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The Hindu
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Review of Commanded by Destiny by S.M. Shrinagesh
Commanded by Destiny is a breezy anecdotal memoir of the Indian Army's fourth Indian chief between 1955 and 1957. The USP of the narrative lies in its sweeping landscape and accurate recollection of military and political events during the fledgling years of India's evolution as a nation-state. Adding value is General Shrinagesh's prescient views on several important issues such as civil-military relations, the necessity for an integrated national security architecture and federalism. The book begins with an interesting peek into General Shrinagesh's privileged childhood and education followed by his entry into the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Navigating the public school environment in England with ease and choosing a military career over a confirmed entry into Cambridge, Shrinagesh's early military career commenced in the mid-1920s as one of the early Kings Commissioned Officers (KCIOs). After a relatively peaceful but interesting five years in Upper Burma with a Pioneer Regiment (the precursor to engineer regiments), he transferred to the Infantry and moved to the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) where his operational baptism took place in fighting and maintaining the peace in the restive tribal areas of what is now called the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Facing a dilemma Missing out on most of the action during the Burma Campaign in World War II, Shrinagesh does not hesitate to offer his views on the dilemma that faced the Indian Army on the status of the Subhas Chandra Bose-led Indian National Army and how mutiny was unacceptable in a military. One of the most detailed parts of the book is reserved for his role as the Corps Commander in charge of the two divisions that saw all the action in the first India-Pakistan War of 1947-48. The narrative around the sieges of Leh and Poonch is riveting and his recollections of specific actions and operational plans are excellent. An unabashed admirer of Jawaharlal Nehru, there is little mention in the book of Nehru when the author discusses some of the post-Independence instances of politico-military dissonance such as the creation of a 'citizen army' rather than a professional army, or the downsizing of the Indian Army in the face of a growing Chinese threat. General Shrinagesh took over the Indian Army in 1955 at a time when peace-time hubris had set in into India's armed forces. Though he spent much time in ensuring that organisational restructuring and training was not neglected, there is little to suggest that there was any serious evaluation of national security threats in the face of a government that was unwilling to be realistic in its approach to regional geopolitics. The China angle With respect to the China debacle too, Shrinagesh is cagey in his memoir to assign accountability to both the political and military leaderships, possibly because of his deep respect for Nehru and not wanting to criticise his peers with whom he had shaped the trajectory of the post-independence army. Transiting with ease and finesse to post-retirement assignments in the academic and gubernatorial domains, his understanding of what it would take to train good administrators at the Administrative Staff College and the responsibilities of a governor in a federal structure and troubled regions such as Nagaland is striking. A slightly jarring aspect of the book for discerning readers emerges in the editorial segment. There is no indication of sources and references or when and how the memoir was written, or why it has emerged only now, nearly five decades after the general's demise. Some appendices comprising the notes left behind by the general would have added value and authenticity. However, in the final analysis, this is an eminently readable book. The reviewer is a retired Air Vice Marshal from the IAF and a military historian Commanded by Destiny: A General's Rise from Soldier to Statesman S.M. Shrinagesh Penguin Veer ₹699
News18
25-05-2025
- Business
- News18
King Maha Vajiralongkorn, The World's Richest Monarch, Owns 300 Cars And 38 Jets
Last Updated: Unlike most billionaires, King Vajiralongkorn's fortune is built on a long-standing royal legacy, combined with strategic modern investments. Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn, or King Rama X, is reportedly the richest king worldwide. According to Business Standard, his vast wealth has brought him international recognition, surpassing many billionaires. King Maha Vajiralongkorn's wealth is truly staggering, estimated at around Rs 3.7 lakh crore (approximately USD 43 billion). This fortune stems from both a vast inheritance and extensive investments. He reportedly owns an incredible 17,000 properties in Bangkok, along with over 300 luxury cars from every top brand imaginable. His collection goes beyond land vehicles—he is said to possess 38 private jets, showcasing his love for extravagant travel. And if that wasn't enough, the King also reportedly owns 52 gold-decorated boats, highlighting his passion for luxury rides on water as well. King Vajiralongkorn's assets span land, air, and sea, making him one of the wealthiest and most lavish monarchs in the world. King Maha Vajiralongkorn comes from a distinguished royal lineage, with his father, Bhumibol Adulyadej, being one of the world's longest-serving monarchs. Following the death of his father in 2016, Vajiralongkorn officially took the throne in 2019. King Bhumibol died on October 13, 2016, at the age of 88. Vajiralongkorn took the throne and inherited much more than just the crown. Born to King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit, he had a diverse education spanning several countries. According to Reuters, he completed his schooling in Thailand, the United Kingdom, and Australia before enrolling at Canberra's prestigious Royal Military College. There, he earned a bachelor's degree in military studies. Throughout his life, King Vajiralongkorn has been married four times, with each marriage drawing significant public and media interest. His personal life often makes headlines, much like his lavish spending habits. Despite facing criticism and controversy, the King continues to be one of the richest and most influential monarchs globally. First Published: May 25, 2025, 14:30 IST
Hindustan Times
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
How 2 Indian, Pakistani army officers, also friends, set up Wagah check-post
Over 500 years ago, in the 16th century, Sultan Sher Shah Suri (1472-1545 CE) built a road from Sonargaon in Bengal to Peshawar in Pakistan. It is said that the ancient Uttarapatha (northern road), which had been used for trade, migration and conquest was used as a guide by Sher Shah, who has left an indelible mark on our history despite his short reign. After the takeover of India, the British revamped and renamed it to the Grand Trunk (GT) Road, which remains in use. It was a route of hectic activity, crisscrossing provinces and cultures, traversing the stunning diversity from east India to the north-west frontier. Rudyard Kipling, the famous chronicler of colonial India, wrote in Kim: 'The Grand Trunk Road is a wonderful spectacle. It runs straight, bearing without crowding India's traffic for fifteen hundred miles - such a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world'. The 1947 partition of India destroyed this river of people, which ran red with the blood of tens of thousands of overnight refugees for months. In less than seven weeks, millennia old bonds were shredded by the British who deployed a rookie lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe, to redraw the borders based on dated data. He snipped the GT Road at Wagah, a village lying almost halfway between what were then the twin cities of Amritsar and Lahore. This tiny village, a dot on the border between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and secular India, has become the most popular stage for the performance of nationalism for the vexed neighbours. The militaries of India and Pakistan engage in a quotidian display of a ritual: the Beating Retreat- that contains patriotic songs being belted out from stadium-size speakers, patriotic sloganeering, and finally the centrepiece of the spectacle: the lowering of the two countries' flags in a well-choreographed performance of glares, foot-stomping, and other aggressive maneuvers. While this daily ritual at the India-Pakistan border derives largely from British tradition, war dances are not new to the subcontinent. From the Maring Naga war dances from the north-east and Chau in Odisha to the Khattak attan in Peshawar, the custom is ancient as war itself. Two Friends and Officers Set up Wagah Check Post In October 1947, Brigadier Mohinder Singh Chopra, a 1928 graduate from Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and a decorated officer, was tasked with defending the open and turbulent Punjab border between the two countries. After taking command of the 123rd Indian Infantry Brigade in Amritsar, also his hometown, Chopra set about translating the cartographic division into an actual border on land. With no markers available this was an impossible challenge but one that had to be met. On the Pakistani side, a similar responsibility was handed to Commanding Officer Nazir Ahmed, who had served with Chopra in the pre-partition British Indian Army, the two were close friends. Chopra and Ahmed decided to meet at Wagah village and agreed to set up a temporary check post there. To ensure smooth transfer of people they also set up a point between Attari in India and Wagah. Chopra recalled in his journal, which was later published as a book ( 1947: A Soldier's Story- From the records of Maj Gen Mohindar Singh Chopra), 'some tents were pitched on either side, two sentry boxes painted in the national colours of each country, and a swing gate to regulate the refugee traffic was erected. Two flag masts were also put up on either side and a brass plate commemorating the historic event was installed.' In Sadat Hasan Manto's tragic short story Toba Tek Singh about the utter confusion caused by the partition and the transfer of inmates from Lahore's mental asylum, it is at the no-man's land between the Pakistani and Indian check posts that the grief-stricken Bishan Singh collapses. Thanks to the friendship between the two army officers, the Punjab sector remained largely peaceful during the first India-Pakistan war, which broke out in Kashmir in October 1947. Since then, India and Pakistan have fought three large scale wars and numerous smaller conflicts, like the one just concluded. During each conflict the movement of people at Wagah-Attari border as well as the war dance is suspended. Ironically, this performance in stage decorated with barbed wire, steel gates, scaffolding and uniformed guards seeking to flaunt its power to the other and to their respective publics, also ends up showcasing the similitude between them. That may be a nuanced interpretation but at its core this ritual at Wagah is emblematic of the rivalry between the conjoined twins locked in endless conflict. Author Jisha Menon wrote in her work, The Performance of Nationalism: India, Pakistan, and the Memory of Partition: 'The Wagah border rituals dramatise the national mimicry between India and Pakistan. The competitiveness and one-upmanship that shapes the relations between the two nations converge on ideas of identity and difference. This national mimicry, however, is amply demonstrated in other arenas as well; for example, in May 1998, Pakistan carried out six nuclear tests in response to India's five. Thus, the logic of this national mimicry extends to the more dangerous nuclear race between the two countries, explicitly dramatizing what is at stake in the serious play of theatre that at once marks and troubles the notion of national difference'. Manto summed up the pain of partition and its madness with characteristic wryness. 'There behind wire, on one side, lay India and behind more barbed wire, on the other side, lay Pakistan. In between, on a bit of earth which had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh', he wrote. (Valay Singh is a journalist and author. Views expressed are personal.) Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines to 100 year archives.
CBC
06-02-2025
- Business
- CBC
Want to get rid of fentanyl? Tackle money-laundering first, say experts
As the federal government says it will introduce new measures to fight organized crime in Canada, helping it stave off tariff threats from the U.S., experts say that Canada's money-laundering problem has festered for far too long — and that the issue makes it easier for fentanyl-pushing cartels to gain a foothold in this country. U.S. President Donald Trump has used the fentanyl crisis to justify broad tariffs against Canada, alleging that a massive amount of the drug is entering the U.S. via Canada. Canada makes up just 0.2 per cent of all U.S. border fentanyl seizures, but the country has shifted in recent years from being a consumer and importer of fentanyl to a producer and exporter, according to a January report by financial watchdog FINTRAC. The roughly 100 organized crime groups operating in Canada (including three groups dedicated to supplying fentanyl) are partly drawn to loopholes and lax penalties that allow fentanyl-related money-laundering operations to flourish, according to researchers. "The discussion about fentanyl is closely tied in to money-laundering in two ways," says Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College and Queen's University and author of Dirty Money: Financial Crime in Canada. The profits from fentanyl produced in Canada for the Canadian market are often laundered inside the country through banks, real estate, casinos and other fronts. But these operations are typically connected to a wider network of precursor suppliers and other crime groups based outside of the country, leading to an extensive transnational money-laundering operation associated with the fentanyl produced in Canada. "As a result of the overproduction of fentanyl [in Canada], some of this spills over into the United States," said Leuprecht. He added that organized crime groups choose Canada because it puts them inside of what was, at least before the threat of tariffs, a free-trade zone. "That is not by accident. That is by design because it reduces your risk. It reduces your detection," he said. WATCH | How much fentanyl really gets into the U.S. from Canada?: How much fentanyl is really going to the U.S. from Canada 3 days ago Duration 2:14 Canadian banks in particular are popular because they operate retail branches both in Canada and the U.S., making it easier for criminals to bank on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border using one institution and thereby reducing their chances of detection, according to Leuprecht. A recent crisis at TD Bank, for example, saw the financial institution admitting that its lax anti-money laundering regime allowed fentanyl traffickers to launder $670 million through its American branches. While the U.S. Department of Justice fined the Canadian bank $3 billion US for its role in that scheme, Canadian fines are comparatively smaller — FINTRAC fined TD just $9 million Cdn a few months earlier for violating anti-money laundering compliance rules. As part of the deal between Canada and the U.S., Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Canada would appoint a fentanyl czar, list drug cartels as terrorists, beef up border surveillance and launch a joint strike force to counter organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering. Disrupting a crime group's money-laundering operation would be more debilitating than targeting individual fentanyl operations, said Leuprecht. "The way criminals are moving drugs, producing drugs, how they're laundering their money and the colossal amounts of money involved, it's just not been a priority for the government," he said. That could be changing: the RCMP busted the largest drug "superlab" in Canadian history this past fall, with the federal government later floating a proposal in the fall economic statement that it would boost the AML oversight penalty to at least $20 million per violation and increase fines for criminal offences. It also announced in its 2024 budget that it would amend some legislation in the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. 'Snow-washing' is pervasive, says compliance expert Michael Ecclestone, a compliance leader at the AML Shop in Toronto, advises businesses that are obligated to comply with Canada's anti-money laundering regulations. Noting that there's a particular name for money-laundering in Canada — "snow-washing" — he says the problem is pervasive. "There's almost no limit to how this can be done," Ecclestone said, noting that money can be laundered through smaller businesses like jewelers, gold dealers or securities dealers. Professional money launderers use various tactics to clean money, like fraudulent invoicing and trade arrangements, or moving money back and forth between bank accounts or shell corporations without real assets. When businesses fail to report suspicious activity, the problem festers — and that's why some groups have called for harsher penalties for non-compliance with AML laws. In Canada, "one area constantly called out for a lack of resources and a lack of focus is the amount of prosecution," said Ecclestone. He said it's been a long time since there was a concerted effort to update anti money-laundering legislation and to arm police and investigators with adequate resources to tackle the problem. The focus on fentanyl could provide "a shot in the arm and a jolt to authorities to begin that process of updating, enhancing, making the regime more able to deal with the current levels of money-laundering we're seeing in Canada," he added. "No one trades in fentanyl if they don't think they're going to make money from it."
