Monthly Archives: August 2018

Our Correspondent

Jammu, December 29

With an aim to empower the youth of far-flung areas of Kishtwar, the Army organised computer classes for the youth.

The classes were aimed at imparting basic computer training to the youth to promote digital education. The initiative by the Army will not only provide employment to the youth of remote areas but will also go a long way in impacting and empowering their status in society.

The Army also organised a medical and veterinary camp in Kishtwar district. The camp comprised of a panel of highly qualified doctors from both the Army and civil administration.

Meanwhile, a medical camp was organised by the Army at Phagwari village and in remote areas of Bhimber Gali in Poonch to provide necessary medical treatment and advice to locals. The medical team carried out check-up and provided medicines to 320 locals.

Rajouri, December 29

Alert soldiers of the Army’s patrol party in forward location in the district have averted a major tragedy by detecting a powerful improvised explosive device (IED) planted either by terrorists or members of BAT team.

Sources said the IED was detected planted on an operational track meant for the surveillance of Line of Control or to check and thwart any attempt by the anti-national elements to cross the LoC.

The IED was detected in forward location in the Veer Bhadreshwar (locally known as PB) area in the Keri sector this afternoon.

“At about 4 pm one IED was detected by the Army in the Keri sector and was defused on the spot. The Army has averted a terror strike,” said Lt-Col Davender Anand, PRO, Defence. — OC

New Delhi, December 30

Lt Gen Manoj Mukund Naravane will take charge as the Chief of Army Staff on Tuesday succeeding Gen Bipin Rawat.

Gen Rawat is retiring on Tuesday as Army Chief after a three-year stint. He has been appointed as the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff.

Lt Gen Naravane is currently serving as Vice Chief of the Army.

Before taking charge as vice chief of the Army Staff in September, Lt Gen Naravane was heading the Eastern Command of the Army which takes care of India’s nearly 4,000-km border with China.

In his 37 years of service, Lt Gen Naravane has served in numerous command and staff appointments in peace, field and highly active counter-insurgency environments in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast.

He has also commanded a Rashtriya Rifles Battalion in Jammu and Kashmir and an infantry brigade on the eastern front.

He was also part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka and had served as India’s defence attache at the Indian Embassy in Myanmar for three years.

Lt Gen Naravane is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy.

He was commissioned into the 7th battalion, the Sikh Light Infantry Regiment in June 1980.

The general is a decorated officer who has been awarded the ‘Sena Medal’ (Distinguished) for effectively commanding his battalion in Jammu and Kashmir.

He is also a recipient of the ‘Vishisht Seva Medal’ for his services as the Inspector General Assam Rifles (North) in Nagaland and the ‘Ati Vishisht Seva Medal’ for commanding of a prestigious strike corps.

The sources said the new CDS is likely to take charge on January 1. The Defence Ministry on Saturday amended rules to allow the Chief of Defence Staff to serve up to a maximum age limit of 65 years.

The changes have been made in the services rules of the Army, Navy and the Indian Air Force for extension of retirement age of the Chief of Defence Staff to a maximum of 65 years if a service chief is appointed to the post.

However, the tenure of the CDS is yet to be announced.

In a landmark decision, the Cabinet Committee on Security had last Tuesday approved the creation of the CDS who will act as the principal military adviser to the defence minister on all matters relating to tri-services.

A key mandate of the CDS will be to facilitate restructuring of military commands for optimal utilisation of resources by bringing about jointness in operations, including through establishment of joint/theatre commands.

Officials said bringing about jointness in operation, logistics, transport, training, support services, communications, repairs and maintenance of the three services within three years will be another major mandate of the CDS.

The tri-service agencies, organisations and commands relating to cyber and space will be under the command of the CDS and he will also function as the Military Adviser to the Nuclear Command Authority.

Gen. Rawat assumed charge as Chief of Army Staff on December 31, 2016. Before becoming Army Chief, he handled various operational responsibilities in many areas, including along the LoC with Pakistan, the LAC with China and in the Northeast. — PTI

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 30 

Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat was on Monday appointed the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff whose mandate will be to bring in convergence in functioning of the Army, the Navy and the Indian Air Force.

According to a government order, Gen Rawat has been appointed CDS with effect from December 31.

He has been given an extension in service till the period he is serving as CDS.

Two days ago, the government amended service rules of the forces to allow the CDS to serve till 65 years of age.

Service chiefs serve till 62 or have a three-year tenure. General Rawat completes his three years tenure as Army chief tomorrow and he will turn 62 next year.

For the general, picked up as the first CDS of the country, ‘integrating’ the forces will be the prime task.

The general, whose father was senior officer, hails from Uttarakhand.

He was commissioned into the 5/11 Gorkha Rifles in 1978 when passed out from the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun. He was the ‘sword of honour’ of his batch, meaning the best performing cadet.

In February 2015, when posted as Commander of the 3 Corps at Dimapur, he was lucky enough to survive a helicopter crash.

In December 2016, he was picked up as Army chief superseding two senior-most Commanders of that time, Eastern Army Commander Lt Gen Parveen Bakshi and Southern-Army Commander Lt Gen PM Hariz.

Before December 2016, an Army commander was superseded was when General AS Vaidya was appointed Army chief in July 1983.

It was during General Rawat’s tenure as Army chief, that India and China were locked in stand-off at Doklam in 2017.

It was the second longest standoff between the Armies of the two countries along the un-demarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC).

An important lesson was repeated that militarily it’s important to stand ground against China.

On its part, the Indian side had dug in its heels in the military stand-off at Doklam. It was reminiscent of a similar event at Sumdrong Chu (October 1986 to May 1987) in north-western part of Arunachal Pradesh.

General Rawat, had just eight years of service in 1986 and as young major watched the moves of General K Sundarji who  launched ‘Operation Falcon’ and moved a brigade, some 3000 men, north of Tawang using IAF helicopters

General Rawat has vast experience in high-altitude warfare and counter-insurgency operations.

He commanded an Infantry battalion at Kibithoo along the Line of Actual Control in the eastern-most corner of Arunachal Pradesh.

The service chiefs, when appointed, are usually given a tenure of three years or till they attain the age of 62 years, whichever is earlier. There is no mention of a fixed tenure in the gazette notification stating the retirement age for the CDS.

The Cabinet Committee on Security approved the creation of the CDS on December 24, in a landmark decision. (Photo: PTI)

The Central government on Saturday notified the retirement age for the newly created post of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) as 65 years, which will be three years more than the retirement age of the three service chiefs.

The service chiefs, when appointed, are usually given a tenure of three years or till they attain the age of 62 years, whichever is earlier. There is no mention of a fixed tenure in the gazette notification stating the retirement age for the CDS.

The Union Cabinet had cleared the appointment of the CDS on December 24 in a four-star rank at par with the three service chiefs. He would be responsible for achieving “jointness in operation, logistics, transport, training, support services, communications, repairs and maintenance of the three services” within three years of assuming office.

As per the Cabinet decision, the CDS will also serve as the permanent chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) which comprises the three service chiefs. So far, the chairmanship of the COSC has not been permanent and is held in rotation by the senior-most service chief, which has caused problems of inadequate attention and short tenures as Chairman, COSC.

General Bipin Rawat, the outgoing Army Chief, who retires on December 31, is seen as the frontrunner to be named as the first CDS. As the seniormost service chief, he holds the post of Chairman, COSC, which he was scheduled to hand over to the Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh on Friday.

But the Defence Ministry announced at the last minute that the ceremony had been postponed to December 31. The sudden postponement of the ceremony led to speculation that an announcement of the name of the new CDS was expected in the next couple of days.

A shortlist of five officers is believed to have been prepared by the ministry for the cabinet committee on appointments to take a decision. It has been assumed that as the biggest service among the three, the Army will have the first CDS and this may subsequently be rotated among the two other smaller services.

HIS PARTY’S VOICE

Manish Tewari, member of Parliament, Anandpur Sahib

Erudite and argumentative lawyer-politician Manish Tewari, who first made a bid for a Lok Sabha nomination as the Congress candidate from Chandigarh, but was fielded from Anandpur Sahib instead to win the seat, remained one of the most prominent faces of the Congress this year. From one television channel to another, one press conference to another, Tewari has been holding forth on various issues such as the scrapping of Article 370 which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir or the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act. The next few years, given his connect with Chandigarh, are likely to see Tewari playing a bigger role in city politics.

Col DS Cheema (retd)

For 20 long years, I served in ‘peace’ locations before being posted to a field station in 1986, only the second time in my entire career. The first was in NEFA in 1964 after I had just completed the Young Officer’s Course.

I was looking forward to joining a unit in high altitude, but my wife wanted me to wriggle out of that posting. Without my knowledge, she spoke to the medical specialist at the Military Hospital, Secunderabad, who was incidentally a neighbour, and, as it turned out, more than willing to downgrade my medical category. But, I put my foot down and told my wife I did not want to be labelled as a softy who had chickened out at the prospect of a tough challenge. Commanding a battalion in a difficult terrain is a lifetime opportunity; I could not have missed it. I landed at the Leh airfield in the summer of 1986.

Those days there was only one Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) battalion to provide support to equipment, weapon systems and vehicles deployed on borders along our two adversaries, China and Pakistan. This meant I had to move to forward locations quite often, sometimes in a chopper. I remember how thrilled I was when I used one the first time to visit my men in Chushul. I looked forward to more such opportunities.

In the meantime, a flight of Cheetah helicopters was attached to our Division. The Officer Commanding, a Lieutenant Colonel, and three other officers of the Air Op flight were accommodated in my battalion’s Officer’s Mess as it was a stone’s throw from the airfield. They would discuss their routine flight schedules with me at the breakfast table and ask whether I would like to avail any of the flights planned for the day. I could not accept their generous offers because of one reason or another.

However, one day, I made up my mind to move to one of my units at Darbuk (which means ‘gateway to hell’ in local parlance), and checked up with the OC if they would be flying to that location. He denied and I postponed my visit. Later that day, the Adjutant informed me that the chopper I could have travelled in had crashed and one of the officers on board had lost his life.

Another time that I narrowly escaped death was when I was asked to accompany the GOC (Maj Gen DD Saklani) and another General from AHQ (Maj Gen Afsar Karim) in a chopper to a forward location across Khardung La, where one of my workshops was also located. After reaching the destination, I went to the workshop to sort out certain issues of logistics and, as planned, reached the Brigade Officer’s Mess for lunch. The two Generals joined soon. Around 2.30 pm, the pilot approached me to request the GOC to move to the helipad at the earliest. By the time we reached the helipad, it was 3.15 pm. Strong winds had started blowing by then and the pilot expressed his reservations about flying. But the Generals insisted and he relented.

En route to Leh, the helicopter had to manoeuver a kind of tunnel formed by the shoulders of two mountains. Our chopper was at the mercy of winds defying controls of the pilot. The General from AHQ, himself an Air Op pilot, tried to give some instructions to the pilot but sensing the seriousness of the situation, the GOC told him to shut up in no uncertain terms. We were on tenterhooks for almost 20 minutes during which the three of us, all from different faiths, must have said our respective prayers.

The scene at the airport explained how we had cheated death because of the presence of mind shown by our hero, the pilot. Anticipating a tragedy, many fire tenders were in operational mode and the staff were ready for action to handle any untoward incident.