Who was this someone? Is it not more important to find this murderer?

The “most important” thing in the world today is to find a solution to jehadi terror and in India is abject poverty & LWE. The “most important” thing in the context of the Kashmir story is accountability of the Army brass. If the brass doesn’t understand the implications of their decision, they don’t deserve to be in a position of taking those decisions.

Please understand the context of the blogpost before ranting about MMS, Chandigarh and so on.

And the joke is about services apologising- Services Cricket Team duly apologised to BCCI, whose tournament, the team was participating in. The team is not a theatre group which had been paid to entertain the tamashabeen at Srinagar.

About the cricket part, my whole argument is that it is not about cricket and BCCI. It is about the message that such a boycott sends. Sad that some people have never heard of a term called strategic communication and presume that army never does any wrong.

What I understand from Pragmatic is that Services, ideally the COAS in full military uniform, should stand in front of a kashmiri politician (Omar Bhai?) and beg forgiveness.

I use very simple English to let people “understand” stuff. A public apology from the army to the people of the state (when did I say Omar and full military regalia, Sir) would enhance the reputation of the army. Army is not beyond the nation and its people, not some holy cow that it can’t apologise to its own people whom it is paid and duty-bound to protect.

I read the article in the TOI newspaper the next day. It was a front page news, but not the top news- Which was the Madhu Koda corruption scandal and the next prominent news (bold headlines) was the one about the unfortunate citizen who died when the PM was visiting Chandigarh and the man was not allowed to reach the hospital by someone in the PM’s security.

Who was this someone? Is it not more important to find this murderer?

Farooq Abdullah says that the PM during his recent visit to the state addressed the public without bullet proof glass, but our dear MMS Sahib can’t move through Chandigarh without turning the town into a fortress.

Find the Army official responsible- for what? Acting on an intelligence input- which could have saved some lives.

Farooq bhai would have played his dirty politics in any case.

And the joke is about services apologising- Services Cricket Team duly apologised to BCCI, whose tournament, the team was participating in. The team is not a theatre group which had been paid to entertain the tamashabeen at Srinagar.

What I understand from Pragmatic is that Services, ideally the COAS in full military uniform, should stand in front of a kashmiri politician (Omar Bhai?) and beg forgiveness.

What Raja Says at comment #7 above seems to be more practical than a yarn about Army snubbing the Young Omar.

The BCCI does deserve a kick in not ordering a rematch forthwith.

There is an unpublished post on the pre-paid mobile story lying in my drafts, almost on the lines of your comment. However I have been told by trustworthy people that there are some valid security reasons as to why it has happened. So, I am eschewing this topic unless greater clarity emerges on this topic.

My point is not in defense of what the Services team did or whether the CM of the state erred in putting too much political capital in a non-event.
The issue of cutting of a basic amenity because the security agencies are not competent to handle its misuse must be shown up for what it is.
What will be cut off next, water and electricity to the state because somebody misused it.
The cricket incident may or may not give some political ammo to the separatists, but the mobile issue will definitely add to the grievances and alienation of the common man. The latter is more important.
What surprises me is the ‘Much ado’ about the cricket incident as against the ’silence’ over the mobile issue by the J &K political class, and the Home Minister also jumping into the fray. As in all cases where there is too much protest, the causes are usually different from those stated.
Personally, I think the mobiles issue is a matter of personal freedom and choice, the other is about politics/ administrative incompetence. Bracketing the two together trivialises the former. That’s ‘in principle’. Add to it the economic and social costs to get the full picture.

The DG Military Training took the call based on the recommendations of 15 Corps & Northern Command. NDTV link here.

The mistake, which the service headquarters also made, is to look at it as just another cricket match. If Orissa cricket team refuses to play in Srinagar, it fine. When the services’ team refuse to do so, it is politically loaded message in the frozen turbulence of Kashmir. Going by the TV images, there was sufficient crowd and interest at the Stadium to watch the match. And why should you be giving any ammo to the separatists? A Plate league Ranji match is a non-event, but a Plate level Ranji non-match in Srinagar ends up as a big political event. That is the difference.

Btw, fully agree that government departments, including the services, have no business being in the promotion of sports. No two questions about that.