CDS: Is India going to follow Pakistan footsteps?

Pakistan bids for CDS. Interesting If Pakistan gets a CDS, our politicians might follow a few years later!

Read how Pakistan is thinking of changing the Command and Control gear of its Military as suggested by General Retd Mirza Aslam Beg | Published: May 28, 2010.

Three steps are needed to set the fundamental direction right:

Step One: Defuse the ongoing controversy between the judiciary and the government. Independence of judiciary is sacrosanct, as much as is the sovereignty of the parliament. There are enlightened people on both sides of the fence and they will find the answer. Justice Jawad Khawaja’s recent comment is very reassuring indeed: “We don’t claim any right beyond the will of the people.” A better understanding is developing between the two prime institutions.

Step Two: Give a meaning to the decision of the three services chiefs of 17th August 1988, by establishing the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) as recommended by General Muhammad Sharif Committee in 1975. Mr Bhutto ignored this recommendation and suffered. Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif both ignored my pleadings, to create the post of CDS. Nawaz Sharif ultimately had to bear the brunt. Why one may suffer any more?

Step Three: Having created the post of Chief of Defence Staff, it would be proper to appoint General Kayani as the first CDS, for a three years’ tenure. His credentials are well established. And a new Chief of Army Staff may be appointed in his place.
With these steps taken, better harmony would prevail between civil-military relations and understanding would develop to safeguard the independence of judiciary and the sovereignty of the parliament. And from military point of view also, the appointment of CDS is as important, if we care to learn from history. The ’65 and ’71 wars were started without due coordination with the other two services and we suffered. The Kargil operation was a bad example. Now is the time to take this well-considered decision, as the bedrock of harmonious civil-military relations.
The writer is a former COAS, Pakistan
Read more: Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan: Article by General Mirza Aslam Beg

Indian response- Integrated Defence Staff
A decision regarding the recommendation of the Group of Ministers for creation of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) has not been taken by the Government as yet pending consultation with political parties. However, with a view to ensure higher degree of jointness amongst the Services and attempt inter-service and intra-service prioritization, the Government has set up the Integrated Defence Staff, headed by the Chief of Integrated Staff to Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee (CISC), to support the Chiefs of Staff Committee and its Chairman in the optimal performance of their roles and functions. The CISC supervises the Integrated Defence Staff, chairs all multi-Service bodies and the Defence Crisis Management Group (DCMG) and is also responsible for the coordination of long-range plans, five year plans and annual budgetary proposals of the three Services in consultation and co-ordination with the Integrated Services Headquarters.
Integrated Defence Staff: India

Indian Cricket: BCCI echoes IPL scam pitch

Lalit Modi spills the beans: Amin part of bidding for Pune
New Delhi: Giving a new twist to the bidding controversy, suspended IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi on Friday claimed that the Twenty20 league's interim chairman Chirayu Amin was part of the consortium that made an unsuccessful bid for the Pune franchise in March this year.

Modi said Aniruddha Deshpande, Managing Director of City Corporation in which Sharad Pawar and his family had 16 per cent shares, made the bid in March for a new consortium which included Amin.

"There were three members in the consortium that was part of the bid. They were Aniruddha, Akruti and Chirayu Amin," said Modi, whose suspension saw Amin being appointed as the interim IPL chairman.

"It's a fact of life and I cannot change or distort facts. They were the bidders, one can't change that," Modi said.

Amin was not available for comments. Amin, a Vadodara-based industrialist who heads the Baroda Cricket Association, was named the interim chairman in April after Modi was suspended on charges of financial irregularities, including bid-rigging.

Modi had earlier defended Pawar, saying no one from the Agriculture Minister's family had anything to do with Deshpande's bid.
Source: PTI
Amin was part of bidding for Pune: Modi

Can of worms exposed!
Manohar also claimed that contrary to Modi's assertions, the IPL Governing Council did not know that City Corporation's Managing Director Aniruddha Deshpande bid for the Pune team in his "individual capacity".
Convoluting the Cricket Controversy: Manohar lashes out at Modi

Moderator Comment
Is Cricket in India churning into a Money Laundering Business under the so called apex body of BCCI? Is there no one who can set the goals of sporting and games in order in India. Till today a billion plus citizens hardly produce world class sportsmen. The reasons are obvious from the scams that are erupting in the sports arena. It is here the Armed Forces can set an example to produce world class players and sportsman for the Nation to be proud of.

Justice for Kargil heroes

The Hindu Editorial: Saturday, Jun 05, 2010
Next month India will commemorate its victory in the Kargil war and the extraordinary sacrifices of the soldiers. They fought in some of the most brutal terrain in the world to achieve the objective of throwing the Pakistani intruders out. In his speech of July 26, Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony, a politician known for his commitment to probity, must set to rest the ghosts that haunt the battlefield. It has long been known that many who played a key role in ensuring victory were disgraced so that superiors who ought to have been penalised for their wartime failures could receive medals and honours. Last week, the Armed Force Tribunal held that the officer with direct supervisory responsibility for the conduct of the war, former XV Corps commander Lieutenant-General Kishan Pal, falsified battle records to deny a key subordinate credit for his stellar conduct of operations. This action, which seems to have been driven by a desire to cover up command failures, cost 70 Brigade commander Devinder Singh a medal and a promotion. That it took 11 years to deliver justice to Brigadier Singh is shocking: the Tribunal's judgment has only affirmed what the Army has known all along. Several accounts of the war, including Lieutenant-General Y.M. Bammi's magisterial, Kargil: The Impregnable Conquered, former army chief General V.P. Malik's memoirs, and Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal's official history of the war, made it clear that Brigadier Singh had been instrumental in India's victory in the Batalik sector. The Tribunal received testimony from Brigadier Singh's subordinates and superiors lauding his bravery and acumen — testimony that was available to Army headquarters years ago. Yet successive Chiefs of Army Staff and Defence Ministers did nothing to undo the mischief.

In the build-up to Kargil Day, Mr. Antony will do the Army, his Ministry, and the country proud if he summons the courage to offer Brigadier Singh an apology and restore to him the honours to which he is entitled. But he needs to do more. There are other cases pending before the Tribunal seeking redress; they revolve around decisions made by XV Corps — notably those of 121 Brigade commander Surinder Singh and Major Manish Bhatnagar. Some officers with reason to consider themselves aggrieved, like Colonel Pushpinder Oberoi, chose not to move the court for justice. The Defence Ministry must set up a body to conduct a transparent audit of these cases and set wrongs right. It must also conduct a thoroughgoing examination of the official Kargil Review Committee, which relied heavily on a tainted account of events. Armies in which promotions depend on personal prejudices, rather than dispassionate assessments of professional capability, will see poor quality leadership rise to the top. In the end, their war-fighting capacities will be eroded. Telling the truth will, doubtless, be a painful process — but the Army as well as India will emerge the stronger for it.
Read Hindu Editorial
Justice for Kargil heroes