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 [...]
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 — [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Some essential readings on the first anniversary of Mumbai terror attacks.
Amidst the plethora of articles, blogposts, columns and news-items written in the print and the electronic media on the first anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks, here is my selection of eminently read-worthy material from the lot.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express and Nitin [...]
Does the central government have a concerted plan on Kashmir?
Think of small details as if they were pebbles you can use to start a ripple effect. ~Thomas J. Leonard
Swiftly and stealthily, the Indian government is steadily moving forward on Kashmir. Close on the heels of reports of a quiet dialogue with the separatists and push [...]
If it plans to melt into anonymity, the fleeing Maoist leadership can only be neutralised by intelligence from the local police.
Sankarshan Thakur warns the Indian government of one of the fall-outs of their voluble anti-Maoist strategy.
Intelligence inputs reaching here from parts of Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand suggest that large numbers of cadres may leave their [...]
Precedent of employing armed forces against the Naxals or the Mizos is not a good enough reason to employ them again now.
As far as the anti-Maoist operations are concerned, among the three essential component of any security strategy: ends, ways and means — the first one has been taken care of by a clear [...]
There is no alternative to this war against the Maoists. It must be thus resourced to the full.
There are two types of opposition to the anti-Maoist security operations planned by the Home ministry. The first one are the left-liberal bleeding hearts who are dead against any kind of security operations against the Maoists. It would [...]
…the state in fighting the naxals?
Most observers contend that the expertise earned by the Indian army in over five decades of counterinsurgency operations is not being utilised by the Indian state in its operations against Naxals. So how can the army practically help Indian government in fighting the naxals?
The most obvious — yet most [...]
Great in theory, problematic in practice.
The Times of India reports that senior army officers — with expertise in guerilla and jungle warfare — will be directly supervising a major offensive to be launched against the Maoists by the police and paramilitary forces in Jharkhand next month. From the contents of the report, it is difficult [...]
Metrics to measure progress essential, but nearly impossible to design.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. ~Samuel Clemens
Home minister’s strategy to take on the LWE threat is much in the media spotlight now. While it is great to lay out a strategy and provide resources to execute it, it is equally [...]
Development and governance can only follow in LWE-infested areas.
In his address to the to the graduating class of the United States Naval Academy in June 1961, John F. Kennedy eloquently noted:
You [military officers] must know something about strategy and tactics and logic-logistics, but also economics and politics and diplomacy and history. You must know everything [...]
Where is the government’s action plan to make them up?
The shortage of officers in the Indian army is too well known to be repeated here. And there is a nearly 43% shortage of cops in the state civil and state armed police forces all over the country. Yesterday in Parliament, the MoS for Home provided [...]
A red herring that serves little real purpose.
Indian Express reports that the centre is planning to open new army cantonments in LWE-infested areas, with Koraput and Jagdalpur being the ones to come up soon. The home ministry, which has proposed this idea, believes that these cantts will be a big help in countering the burgeoning [...]
Challenge lies in executing the strategy well.
The Indian government has admitted to having underestimated the problem of LWE — Left Wing Extremists, government terminology for the Naxals. Having made that admission of guilt (and complacency), the UPA government is desperate to show some action on that front. So the Home Minister has decided to raise [...]
There is 43% deficiency in state police forces.
Facts, like jade, are not only costly to obtain but also difficult to authenticate. ~Steven N.S. Cheung
In the aftermath of the 26-11 Mumbai terror attacks, the media was agog with stories about the shortcomings of police force in India. The usual lament was about the number of [...]
It was about central pay scales, not about military and its personnel.
[This guest post has been penned by this blog's favourite guest blogger, BeeCee. His earlier guest posts on the SCPC imboglio are here, here and here.]
The debate on the Civil vs Military aspects of the VI CPC report, it seems, will continue to simmer, [...]
Can Omar Abdullah match the execution of his plan to his statement of intent.
At the insistence of the Chief Minister of J&K, Omar Abdullah, the CRPF has been withdrawn from Baramulla district and replaced by the J&K police. The Union Home Minister has welcomed the move by stating that the “young chief minister in the [...]
Along with the politicians, the media must take the blame.
“Dead upon the field of glory,”
Hero fit for song and story. ~John Randolph Thompason
Forget the song and the story, this was not deemed fit even to make the news headlines. Of the national dailies that this blogger checked — The Hindu, Indian Express, The Times of [...]
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