Pathankot Terror – “The operation was not handled the way it should have been” – Lt.Gen. Vinod Bhatia

Pathankot Terror – “The operation was not handled the way it should have been” – “It was not the job of the NSG or the Garuds. It is the job of the infantry, The local Army unit conducts a recce of the entire airbase every six months, but they were not allowed to get in when the situation came.”

 

 

Army and security circles are bewildered and angry over the way the government kept the Army from the Pathankot terror hunt, especially in the early phase, when Army troops were available in thousands close by. Instead of pressing Army units into immediate action, precious time was lost in sending a few dozen NSG commandos from New Delhi.

“None of us can believe what they did. We have two infantry divisions and two armoured brigades in the vicinity. We have at least three corps headquarters in a couple of hours’ drive, and the Northern Army headquarters too. All of those troops are seasoned in carrying out counter-terror operations,” said a serving Brigadier posted close to Pathankot. “Instead, they wasted time to send a few dozen NSG commandos to the base?”

Lieutenant-General Prakash Katoch, a veteran para-commando and leading authority on special forces operations in India, said: “NSG is required for a specific target, it cannot tackle an area target.” He said that in a place such as the Pathankot airbase, the perimeter had to be secured first and combing operations to hunt down terrorists should have been initiated. “The Army is the best for that,” he said.

“There is no harm in sending the NSG, but then you should have a clear command and control. You cannot shove in the BSF, NSG, Army, etc, just like that. Was there a command and control there?” Gen. Katoch said.

General V.P. Malik, former Army chief, told: “I don’t know if the NSG was the right one. They came from Delhi. It should be given to a local agency which knows the place.”

Former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Fali H.Major said: “Garuds were raised for a different mandate for special Air Force tasks and not anti-terror operations. The DSC personnel are basically re-employed people.”

A serving Army officer said that the Army with its 10 Special Forces units, and at least the one based in Udhampur, would have been in Pathankot in a couple of hours. “We practise all the time for such operations,” he said. “Instead, you send NSG commandos in the night. Who told them that they could defend the 24 sqkm of the base with 160 commandos?”

A senior serving officer said if the government had followed the management principle of “functional foremanship” which advocates the right man for the right job, it would have saved precious lives and ensured quick elimination of terrorists.

“It was not the job of the NSG or the Garuds. It is the job of the infantry,” he said. The local Army unit conducts a recce of the entire airbase every six months, but they were not allowed to get in when the situation came, he said.

Lt.Gen. Vinod Bhatia, former Director-General of Military Operations, said, “The operation was not handled the way it should have been. The fact is, it has gone on for too long. If the Army was called in, they could have a better cordon as they have more strength. There was no unity of command. There has to be a single commander given the wherewithal and authority.”

“The complete infantry of the Indian Army has been fighting counter insurgency for decades,” another officer noted, adding, “This could have been handled much better with fewer casualties.” “How many times has the government airlifted the NSG for operations in the Valley? The infantry has been fighting for a long time and has been doing a good job,” he said.

[ The Hindu ] [G Connect]

Seminar for ex-servicemen

An entrepreneurship motivation seminar for the benefit of the ex-servicemen, and their family members will be held at the Collectorate hall here on January 4.

Officials from different departments and experts will explain the various opportunities available for setting up self-employment ventures and the steps to be taken for identifying the suitable opportunities.

They will also guide the ex-servicemen on the procedures and rules to be adopted for setting up small industries, preparation of project report.

The bank officials and personnel from the government departments extending financial assistance for such ventures will explain the loan and subsidy provided by them.

Ex-servicemen who are successfully running self employment ventures will also narrate their success stories on the occasion.

 

Special Correspondent

National » Tamil Nadu

SALEM, January 3, 2016

Updated: January 3, 2016 05:34 IST

[The Hindu]

This year, don’t speed dial the Army [Read Armed Forces]

Vaishna Roy

The Hindu

‘FIRST IN, LAST OUT’: “What, in principle, was laid down as a ‘last in, first out’ policy has been turned on its head.” Picture shows army personnel on a rescue operation in Chennai. — PHOTO: G. SRIBHARATH

TOPICS

In the 2013 Uttarakhand deluge, when the Army was single-handedly tackling relief work, someone on Facebook said he was irritated by the constant praise being heaped on the Army’s heroic efforts. Enough, he said, the Army is just doing a job it is supposed to do.

And that is exactly what most people assume — that it’s a first-line duty of the armed forces to swim into any disaster and rescue everybody. Whether it was Uttarakhand, the fire in Kolkata’s Burrabazar, or the Chennai floods, each time it’s been the armed forces that have stepped in. Whether an explosion in a bazaar or a child falling into a well, the armed forces are called in.

What, in principle, was laid down as a “last in, first out” policy has been turned on its head. Instead, the forces are the first to be called in and they are the last to leave, reinforcing the impression that they are only “doing their duty”.

The reality is rather different. Not only does the Disaster Management (DM) Act, 2005 not indicate any primacy for the role of the armed forces, it does not even formalise their role; merely stating that the management of disasters could include the “deployment of naval, military and air forces, other armed forces of the Union or any other civilian personnel as may be required for the purposes of this Act”.

It is not that the forces grudge it; in fact, they think it their duty to pitch in. Unfortunately, however, being called out so frequently has a negative impact. Each time it happens, their cutting edge is reduced. They pay a heavy price by way of training time, deployment and equipment losses.

Men for the job

To prevent just this, the 2005 Act established the NDMA or National Disaster Management Authority, and the NDRF or National Disaster Response Force. While the NDMA is the planning and coordinating body, the NDRF has the manpower, equipment and training to handle relief work. The NDRF, launched in 2006, today has 12 battalions stationed across the country, with men drawn on five-year deputations from the Border Security Force, the Central Reserve Police Force, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), etc. The men undergo specialised training in relief work for quakes, landslides, biochemical mishaps, mountain rescue, and more.

So, where are they when we need them? Actually, they are very much there and, in fact, 11 teams (45 men per team) from the NDRF’s Arakkonam unit in Tamil Nadu were mobilised for the Chennai floods, followed by seven more teams from Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Karnataka. We also saw those orange life jackets in Nepal, where India sent relief teams within five hours of the quake.

Hobbled by the system

If, despite this, the armed forces end up being the most visible force at hand, there are a few reasons. First is the sheer shortfall of personnel. As Indian Police Service officer O.P. Singh, Director-General, NDRF, points out, “We have just around 13,000 men compared to 13 lakh in the Army.” For India’s size and population, these numbers are too few, but the NDRF is expanding slowly; it started with eight battalions and now has 12.

Second, who holds the NDMA and, in turn, the NDRF accountable when they fall short? With an annual budget of over Rs.350 crore, why is it so difficult to produce quicker responses, better trained staff and high-end equipment on the ground? Nobody is asking.

Finally, the bigger reason why NDRF is not as effective as it could be is because of, as always in India, bureaucratic failure. The mandarins in Delhi have not empowered NDMA, made it functionally independent or accountable. Talking to me after Uttarakhand, J.K. Sinha, who was then serving his second term at NDMA, spoke of how the organisation is plagued by politics and apathy. For instance, in theory the NDMA must ensure that States have response units across districts and blocks. In practice, it can shout itself hoarse but State governments are not obliged to respond.

States need to step up

To be truly effective, one national force is not enough; each State must build and maintain its own State- and district-level response units. NDMA guidelines say that States must have a contingency plan that ranges from making vulnerability studies to preparing lists of sources that can be tapped for trucks, food or blankets; lists of doctors who can be called for trauma duty or post-mortems; and even firewood suppliers for mass cremations. Such plans are not made and if made, nobody hears of them.

More important, do bureaucracies have the will and intelligence to use available resources optimally? For instance, shutting down Chennai airport freed up hundreds of CISF personnel, but they were not rushed into relief work. In fact, even much of the State’s police was kept idle.

On paper, States are expected to train personnel from the fire, police, and home guards departments and keep them disaster-ready. In reality, said Mr. Sinha, “we have to cajole them to attend training.” According to him, 90 per cent of State governments do not even use the disaster management funds released to them.

A few States like Bihar, Gujarat, Assam and Odisha now have impressive response units. But Tamil Nadu does not figure on this list. Despite the tsunami, only around 90 personnel have received relief training so far.

Rules of engagement

One solution could be to lay out a clear process under which the armed forces will be deployed. First, the Home Ministry must be asked to define just what its arms can deliver. For instance, trained personnel from the police, fire services, civil defence, and home guards must be available on call along with equipment. If such local teams had been available from Day 1, Chennai would not have had to depend on ill-equipped citizens to bail each other out.

Second, threshold levels must be set for when the armed forces will be called in and pulled out. And last, we must define what a national calamity is, and reserve the armed forces only for those occasions. Even the 13th Finance Commission report says: “Although the DM Act uses terms like ‘substantial loss of life, or human suffering’, ‘damage to and destruction of property’… it does not quantify these terms.”

When such a process is laid out, the magnitude of a disaster will determine when the armed forces are called in rather than their being used as a default solution. And this process will also ensure that the NDRF functions the way it was designed to.

vaishna.r@thehindu.co.in

Keywords: Chennai floods, emergency planning, relief work, tsunami

[The Hindu]

Job fair for ex-servicemen

Director-General, Resettlement, Delhi, will organise a job fair for unemployed ex-servicemen at Kendriya Vidyalaya, No. 1, Air Force Station, Jalahalli West, Bengaluru, on January 10, 2016. Those interested can register on www.dgrindia.com or www.triviz.com, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. or call helplines: 011-26192350, 26174531, 26174616.

[The Hindu]

Rallying for ex-servicemen - The Hindu

P.V. Srividya

 

Be it a sweltering day or a foggy dawn, when it comes to endurance, the Madras Sappers stands out.

Late Wednesday, after pedalling over 1,000 km across nine districts, the 6th Engineer Regiment of the Madras Engineers Group of the Indian Army arrived here.

 

Their 10-day-long expedition commenced on December 8, to mark the 235th reunion of the Madras Sappers, as it was called in the late 18th century, when it came into force.

 

And to add purpose to the expedition, the troopers consisting 17 jawans, two officers, and a junior commissioned officer, marked the journey by meeting with ex-service persons, and their children, to hear their grievances.

 

According to Lieutenant Prashant More, the rally was to solve the grievances of ex-servicemen and their dependants, even as they celebrated the long history of the engineers wing.

 

“There are issues of pensions, and old age allowances, with nominees of dependents. The troopers interacted with the family members at the respective Collectorates. The grievances would be personally carried forward to the Commandant, Madras Engineers Group for redressal.”

 

“We rode during the day, despite the humidity and took night halts owing to safety considerations. To avoid dehydration, we took breaks after every 12 km,” says Lieutenant Prashant More of the 6th Engineer Regiment.

 

Starting off from Tirunelveli, the cycle rally covered Koilpatty, Virudhunagar, Madurai, Dindigal, Karur, Namakkal, Salem, and Krishnagiri. It will culminate at Bengaluru.

 

This is the Golden Jubilee year for the regiment. Similar expeditions were carried out in the other three southern States too, said Lt. More.

 

“When we commenced our cycle rally, the other rallies were flagged off from Belgaum, Thiruvananthapuram, and Vishakapatnam the same day,” he said.

 

On Thursday, District Collector T.P. Rajesh, as the president of the district Sainik Board, joined them.

 

[[The Hindu]]

Pichai comes calling, unveils slew of Google products for India

Search master Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer of Google, in New Delhi, on Wednesday KAMAL NARANG

 

New Delhi, December 16:  No visit by a top corporate leader to the National Capital is complete without meeting the powers that be. Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s visit was no different.

 

Pichai started his day with ‘Google for India’, addressing app developers and business partners and showcasing the company’s strategy. He was also taking forward what he had committed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September — Internet for all.

 

While the morning session saw Pichai giving a 15-minute talk to those who matter for his business, the latter part of the day saw the rather relaxed Google chief calling on the ministers for IT & Telecom and Railways.

 

Pichai discussed issues such as free public Wi-Fi in railway stations, Internet access for women, and expanding headcount in India.

 

After his meeting with IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Pichai said: “We are very excited as the Minister has talked about working together for rural BPOs. We are also keen to look at ‘Internet Saathi’ along with the Common Service Centres (CSCs).”

 

He said that the company was focussed on expanding the base of Google products to offer them in more Indian languages. With 500 million users expected to come online in India by the end of 2017 , the company is working to make its products work better for Indians.

 

Addressing the media, Prasad said: “Internet Saathi, whereby they want to reach about three-lakh villages, to train Indian women in particular through their mobile Internet, is a good concept and I have directed CSCs to become a partner in it. For their Loon project, in principle, we have agreed for a final project in partnership with BSNL.”

 

“Certain issues of security etc, and harmony with the department of Civil Aviation have to be done,” Prasad added.

 

Pichai will meet the Prime Minister and the President on Thursday after his chat session (#AskSundar) with students at Shri Ram College of Commerce.

 

[Business Line](This article was published on December 16, 2015)