Indian soldiers 'paraded naked'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6243946.stm
Recent BBC report from Srinagar said that - Two Indian soldiers have been paraded naked for allegedly attempting to rape a girl in Indian-administered Kashmir, police say.


The Army has already ordered a Court of Inquiry. Should the report be true, I can assure you it wont be brushed under the carpet. The guilty will definitely face exemplary punishment. The Corps commander has already visited the affected the family to ascertain facts of the case. Lets see what turns out to be the truth.

China's Road to Everest

Much has been said about China's Road to Everest: Here is a typical report ... and my analysis, from a military perspective:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/storypage/storypage.aspx?id=b359e263-bec5-4f54-8dda-1bee707cccf8&&Headline=Everest+road+won%e2%80%99t+hurt+us%2c+say+officials

In mountainous regions, countries sharing borders deliberately go slow on development of infrastructure. This is because a better infrastructure speeds up movement of forces if the neighbouring country is known to harbour belligerent intentions. Now, if the movement of forces is slow, there will be ample time to detect unusual activity along the borders and take pre-emptive measures.

The second reason for deliberately maintaining poor infrastructure on mountainous borders is to slow down the aggressor, in case he has managed to infiltrate into own territory. A small body of men tactically sited to advantage can hold back a large army formation in the mountains. If a better infrastructure exists, the enemy can use the same infrastructure to make rapid ingress into own territory.

These are some of the military aspects of the issue. There are others like political, economic and social that you can think of; the over riding consideration will be the region's resources, attitude/religion of the local population and the neighbouring country. What holds true for India and China/Pakistan cannot hold true for the USA and Canada, for eg.

Land Dispute Army and Civilian Authorities

Found another report on the same issue:

http://www.gujaratglobal.com/nextSub.php?id=2898&catype=NEWS

Why single out Gujarat for encroachment on Army land when the story is the same in almost all the states ? I do not have the exact statistics with me but have seen evidence of this whereever I ahve gone. The Civil Military Liaision Conferrences (CMLC) are held more as a social event than working out solutions to tricky problems. If at all, prblems of the civil administration take precedence over those faced by the defence forces.

Strategic issues are normally left for the higher echlons in the govt and defence forces to sort out. Once in a while international conflicts do act as waking up calls, but these are generally relegated to oblivion once the conflict is resolved. So much for our long term planning. unfortunately, this attitude is not reserved just for Army land, but is vividly seen in all areas of administrative responsibilty.



Keywords: "Indian Army"

Army Land and the Gujrat Government

Comments on a recent article in : http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/May/subcontinent_May1133.xml§ion=subcontinent&col=

if the civil administration wants the place vacated, it should be done immediately. The Army not paying rent of Rs 370/- is laughable. But this kind of things do happen when there has been peace for some time. So, seen in that context, it is a good thing. There are people who have gone to the extent of suggesting that there should be a drop in the number of men in the army and that the army should be withdrawn from J & K and all that. By the way, the later suggestion is being vigorously pursued by CM of the concerned State.

Those who have read history know that a country maintains defence forces as an instrument of its foreign policy and the strenght of the forces is directly proportional to capabilities of its enemies. It has nothing to do with the current ground situation. The ground situation can change in a day, but you cannot raise a well trained and unified fighting machine overnight. History has always reserved bitter lessons for people who advocate a nation's courses ignoring this age old military philosophy.