Latest news with #Vajpayee
Indian Express
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
Decode Politics: As Opp demands report on Pahalgam attack, what was Vajpayee era Kargil panel it cited?
Since the Pahalgam terror attack and the retaliatory Operation Sindoor, the Opposition has been asking the Narendra Modi government if it intends to form a committee to examine the April 22 attack, which left 26 civilians dead. On Tuesday, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, among other leaders, reiterated the demand for a committee report, similar to one that was issued by the Kargil Review Committee (KRC), which was formed under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government in the aftermath of the 1999 India-Pakistan conflict. The surprise infiltration of Pakistani troops across the Line of Control (LoC) in 1999 had prompted the then Vajpayee government to constitute a high-level committee to study the events that led to the conflict, and make recommendations for avoiding a Kargil-like situation in the future. In July 1999, three days after the end of the Kargil conflict, in which 527 troops were killed, the Vajpayee government set up the KRC, helmed by defence analyst K Subrahmanyam, who was Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's father. The KRC spoke to nearly 100 senior military and intelligence officials, diplomats, politicians and journalists in the course of compiling its report. In February 2000, a little over six months after it was set up, the report was tabled in Parliament. Despite calls from the Congress-led Opposition at the time, its findings were not discussed in either House. Even when the report was later made publicly available, many of its key findings, especially pertaining to intelligence, were classified in the interest of national security – and continue to remain so. The KRC focused on 'systemic deficiencies' and did not go into individual shortcomings behind the Pakistani incursion, to provide 'generic' recommendations, then Union Defence Minister George Fernandes said in Parliament after the report was tabled. However, it came down heavily on the 'deficiencies' in the Indian security and intelligence apparatus. 'The findings bring out many grave deficiencies in India's security management system… There has been very little change over the past 52 years despite the 1962 debacle, the 1965 stalemate and the 1971 victory, the growing nuclear threat, end of the Cold War, continuance of proxy war in Kashmir for over a decade and the revolution in military affairs. The political, bureaucratic, military and intelligence establishments appear to have developed a vested interest in the status quo,' the KRC observed in its report. 'The Committee strongly feels that the Kargil experience, the continuing proxy war and the prevailing nuclearised security environment justify a thorough review of the national security system in its entirety.' In particular, the KRC pointed out that intelligence agencies – notably the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) – failed to track the movement and buildup of Pakistani troops around the LoC before the infiltration. It said that the R&AW, Intelligence Bureau and Directorate General of Military Intelligence 'lacked inter-agency interaction and coordination' among themselves and with the Ministry of Defence, and that the R&AW's 'virtual monopoly' in intelligence gathering had led to 'a little redundancy to rectify failures'. The report also pointed to shortcomings in human intelligence gathering, a lack of adequate satellite-imaging capabilities, and complexities introduced by the climate and terrain of regions like Kargil, while highlighting the need to invest in better equipment and cross-border intelligence efforts. The report said that 'a Kargil-like situation could perhaps have been avoided had the Indian Army followed a policy of Siachenisation to plug gaps' in a 168-km stretch along the LoC. However, the KRC noted, 'such a dispersal of forces to hold uninhabited territory of no strategic value would have dissipated considerable military strength and effort, and would not at all have been cost effective'. The KRC recommended an 'independent body of credible experts', rather than an 'overburdened' bureaucracy, to conduct a large-scale review of India's security and intelligence system. The report proved to be a catalyst for several reforms in the Armed Forces and intelligence agencies, over a span of the next two decades. It led to the formulation of a Group of Ministers (GoM) in April 2000 to review the national security system and further consider the recommendations of the KRC. In 2002, the GoM recommended the creation of the Defence Intelligence Agency, a centralised coordination body, and in 2004, a technical intelligence agency called the National Technical Research Organisation. In 2011, the UPA government led by Manmohan Singh set up a task force headed by former Cabinet Secretary Naresh Chandra, partly as a response to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, to re-examine the pending recommendations of the KRC and to 'review the working of the national security system'. The task force found that many of the key recommendations of the KRC had not been implemented, including on defence procurement, on framing of a 'National Security Doctrine', and on the creation of the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), which would require consultations with political parties. The GoM's recommendation of a CDS was only implemented in 2020, under the Narendra Modi-led NDA government. The officer in the post oversees all three wings of the Armed Forces to ensure inter-services coordination. The KRC's other recommendations included carving out the responsibilities of a National Security Advisor (NSA) out of the role of the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, while highlighting the need for a full-time NSA. It called for a reorganisation of structural linkages between the Ministry of Defence, the Armed Forces and intelligence agencies, and said India needed a 'young and fit Army'. The Aadhaar programme, too, traces its roots back to the KRC to an extent, as it suggested the creation of a 'multi-purpose national identity card' to help stem illegal migration. Months after the Kargil War, the Lok Sabha elections were held in September-October 1999. The BJP returned to power and formed an NDA coalition government. In its first session, discussion in Parliament saw several MPs not only accuse the BJP of 'making political gains' out of the Kargil War, but also raise concerns over the inquiries into it. Late in October 1999, the issue of the KRC came up in Parliament. CPI MP Indrajit Gupta, a former Minister of Home Affairs, said in Parliament, 'I know that a body has been set up to review the Kargil operations, but it is not what we were asking for. We wanted an inquiry, a proper full-dressed probe to be held into the question of who is to be blamed for what happened.' P A Sangma, then in the NCP and a former Union minister, sought that the KRC report be tabled and discussed in Parliament, while then Congress president and Amethi MP Sonia Gandhi said, 'I earnestly hope that the government will keep us informed about the findings of the Kargil Review Committee. There are far too many unanswered questions on Kargil. The country has a right to know.' However, when the report was tabled in Parliament in February 2000, its findings and recommendations were not specifically discussed. In April 2000, the government appointed a GoM to look into the KRC's report, leading to some criticism from the Opposition. Sections of both the KRC and GoM's reports were redacted before being released to the public. The CPI(M)'s Somnath Chatterjee, who would later serve as the Lok Sabha Speaker, said, 'What happened during the Kargil War? The report of the Subrahmanyam Committee is there… How to deal with that? Appoint another committee? Over the Subrahmanyam Committee, another committee headed by our Home Minister has been appointed… You go on appointing Committee after Committee. This is the best way of deferring this issue.' In December 2000, another MP questioned why the KRC's report was not discussed in Parliament. Former Congress Working Committee member and Faridkot MP J S Brar said, 'Even after a lapse of one-and-a-half years, the report on the Kargil conflict, an important issue for which our brave soldiers laid down their lives, has not been discussed in this House. Today, the families of the Kargil martyrs are looking towards Parliament and are beginning to wonder why Parliament cannot even discuss the report on the Kargil conflict… A discussion should be held on the report.' The KRC report has since found mention in Parliamentary debates on external affairs, Pakistan in particular, but still no major debate was held on the report. In May 2002, nearly three years after the war, Sangma again raised the KRC during a discussion on a terrorist attack in Jammu. 'The solution (to Pakistani aggression) actually lies here, in the Kargil Review Committee report. Here is the solution: 50% of the solution lies here in this book and 50% lies with the will of the government of the day… Almost three years have gone. What action has been taken in this respect? … What action has been taken on all those recommendations? This nation should know about it,' Sangma said. After the Congress-led UPA came to power in 2004, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence and the Ministry of Defence said in a report in 2007 that of the ensuing GoM report's 75 recommendations on the basis of the KRC, '63 recommendations have been implemented and action on 12 recommendations is in various stages of progress'.
Time of India
a day ago
- Health
- Time of India
What procedure did Stalin undergo? It doesn't matter
If Indian politics is a theatre, Tamil Nadu is a multiplex. Where cigarette flicks and dark glasses are the perennial symbols of style and substance, sycophancy does a tandava over psephology. And with the players ensconced in the ministerial thrones in Delhi, it is no longer just a southern delight. Arun Ram, Resident Editor, The Times of India, Tamil Nadu, who alternates between the balcony and the front row, says it incites as much as it excites. During the intervals, he chews on a bit of science and such saner things. LESS ... MORE Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin has been in hospital since July 21. Newspapers, including The Times of India, quoting medical bulletins from the hospital, said he underwent investigations, including a diagnostic angiogram and a therapeutic procedure to correct variations in his heartbeat. Soon, there were discussions in some circles about why we hadn't specified the therapeutic procedure (as a Tamil daily had). Some said newspapers didn't have the 'guts' to report the details. I beg to differ. We knew exactly what the procedure was. It was an informed decision not to go into the details, following guidelines on patient confidentiality. Would we have followed the same guidelines if the patient were not a VIP? The answer is yes, unless the procedure is news (here, again, the patient's identity would be revealed only with consent and if it adds value to the story). Has the media always followed these guidelines? No. In the early 2000s, a news magazine had A B Vajpayee on the cover, with the headline that read something like this: How healthy is our PM? It had a photograph of Vajpayee – as in an anatomy textbook – with a dozen body parts marked with specific ailments. I don't remember Vajpayee protesting. He lived another 15 years or more. Things have changed. Today, the mainstream media follows internationally accepted guidelines while reporting on the health status of people. Shouldn't the public know about the health of public figures, especially those who make decisions that impact public life? I believe we should know how healthy our lawmakers are, but we aren't entitled to their diagnosis sheets. And here comes the importance of official health bulletins that give out ample and accurate information without breaching patient confidentiality. The medical bulletins on Stalin kept this promise. It said the results of the procedure were normal and the chief minister would resume work in two days. Not all medical bulletins are forthcoming when the patient is a high-profile person. Senior journalists who have covered former chief minister M G Ramachandran's health remember the hospital putting out regular health bulletins that gave necessary information. But after his return from the US (where he underwent treatment) in Feb 1985, information dried up and speculation ran high. MGR made several more visits to the US for treatment and died two years and 10 months later. Medical bulletins during J Jayalalithaa's hospitalisation were sometimes inaccurate and misleading. On September 22, 2016, a bulletin said she was hospitalised with complaints of fever and dehydration (it turned out that she had fainted at home); two days later, it said she was on a normal diet. On September 29, the hospital said the CM was recovering well. On Oct 6, a bulletin said she was on respiratory support. Her condition see-sawed between then and her death on December 5, 2016 (On November 13, Jayalalithaa released a statement saying she had 'taken rebirth because of people's prayers'), but probably on orders from the patient or her caretakers, the hospital sometimes played down the criticality of her condition. The worst a bulletin can do is give inaccurate information. We don't expect the hospital to go on record when a public personality undergoes such a critical procedure as, say, ECMO (when machines take over the functions of the heart and lungs), but it is imperative that the media is informed about the seriousness of the condition. A good health reporter has no difficulty in keeping track of a VIP's condition in a hospital. What a newspaper does with the information depends on how responsible it is – to the patient and the public. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Trump 'BEGS' For Thai-Cambodia 'Ceasefire; Drops Trademark 'Trading Table' Lollipop I Details
Didn't Bow to Pak-US: Yogi Adityanath Recalls How Vajpayee's India Defied Pressure During Kargil War On the 26th Kargil Vijay Diwas, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath delivered a thunderous tribute to India's armed forces, reminding the nation how Pakistan cowardly imposed the 1999 Kargil War. Yogi lauded the fearless Indian Army for not just reclaiming Kargil's icy peaks under -50°C but also resisting pressure from global superpowers. "Pervez Musharraf went begging to America, but Vajpayee ji said India will not bow to anyone," he declared. His speech ignites a nationalistic fire, echoing India's unwavering stand on sovereignty, military grit, and political resolve. This clip captures how India's spirit stood tall against Pakistani aggression and international coercion.#india #pakistan #kargilvijaydiwas #yogiadityanath #indiafirst #vajpayee #kargilwar #indianarmy #pervezmusharraf #operationvijay #toi #toibharat #bharat #trending #breakingnews #indianews 404 views | 13 hours ago
Time of India
3 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
‘Deceptive Netanyahu': Furious Hamas' DIRECT Message To Trump On Ceasefire Sabotage, Gaza Aid
Didn't Bow to Pak-US: Yogi Adityanath Recalls How Vajpayee's India Defied Pressure During Kargil War On the 26th Kargil Vijay Diwas, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath delivered a thunderous tribute to India's armed forces, reminding the nation how Pakistan cowardly imposed the 1999 Kargil War. Yogi lauded the fearless Indian Army for not just reclaiming Kargil's icy peaks under -50°C but also resisting pressure from global superpowers. "Pervez Musharraf went begging to America, but Vajpayee ji said India will not bow to anyone," he declared. His speech ignites a nationalistic fire, echoing India's unwavering stand on sovereignty, military grit, and political resolve. This clip captures how India's spirit stood tall against Pakistani aggression and international coercion.#india #pakistan #kargilvijaydiwas #yogiadityanath #indiafirst #vajpayee #kargilwar #indianarmy #pervezmusharraf #operationvijay #toi #toibharat #bharat #trending #breakingnews #indianews 404 views | 13 hours ago
Time of India
3 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
In 1988, Vajpayee flirted with the idea of joining V P Singh but realised the cost
. The man mourned by both Shah Rukh Khan and Vladimir Putin, and whose legacy has only grown since his death, is at the heart of Abhishek Choudhary's expansive biography of Atal Behari Vajpayee. In an interview with Neelam Raaj, the author, who has just released the second volume titled 'Believer's Dilemma,' reflects on his eventful life and poignant final years It's the centennial year of both Vajpayee and the RSS. Does the dilemma in the title allude to Vajpayee's complicated relationship with the Sangh Parivar? Yes. In phases of ascendancy, Vajpayee outgrew the RSS to become a national figure; in moments of crisis, he was pulled back into the fold by the Parivar's organisational muscle. Tensions sharpened in 1979, when he publicly blamed the RSS for the Janata govt's collapse. They floated the BJP in confusion, but the relationship remained convoluted. The title also gestures beyond Vajpayee- to broader dilemmas in the right-wing ecosystem: the tension between power and responsibility versus ideological purity. It also hints at the predicament of the average Hindu believer: how to inhabit one's religious identity without surrendering to its chauvinistic articulations. You call Vajpayee a 'classic doublethinker'... Only in a specific context. Vajpayee saw himself as both a swayamsevak and a democrat and convinced himself the two were not only compatible but complementary: that a gentle kind of Hindutva was the only sustainable model of secularism. Flip the conviction slightly, and yes, one could call him a classic doublethinker. But that tendency isn't unique to him. Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Ambedkar too had moral dilemmas, but not this kind of double-speaking. Yet, the same traits that made Vajpayee a doublethinker also kept him consequential, while more progressive voices of his generation faded from public memory. You write that in 1988, Vajpayee came close to quitting the BJP- a moment V P Singh also alluded to in his memoir. But Vajpayee later laughed this off. How did you confirm this, and what brought him to that point? The late 1980s were a confusing, event-packed phase, and Vajpayee's worst period. Marginalised after the 1984 rout, he let Advani and Nagpur steer the party rightward. After Shiv Sena won Vile Parle in 1987, the BJP sought collaboration. Simultaneously, Bofors broke out and V P Singh was floating a new party. Vajpayee flirted with joining him. The BJP's founding president proposed a new party with select moderates. But he realised the cost: his political capital and emotional investment were tied to the Sangh ecosystem. If the alternative had been more robust, Vajpayee may have quit. I would not judge him. He would deny it later, but several people I spoke to confirmed that it did happen. You start the book by saying you wanted to set some facts straight. What were these myths? Let me mention three here. First, he wasn't as culpable in the 1983 Assam violence as some make out. Second, his obfuscations during the Ayodhya movement — especially his defence of the BJP in Parliament — helped spread the impression that the razing of Babri was a freak accident, despite much evidence to the contrary. Third, that the 1998 nuclear tests were a political stunt by the right-wing govt. In fact, by this time, with the CTBT deadline looming, nuclear testing had ceased to be a moral question for the political class. The Treaty was seen as the P5 (permanent members of the UN Security Council) freezing the nuclear apartheid status quo. Even the CPM thought the P5 were being hypocritical. Any stable govt might have tested. The protests from Communists and Congress later were mostly tactical. Why has Brand Vajpayee become bigger after his death? Because the ideological project he served has grown far bigger. We forget how often he was overshadowed by Congress prime ministers. In 2004, he completed a full term, helping turn India into a multi-party democracy. At this moment of paranoid polarisation, it's easy to forget that three decades ago, few believed that a party other than Congress could steer this mindbogglingly disparate country. There's a PR aspect too: the current dispensation wants his name on welfare schemes etc, minus his civility and sagacity. Some of the posthumous glow also comes from liberal nostalgia — for a more conciliatory era. But that, too, is selective memory. You describe how Vajpayee voted against the Indo-US nuclear deal he helped lay the groundwork for. What made him do that? It had everything to do with the BJP's desperation by mid-2008. As poll defeats piled up, survival instincts trumped foreign policy. Vajpayee, stroke-battered, wanted to help Advani bag the top job. If the UPA lost a trust vote, a bypoll might follow. If the NDA grabbed power, Advani told allies he'd renegotiate the deal. And so, the patriarch was stretchered into Parliament to vote against the deal — a pathetic final visit for India's longest-serving parliamentarian. You write with empathy, especially in the final chapters. How did you navigate the balance between biographical detachment and empathy? Navigating the balance is not my chief concern. I gather the material, then let it lead me; both take depressingly long. Yes, I try to understand my subjects on their own terms, especially when I disagree with them. Vajpayee's final years, stripped of voice and agency- were tragic, and I tried to capture that. In one of his last appearances, he wondered if a human being could ever truly liberate oneself. Asked to recite a poem, he said he'd turned into a kavi ka bhoot, a poet's ghost, the title of the last chapter. For his peers, his end also intimated the nearing of their own. The last bits are, therefore, about the tolls of ambition and the burden of history.
