India's military (catch all)

**Ray** · 03-31-2012

Quite a find!

Thanks.

**davidbfpo** · 03-31-2012

Ray,

As one of our Indian members I hope you can add your comments!

Reading Hamid's essay I was reminded of how the British Army conducted itself in the early years of Queen Victoria.

**davidbfpo** · 04-01-2012

In response to comments - made by others visiting SWC - a short amendment is attached.

**Ray** · 04-02-2012

On the other hand to my knowledge the army has promoted all officers to both command and staff positions essentially discarding the previous policy of having two separate cadres.

The separation of the cadres is still in vogue as I know.

Further, one joins the Army to command and not to push files.

Therefore, it is a silly policy to segregate officers in a Command stream and a Staff Only stream.

This was originally enforced by Gen Rodriguez. A most unimaginative policy.

Rodriguez and Deepak Kappor are both Artillery Officers and this policy assists in ensuring the promotion path of favourites cleared of those who could be a challenge if there was only one stream to select from.

**Ray** · 04-02-2012

The real story starts with two previous Chiefs of Army Staff attempting to clear the line of succession. In 2006, VK Singh was the Chief of Staff (COS) of a Corps in Northern Command and was ready to take over the command of Ambala based II Corps. Then COAS General Jogindar Jaswant Singh (9 Marhatta Light Infantry) insisted that V K Singh accept 1950 as his year of birth. The reason was that JJ Singh wanted a shortened tenure of VK Singh ending in 2012 thus ensuring elevation of a fellow Sikh Lieutenant General Bikram Singh as next COAS.

If this is true, it is a sad commentary.

It is possible that such a thing may have occurred. JJ Singh has always been a bit of dodgy character.

JJ Singh has been rewarded with a Governorship by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.

JJ is such a 'effective' chap that he did not even know, inspite of being a Governor, if the State's Chief Minister's (CM) helicopter had crashed or not! His waffling embarrassed the Govt when it was realised that not only the helicopter had crashed but also that the CM had died in that crash!