...by the way | Ghost of Bofors

...by the way

Ghost of Bofors

THE officials in South Block are at their wits’ end. The Army needs to phase out all its medium and heavy field guns asap but whenever it initiates a step towards doing this, some problem or the other crops up. The process to acquire guns was initiated in 2006 and the Defence Ministry has allocated the funds. But the foreign purveyors of weaponry, especially artillery, are grappling with court cases in India. The top sellers of guns – Soltam of Israel, AB Bofors of Sweden, ST Technologies of Singapore, Rheinmetall Defence India of Germany and Denel of South Africa – are all facing court cases.

Whenever the process of selecting guns to be bought starts, complaints against the manufacturers reach all the investigating agencies. Senior officers can do nothing about it as there is an all-pervasive atmosphere of fear in the Ministry. They suspect that India’s enemies may have a role in engineering all this.

Skirting defence

AND here’s another quandary that the Ministry of Defence is grappling with. It is looking for a Joint Secretary to play the role of adviser to the Raksha Mantri (Delhispeak for Defence Minister). The Ministry of Personnel has drawn up a panel of names and sent it to Shashi Kant Sharma (Secretary, Defence). He is keen to get the appointment done but there is no candidate available. The ones on that list have politely declined.

The reason is that the fraternity of Joint Secretaries is well aware of the disadvantages of joining the Ministry of Defence. The moment an officer of that level joins, he or she comes under the scanner of all the investigating agencies.

And everyone has become even more cautious since the arrest of the former Secretary in the Ministry of Communication.

Cosmetic bureaucracy

RECENTLY, all IAS officers of the 1981 and 1982 batches and some from the 1983 one went to the US for a month-long training programme under the aegis of the Ministry of Personnel and Training. This is a routine programme for senior officers and the DoPT has made it mandatory. On their return, the training was capped off by a 10-day programme at Mussoorie, where they were addressed by the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shiv Raj Singh Chavan, and the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh.

Chavan declared that most of the officers had a negative attitude. Then he added that most of the work was done through Collectors and SPs, and the rest of the bureaucracy was quite redundant. Raman Singh said that two-thirds of his State was infested with Maoists and even he could not enter half of those areas. Ninety percent of the industrialists in his State paid money to the Maoists, “and I can’t do anything about it,” he said. He also said, “People call me chawal [rice] baba as I have streamlined the PDS.” The audience got the message – today, CMs need only efficient Collectors. The rest of the bureaucracy is decorative.

Red star over Leh?

THE intelligence agencies have uncovered some astonishing skullduggery by China on Indian territory. Beijing is reportedly trying to woo a Buddhist leader in Ladakh – the Gyalwang Drukpa. It seems the Chinese intelligence network has started trying to influence the Gyalwang Drukpa. Beijing has apparently offered His Holiness resources to buy land in Ladakh and elsewhere in India, and has also held out the promise of a large monastery in Tibet. Sources say the offer was turned down. The External Affairs Ministry and the PMO have been informed but there has been no reaction as yet. India’s intelligence agencies warn that Manmohan Singh should not repeat the mistake of Morarji Desai.