Latest news with #BPR&D
News18
a day ago
- News18
'All Because Of The Boss': CISF Jawans Forced To Give Guard Of Honour Against Rules
Last Updated: According to News18 Hindi, CISF Headquarters sent the BPR&D manual instructing strict adherence to rules, but Guard of Honour is still given to unauthorised individuals A recent controversy has emerged within the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) regarding the adherence to the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) manual for the provision of a Guard of Honour. According to a News18 Hindi report, earlier in July, the Union Home Secretary attended a CRPF function as the chief guest but was not given a Guard of Honour, in line with BPR&D guidelines, which do not permit such honours for his position. In contrast, a similar situation unfolded within the CISF when the General Manager (GM) of a plant was scheduled to join. Despite the plant management's request for a Guard of Honour, the unit commander reportedly refused, citing BPR&D rules. According to News18 Hindi, some officers of the plant approached the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) concerned. When the DIG made a recommendation call to the unit commander, he cited the BPR&D rules. The DIG agreed and also expressed his inability to grant a Guard of Honour to the GM. Following this, the plant officers reportedly approached the Inspector General (IG). When the unit commander received a recommendation call from the IG, he again referred to the BPR&D rules. However, unlike the DIG, the IG did not agree. This practice is reported to occur not only on the arrival and departure of the GM but also on Republic Day and other events organised in the plant. The CISF unit commander is reportedly forced to carry out the Guard of Honour unwillingly under the directions of senior officers. Speaking to News18 Hindi on the condition of anonymity, an officer said the Guard of Honour is carried out solely to please the plant management and ensure their minor wishes are fulfilled. He said that if this practice stops, the management may get upset, and their requests could go unheeded. The officer added that the CISF headquarters is aware of this practice and had even issued an order in 2024 to stop it. CISF Orders Strict Adherence To Guard of Honour Rules News18 Hindi reported that an order issued by the CISF Training Branch on May 30, 2024 noted that during a visit to a CISF unit, the Director General found inconsistencies in the way the Guard of Honour was being conducted. While some units followed the BPR&D guidelines, others did not. According to News18 Hindi, the CISF Headquarters had sent the BPR&D manual to all units along with the order, instructing that the Guard of Honour be conducted strictly as per the guidelines. However, reports indicate that this directive has largely been ignored, and Guards of Honour are still being given to unauthorised individuals. The latest instance reportedly occurred in April, when a Guard of Honour was given to a corporation chairman during his assumption of charge. According to CISF officials, giving Guards of Honour to unauthorised persons has become a serious concern, making it difficult for personnel to maintain decorum. Speaking to News18 Hindi, an official said that with Independence Day on August 15, preparations for Guard of Honour are already underway in most units, forcing them once again to honour unauthorised individuals. Who Can Be Given The Guard Of Honour? According to BPR&D rules, the Guard of Honour can be given only to the President, Vice-President, Prime Minister, Union Home Minister, Union Minister of State for Home, Governor, Chief Minister, state Home Ministers, Director General of Police, Additional Director General of Police, Inspector General, and Deputy Inspector General. Additionally, the rules allow the Guard of Honour to be presented to the Head of a Foreign State, Vice Head of a Foreign State, Head of a Diplomatic Mission, and Head of a Foreign Police Force. Click here to add News18 as your preferred news source on Google. Get breaking news, in-depth analysis, and expert perspectives on everything from politics to crime and society. Stay informed with the latest India news only on News18. Download the News18 App to stay updated! tags : CISF commander CRPF Guard of Honour independence day rules training view comments First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
The Print
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Print
Caged parrot or fearless eagle? India should give the Shastri formula a try
Readers may recall the previous column on the Santhanam Committee appointed by then-Home Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to look into all aspects of corruption among public servants. The present format of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) can be traced to his statement in the Lok Sabha on 23 January 1963: 'The CBI will investigate cases of corruption in which Central government servants are involved, cases in which the interests of any PSUs or any Statutory Body financed by the Government of India are involved, cases of fraud, cheating, embezzlement etc., relating to Public Joint stock companies, and also at the request of, or with the concurrence of states concerned, cases where organised gangs or professional criminals, having ramifications in several states are involved. The Bureau will describe statistics of all India importance relating to crime, conduct Police research including the analysis of trends and causes of crime, and make special studies of certain types of crimes having all India, or interstate ramifications or of crime having particular importance from the social point of view'. The war ended, but the scourge of corruption did not. In fact, in 1946, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the interim Home Member, piloted a resolution in the Central Assembly for the creation of the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act , thereby extending the scope to investigate corruption among central government employees anywhere in the country. The agency's administrative control moved from the War and Supply Department to the Home Ministry. The Government of India Act of 1935 clearly listed public order and police, along with the PWD, agriculture, health, and education, as among the 54 subjects in the Provincial List. However, when the Second World War started in 1939, the War and Supply Department of India got an expansive mandate with a hitherto unprecedented budget. Suddenly, the department was inundated with complaints of corruption and nepotism. Following this, the government issued executive instructions in 1941 for the setting up of a Special Police Establishment (SPE) under this department to look into these complaints at Lahore — with Qurban Ali as the superintendent and Rai Bahadur Karam Chand Jain as the legal advisor. In 1942, officers and contractors associated with the railways were also brought within its domain. As the jurisdiction of the SPE was challenged in the High Court, the Imperial government notified Ordinance XXII of 1943 conferring legal sanction and authority to the establishment of a Special Police Establishment within the Department of War and Supply. The original mandate of the CBI is now shared by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), and the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The BPR&D, established by the MHA in 1970, looks into the interface of law with practices on ground zero, technology upgrades, and best exemplars. The NCRB came up in 1986 with the core mission of collecting, analysing, and disseminating crime data across India. One month after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, in which about 170 people were killed across multiple locations in the city, the NIA was set up to probe terror attacks in any part of the country, covering offences including challenges to the country's sovereignty and integrity, bomb blasts, counterfeit currency, hijacking of aircraft and ships, and attacks on nuclear installations. However, CBI continues to be India's nodal point for interaction with the Interpol on matters connected with global crime where inter-country collaboration is required. As things stand today, the CBI has a sanctioned strength of 7,295 personnel, and has field offices across the country. Also read: From 'Jai Kisan' to CVC, Shastri walked the talk. But corruption proved harder to root out The de facto control of the MHA Since 1985, when the Department of Personnel and Training was carved out of the MHA, the CBI has been functioning under DoPT. After the directions of the Supreme Court in the Vineet Narain vs Union of India case of 1997, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) Act of 2003 was amended to empower the Commission to review the progress relating to cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Additionally, the Supreme Court and the High Court also monitor the progress of specific cases. However, the de facto control of the CBI is firmly entrenched in the MHA, for it is the cadre controlling authority for the IPS, and Home Minsters have always had greater political heft than the ministers of personnel. The saving grace is that for quite some time — and now almost like a convention — the minister of state for personnel also has concurrent responsibilities in the PMO. The agency has had its highs and lows. While it has been called a 'caged parrot' by the Supreme Court, it is also the soaring eagle which is called upon to investigate some of the most complex cases with manifold implications cutting across states, sectors, realtors, regulators, and political pressures. It has built its reputation as a premier crime investigation agency by securing prosecution in many high profile cases including the Harshad Mehta, Priyadarshini Mattoo, Sant Singh Chatwal, Purulia arms drop, the Harchand Singh Longowal, and the Tipu Sultan's sword and antiquities theft case. But many others like the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, 2G spectrum, coal block allocation, Arushi Talwar, and the Sunanda Pushkar case have remained unresolved, or resulted in acquittals. The agency has also been accused of playing to the tune of the ruling party in the Centre. And in a reflection of the fractured polity of our times, several Opposition-ruled states — West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Jharkhand, and Punjab— have withdrawn their 'prior general consent' to CBI for investigation required under Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, 1946. But perhaps the biggest damage to the agency was done by its own helmsmen — two of whom being AP Singh and Ranjit Sinha – who were the subject of the agency's investigation itself. In fact, AP Singh had to resign from the UPSC after allegations of his proximity to infamous meat exporter Moin Qureshi came to the fore. Ranjit Sinha's visitors' diary had names of many of the accused in the 2G scam. The Qureshi factor was also at play in the Ranjit Sinha case. Also read: India can't fix food security with more grain alone. FCI at 60 needs a nutrition agenda Books by CBI officers One of the best ways of understanding the inner sinews of an organisation is to look at the books, published papers, and public interviews of the officers who have spent decades in it. This column has drawn from the works of five CBI officers — Shantonu Sen, AP Mukherji, Joginder Singh, RK Raghavan, and SK Datta. The one underlying theme in all of these is that the professional competence of this agency has often been sacrificed at the altar of political expediency. Former CBI Director AP Mukherjee worked with three titanic leaders and wrote about his experiences with them in his book Unknown Facets of Rajiv Gandhi, Jyoti Basu, Indrajit Gupta. He enjoyed the confidence of all three, even though they came from three different political streams. While both Basu and Gupta were from the Left, the politics of CPM and CPI was often at odds. Mukherjee acknowledges that while Rajiv Gandhi — apparently — stood for a certain value-based politics, he turned a Nelson's eye to the diversion of funds from big ticket purchases like Bofors, Airbus, and HDW submarines for political activities, giving credence to the popular aphorism: there is no smoke without fire. In his trilogy — CBI: Tales from The Big Eye, CBI Insider Speaks, and Corruption, CBI and I — Shantonu Sen ponders on whether the organisation he served for three decades was a 'fearless eagle', which it was intended to be, or a 'caged parrot' which it became when senior officers chose the 'proffered crumbs' to the 'independence of the skies'. As long as the cases did not impinge on the ruling dispensation of the day, there was functional autonomy. But if the PM, or for that matter the PMO, was involved, the agency was quick to take the necessary hint. Joginder Singh, another former CBI director, was involved in the probe of many high profile cases including the 2G scam, and wrote 25 books some of which — including Corruption: A Threat to Indian Bureaucracy and Inside CBI — were a compilation of newspaper columns and public speeches delivered at various forums. He also wrote his autobiography Without Fear or Favour . RK Raghavan's A Road Well Travelled documents some of the most high profile cases — Bofors scam, in which he acknowledged the support received by the agency from journalist Chitra Subramanian, Rajiv Gandhi assassination, the match-fixing scandal of 2000 involving cricketers Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja, and the SIT on the 2002 Gujarat riots in which the present Prime Minister was given a clean chit. Then we have SK Datta's CBI Top Cop Recalls in which he points to the political pressure on the CBI to go easy on Warren Anderson of the Union Carbide Corporation, Sajjan Singh in the anti-Sikh riot cases, and Sanjay Singh in the Syed Modi murder case . Well, the message from these books is loud and clear. Exceptions apart, at the end of the day, for all the high claims of professionalism, the political leadership calls the shots, especially when Prime Ministers are critically dependent on the coalition dharma. While the damage may not be visible in the short run, nations which dent their institutional capacities run the risk of facing aggravated dangers — both external and internal. The CBI's crest has three words emblazoned on it — industry, impartiality, and integrity — and if the agency adopted these in letter and spirit, it would indeed live up to the ideals and expectations which Shastri had for this organisation. This is the fifth article in a series on Lal Bahadur Shastri and the institutions he helped establish. Sanjeev Chopra is a former IAS officer and Festival Director of Valley of Words. Until recently, he was director, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. He tweets @ChopraSanjeev. Views are personal. Disclosure: The columnist is a trustee of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial (LBS Museum). (Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
The Hindu
11-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
It is only now a decisive step has been taken to repeal archaic colonial laws: Retired judge
The Department of Law at the Central University of Karnataka (CUK) in association with the Central Detective Training Institute, Bengaluru, and the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), Union Ministry of Home Affairs, organised a seminar on New Criminal Laws on Friday as part of the 'One Day, One University' campaign. Delivering the keynote address, retired Principal Sessions and District Judge Kadloor Satyanarayanacharya described the recent overhaul of criminal laws as a long-overdue step in dismantling colonial legal legacies. 'Those old laws were imposed during colonial rule and for the past 74 years we have not considered revising or repealing them. It is only now, after the 75th year of Independence, that we have taken a decisive step to repeal those archaic colonial laws,' he said. He further noted that legal reform is essential for maintaining social stability and upholding the liberties of citizens and the sovereignty of the nation as guaranteed by the Constitution. Deputy Inspector-General of BPR&D Rajashekara N., who was the chief guest, emphasised that laws should be citizen-centric and urged police personnel to adopt updated procedural norms for effective investigations. 'Mechanisms such as zero FIRs and e-FIRs must be understood and implemented. Our students must familiarise themselves with these laws to protect their rights,' he said. Presiding over the event, Registrar of Central University R.R. Biradar stressed the importance of legal reforms in responding to modern challenges. 'We must identify outdated colonial legislation and replace them with contemporary laws. As cybercrimes increase daily, our legal frameworks must evolve to keep pace,' he remarked. Dean of the School of Legal Jurisprudence Studies Basavaraj M. Kubakaddi welcomed the gathering and provided the introductory remarks. Faculty members Anant D. Chinchure, Renuka S. Gubbewad, Jayanta Boruah, Pavitra Alur, Chennaveer, Vijayendra Pandey, Ravi Khangai and research scholars and students from the Department of Law were present.
Time of India
09-06-2025
- Time of India
Asia Book Record honours ASI in Rajasthan police for his book
Jaisalmer: An assistant sub-inspector at the cyber crime police station in Jaisalmer and resident of Kohra village, Dr. Jalam Singh, has earned a spot in the Asia Book of Records for his award-winning book Economic Crimes and Police. Written in Hindi while serving as a head constable in the Rajasthan Police, the book has brought recognition to both Rajasthan Police and Jaisalmer district. The book was published in 2020 by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. It was officially released on June 10, 2020. TNN
Time of India
22-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
BPRD launches hackathon for innovative CCTV solutions to enhance law enforcement
This is an AI-generated image, used for representational purposes only. NEW DELHI: The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) is organising a hackathon to encourage innovators, start-ups and research institutions to devise and develop indigenous, secure, scalable and cost-effective CCTV solutions tailored to the specific needs of different Indian law enforcement agencies (LEAs). The curtain raiser event of the hackathon, being organised in association with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and CyberPeace Foundation, was held on May 9, 2025, in the presence of DG, BPRD; Director, NCRB; and the Inspector General (Modernisation) in BPRD. The hackathon furthers Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of creating a cyber-secure Bharat. The 'grand finale' of the hackathon shall be held in the last week of June 2025, following which the top three entries will be awarded cash prizes. The winning solutions achieved from the hackathon are expected to play a transformative role in enhancing transparency, accountability, and operational efficiency in policing BPR&D is playing a pivotal role in creating a cyber-secure Bharat with its technical expertise and experience. The aim of BPR&D is to foster home-grown technological solutions that not only meet operational requirements but also contribute significantly to national security and public safety. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trade Bitcoin & Ethereum – No Wallet Needed! IC Markets Start Now Undo Four problem statements have been released, focusing on key areas of CCTV innovation: development of secure and indigenous CCTV hardware and systems, integration of Artificial Intelligence and smart video analytics, strengthening cyber security across CCTV networks, and designing affordable and efficient surveillance solutions. Besides the three cash rewards, five consolation prizes will go to select entries that demonstrate exceptional promise and creativity. The top entry will be given Rs 5-lakh monetary award with the second and third entries getting Rs 3 lakh and Rs 1 lakh respectively. The winning solutions achieved from the hackathon are expected to play a transformative role in enhancing transparency, accountability, and operational efficiency in policing, MHA said in a statement.
