Govt trims troop presence along Jammu-Srinagar highway

THE PIONEER 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/248830/Surge-in-strikes-but-Army-cut-to-size.html

Even as the Centre is facing criticism for cutting down the number of Army personnel in Jammu & Kashmir under the US pressure, the Indian Army has further trimmed its presence along the strategic Jammu-Srinagar national highway.

Official sources said, “Two battalions of the Central Reserve Paramilitary Force (CRPF) have replaced Army jawans along the only surface link connecting the Kashmir Valley with the rest of the country, while two more CRPF battalions would soon be deployed along the highway after undergoing training in the second phase.” The training of these two CRPF battalions is yet to begin.

Inspector General of the CRPF AS Sidhu, in an exclusive interview with The Pioneer on Monday, said, “After undergoing full two weeks of training from the Army and CRPF instructors, we have taken over the charge of independently securing the strategic NH 1-A between Jammu and Ramban (up to 145 km along the 294-km-long highway) from March 26.”

Sidhu said that immediately after the training the CRPF carried out joint road opening drills with the Armymen on vulnerable locations. The move to remove the Army from along the highway seems part of the same strategy under which the Government pulled out 30,000 troops from the two frontier districts of Jammu region in the last several months.

The CRPF will deploy two more battalions between 145-km and 204-km milestones (up to Jawahar tunnel) soon.

Surprisingly, the fresh relocation of troops has taken place at a time when incidents of militant violence have been recording an upward trend across J&K.  In the recently concluded operation Khoj, the Army had managed to eliminate 16 LeT militants in different encounters in Rajouri district only.

The decision to move out Armymen ahead of shifting of the ‘durbar’ and start of the annual pilgrimage to Amarnath cave shrine in the coming months has also raised eyebrows in the security establishment in view of the surge in violence in the State.

Coupled with this, the spectre of ‘hot summer’ was looming large on the minds of the people in the security establishment even as more than 300 infiltrators have been  eagerly waiting  to cross the Line of Control  after coming straight from PoK jihadi camps.

IG CRPF said, before replacing the Army from the highway duty, the CRPF personnel carried out joint road opening drills for two weeks and learned the art of sanitising the strategic highway.

The Army would, however, still mark its presence along the highway in the form of its sophisticated surveillance equipment used on daily basis to sanistise the highway and detect the presence of any explosive/IED material near the culvert/bridge or under the ground, the senior CRPF officer said.

“The CRPF has initiated the process of procuring its own surveillance gadgetry, but for the time being it is relying on the Army,” he added.

Cheaper call rates for ''jawans'' in border areas

PTI 

I WONDER  : I HOPE ITS FOR FAUJIs TOO.......

The government today reduced call charges to Re 1 per minute from Rs 5 per minute for satellite phones used by forces along the border areas. The reduction in charges will be for the para military forces like ITBP and BSF serving along the border outposts throughout the country, a DoT statement said.

Telecom PSU BSNL has been providing the forces with satellite phones to ensure that these ''jawans'' enjoy access to telecom services, the statement said. This decision was taken after a recent visit of Union Minister of State for Telecom and IT Sachin Pilot to the North Eastern border areas where it was brought to his notice that ''jawans'' were required to pay Rs 5 per minute for using the satellite phones to make calls to their families.

Pilot, in a separate statement, said, "We have decided to reduce the call rates for satellite phones used in the border areas, from Rs 5 to Re 1."

Promotion Civil Services

1. About 72 IPS officers of the 1996 batch have been approved for the rank of DIG.

2. 1990 batch IAS Officers file for promotion to the rank of Joint Secretary (= Maj Gen ) in the Government of India is believed to have been cleared by the govt.
 

Army plans sub-area headquarter in Jagdalpur

  INDIAN EXPRESS

 

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/army-plans-subarea-headquarter-in-jagdalpur/605019/0

 

I WONDER : DEEDS SOW THE SEEDS.

The Indian Army’s footprint in the Naxal-infested states of Chhattisgarh and Orissa is all set to increase with an already approved sub-area level headquarter, headed by a Brigadier, coming up shortly at Jagdalpur, another being proposed at Ambarda on the Orissa-West Bengal border and the proposed shifting of the special forces training school from Nahan in Himachal Pradesh to Chakarbhata near Raipur.

Top government sources told The Indian Express that after the Maoist attack on CRPF personnel in Dantewada on April 6, Home Secretary G K Pillai called on Army Chief General V K Singh in South Block and discussed the prospects of synergy between the paramilitary forces and the Army in the fight against the Naxals.

Among the points discussed at the meeting were:

• Paramilitary forces should send homogenous companies of personnel for four-six week induction training with the Army, to infuse camaraderie among the forces. Anti-insurgency operations are group tasks, not individual operations.

• Home and Defence Ministries to sort out the problem of who is going to provide administrative arrangements to the security forces during the induction training. The paramilitary forces say that the Army wants them to make administrative arrangements for trainees.

• Each paramilitary company involved in anti-Naxal duties should identify personnel who could be trained as intelligence scouts so that local intelligence is developed by the forces themselves rather than relying on the state or Intelligence Bureau for every small issue.

• Anti-Naxal operations should be discretely done as there is a serious possibility of sabotage or interception of communication from Maoist sympathisers.

While the government has kept its option open on getting the Army involved in anti-Naxal operations, the military top brass has decided to make its presence felt in the red zone of Central India. The basic idea is to sensitise its own men in the area in case called upon to do the duty.

As a first step, a sub-area level headquarter is going to come up in Jagdalpur in the next six months, while the Orissa government has already offered land for another sub-area headquarter at Ambarda, south of west Midnapore in West Bengal.

However, the most significant development is the proposed shifting of the special forces training school from Nahan to Chakarbhata near Raipur with the Raman Singh government willing to offer nearly 2,700 acres of land with an airport for airborne operations to the Army. The first step in this direction was taken during the visit of then Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor to Chhattisgarh in March 2009.

While the finer details of handing over the airport to the Army are being sorted out between the Defence Ministry and the Civil Aviation Ministry, the Army’s presence will bring not only development but also security to the region apart from on-the-ground training to the paramilitary forces.

Dantewada incident.

ECONOMIC TIMES

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Standard-procedures-not-followed-CRPF-casual-nonchalant-Prakash-Singh-ex-BSF-chief/articleshow/5770070.cms

I WONDER : Thought for the day "More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them. "

Three factors could have led to the Dantewada incident. First, lack of coordination and cooperation between the CRPF and the state police. There is a complete lack of understanding between the two — the state police complains about the central forces while the CRPF has reservation about the state police.

Second, if 1,000 Naxals were part of the attack, Chhattisgarh Police should have provided intelligence. There is enough information in the states, but the question is how much of the information is shared. The third factor is complacency on the part of the CRPF; they did not follow standard operating procedures.

It is a well-known fact that in these areas one should not take the beaten track. One is not supposed to use vehicles on the beaten track as it is mined, you must move on foot, as it is less dangerous. The maximum casualties happened due to the explosion. You can only blame the leader for this kind of a situation. Even home minister P Chidambaram said something had horribly gone wrong.

The CRPF was not following standard operating procedures; they were casual and nonchalant. The problem is that there is a tendency to opt for the easy way. I have this uncomfortable feeling that one reason for this is the tremendous expansion of the CRPF. They have increased intake, and you can get manpower given the levels of unemployment. But you need to equip, train and motivate these men. The home ministry should see if the CRPF has the right training. You need to have pre-induction training before sending them to the battlefield.

The state police should bear the brunt. In Punjab, the tide turned after the police took on the terrorists head on. The CRPF, the BSF and the Indian Army play a supporting role. The state police are sons of soil; they know the terrain, the language. They must be motivated, given training and the right kind of equipment. The state police need to be raised to a level to take the Naxals head on. West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar have been lukewarm; they have been reluctant partners. The CRPF when deployed gets battalion from all over, and they have no knowledge of the terrain or the local language.

Soldier, heal thyself

BUSINESS STANDARD

 

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/ajai-shukla-soldier-heal-thyself/390930/

 

I WONDER : I SAID IT EARLIER TOO THE COAS HAS DIAGNOSED THE DISEASE CORRECTLY BUT HE NEEDS TO KNOW THE CAUSE AND ELIMINATE THAT.....

 

Figuring out the state of an army’s morale is easy. All it takes is a couple of drinks with two groups of people: the officers and the enlisted men. If the chatter is mainly about sports and professional competitions, ongoing training and about how much tougher and smarter they are than their rival units, morale is high. If talk centres on pay and allowances, promotions and postings and on the world outside the army, you can bet money that morale is low. Applying this yardstick to the Indian Army I believe the morale of officers is low, while that of the jawans is high.

In this gloomy assessment I have illustrious company. The new Chief of Army Staff, General VK Singh, on assuming office on the 1st of April, has wisely identified the army’s “internal health” as his key focus. Pointing out that an internally vibrant army would easily swat aside external threats, the army chief has promised to revitalize traditions, core values and the army’s ethos.

Earlier chiefs, some as well-intentioned as General VK Singh, have embarked on similar paths. General K Sundarji, on taking over as chief in 1986, wrote to army officers individually, urging them to follow their professional convictions and promising to tolerate dissent. But that led nowhere as actions failed to follow words. Today, as the new chief implicitly accepts, the army has become a personality cult where officers either conform to the inclinations of the boss or get weeded out. Originality and eccentricity, those priceless attributes of a successful military leader, have been rendered extinct by a dull, humourless routine that is set by what the boss thinks his boss wants.

Keeping the officers in line is a terrible God called the Annual Confidential Report before which even the brightest and most capable officer must kneel or be scythed down. While annual reports are an evaluation tool in many professions, the army has accorded the ACR absolute control of an officer’s career. Considering that this primacy is born of the army’s laudable quest for an impartial, empirical evaluation system, it is ironic that the ACR has turned into a monster of subjectivity. If the boss is unhappy with an officer — for any reason whatsoever — a single lukewarm ACR can sink a brilliant career.

Dismantling this tyranny, and unlocking the potential of his officer corps, is the task ahead for General Singh. This is easier said than done. Blocking any radical change is the tribal ethos of the Indian Army. An officer belongs first to his regiment or battalion; only after that is he an Indian Army officer. An army chief’s first duty is towards the regiment and battalion that nurtured him; reforming the army conflicts with the role of regimental patriarch.

When General JJ Singh, an infantry officer from the Maratha Light Infantry, took over as chief, the honour guard that welcomed him to South Block was from the Marathas. So was his aide-de-camp and most of his personal staff. The tenure of his artillery successor, General Deepak Kapoor, saw the Corps of Artillery quickly muscling out the infantry as the flavour of the month. Upwardly mobile artillery officers were quickly posted into friendly environments, under “friendly” superiors, to ease their paths towards higher ranks.

These are only the most recent examples of the army’s longstanding patriarchal tradition that General VK Singh can now embrace or dismantle. A key step would be the creation of a clearly enunciated promotion policy, printed as a manual and sanctioned by the government, to ensure that each successive chief cannot tinker with the policy to suit his constituency. Today, 63 years after independence, the military has no promotion manual; policy exists only in a constantly revised torrent of letters from the Military Secretary’s branch.

The other major change that General VK Singh could implement is the reversing of promotion quotas to higher rank: the “Mandalisation” of the army as it is evocatively referred to. From the institution of the Prussian General Staff in the early 18th century, professional militaries have employed the criterion of merit alone to select their senior command. For over half a century, so did the Indian Army; but recently, in a burst of patrimonial fervour, quotas were instituted to ensure that each combat arm got its share of the senior ranks. Initiated by artillery and infantry chiefs to safeguard the interests of their officers, the quotas are now favouring less talented officers of other arms.

Few chiefs would voluntarily divest themselves of power but, paradoxically, the institution of the COAS would be greatly strengthened by transparency and the absence of discretion in promotions and postings. It would also free army chiefs from accusations of prejudice; a lever that Ministry of Defence officials — and in one well-known case, a defence minister — have successfully employed to demand favours for their own candidates.

Old... But Still many of us are not knowing much about AVS-2

 PIB

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=43392

In a major step to improve career mobility, to fulfil aspirations and to achieve combat effectiveness by bringing down age profile of commanding officers, the Union Cabinet today approved the Ministry of Defence's proposal for effecting upgradation of 1896 posts in the Services.

Popularly known as Phase-II of the Ajay Vikram Singh Committee Report, the proposals approved today would result in reduction in stagnation. The Defence Minister Shri A K Antony had taken a personal interest in the implementation of the proposal and played a crucial role in evolving a consensus among the Services. The measures taken today will also lead to progressive promotion of junior batches without adversely affecting promotional aspects of senior batches, thereby reducing the age profile of officers in select ranks.

The upgradation will be carried out in the Army over a period of five years, in the Navy over the next ten years and in the Air Force over a period of five years. The total number of posts to be upgraded will be 1051 in the Army, 342 in the Navy and 503 in the Air Force. Of the 1051 posts in the Army, 20 are at the level of Lieutenant General and equivalent, 75 at Major General and equivalent, 222 at Brigadier and equivalent, and 734 at Colonel and equivalent. The corresponding figures in the Navy will be 4 at Vice Admiral and equivalent, 14 at Rear Admiral and equivalent, 324 at Commodore, Captain and equivalent. In the Air Force upgradation will be effected for 6 post at Air Marshal and equivalent, 21 at Air Vice Marshal and equivalent, 61 at Air Commodore and equivalent, 415 at Group Captain and equivalent.

The Cabinet also approved the proposal for the reduction in the regular cadre and corresponding increase in the support cadre consisting of Short Service Commissioned Officers and re-employed officers (for Army) as envisaged in the Ajay Vikram Singh Committee (AVSC) Report and as per requirement of the three Services irrespective of gender.

It may be recalled that the Ministry of Defence had set up a Committee on 16th July, 2001, under the Chairmanship of Shri Ajay Vikram Singh, the then Special Secretary with representatives of the three Services with an aim to achieve 'combat effectiveness' by bringing down the age profile of battalion / brigade level commanders. The Committee submitted its report on February 2003 and the Raksha Mantri accorded in principle approval to the report in September 2003. AVSC Phase-I in respect of non-select ranks i.e. Lieutenant Colonel and equivalent and below was implemented in December 2004.

Promotion IPS

1994 batch IPS officers  to be IG in Haryana.