Gentleman standing in the queue stepped forward, and interrupted with a calm and gentle voice, and said to the Iraqi woman:

'Excuse me lady, but hundreds of thousands of men and women, just like this lady's son have fought and sacrificed their lives so that people just like YOU can stand here, in England, which is MY country and allow you to blatantly accuse an innocent check-out person of bombing YOUR countrymen'.

'It is my belief that if you were allowed to be as outspoken as this when in Iraq, which you claim to be YOUR country, then we wouldn't need to be fighting there today'.

'However - now that you have learned how to speak out and criticise us English people who have given you the protection of our country, I will gladly pay the cost of a ticket to get you back to Iraq.'

'When you get there, and if you manage to survive for being as outspoken as what you are here in England, then you should be able to help straighten out the mess which your countrymen have got you into in the first place, which appears to be the reason that you have come to MY country to escape from.'

Success of war must be examined

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Success of war must be examined- Another Perspective by Amarjit Singh

WE'VE BEEN hearing relentlessly during the past few months that the Iraq war is not successful. But have we paused to define what constitutes success? Have we paused to determine whether our objectives have been met? Are we sure we are not changing our definition of success as time goes along, forgetting why we went into Iraq in the first place? Let's take a look at these questions and analyze what's really going on.
Let's not forget that we went into Iraq to topple Saddam to wipe off a cancer from the face of the Earth, ensure that there were no weapons of mass destruction, eliminate refuge for terrorists, clamp Iraqi support for terrorists in Palestine and ensure that oil is not used as a weapon by a mad dictator. There is no doubt that all these were accomplished. Nowhere in our mission statement was it anywhere mentioned that we were going into Iraq to quell sectarian hatred that had been simmering for a thousand years.

The United States succeeded in exposing and thwarting numerous plans of the terrorists to attack it. What you didn't get by way of another terrorist attack in the United States was a success of the Iraqi, Afghan and other covert international operations. Think about what could have happened if you had turned your cheek. To think that the war is not a crusade is also naive because the determination and doggedness of the misguided Muslim terrorists gunning for the United States is close to madness. Burying our head in the sand and thinking they won't come after us on our soil is too naive, too unreal. Moreover, the evidence existed after the Afghan operation started in October 2001 that terrorist elements were planning attacks on U.S. soil.

The 2003 exposure of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation network irrefutably disclosed that Pakistan supplied uranium enrichment technology to Iraq as far back as 1990. By 1991, Iraq was building a facility for a centrifuge. Also recall that the Iraq war convinced Libya's Moammar Gadhafi to come clean on WMDs, a fantastic intelligence and diplomatic success by all counts. (Of course, Pakistan also supplied centrifuge cascade to North Korea and Iran, which is why we now have the problem with those two countries, as well).

There is also a very high likelihood that Khan sold cascades to al-Qaida, which is known to have tried in 1994 and 1995 through Sudanese individuals to acquire nuclear material. Going into Iraq and Afghanistan places the United States in a better position to intercept terrorist and nuclear traffic in the Mideast that might be eventually directed against it.

Former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blitz singularly led the world astray in his tirade against the United States. He had reports in the early 1990s that Pakistan supplied centrifuge cascades to Iraq, and yet refused ever to acknowledge that because he couldn't find them. Try hunting for a needle in a haystack, since chemical weapons and centrifuge cascades can be operated behind chicken sheds and dairy farms, and enriched uranium can be hidden in cow sheds behind heaps of cow dung, not to mention that cascades, drawings and uranium can be taken across to neighboring countries.

The Iraq war influenced Syria to pull out of Lebanon, another success milestone. That sectarian violence erupted in Iraq does not mean that the U.S. mission in Iraq is not successful. We did not go into Iraq to bring peace to them, but to bring peace to us. Let all know this truth -- that those who mess with a hornet's nest must face the consequences. Every nation has an inalienable right to live in peace. The United States is no exception.

Finally, those who believe the purpose of the Iraq war is to halt the sectarian violence are not looking beyond their noses, not to mention that they are shifting from initial objectives. The United States is responsible for itself, not for others. The United States can't and needn't stop that violence. What the United States is doing in Iraq is clearly designed at self-preservation and the future security of the world. Leaving a vacuum there might well encourage rogue powers to gain dominance in the Middle East, and that would make the calculus much too complicated for comfort.

Amarjit Singh is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
Vol. 12, Issue 7 - Sunday, January 7, 2007
Article URL: Success of war must be examined