Conflict of interest
What is the Indian government policy on defence firms employing retired service officers?
This paragraph from a must-read piece in the USA Today — about retired senior military officers doubling up as mentors with the defence services to earn money while simultaneously working for defence manufacturing firms — spells out US government policy on employing retired officers.
Retired generals and admirals, like other senior government officials, are barred from representing companies before their agency for a year after leaving office. They are prohibited for life from representing a company about a particular matter they worked on, such as a specific contract. After a year, however, they are free to lobby their former colleagues on new matters.[USA Today]
The byzantine network of Indian bureaucracy, both civil and military, would have certainly devised similar rules for retiring Indian service officers. With a plethora of foreign manufacturing firms soliciting big-tickets purchases from Indian, the I-wear-my-honesty-on-my-sleeve Mr. Antony should revise the existing policy, publicly spell it out and strictly implement it for retiring Indian defence service officers. That would be a proof of his seriousness about bringing transparency and accountability to the process of defence procurement.
Honesty is the best policy – when there is money in it. ~Mark Twain
An excellent suggestion that needs to be implemented straightaway and not only for those who were in the armed forces but also for Politicians/Judges/Officers of the All India Services such as IAS, IPS, IFS, RAilways and so on. Not because I hold any brief for those who wore the uniform but I hold that the principle must apply to all who have held a position in the Government.
The problem is, the folks in charge might just take the easy way out and clamp down a tad too hard for the policy/restrictions to be of any good.
Kudos !
Another rule to the already full rule book.
While we will ensure that the process of defence acquisitions remains squeaky clean, is someone waking up to the fact of India’s Lost Years in her lumbering modernization process ?
Rules on the subject exist already both on the military as well as civvy side. One has to take sanction for ‘commercial employment’ after retirement, the competent authority to grant the same varies with the rank / grade.