If the IAF is feeling the pinch by deploying four MI-17 helicopters for providing logistics support to anti-Maoist operations, it must withdraw the 17 helicopters deployed on UN peacekeeping missions in Africa first.
Indian Air Force[IAF] wants to withdraw its helicopters deployed for providing logistics support to the state and central police forces engaged in anti-Maoist [...]
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, [...]
India is ideally suited to provide the military trainers that NATO needs in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan needs more military trainers — NATO has been able to provide only 541 out of 1278 trainers needed for the growing Afghan Army and Police forces — and they aren’t getting them from anywhere. Pakistan has been rather keen to provide [...]
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 [...]
Only one reason — ensure the security and well-being of its citizens, thereby providing them with a better life.
Amidst all the hype over Indian involvement in Afghanistan and lamentations over declining India influence in that country, here is a quick check of the possible reasons that drive India’s continued interest in Afghanistan.
Let us start with [...]
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 [...]
On the Tharoor controversy.
In response to the earlier blogpost on the controversy surrounding Mr. Shashi Tharoor’s ‘interlocutor’ statement in Riyadh, Ms. Suhasini Haider, Dy. Foreign Editor [CNN-IBN] replies.
Dear Pragmatic,
Permit me to suggest that you may be guilty of precisely the kind of ‘callousness and disdain’ you accuse me of in your article “A Manufactured Controversy”, [...]
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 [...]
On the diabolical role of certain sections of electronic media in the latest Tharoor controversy.
Another public statement by Shashi Tharoor and another controversy. So what’s new with that? It is easy to dismiss that off with a shrug and get back to watching that heady cocktail of Bollywood, cricketers [its not about the sport any [...]
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 [...]
First, organised stone pelting and now, outsourced terror strikes.
Stone pelting by protesters during demonstrations is not a new thing. Over the past decades, our drawing rooms have been satiated with images beamed from all over the world — places in Europe, South East Asia, West Asia and South America easily come to the mind — [...]
From Kishenji to JFK.
Has it ever occurred to you that we gloat over the US getting its Baradar and Haqqani in Pakistan but can’t get one stupid Kishenji in our own country? While Kishenji isn’t the military supremo of the Maoists, getting him is important to correct the distorted media narrative of [...]
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 [...]
One of the reasons armed forces are held to a higher standard than civil society.
Lt. General David Petraeus on learning leadership and management from business leaders:
But let me just say that at the end of the day what we do is different. And we should never lose sight of that. The responsibilities that our troopers [...]
India needs a holistic, well-crafted response that balances its short-term, mid-term and long-term goals vis-à-vis Pakistan.
The jehadis have struck again on the Indian mainland; this time in Pune, albeit more than a year after the horrendous terror attacks on Mumbai in November 2008. The initial response, while going with the most plausible and popular assumption [...]
Some gaps in the understanding are filled, but more questions emerge.
Too many trees have been felled and much ether used to debate the Indian offer to recommence peace talks with Pakistan. Most of the sensible debate — not the jingoistic bit of how we have been shamed by Pakistan cocking a snook at us — [...]
Why India’s offer of bilateral talks with Pakistan is a really bad idea?
The Acorn is known to choose his words carefully. So when he sets out to welcome the impending Indo-Pak talks, albeit cautiously and with a big caveat in tow, one has to sit up and take notice. His only rationale for welcoming the [...]
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