Arms dealer Abhishek Verma links Lt Gen in the Racket

Rajesh Ahuja of Indian Military news
27 Sep 2012
Controversial arms dealer Abhishek Verma has told the CBI that a retired Lt-Gen, who has been under investigation in another bribery case, was on his payroll, sources disclosed.
The CBI had questioned Verma in connection with a case registered under the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
The agency has alleged that more than half a dozen documents classified as secrets were found in Ganton Ltd employees’ possession. Ganton is allegedly a front company of Verma.
“Verma claimed that a senior retired army officer of the Lt-Gen rank became his consultant of sorts. The arms dealer was allegedly paying Rs. 2 lakh a month in cash to the officer. The officer was once posted in an intelligence agency of the defence ministry. We are checking whether he was on Verma’s payroll before he retired. He may have supplied classified documents to Verma or employees of his front company,” an official said.
According to sources, after Verma’s statement, the Lt-Gen in question was also grilled. The officer accepted that he got monthly cash payments from Verma for his ‘consultancy’ services.
Besides the OSA case, Verma is facing CBI probes in three new cases – for getting money from arms firm, for influencing public servants and for forging letters of sports minister Ajay Maken and a CBI official.
All these cases were filed against Verma in the last few months based on documents supplied by his US-based attorney C Edmond Allen. A CBI team will visit the US next month to record Allen’s statement in this regard.
Comments:

Prince (18:52:18) : Atleast in this case,Verma is probably telling the whole truth. Logical conclusion of this case would result in a generating fear in potential offenders of this category !

COL LAMBA (08:13:26) : MAKE NAME OF LT GEN[TRAITOR] PUBLIC & FIX HIM.RS 2 LAC PM IN CASH ,DISGRACEFUL GEN

chwanken (18:53:40) : Obviously Lt Gen is same who offered 14 crores!!!
Abhishek Verma claims retd Lt-Gen was on payroll
Connect with earlier post
Tejinder Singh suffers from Amnesia- Forgets all his Dealers

Spooks in the Spy Agencies

Lieutenant General Tejinder Singh in fresh row over purchase of phone-tapping machines Reported by Nitin A Gokhale | Updated: May 28, 2012 15:46 IST New Delhi: After being under the scanner for allegedly offering the Army Chief a bribe, Lieutenant General (retired) Tejinder Singh could be in for more trouble.
NDTV has learnt that the government is now investigating an unauthorised purchase of five phone-tapping machines by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 2010. Lt General Singh was the head of the DIA when the purchases were made. The equipment was allegedly bought violating the guidelines of procurement.
Last year the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), which is under the Prime Minister's Office, had asked the DIA to explain the procurement. Sources have told NDTV that Lieutenant General Singh or his successor at DIA have failed to give a satisfactory explanation to the charges.
The monitoring equipment in question is used to for surveillance on mobile-phone conversations along the Line of Control (LoC) and international borders.
The allegation against Lieutenant General Singh comes after Army Chief General V K Singh accused him of offering a bribe a year and a half ago to influence a defence deal. One of the allegations made was that Tejinder Singh offered a bribe to General Singh on behalf of a company called Tatra and Vectra Limited. That matter is now being investigated by the CBI, which has recorded the Army Chief's statement and quizzed Tejinder.
Lieutenant General Tejinder Singh in fresh row over purchase of phone-tapping machines
Tejinder Singh's fortunes come a full circle

I was offered a bribe of Rs 14 crore, says Army Chief

Vidya Subrahmaniam The Hindu New Delhi March 26, 2012
The country will soon see the sutradhar of the date of birth drama
The Army Chief, General V.K. Singh, has alleged that an equipment lobbyist offered him a bribe of Rs. 14 crore, which he reported to Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony.

In a recent interview to The Hindu, General Singh spoke on a variety of issues, including the controversy surrounding his date of birth and the “shocking” state of affairs in the Army which had allowed the Chief to be offered a bribe.
The General said the lobbyist offered him the bribe in order to have a tranche of 600 sub-standard vehicles of a particular make cleared for purchase. He said the vehicles, 7,000 of which were already in use in the Army, had been sold over the years at exorbitant prices with no questions asked. He said there was no proper facility where they could be serviced and maintained and yet they continued to be sold to the Army: “Just imagine, one of these men had the gumption to walk up to me and tell me that if I cleared the tranche, he would give me Rs. 14 crore. He was offering a bribe to me, to the Army Chief. He told me that people had taken money before me and they will take money after me.”
The Army chief said the brazenness of the act shocked him out of his wits. “I was shocked. If somebody comes and tells you, you will get so much, what can you do?” He said the man had recently retired from the Army, indicating how deeply entrenched the problem was.
The General said he went straight to Mr. Antony and reported the matter. “I told him, if you think I'm a misfit, I will walk out.”
‘Standards have fallen’
Asked what had brought the Army to the state where the Chief could be offered a bribe, he said: “Obviously somewhere our standards of probity and integrity have fallen.”
According to General Singh, it was because he had cracked down on corruption that he was targeted on his date of birth: “But things are fast unravelling and you will soon see the hand behind the drama. You will soon see who the sutradhar of the play is.”
I was offered a bribe of Rs. 14 crore, says Army Chief
It would have been disobedience if I had not accepted 1950, says Army Chief: Click here for the full Interview
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Read more at: Bring Lokpal
Arms wheeler Dealer
Director General Defence Intelligence Agency(DG DIA) and not under the Military Intelligence. The present story has been put out by Lt Gen (retd) Tejinder Singh, who was the Ex DGDIA and who has been earlier questioned on the purchase of the “Of the air Monitoring System”, without sanction by the technically empowered committee. This officer has also been an allottee in Adarsh Housing Society in Mumbai and has also offered bribe on behalf of Tatra and Vectra Limited, which supplies vehicles to BEML. The Officer along with some disgruntled serving officers of the military intelligence, against whom disciplinary and administrative actions is in the pipeline has worked out this fictitious story.
Indian Army Inadvertently Says Ex-General An Arms Agent For Tatra, Vectra: Click here to read the full story

MI 17 super- secret department blinds the Indian Army

NEW DELHI, December 8, 2011
The Hindu by Vinaya Deshpande
Military Intelligence paid hundreds of crores of rupees for outdated software, documents obtained by The Hindu show
The Indian Army's imagery interpretation capabilities, critical to providing information on the locations of enemy troops and their military assets, have been compromised by flawed contracts placed with a company that has failed to provide critical software upgrades, an investigation by The Hindu has found.
Documents obtained by The Hindu from the Ministry of Defence show that the firm responsible for supplying and integrating software used in critical image intelligence analysis was relieved of its responsibility to provide free upgrades in 2008 — and is now on the verge of receiving a Rs.165-crore contract for the supply of software it may no longer have licensing rights for.
MI17 — the super-secret military intelligence department that analyses data provided by India's spy satellites — relies on software provided by global software giants Intergraph, Oracle, and Bentley.
Rolta, an Indian company, supplied photogrammetry and geographical information system software licensed from these firms to the Army in 1996, integrating them into a single package to meet MI17's specific needs. From then to 2008, things went well — when a new contract for 14 photogrammetry and geographical information system packages came up to be signed.
The earlier contract bound Rolta to provide software “updates and upgrades” free of cost, as part of a maintenance contract. In 2008, though, the phrasing was changed to just “updates”— freeing Rolta of the obligation to provide the most recent software released by the original equipment manufacturer.
Rolta was paid Rs.506.45 crore for equipment purchased between 1998 and 2008. In addition, it received annual maintenance contracts for equipment purchased during this period; as of December 2008, their cumulative value was Rs. 40.66 crore per annum.
The Hindu Expose- click here to read the full article

Poorly conceived procedures
Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar, Director of the National Maritime Foundation and a former director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, said the problem lay in poorly conceived bureaucratic procedures put in place after the Bofors scandal, which was exposed by The Hindu in 1987-1988.
“If the armed forces buy a lemon,” he explained, “it is obviously either because of incompetence or corruption. Now, though the post-Bofors system is ostensibly designed to prevent malpractices, in fact privileges incompetence and thus opens the floodgates to corruption.”
“What we really need is to create a cadre of young officers who are competent to make the kinds of highly technical judgments military acquisitions need today, not committees of bureaucrats with no specialist judgment,” he said. “Task force after task force have made thoughtful, well-considered recommendations to reform the defence acquisition system.”
Antony orders probe into controversial Rs. 500-crore contract: The Hindu

The bitter side of spying

NDTV Correspondent, Updated: April 17, 2011 11:10 IST
Gurdaspur (Punjab): The case of Indian spy Gopal Dass, who returned home last week after spending 27 years in prison in Pakistan, has sparked off renewed interest in what actually goes on in this shadowy world.
Once a master spy, Karamat Rahi is now tea stall owner. Six years ago, he returned to his village in Gurdaspur, Punjab, after spending 18 years in Pakistani jails.
After his return, Karamat sought compensation from the Indian intelligence agency he worked for, but was refused. He moved court but his plea was turned down so he now plans to move a higher court.
"We spend difficult times in those jails, we are half dead in those interrogations. Now when we can't do anything we should get something to do business. Also, what do I do without pension? I am 58 and worth nothing," says Karamat.
Fifty kilometre away, in village Daduwal that once had a dozen spies working for Indian agencies, Sunil was lured into spying by a fellow villager. But three years later, he was caught in Pakistan and jailed.
He returned home after seven years. Physically weak and depressed, he is now fully dependant on his wife who works as a domestic help.
"We worked for the country and what we got was tears of blood. We don't get anything," says Sunil.
Grefan tried his hands at spying but soon decided to quit. But his mentors just won't let him. He alleges that Indian agencies implicated him in three false cases.
He now works as a labourer and earns Rs. 3000 a month.
"I refused to work for these agencies since they did not care. When I stopped working, I was implicated in false cases - of bomb blast. But I was proved innocent; they slapped more cases," he says.
Along the border belt in Punjab, almost every third village has a spy who once worked for Indian agency. These spies say they never got a fair deal; they say the way they have been ignored they feel they are the children of lesser God.
The bitter side of spying

A Veteran’s Monumental Mountaineering Milestones

PIB Friday, June 25, 2010 16:51 IST
At the age of 76 years, Col Narinder Kumar, PVSM, KC, AVSM, FRGS (Retd), who is an internationally known mountaineer and a veteran from the Indian Army made a mark yet again, on being conferred with the most coveted Mac Gregor Memorial medal. Mac Gregor memorial medal was instituted by the United Services of India in 1888, in the memory of Maj Gen Sir Charles Metcalfe Mac Gregor, KCB, CBI, CEI, the founder of the United Service Institution of India, to recognize exemplary service in the fields of Military reconnaissance, expeditions, river rafting, world cruises, polar expeditions, running/ trekking across Himalayas and adventure flights.

Col Narinder Kumar has led multiple expeditions in the Siachen area, between 1978 and 1981 and gained highly valuable terrain and enemy information, which has been instrumental in safeguarding our borders on there. The expeditions were carried out in uncharted territory, under extremely harsh weather conditions, with minimal equipment and administrative support and grave risk to life and limb. The results achieved in these expeditions were spectacular and formed the bedrock for the subsequent launch of ‘Operation Meghdoot’.

The veteran soldier’s adventure life is embedded with many stellar achievements, to include the first successful Indian expedition to Nanda Devi and Chomolhari, the highest peak in Bhutan. In his personal capacity, he has led nine out of 13 expeditions to peaks above 24000 ft. He was also the first individual to cross Siachen from “Snout to the Source”. His contributions towards adventure also include authoring six books on mountaineering, skiing and rafting. In 1977 the second ascent of Kangchenjunga, by an Indian Army team led by Colonel Narinder Kumar. They completed the northeast spur, the difficult ridge that defeated the German expeditions in 1929 and 1931.

So far 117 Mac Gregor medals have been awarded, to include seven Gold medals, 62 standard size silver medals and 48 reduced size silver medals. Amongst the well known British Indian officers, the winners have been Capt FE Younghusband (1890) and Maj Gen OC Wingate (1943). 13 Indian officers have won the medal so far. These are Maj ZC Bakshi (1949), Col IC Katoch (1951), Capt MS Jarg (1956), 2 Lt IB Goel (1956), Capt V Badhwar (1957), Capt SL Tungait (1959), Brig ML Whig (1969), Maj Prem Chand (1970), Col CS Nugyal (1971), Capt Ravindra Misra (1972), Sqn Ldr RK Makkar (1986), Flt lt Rana TS Chhina (1986) and Lt Col NJ Korgaokar (1997).

A Padma Bhusan and Arjuna awardee, Col Narinder Kumar has the honour of being the subject of a documentary by the Films Division of India and he continues to contribute his might to sports as Associate Vice President of the Indian Olympic Association. The stellar contributions of this great veteran have been aptly recognized with the award of a prestigious medal, which is being given after a gap of eight and a half years.
S Om Singh/Rajendra
Another Milestone in a Veteran’s Glorious Achievements

Jairam Ramesh and the assassin's mace

This write up deals with Cyber/ Electronic Warfare. It will be of great interest to Signal Officers

Bhaskar Roy | 2010-05-13 20:17:36
What Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said in Beijing on the evening of May 8 must alarm India's security establishment.

For no apparent reason, Ramesh told a group of journalists that the policies of the Home and Defence Ministries, and other Indian security agencies towards China were "overly defensive", "alarmist" and "paranoid", and could freeze relations between the two countries.

Jairam Ramesh was talking about unverified reports that the Chinese telecommunication company Huawei technologies was being blocked from expanding its business because of India's Home Ministry and other security agencies. Ramesh came across as acting as an advocate of China or its telecommunication company.

Ramesh offers to resign, PM turns it down
China's telecommunication and informatization warfare is known as the "Assassin's Mace" weapon. This is an ancient warfare tactic, where an agent is embedded in an adversary's nerve center, to act on remote-controlled signal.

The US had done this through export of electronically controlled oil pipeline control systems in Russia. They also used the tactic during the first Iraq war, and neutralized Saddam Hussein's electronic and computer command-and-communications equipment, supplied earlier by US companies.

More by Bhaskar Roy
The same thing can be done with electronically-operated port and airport facilities, including waterworks. This does not mean India has to close everything to foreign participation. But decisions must be taken on companies and countries that have suspect track records.

The other question that raises red flags is why China is so insistent on access to India's telecommunication sector, ports and airports, and projects along the borders.

The Chinese have sophisticated ways of finding out the weaknesses of foreign interlocutors, and using these to influence them. Their methods include using women, wining and dining, paying attention to the interlocutor's frustrations and pampering his or her ego. "You are the greatest and you are our friend, and you can do it for both of us", is a popular line.
Jairam Ramesh needs to study China's strategy of deception. Thanks to his gaffe, India has been severely harmed.

Bhaskar Roy, who retired recently as a senior government official with decades of national and international experience, is an expert on international relations and Indian strategic interests.

Read the full article:
Jairam Ramesh and the assassin's mace

Related article
US Army Reorganizes Training for Intelligence Units

India's first defence university to come up near Delhi

New Delhi: Drawing lessons from the 1999 Kargil conflict, the government on Thursday decided to set up the first defence university in the country to enable holistic study of defence and strategic security challenges.

A meeting of the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, accorded "in principle" approval to set up the Indian National Defence University (INDU) near Delhi, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told reporters here.

To be established at an estimated cost of Rs 300 crore, the university would come up on a 200 acre land at Binola in Gurgaon, Haryana. A sum of Rs 100 crore has been earmarked for acquisition of the land.

The existing defence educational institutions like the National Defence College in New Delhi, College of Defence Management at Secunderabad, National Staff College at Wellington and National Defence Academy in Pune, would be affiliated to INDU. At present, these institutions are attached to various universities.

"INDU will undertake long-term defence and strategic studies and create synergy between the academic community and government functionaries," Soni said.

The proposed university, which would be fully autonomous and constituted under an Act of Parliament, would promote policy-oriented research on all aspects of national security as part of the strategic national policy-making, she said.

"It will encourage awareness of national security issues by reaching out to scholars and an audience beyond the official machinery," Soni said.

INDU would educate national security leaders on all aspects of national strategies in the fields of security, military, information and technology, through teaching and research, she added.

After the Kargil conflict, the government had set up a Review Committee, headed by eminent strategic expert K Subrahmanyam, which had recommended establishment of such a university to exclusively deal with defence and strategic matters.

The Committee had also recommended finding of ways and means to integrate the academic community, armed forces, paramilitary forces, intelligence agencies and the bureaucracy in strategic security policy making and related issues. Source: PTI
India's first defence university to come up near Delhi

National Security: Army Major caught spying for Pak, tip-off came from US

Ministry of Defence clarifies 12:58 IST
A report has been published in Indian Express ”Army Major caught spying for Pakistan, tip-off came from US” by Ms Ritu Sarin on 06 May 10.

It is clarified that this is a case of computer hacking through an external agency. The matter is still under investigation, however so far there are no evidences to suggest of an “espionage case”. The officer was never under “safe custody” and is on duty in his parent unit. S Om Singh/Rajendra
Army Major Caught Spying For Pakistan

Ritu Sarin, Indian Express
Thursday , May 06, 2010 at 0215 hrs
Army Major caught spying for Pak, tip-off came from US
New Delhi: Around the time last month when the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) was alerted about the possibility of one of their officers being involved in espionage, another sensitive counter-intelligence operation involving the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was in progress.

For over two weeks now, top Government sources say, an Army Major has been kept in "safe custody" of the Military Intelligence (MI). The officer -- posted in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands -- is alleged to have passed on classified information to Pakistan.

The first tip-off in what could develop into another espionage scandal, according to sources, came from American authorities. Suspicious internet traffic first came to the notice of American intelligence agencies when intercepts showed a user in Andaman and Nicobar Islands had dispatched a picture of a serving Indian Brigadier, who was attending a training programme in the US, to Pakistan.

Indian agencies quickly zeroed in on the officer and a quiet operation was planned to call him to New Delhi. Sources say the officer pleaded ignorance of the traffic from his computer to Pakistan saying it could have been generated by some virus or unknown software.

However, suspicion persisted since the Major's computer had been recently formatted and cleaned of all contents. An early forensic examination done in New Delhi revealed the dispatch of classsified military information, some of which should not have been in the officer's possession. The hard disk of the officer's computer has since been sent by military authorities to a Hyderabad laboratory for accessing the erased contents.

"I do not have any information yet. I will have to find the details and then can get back to you," Army spokesperson Col S Om Singh said when contacted for a reaction.

Both Defence Minister A.K. Antony and Home Minister P. Chidambaram are learnt to be aware of the developments in the case, given the serious implications involved.

Source: Indian Express
Army Major caught spying for Pak, tip-off came from US

China excels in Cyber Theft of Classified documents

Turning the tables on a China-based computer espionage gang, Canadian and United States computer security researchers have monitored a spying operation for the past eight months, observing while the intruders pilfered classified and restricted documents from the highest levels of the Indian Defence Ministry.

In a report issued Monday night, the researchers, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, provide a detailed account of how a spy operation it called the Shadow Network systematically hacked into personal computers in government offices on several continents.

The Toronto spy hunters not only learned what kinds of material had been stolen, but were able to see some of the actual documents, including classified assessments about security in several Indian states, and confidential embassy documents about India's relationships in West Africa, Russia and the Middle East. The intruders breached the systems of independent analysts, taking reports on several Indian missile systems. They also obtained a year's worth of the Dalai Lama's personal e-mail messages.
Read complete cyber espionage sequence
Researchers trace Indian Defence Ministry data theft to China

Comment: We need to subject Chinese to our "Official Secret Act", which will screw them beyond redemption.