Swordarm » Archive
Send in the Army
Narendra Modi government’s bold move to demonetize high denomination notes in circulation and replacing them with new ones has by and large been welcomed by the people. With the exception of opposition parties, who are criticising it, trying hard to find flaws with the scheme. This is, of course, more out of political expediency, and probably pique at having suddenly lost a lot of political capital – both literally and figuratively. For the past three … Read entire article »
Filed under: Military, National Issues
An Open Letter to Aakar Patel
Dear Mr Patel, This is in response to your piece published in today’s TOI under a presumptuously named column ‘AakaarVani’. I’m writing this to correct you on some factual and a lot of perceptual errors that seem to behind almost every sentence in the piece. I’m writing in the hope that you may correct these, unless of course these aren’t inadvertent, but deliberate spin that you want to give to bolster the argument you make in the title of the piece. Let me start by pointing out the irony in the title itself, since having written it yourself, you obviously didn’t spot it. That an article criticizing the army and saying a lot of things about the faujis is titled “Nothing can be said about our faujis, they’re above criticism”. If irony … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial, Media, Military
Heroes amongst us
This Diwali, there was a special effort from the government to put the soldiers in the forefront of national consciousness. The prime minister himself celebrated Diwali amidst troops deployed on the remote frontiers, just as he had the past two years. In addition, this year there was a drive to connect the soldiers with people they fight to defend via the ‘Sandesh to Soldiers’ campaign. People were encouraged to send their message to soldiers via social … Read entire article »
Filed under: Military
Close Encounters
The trouble with opposition generated and media sustained hype about anything that could be used to embarrass the government is manifold. First, there seems to be no issue too serious, no institution too sacrosanct to avoid politicisation and sensationalizing. We recently witnessed major opposition parties casting serious aspersions on the credibility of the army by asking the government to furnish proof of the operations that the DGMO briefed media about. One regional leader of the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial
Karan Johar and Capt Boycott
Had Sir Charles Boycott been alive today, he may have empathized with Karan Johar. Wanting to get his lands harvested amidst protests from tenant farmers in 19th Century Ireland, Sir Charles resorted to hiring 50 workers from outside the county to do the work. The catch was that they had to work under protection of a 1000 strong force and the resultant cost was several times the profit from the harvest. Faced with a similar … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogitorial
When the tail wags the dog
The Armed Forces seem to be under siege. The adversary is neither as deadly as terrorists or enemy soldiers, nor as discernible as them. Silent, slow and insidious, the damage caused by them wouldn’t be in terms of mortal wounds or loss limbs, but the long term impact on morale and efficiency is likely to be much more damaging. The attackers are none other than people providing support and ancillary services required to keep the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Military
Feeding the wrong dog will kill off Twitter
In an insightful piece in the Mumbai Mirror, @PritishNandy has highlighted the reasons why he feels Twitter is dying. Commercialisation, politicisation, and the emergence of the much maligned supra nationalist troll – all these have led to a sharp decline in the quality of discourse. This, he feels, is directly reflected in the fall in the evaluation of Twitter’s price in the eyes of prospective buyers. He laments the end of open, intelligent debate and … Read entire article »
Aim before you shoot
Any military operation has clear aims. These differ at different levels, with the aim at the lower level contributing towards (but not necessarily fulfilling) the aim at the higher level. For example, the aim for a battalion commander could be to capture Hill ABC. For his GOC who assigned him the task, the capture would be a step towards securing his own, larger, aim – say the capture of Area XYZ which includes the Hill. … Read entire article »
Another Wednesday
The Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) is the most important appointment in the Indian Army and amongst the most important in the government as a whole. He is custodian and executor of the operational plans of the country. Even within the Tri-services milieu, he can be considered as Primus Inter Pares – the Airforce and Navy both have his counterparts in Air Operations and Naval Operations, but the DGMO heads Military and not Army … Read entire article »
Jaane Mat Do Yaaron
It wasn’t very long ago that media (or press, as it was better known as) enjoyed near universal public trust and respect as the fourth pillar of democracy (the legislature, executive and judiciary being the first three). This because of its onerous role of keeping the other three pillars honest. It was rightfully considered as people’s watchdog, representing their voice against corruption, injustice, malpractices and all other forms of exploitation that the people were otherwise … Read entire article »