In Srinagar, back Tuesday

Accha….one more honeymoon after Kasauli? So is Madam also there. Good. Now together both can celebrate Karva Chauth and Soumya can actually rest in peace waiting for justice, while you all celebrate!!

Dear Shiv,
I finally took up that invitation to vist your blog and read what you had to write about the fusillade of your former boss and now Chief Editor of Indian Express.

I would have believed each and every word you wrote about how virtuous he is, after all blood flows thicker than rum and water. But alas, my views remain unchanged.

For 60 years – from the 1948 incursion and Pt Nehru (may his soul rest in peace) expressed views that the Army should be disbanded, it has been one steep slope. The Committee of Secretaries took it upon themselves to over-rule Justice Srikrisha's Pay Commission, perhaps even Smt Sushama Nath did not have the guts to tell the CoS That what they were doing was wrong.

Chief Editor wrote about two war memorials – was it intentional? Was it a hint that the present Chiefs should/would be consigned to one or both or that Chief Editor would build another one for them for taking a courageous stand against the CoS?

For many years there has been a strong rumour that a former PM advised his successors both NDA and UPA that they should never agree to the CDS – because he would become more powerful and one day imitate our neighbours!

No, the Armed Forces are not inclined to act that way.

Perhaps lessons of 1998 were not lost on the present CAS (he was an air cmde) tried to put out the fires that CAS Sareen stoked in the IAF by wanting to pay different scales of flying pay. Perhaps he shared his feelings and the ground swell with the CNS & Chairman COSC and COAS and they decided to pre-empt any public displays of resentment or worse, demonstrations by Armed Forces PBOR, even Officers.

No, the Babus or the Govt cannot subdue the Armed Forces into subservience because you know what the others do to tackle violence inside India.

I had a lot of respect for Shekhar Gupta. Now I am not so sure he fits into that image you painted.

appreciate the effort, shiv. post good quality photos when you get the chance. thanks.

please check your facts before reporting. the gun carried by the guard in the picture is not TAR-21. i have noticed that you have misreported facts many times before as well. the brigadier general in the story dated oct 8th is holding TAR-21. just a friendly reminder.

I am getting Emotioanlly Tired !!

I worte in one of the Forums"

"My Dear Bureaucrat and Fuji Bothers,

You both do your job and not each others jobs. Undersatnding that will auger very well for the society and the Country. Do not dictate terms to each other. IAS meddling in each and every Govt Deptt has No good to the Country.Fauzies questionig is also out of way at times. IAS people are also our countrymen, well wishers, intellectual and thinking people. They are paid to think good and not lord over all. That I think is not their mandate or Job.

So far as Defense of the Country is Concerned, Prince Charles discarges his National duties by serving in Afganistan. Gorge Bush is booed in USA for avoiding Vietnam. more than sixty percent of the Bureaucrats and the Politicians have had service in the Armed Forces. Since it is a matter of Call of the Nation, they do not and can not avoid it.

If the present attitude towards the Armed Forces continues to be what is exhibited on the board, then Ambani, Ratan Tatas, Manmohans or Chandrasekhars will have to contribute to the Defense including in physical service. No realist and sane person can have doubts about it. When the Armed fores are sabotages the elites of society are put in servitude. Read any kind of leterature or idelogy or history. That elite who is incable to defend himself or relies on other to defend him is not fit to govern.

Unfortunately, when it comes to paying the soldiers, they are indeed paid well all over the world. Under our dispensesation, if you pay your soldiers the pay of a peon as it is today please do not expect soldiering from him. You pay him as semi skilled worker, you have no right to demand his life from him and do not expect him to protect you. Peons and Semiskilled workers are not employed for protection and not supposed to be soldiers.

Since you all are mature and so called intellectuals, you all must understand the "Principles of Payment". If you pay Army Officer as PMF officer , you have no right whatsoever to ask him to discharge duties of Army Officer. He is morally obliged to metally restrict himself to PMF officer.

Why outshout and denigrate each other?. This is not a Ten Yearly Debate Competions nor an election of your College Union. Governance is a serious business whaich appers to away from many of us.

Defense of the Borders is none of your business. If it is your concern, at all, in any manner than it should be supportive and obstructive.

Why make Mound of an Ant Hill. If the Chief s of the Armed Forces are chidded and insulted this way who would like to be the Chief of Armed Forces in this Country??

Armed forces constituting 1.7 million citizens< are part of citizenry and Democracy. They are as good a part of the Govt as any body else. Do you pay "Keep Quite" allowances to the Armed Forces that they should not speak?

Look they are 1.7 million and a strong 20 thousand well motivated and well trained / educated bums in the form of very well charged officers. Democratic system is ingrained in their blood but if you push them back to the wall, you know what would happen.

You are leading to a denial of every thing to those gleaming rays of hope on those two drawning eys which lit up on seeing Armed forces uniform men in die emergencies. You do not know that the masses in this country have so much faith on them that when every thing else fails and disappars they have a hope of life on the sight of a uniformed man of the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces do not project any image of Caste, Creed, Religion, Political affliation, regionalism. Soldiers are the last hope for the billions marooned in this Country when the time of reckoning arrives for them.

One has just see it sometimes to believe it. When I rememebr many episodes and incidents and also see how my elite Countrymen are treating that last straw for the drawning poor, I feel like crying out.

I was told by many Pundits that it is very difficult to be born as a human but more difficult than that is to be priviledged to be a man in Uniform defending others and your Country. Today, I literally wail aloud with streming tears rolling down may eyes and in abject agony tell all those old men that they told me a lie. Geeta has been made rediculios by the IAS in India and that has also been rewritten in favour of them.

Be worth class A officers to understand bad consequences for everyone. I assure you, the lording over period of IAS are over. It is just the begining and the consequences are going to be painfull for all.Their lordship is over at least in the minds of the Armed Forces Officers. And that is what matters the most.

I shall request Fauji brothers not to agitate but adopt "IAS" means only to beat them back. They would instigate you to provoke and the prove their point like today they are maligning every Fauji. But You have to do what you think will restore your place in the society and the Government and cast this menance off your back.

To my IAs brothers. You are making too much of a noise in the Name of Democracy. Elections are nearby and let us make it as one of the maj election issues. Do not renegade on the referendum on the issue even if you loos by 99 perecent to one percent. You are "Servents" of public not their masters, a lesson which even today needs to taught to you all in disciplined Military Style.

Thanks and Regards.

its’s not tavor. it’s F2000 made by the Belgian armament manufacturer Fabrique Nationale (FN) in Herstal. let us not have any more arguments about it. check out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_F2000).