A comparison with the number of senior ranks in the Israeli Defence Forces shows that Indian Army is overcrowded at the top.
In response to this Times UK article on the burgeoning number of senior officers in the British Army, KoW blog compares them to the number of senior officers in the Israeli Defence Forces.
By contrast, [...]
Today’s Ghaziabad Municipal corporation has much in common with the seventeenth century ancien régime in France.
In a piece in Foreign Affairs [subscription required], Sheri Berman wants the policymakers to look to Louis XIV and the development of France’s ancien régime for guidance while undertaking state-building in Afghanistan.
During the second half of the seventeenth century, accordingly, [...]
By Fourth Eye.
[The Guest blogger, Fourth Eye is a retired Indian Air Force officer, who holds a postgraduate degree in Operations Research from a foreign university. He has undertaken many studies on the subject while serving with the Indian Air Force. This is his response to the blogpost here on the way we allocate our [...]
Incremental budgeting for defence expenditure by the government demolishes all talk of budgeting based on capability-based, long-term integrated defence planning.
Amidst all the pretentious talk about LTIPP (2007-2022), five-year defence plans, forward planning, capability based restructuring and more such gibberish put forth by the defence services, defence ministry and myriad strategic commentators on allocations for the [...]
In this debate over building police capacity, quality is as important, if not more, than the quantity.
In the aftermath of the massacre of ill-trained and poorly-equipped policemen in West Bengal by the Maoists, Saikat Datta of the Outlook magazine unravels the depth of the crisis engulfing the Indian police forces. And Saikat does it by [...]
A correction. 36.6 percent of allocations for new defence acquisitions has been returned unexpended this year.
Indian Express report quoted by this blog yesterday was slightly off the mark. It assumed that all the money — Rs 5221 crore — being returned out of the defence budget of 2009-10 was from the capital expenditure account. After [...]
Only 27 percent of budget earmarked for new defence acquisitions has been returned unutilised this year, compared to 38 percent last year.
In the financial year 2008-09, the defence ministry had surrendered 38 percent of its budget earmarked for new defence acquisitions — 7482.35 out of 19636.2 crore. This year, the plan till January was to [...]
The biggest service that Mr. Antony can do to national security is resign as the defence minister.
Congress MP and spokesperson, Manish Tewari’s recent piece suggesting that the defence ministry has not done enough to strengthen national security — though written in his personal capacity — has suddenly put the defence minister, AK Antony in the [...]
Draft Model Police Act of 2006, a part of police reforms, provided for Special Security Zones to overcome the differences between states on conducting security operations against Maoists.
Maoists are back in news again. Two dastardly attacks, one kidnapping, one Chief Minister publicly capitulating before the Maoists, another Chief Minister who publicly opposes any use of [...]
Two initiatives of the home ministry — monthly report card & updated Action plan — are exemplars for other ministries to emulate.
P Chidambaram has done a lot of good things since taking over as the Home Minister of this country in the aftermath of the ghastly terror attack on Mumbai in November 2008. He has [...]
Let us stop this jamboree of a Republic Day Parade.
Even if there is no fog on this 26th January, Delhi will still come to a standstill. Blame it on the Republic Day celebrations. As this news report suggests, the state seems to be taking a kind of perverse pride in converting the national capital [...]
Omar Abdullah has to focus on a long-term plan to revive state capacity in J&K, rather than be dependent on the Centre for administering development schemes in his state.
While the outlays of the state of Jammu & Kashmir — most of it as dole by the Centre — receive a lot of publicity, the poor [...]
Varying reactions — balanced, confused and ridiculous — from ex-military officers to the army corruption debacle.
The action initiated by the army chief against the four generals, who were indicted by the Court of Inquiry in the Sukhna land scam, was unsurprising and on predictable lines. Incessant media spotlight on the troubling issue has elicited a [...]
2009 has been a year of setbacks for the DRDO. It is a great opportunity to reform the organisation.
The DARPA — Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — was set up by the US government the same year, 1958, the DRDO — Defence Research and Development Organisation — was born in India. Well, the similarities end [...]
Why do terror incidents in India that are counted refer only to Pakistan-backed Islamist terrorist attacks in major urban centres outside Jammu & Kashmir?
An error is simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality.~John Cage
At the turn of the year, Ajai Sahni critically examines the hugely publicised statement — “no terror [...]
…if the defence ministry continues to avoid, bypass and confuse those asking the right questions.
In its report on national security in February 2001 — constituted in the backdrop of the Kargil Review Committee report — the group of ministers had recommended that “the Government should constitute a high powered expert committee to reorganise, reform and [...]
Because the defence ministry is still reinforcing the status quo.
At the end of every calendar year, the ministry of defence, like many other ministries in the Government of India, comes out with a year-end review of its activities. Trite, benign and perfunctory in its recounting of facts, it makes for a depressing read at the [...]
P Chidambaram must now walk the talk, and execute K Subrahmanyam’s vision of creating a ministry of internal security.
Although the complete text of 22nd Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment Lecture on A New Architecture of India’s Security by P Chidambaram should be mandatory reading for all students of internal (and national) security, here is an [...]
Nearly eight years after it was first proposed, the defence ministry has not yet embraced this very sensible idea.
For the uninitiated, here is a primer to understand the concept of Zero-based budgeting. United States implemented it in 1977, the Chinese claim to have done so in 2004. In fact, there have been renewed calls in [...]
High voting percentages in Jharkhand assembly polls, despite the state being a Maoist stronghold, raises uncomfortable questions.
The relatively high voter turnout figures in the ongoing Jharkhand assembly elections should have attracted far more attention that they have done so far. With nearly 80 percent of assembly constituencies declared as Maoist-affected by the Centre, the first [...]
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