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 [...]
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 [...]
Can we start framing similar questions in India?
From the novel A Soldier’s Duty by Thomas E. Ricks:
We as a nation have not really come to grips with what should be the proper role of uniformed officers in debates about issues that affect the armed services. It is especially problematic in an era of deference to [...]
An exclusive focus on legacy efforts of military modernisation has done a huge disservice to national security.
When the new defence budget is announced in a few weeks time, we will again witness — to paraphrase Richard Betts — that the sluice gates of military spending have been opened not because it is the [...]
The calls for recommencing talks with Pakistan do not stand to logic and are not grounded in reality.
There are periods in history in which it isn’t enough to say you’ve done your best, when the only test is whether you have done what is necessary.~Churchill
It seems that the wonderfully efficient marketing machinery at an Indian [...]
As the CDS example shows, there is a case for fresh review of national security now.
Most commentators on defence matters in India — especially the ex-military officers — lament the lack of a Chief of Defence Staff [CDS] in India, after it was first proposed by the Group of Ministers in 2001 [see this post [...]
The next army chief says Indian Army is designed for defence of India within the sub-continental domain.
Here is an excerpt from an interview in Salute with Lieutenant General VK Singh, who — in all likelihood — will be the next army chief in a few months time.
Warfare [...]
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 [...]
…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 [...]
There are huge problems with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence.
The latest Tailpiece of the weekly Delhi Confidential column in the Indian Express has this juicy tid-bit.
Honourable members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence are having a tough time trying to cope with JD(S) leader H D Deve Gowda. The reason: Every single verbal [...]
Different institutional responses to 1962 and Sri Lanka 1987.
From the NYT Sunday Book Review of The Fourth Star – Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army:
As an institution, the United States Army has much more in common with, say, a giant corporation like General Motors than with a [...]
…will remain a pipe dream with this standing committee on defence.
Here is the list of Members of Parliament who have been nominated to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence.
Members from Lok Sabha
Maharaj, Shri Satpal
Bapurao, Shri Khatgaonkar Patil Bhaskarrao
Choudhary, Shri Harish
Devegowda, Shri H.D.
Gandhi, Shri Feroze Varun
Haldar, Shri Sucharu Ranjan
Jigajinagi, Shri Ramesh Chandappa
Karwariya, Shri Kapil Muni
Kishor, Shri [...]
Sending troops to Afghanistan is a valid strategic option for India.
There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot. ~Steven Wright
In two separate op-ed pieces today, former army chief General Shankar Roychowdhury and defence analyst Ajai Shukla try to find ways for India to influence the events in Afghanistan. Roychowdhury [...]
The Chinese suffered heavy losses at Indian hands.
To all those in the Indian media who tend to skip to Amar Chitra Katha versions of 1962 while drawing parallels with 2009, here is a small reminder about what happened at Nathu La in the interregnum, in 1967.
When the forward Chinese troops suddenly opened machine gun fire [...]
What is their role? What is holding them back from achieving their potential?
MoS for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor — currently in the media spotlight due to a needless tweeting controversy — is doing something of great significance in his ministry. If this Times of India report is something to go by — and Tharoor has [...]
If this is India-friendly opinion, what is the centrist view in Pakistan.
When he was a young officer with the Pakistan army, he believed — till the mid-1970s — that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. Then, as a serving and a retired general, he was associated with a Indo-Pak Track-II diplomatic initiative called [...]
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