Arunachal Pradesh villages fear Chinese incursion

Guwahati: Even as the rhetoric surrounding Sino-Indian border tension shows signs of subsiding, those living in Arunachal Pradesh close to the border with China continue to live in fear of a possible incursion from the north.

The Hindi-Chini bhai bhai slogan was shattered by the 1962 war and four decades after that incident the neighbours may once again be shaking hands for the cameras. But in Arunachal Pradesh, close to the Sino-Indian border, villagers live in perpetual fear of Chinese incursion.

"The Chinese army might come here. The village is so close to China, our biggest threat is from them," says a woman at Arunachal's Chaglagam village.

Both countries deny incursions that reportedly happened recently in Leh but the news seems to have had an effect in Arunachal, portions of which China claims as its own territory.

"We want the Indian army to move from our village more towards the Chinese border," the woman says.

Development has hardly touched the villages near the border with China and the residents of the area say the border is porous.

"The borders almost merge. It is difficult to demarcate. People do come over," says a man at Halaikrong village.

On October 1, the Indian Army will visit the Chinese on their side as a gesture of friendship. It is a walk that carries with it the hope of the villagers that peace remains in their land.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/arunachal-pradesh-villages-fear-chinese-incursion/101995-3.html

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Ghost assault Navy dismisses claims of beating fishermen, but orders inquiry

Rajkot The Indian Navy has ordered an inquiry into last week’s incident some 90 nautical miles south off the Diu coast where 40 men onboard six fishing vessels were beaten up and their fishing licences and IDs were seized allegedly by personnel of the Offshore Defence Advisory Group (ODAG). Some of the injured fishermen had to be admitted to hospitals.

The ODAG comprising personnel from the Navy, Coast Guard and the intelligence units were patrolling the area on a tug owned by public sector undertaking Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

Madhulika Burman, in-charge corporate communication ONGC (Mumbai) said Samudrika-lll was leased to ODAG.

Elsewhere, Group Captain M G Mehta, the Defence spokesperson for Gujarat said: “It is not a Defence vessel. There is no question of the involvement of Navy staff.”

Senior Navy officers in Gujarat said they have, however, ordered an inquiry to check on ONGC’s claims. “An inquiry will be set up. But the Navy needs to find out whether the incident comes under the jurisdiction of Gujarat or Mumbai, and if on that particular day Samudrika-III was hired by the Navy, and also about the crew,” said an officer.

Meanwhile, the injured fishermen are yet to hear anything about the confiscated documents. The men who beat them up had issued signed certificates on plain pieces of papers stating that the Navy had carried out the investigation and had confiscated the papers.

Even as the possibility of the fishermen having unknowingly strayed into the ONGC oilfield area is being discussed, there has been no word on why they were beaten up, and by whom. There is no clarity as to who issued them the signed receipts on behalf of the Navy, if the naval staff were not onboard the ONGC vessel.

Most of the fishermen sustained severe bruises on the thighs, shoulders, arms, abdomen, besides internal injuries. One of them, Darti Raja, the tandel (captain) of Tirupatinath said he was clubbed. He has lost his hearing and suspects having sustained skull injuries.

The fishermen said they were roughed up so badly that they could not sail back after the incident. They drifted on the high seas for three days before finally reaching Diu on September 19. Kanji Chudasma, the tandel of Kamryog said: “On September 14, Samudrika-III apprehended a Veraval-based boat. They sent the boat back to us. One by one the boats were called and the fishermen summoned onboard Samudrika-III. They beat us up with wooden sticks. Each fisherman received 30-35 wounds,” said Kanji.

The crew of Tirupatinath was the first to be called to Samudrika-III, followed by Ishwarkrupa, Karmyog and other boats.

“We saw five men on deck. We don’t know if there were more inside. All of them were in causal wear. No one was in uniform,” said Kanji.

The fishermen, who submitted a memorandum in this regard to the Diu Collector on Tuesday, said, “We were told that our documents will be sent back to our homes by post. But, nothing has arrived yet.”

‘Dubious’ documents

The six certificates issued on plain paper to the fishermen says: This is to certify that during inspection/investigation of my fishing vessel carried out by the Indian Navy on 14/9/09, no item was confiscated/ damaged/taken by the investigating authorities. All papers were checked and returned to the master of the fishing boat. There are no complaints of any nature of investigation carried out. 

The handwriting below it says: Following documents are taken by the Indian Navy in the oilfield area.

1) ID card-6; 2) Fishing License-1

3) Boat documents-1

The right hand corner of the certificate bears the signature of the boat master along with the date, while the countersign doesn’t bear the name or rank of the Navy officer. 

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/ghost-assault-navy-dismisses-claims-of-beating-fishermen-but-orders-inquiry/520431/

Navy Chief, PC discuss coast security

 Asian Age Correspondent

New Delhi

Sept. 22: Even as Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma met home minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday to discuss matters pertaining to coastal security, the high-level CCS met here on Tuesday.

While the issues that were discussed by the CCS were not known, India’s security establishment is seized of the importance of urgent acquisitions for the armed forces, such as more ships and radars.

http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/news/india/navy-chief,-pc-discuss-coast-security.aspx

Is all well on the India-China border?

WHAT IS going on on the northern borders of India? The Government of India says that all is well and no news is good news. China says that their troops have not intruded into the Indian territory as alleged by the Indian Media. The Indian Army Chief had announced that he would visit the borders to see the situation himself. Next morning he was advised to cancel his tour of the China borders lest the military situation assumes serious proportions. No noticeable movement of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) on their side of the border. So it all boils down to a scenario where one may say that something is cooking somewhere there.

Let us view the Indian scenario first. Nyoma- that is the name of a non-descript place in eastern ladakh where an airstrip existed since 1962 war. Now the Indian Air Force has upgraded it and big transport planes are landing there. Moreover, it has been officially designated as the Transport Base of the indian Air Force in Ladakh. It is being prepared to handle heavy air traffic of big transport planes, as and when a need arises.

Let us move to the eastern sector of the Northern border. The area is geographically called Arunachal Pradesh. In the 1962 war, it was called Nefa - North East frontier Agency. We Indians had lost that war and most of our casualties were in this sector. By the way, China claims entire Arunachal Pradesh as its own territory. China already has forcibly taken over 8,000 square kilometres of the Indian territory in Ladakh to construct a road from Xinjiang to Tibet. Moreover, Pakistan has ceded a large chunk of former Indian territory to china in the Karakoram area of Jammu and Kashmir. The hunger of china for the Indian land is unsatiated.

In Arunachal Pradesh, the local residents have reported that the movement of Indian Army trucks in the recent days is rather unprecedented. In a quick reaction and to calm the ruffled feathers of the Chinese, an Army spokesman said that there was nothing unusual in the movement of Indian troops to the borders beyond Tawang. It is a part of the winter exercise to test the alertness of the army formations there.

We may recall that the government and people of China are busy in preparing for major celebrations to commemorate the establishment of communist take over of entire China 60 years ago on October 1, 1949. The 60th anniversay is indeed a major landmark. The Chinese would not like any unpleasant incident to take place that might spoil the big party in Beijing. China has, therefore, no intention to provoke any border skirmish, what to say of waging a localised war.

The ultra right nationalist elements in India say that the Indian government comprises cowards and they are downplaying the Chinese intrusuions into the Indian territory. All said and done, all is not well on the India-China border and the need of the hour is to keep a constant vigil lest the unfortunate defeat of 1962 visits the napping government again. The people are wide awake and so is the media. So, we do see that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

http://www.merinews.com/article/is-all-well-on-the-india-china-border/15784647.shtml

Hand-in-Hand drill with China loses touch

SUJAN DUTTA

Trucks on their way to the China border. (Picture by Eastern Projections)

New Delhi, Sept. 22: India and China are not going to be “Hand in Hand” this winter, abandoning the joint army drill of that name that is easily the biggest confidence-building measure between the two countries.

“We have not held any meetings to plan out the drill,” a senior army officer who would normally be involved in the liaisoning told The Telegraph today. “It is unlikely that there will be an episode of the exercise this year when our soldiers would have been expected to visit China since they were here last year.”

This season, there has been a flurry of reports — some confirmed officially — on repeated transgressions along the India-China border and the symbolism of the joint army exercise normally scheduled in December was expected to send out the message that the two sides were keeping the peace. India and China signed a memorandum of understanding in 2006 expressing their mutual desire to hold joint military exercises and institutionalise a “strategic dialogue”.

“Exercise Hand-in-Hand”, a joint training operation began in December 2007 when 103 soldiers of the Indian Army’s 15 Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry landed in Kunming, in China’s Yunnan province, for an eight-day drill. It was followed-up in December 2008 when a contingent of 130 from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, were received at the commando school in Belgaum, Karnataka, for drills with the 8 Maratha Light Infantry.

Both armies had agreed that the exercise — called a “joint training operation” —would be held every year. But after just two episodes, it looks like it has floundered.

When the first drill was held in December 2007, the world’s militaries took notice of the symbolism of two armies, that had gone to war in 1962, practising together. Soldiers of the companies involved struck a short-lived but warm friendship when they drank, danced, sang and, of course, attacked a mock enemy in a war game that ended with much fire and smoke in the Yangmei mountains close to Kunming.

A senior defence ministry official here said one of the reasons for not holding the drill this year was the austerity drive of the Centre. “It costs a lot of money to requisition an Indian Air Force aircraft and fly the soldiers to Kunming with all their equipment and sustain them,” he said.

In other words, the defence establishment in Delhi has concluded that the symbolism of the joint army drill is not worth it. The official points to the navy drills to make the point that military-to-military relations will continue. Indian warships made port calls in Qingdao and a Chinese PLA Navy warship visited Kochi in August. But a joint exercise of the two airforces, proposed in 2006, has not taken off.

“There seems to be a non-seriousness about the military drills,” agrees Shrikant Kondapalli, China-India border disputes expert with the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis. The scenarios for the wargames were highly unreal — for example, in December 2007 soldiers of the two armies were jointly targeting a terrorist group that had supposed wedged itself near a trading post on the international border.

China is India’s largest trading partner. But the unsettled disputes along the 3,500-km-long border irritate the bilateral relationship that threatened to go into a tailspin this month after the Indian army chief, General Deepak Kapoor, confirmed that there were intrusions, including a helicopter landing, by the Chinese military in disputed territory.

Subsequently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, national security adviser M.K. Narayanan and General Kapoor said the tensions were not worrisome and a senior home ministry official even threatened to prosecute two journalists for writing a report — vehemently denied — that there was firing across the border in July.

“The symbolism (of a joint training operation) in this background is of value,” says Kondapalli. “But I think the two sides have concluded that even if the exercise is not held, it will not impact on bilateral relations.”

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090923/jsp/frontpage/story_11529859.jsp

Sacked sepoy, “working for ISI,” held

Shoumojit Banerjee

Secret papers on troop deployment in J&K found in his possession

— Photo: Ranjeet Kumar 

Big catch: Alleged ISI agent and dismissed sepoy Sudhanshu Sudhakar who was arrested in Patna on Tuesday.

PATNA: A dismissed Indian sepoy, alleged to be working for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, was arrested by the Patna police and the Special Task Force on Monday night after secret documents on troop deployments in Jammu and Kashmir and near the Electronics and Mechanical Engineering Unit in Secunderabad were found in his possession.

Sudhanshu Sudhakar was picked up from the Kankarbagh area following a tip-off from the IB and other intelligence agencies. The police said Sudhakar was also supplying information on missiles to an ISI module.

Booked under OSA

Describing the arrest as a “big catch,” ADG (headquarters) Neelmani said he was booked under the Official Secrets Act.

The police have recovered from Sudhakar a mobile phone, five SIM cards and a SIM card with a Nepal number, along with the receipt of a Kutch-based hotel.

Senior Superintendent of Police Vineet Vinayak said information was extracted from Sudhakar during interrogation. “He was residing at Sitamarhi in Bihar and was on his way to Kathmandu to pass on secrets pertaining to the movement of the Indian Army along the borders to a contact.” Earlier, he had gone to Kathmandu thrice for rendezvousing with a Kathmandu-based ISI member. He was here to collect information about the ordnance factory at Rajgir in Nalanda district, Mr. Vinayak said.

http://www.hindu.com/2009/09/23/stories/2009092360971300.htm

Sibal: we are not interfering with the autonomy of IITs

Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI: Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday questioned the rationale of IIT faculty protesting like “trade unionists” against their revised pay scales.
“Pained” at their decision to observe a token fast on Thursday, he said the Ministry was in no way trying to interfere with the autonomy of the Indian Institutes of Technology as was made out by the faculty.
In a point-to-point rebuttal of the issues they raised, Mr. Sibal wanted to know how the provision for a Ph.D with first class at the preceding degree for the posts of Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor could be seen as an attempt to dilute merit or autonomy. Further, this was a recommendation made by the Fifth Central Pay Commission.
As for the decision to set aside 10 per cent recruitments in a year at the Assistant Professor level on contract for Ph.Ds from the IITs, Mr. Sibal said this was part of the government’s effort to retain some of the IIT products within the system.
Given the opposition to the move, he pointed out that individual IITs were free to write to their boards for relaxation of this provision if they could not meet the 10 per cent requirement.
Referring to the IIT faculty comparing their pay scales with that of university and college teachers and those in certain government departments such as Atomic Energy, the Ministry’s contention is that they were picking and choosing only aspects that suited their argument.
“The fact is that an IIT faculty member can become an Associate Professor within six years, while under the University Grants Commission scales, this transition takes double the time,” Mr. Sibal said.
Defending the 40 per cent cap on the post of Professors at the grade of Rs.12,000 per month, he said a new pay band had been created for senior professors. The cap was much higher for the IITs than UGC institutions, where 10 per cent of the sanctioned posts of professor were placed in the senior grade. At the National Institutes of Technology, the cap was at 20 per cent, and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences had a 25 per cent cap on the senior professor grade.
Borrowing a line from the All-India IIT Faculty Federation that the “issue is not just about a higher pay scale,” Mr. Sibal said: “I am happy that for them, salary is not the issue.” Drawing attention to their earnings from consultancies, he described their salary as the “icing on the cake,” adding the actual teaching time was kept very low in the IITs to facilitate research and consultancy work.
Open to discussing the issue with the faculty, Mr. Sibal also held out the hope for introducing a Performance-Related Incentive Scheme soon. “We have asked them to submit their proposals,” he said.

http://www.hindu.com/2009/09/23/stories/2009092358330100.htm