ECHS extended to Nepal

Extension of ex-servicemen contributory health scheme facilities to Nepal domiciled Gorkhas
January 4, 2012
The Cabinet has approved the extension of Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) to Nepal Domiciled Gorkhas (NDGs) pensioners Ex-Service Men (ESM). The scheme will be optional for retired Ex-Servicemen NDG Pensioners. Only NDG Ex-servicemen pensioner (paid from Defence Estimates) are eligible for ECHS membership.

There are about 1 lakh ex-servicemen and 2.17 lakh dependents domiciled in Nepal who benefit from the Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme, (ECHS). They are entitled for medical treatment under ECHS Scheme at Polyclinics, and ECHS empanelled civil hospitals in India. Emergency treatment in India under existing provisions is also available. Considering the practical difficulties being faced by NDG ESM in taking treatment, the Govt. has decided to provide medical facilities to them in Nepal itself. The facilities would be available on the same pattern as is available to Indian ESM residing in India.
Extension of ex-servicemen contributory health scheme facilities to Nepal domiciled Gorkhas

National Security: Indian Grand Strategy- a book review

Monday, June 14, 2010
Washington DC: release of book on Indian Grand Strategy for Foreign Policy

Admiral Raja Menon is a former career officer and submarine specialist in the Navy. He is the author of The Indian Navy: A Photo Essay, Maritime Strategy and Continental Wars and A Nuclear Strategy for India. He is a distinguished fellow in the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies and the National Maritime Foundation.

Joining Admiral Menon for the forum will be Ashley Tellis, a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Lisa Curtis, Heritage Foundation's Senior Research Fellow on South Asia. S. Enders Wimbush, Hudson Institute's Senior Vice President, will moderate. Wednesday, June 23, 2010 12:30-2:30 PM

Analyzing some of the major influences on foreign and security policy in India, this synthesis of insights assesses emerging global scenarios from an Indian perspective and details their likely impact on India's current and future national interests. This study first uses the Net Assessment method to detail the scenarios that the country will face in 2020 and then utilizes a transparent method to build three scenarios that India could face and compares them to other situations created by the United States National Intelligence Council and a group of Indian Practitioners. Closing with a possible foreign policy strategy, this reference clearly explains the choices that await a rising India.

The book spells out four possible global scenarios in 2020. The first is one in which the US reinvents itself and surges forward on the tide of development of alternate energy sources. The second envisages a scenario in which the relative power of the US declines and a multipolar world emerges in which regional powers rise to run their regions unilaterally – India in South Asia, China in continental Asia, and the US with Brazil in the Americas. While globalisation reduces political rivalry between nations, there is no co-ordinated action against terrorism and rogue, non-state actors.

The third scenario is one in which the US and China establish a duopoly and begin to co-operate in controlling world institutions, leaving former friends of the US, including India, without a platform. India will then be faced with the choice of either joining the duopoly or facing isolation. The final scenario is one in which economic growth in both the United States and China remains depressed while India grows at a sustained annual rate of nine to ten per cent. The world takes longer to recover from the recession, international bodies become weak and the US becomes more isolationist. India becomes a powerful entity by 2020 but has not yet developed mechanisms to play the role of a constructive global or regional power. Of these, the worst-case scenario from India's perspective is the emergence of a US-China duopoly where China remains hostile to India and the US is unavailable as a balancing power.

The book outlines a strategy that will help India tackle the challenges posed by the possible shift in global power arrangements. It includes:

A strong focus on achieving sustained economic growth with equity as that helps India to withstand a possible duopoly

A hedging military strategy that enables India to switch theatres between North-Continental and South Maritime, abolishing all institutions for passive territorial defence and unifying military command

A technology strategy that gives the private sector its head with government joint ventures and subordinates the human resource development and science and technology ministries to that of service providers with measurable outputs to ride a possible US wave of alternate energy innovation

A national security strategy that creates mechanisms that conjoins the NSA system to the parliamentary system

A domestic strategy that reforms all domestic institutions, particularly the police and the civil service, under external supervision and

The recreation of a foreign policy apparatus that can implement this strategy abroad.

The challenges that India will face in implementing this strategy will come from:

The rise of a galloping China with perceived unsolvable disputes with India and ruled by a monolithic, single party

The fundamentalist threat from an unstable Pakistan in a close alliance with China

The region being overwhelmed by Chinese economic blandishments to support regimes politically hostile to India

The fraying of international institutions

A degraded neighbourhood because of economic compulsions in Bangladesh, continued political upheaval in Nepal, simmering discontent and low level conflict in Sri Lanka and jihadi threat in Pakistan and

The loss of naval superiority in the Indian Ocean.

The book also raises questions about whether India has operational mechanisms needed to implement the strategy that it has outlined. It points out that the lack of a strategic core, which directs policy and oversees implementation, is a major lacuna that needs to be addressed urgently.

Refreshments will be served.
Books will be available for purchase.

To RSVP, please send your name and affiliation to events@hudson.org.
Betsy and Walter Stern Conference Center
Hudson Institute
1015 15th St, NW,
Sixth Floor
Washington, DC 20005
www.hudson.org
washington dc: release of book on Indian Grand Strategy for Foreign Policy
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Terror and beyond: Are we expecting peace amidst turmoil?

By Raj Narayan, 22/02/2010
Terror and beyond: Are we expecting peace amidst turmoil?
Violence, both externally driven and internal, has become a way of life in India. So much so, that each morning our eyes scan the newspaper for acts of terror. We let out an involuntary sigh of relief if the papers are bereft of pictures of shattered skulls, broken limbs and blood-stained roads.

Rescue workers carry the body of a policeman at a police camp attacked by Maoist rebels in Silda village, Midnapore district of West Bengal. On Monday, about 24 jawans were killed in the biggest-ever Maoist assault when the rebels caught the troops unaware. Photo Courtesy: Reuters

But such days are getting as rare as snow in the desert for Indians. The violent terror attacks in Mumbai on 26/11 2008 had barely receded into the recesses of our collective minds when the bakery blast at Pune returned to remind us of the external threats. And just as we were reeling from that blow to the solar plexus came the upper-cut straight to the jaw in the form of a daring Naxal attack on a police camp in Sildah, West Bengal.

And our country continues to bleed from a thousand cuts inflicted on us by envious neighbors and militant desperados.

In fact, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh surprised many by his recent statement that naxalism and not terrorism was the bigger threat to India's internal security. He sought to know the reasons for this sense of alienation amongst people in central India and suggested that the new age policeman must train to be more professional, motivated, empowered and above all trained to use technology for investigation.

Be that as it may, the question that springs to mind is the ease with which terror actors get access to weapons of war and funds in the region. While external help is easy to understand, where do the Maoists find the money and the guns to raise a stink?

The answer is not too difficult to fathom. Fly three hours in any direction from New Delhi and what do you get...? A conflict zone or one where a conflict has recently resolved. There is Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Nepal - each a hotbed of conflict and each providing a haven for desperados with a veritable departmental store for arms purchase.
Terror and beyond: Are we expecting peace amidst turmoil?

Emerging Situation in Nepal: Implications for India

General
The Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) organised a seminar on “Emerging Situation in Nepal: Implications for India” on September 23, 2008 at the CLAWS Seminar Hall. The seminar was attended by a large number of serving officers and members of the strategic community. The seminar was chaired by Maj Gen Ashok Mehta (Retd). The speakers included Maj Gen A K Chaturvedi, ACIDS Int A, HQ IDS, Ambassador K V Rajan and Brigadier Arun Sahgal (Retd)

Discussion Summary
Nepal is a base of drugs, narcotics, and illegal arms. The ISI activities in Nepal are continuing and have further indulged into anti-India activities. Madhesh is a terrain area in Nepal, and from a Nepalese perspective, Madhesh is the rest of India. There is resentment against the Madheshee entrenchment in the system and even their entrenchment in the ruling class. Nepal has asked India to revise the India-Nepal Treaty of 1950. The perception of the Nepali people is that the India-Nepal Treaty 1950 is an absolute one-sided treaty. Human development index of Nepal is very low, and there is abject poverty. The Maoists do not have political experience. China’s influence in Nepal is rising with the coming of the Maoist regime. India needs to a keep a tab on this fact. The responsibility mainly lies on the leaders and institutions to solve these issues. Civil society should not be underestimated in Nepal since it functions as a political force also. What would be the changes in the 1950 Treaty, and what would be its impact on India? Will it affect India’s security? India should work urgently towards addressing these questions.
(Report Prepared by Dr. Shah Alam, Research Fellow, CLAWS)
Read the full Discussion:
Emerging Situation in Nepal: Implications for India

Gorkhas in the Indian Army

Gorkha ESM
The salary and other benefits received by Gorkhas from Nepal in the Indian Army are the same as provided to their Indian counterparts. Many Indian Gorkha ESM living in Pokhara and Jhapa in Nepal and from Bhutan, admit this. They receive exactly identical extended facilities received by Indian soldiers. The ESM of Indian Army living in Nepal are provided welfare support comparable to what is available to their Indian counterparts. According to the same source, the Gorkhas in the Indian Army receive over Rs 6 billion (600 crores) per annum as salary.

Benefits
A large proportion of this amount is repatriated into Nepal as the serving soldiers are provided free ration, accommodation, medical benefits, educational facilities, and so on. Indian Army disburses approx Rs 5000 million as pension to 0.103 million ESM living in Nepal every year. The direct benefits received by the Nepali nationals in the Indian Army and ESM living in Nepal exceed Rs 11 billion per annum. This amount is more than the total foreign grants received by Nepalese Government each year as budgetary support.

Historical roots.
Gorkha Battalions in the Indian Army are well known for their bravery and are respected worldwide for their battlefield skills. They are royal warriors and remain undefeatable. We are proud of their noble achievements.

Everest conqueror Edmund Hillary dies

New Zealand's Sir Edmund Hillary, who along with Nepal's Tenzing Norgay Sherpa became the first to conquer Mount Everest, died in hospital on Friday, 11 January, 2008.

New Zealand flags flew at half mast at Scott Base in Antarctica on Friday, mourning the loss of one of the greatest adventurers of the 20th century.

In Nepal, Sherpa friends lit butter lamps and offered special Buddhist prayers in monasteries for the mountaineer, calling him a great philanthropist and friend of Nepal. Ed's greatest legacy is the assistance he gave to the Sherpa people," said Mr Dingle. "As a result of seeing Nepal and his love of the mountains and the people, he went back and suggested that he could help in some way." Known to the Sherpa people as Burra-sahib – meaning "big in stature, big in heart" – Sir Edmund never forgot the place that gave him, in every sense, his international prominence.

In 2003, Hillary received honorary Nepali citizenship in recognition of his services to the people and the Solukhumbhu region where Mount Everest is located.

Mount Everest was named after Sir George Everest, the surveyor-general of India who was the first to produce detailed maps of the Indian subcontintent including the Himalayas.

Mr Hillary took several photographs of the scenery and of Sherpa Tenzing waving flags representing India, Britain, Nepal, and the United Nations from world's highest mountain top.

In 1960, Hillary – who served as New Zealand High Commissioner to India in Delhi from 1984 to 1989 – established The Himalayan Trust, which helped build three hospitals, 13 health clinics and more than 30 schools.