From Quaid to Bana

Profiles of two JAK LI men who helped capture a Pakistani post in India’s final quest for Siachen

It was at the icy heights of Siachen in 1987 that a young JAK LI soldier, Bana Singh, achieved what till then was considered unimaginable. He was part of the 8 JAK LI’s Special Operations Group (SOG) completing its glacier tenure.

To launch an assault in oxygen-depleted rarefied air is considered near suicidal but the Quaid post – situated at an altitude of 21,153 feet - was strategically important to observe nearly 80 km of territory around it. It gave Pakistanis, its then occupants, an edge of not just preventing supplies to other Indian posts but also of interdicting any movement with precise firing.

Its capture, therefore, became important for the Indian Army. Naib Subedar Bana Singh, hand-picked for this challenging assignment, led the last attack along with riflemen Chunni Lal, Laxman Das, Om Raj and Kashmir Chand. A force of 62 people participated to the final operation; two officers, three JCO’s and 57 jawans.

Remembers Bana Singh, "we were losing friends every day, some of them just a few days after their induction into the force. Our Commanding Officer and all of us were determined to throw the Pakistanis out, whatever the price.’’Two decades after his inspired heroism in those chilling heights, Subedar Major (Honorary Captain) Bana Singh, Param Vir Chakra (PVC), has sent his son to defend the frontiers in Kashmir.

Born in 1949 in Kadyal district of Jammu, Bana Singh was awarded the Param Vir Chakra, the highest wartime gallantry medal in India, for conspicuous bravery and leadership under most adverse conditions.

“Operation Rajiv” as this operation was named, resulted in various awards: one Maha Vir Chakra (for Subedar Sansar Singh), seven Vir Chakras and one Sena Medal, besides the PVC. Bana Singh later declined an offer of Rs 25 lakh, 25 acres of land and a pension of Rs 15, 000 a month if he decided to settle in Punjab. Singh’s belief: as a proud soldier of Jammu and Kashmir, he could not leave the state, no matter how strong the allurement.

The other hero of the party that took Quaid was late Naib Subedar Chuni Lal, winner of Ashok Chakra, Vir Chakra and the Sena Medal.

Chuni Lal was born in Doda’s  Bhadarwah tehsil in 1968. He joined JAK LI in 1984. Within three years of his service he earned a Sena Medal for his death-defying act in capturing Bana Post alongside the legendary Bana.
Not the one to sit on his laurels, in 1999 while serving with his unit in the Poonch Sector during ‘Operation Rakshak’ he and his unit were instrumental in beating back an attempted intrusion by the Pakistan Army and for this act of gallantry he was awarded the Vir Chakra.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

Movie Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Pakistani Dream

Based on a novel of the same name by Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is everything and perhaps more than what you would expect from a Mira Nair film.

The political thriller begins with the kidnap of an American professor in Lahore, and after that there is no looking back. The entire film is set over a conversation between Changez (Riz Ahmed) and American journalist Bobby (Liev Schreiber).  The story unfolds through a series of flashbacks that are non-linear (and sometimes predictable) in which we see Changez’s journey from living the great American Dream to his return to Lahore after 09/11 attacks and his search for the Pakistani Dream.

The film is quite different from the novel when it comes to the story, and at times you feel it drags on. But where it scores high is the use of soundtrack. It began with a Qawaali sung by brothers Fareed Ayaz and Abu Mohammed which set the mood of the film. Apart from this, the presence of Om Puri and Shabana Azmi, however short their roles were, also helped in giving the film its distinct flavour.

Riz Ahmed has done a good job. I wouldn’t say brilliant as he lacks emotions at times when it is needed the most, but it was decent. Kate Hudson plays his love interest and could have well been forgotten if not for the lovemaking scenes. Liev Schreiber has a few comment s here and there, but other than that he is just the listener. In other words, what holds the film together is Mira Nair’s storytelling style rather than the performances. As in her other films, the settings blend in perfectly with the theme – from Wall Street to the typical teahouse at Lahore.

To conclude, the plot is superb, the direction is good, and the acting is good enough.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

Divided we fall

Instead of taking on Sheila Dixit, Delhi BJP leaders are busy settling scores. Anil Pandey reports. 

With Delhi assembly poll bound in November this year, the state BJP's tall claims about pulling down the 15-year-old Congress regime may be just that - claims.

Early indications suggest that there is no strategy – let alone a clear cut one – to take on the might of well entrenched Sheila Dixit and the Congress party in Delhi. With polls about six months away, the Delhi BJP presents a dismal picture of infighting. No district or block-level committees have yet been formed and the question of booth-level workers is plainly out of sight.

Even though the new president of the Delhi BJP, Vijay Kumar Goel, has announced his new organising committee after three-month-long messy deliberations, the new panel has left out well known party names in Delhi; instead what is in place are a host of unknown politicians, which leaders say, is is designed to demoralise party workers and ultimately take heavy toll on their election prospects.

“When the most basic committees are not in place, where is the question of the list of party candidates for the assembly elections? There is a lot of anger against corruption and inflation, as well as water and the power supply situation in Delhi. The mood is anti-Congress but the point is who will exploit it,” questions a BJP leader.

There is a reason why the Delhi BJP is unable to act: it is in the grip of vicious infighting and Goel who was nominated as the state chief on February 15, has not been to put an end to it. In fact, factional fights, if anything, have multiplied since his elevation.


In such a situation, Goel's own attitude has not helped. On May 14, he called a media meeting at the Constitution Club. Among the invitees were Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj but those left out included the cream of Delhi BJP; Harshvardhan, veteran VK Malhotra, Vijay Jolly, Jagdish Mukhi and a host of other leaders.

Says one senior leader, “It is a bit surprising that in an election season, members of the party national executive are invited but not the state executive. It is tantamount to insulting senior leaders.” Such acts have earned Goel the epithet of SPS – a self projection schemer.

On the face of it though, party leaders say that given the mood against the Congress both at the centre and the state and the number of scams that are tumbling out by the day, Delhi will certainly see a BJP government this time. “Given Sheila Dixit's performance, we are returning,” exults BJP leader Vijay Jolly.

Such sentiments within the party have triggered off the race for the chief minister's chair; instead of helping matters, it has heightened the divide inside BJP. Says analyst Suvrokamal Dutt on Goel's organising committee: “It is good to introduce new faces within the party but in an election year to leave out trustworthy leaders who are well known, can be politically damaging. Vijay Goel has kept out all those agitating against the Sheila Dixit government.”

Among those ignored include Pravesh Verma, son of influential Jat leader, late Sahib Singh Verma, former party president Harshvardhan, ex-Delhi finance minister Jagdish Mukhi, veteran Mewaram Arya, popular leader Kirti Azad (even though he is an MP from Darbhanga in Bihar) and his wife Poonam Azad. It remains a formidable list of those who have neither been given any party work nor assigned any role in the elections.

In Delhi, Bihari and eastern UP votes plus Jat votes account for the maximum number of seats; of Delhi's 400 villages, 300 are dominated by Jats. Here Pravesh Varma would have played an important role but his claims have been overlooked. In east Delhi, youth leader Kuldip Singh Chahel, said to have influence among the young voters, has been marginalized. Similarly, 40 lakh voters from Bihar and eastern UP – known as purabias or easterners – could influence decisions in close to three dozen assembly seats in Delhi but they do not have a single representative in Vijay Goel's coordination committee.

In contrast, Sheila Dixit has gone out of her way to woo the purabia voter who in the last assembly elections was instrumental in getting the Delhi chief minister her third term. Dixit's team – in addition to herself – has many known faces. SK Walia is a force to reckon with in east Delhi while Arvinder Singh Lovely, despite the Congress loss in the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Committee this year, has his vote bank among Delhi's Sikh voters intact. Central minister Krishna Tirath and Delhi's Raj Kumar Chauhan are solid Dalit leaders in their own right.

It is not as if there is no factionalism in the Congress: there are stalwarts like Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler, Ajay Maken and former DPCC chief Jayprakash Agrawal, all of whom are at odds with the chief minister. But Congress displaying more maturity, has refused to buckle down under one or the other faction, keeping everyones' interest in mind.

Rahul Gandhi during the course of his meetings has stressed on Congress workers ending their petty fights and putting up a joint front in the elections – those not doing so have been threatened with action by the party high command and it has worked. Says Subrokamal Dutt: “this is what Rajnath Singh should have done. After all, if BJP were to win back Delhi, it will be a great shot in the arm for the NDA in General Elections 2014.”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

"Clean Chit" regime

An inside look at the resilience of corruption and arrogance. By Sutanu Guru

Once upon a time, there lived a rapacious Emperor who specialized in plundering his subjects even while taking the moral high ground. Even his critics (also known as the silent majority) refrained from exposing him because they were quite scared of the Emperor's Cruel and Brazen Intentions (better known as CBI). He reveled and flowered in the presence of sycophants who described his plunder as “inclusive politics”. Once before the Republic Day, he ordered his tailors (now known as spin masters) to design and stitch a gown befitting his unparalleled stature as an Emperor. His spin masters (otherwise known as anchors and pundits) worked 24*7 and wove a gown that was invisible to all but their blinkered eyes. Come Republic Day and the Emperor preened in front of millions of subjects. One of them was a kid who was not familiar with the CBI and hence burst out laughing and proclaimed: But he is as naked as a statue! His parents shrunk in fear as they were aware of what the CBI could do if the Emperor was hurt and angry. But in this tale, they need not have worried. This modern tale has a different twist. The Emperor laughs out loud and says: Of course I know I am naked! But look at my pathetic subjects! They are wearing clothes and trying to hide their embarrassment!!!

Sounds corny and maybe even far fetched. But that just about sums up the state of the relationship that exists between the UPA regime and citizens of India. That fantasy tale also explains the arrogance of the UPA regime which is now as good as – or worse than – the naked Emperor with a fetish for plunder. Perhaps this also explains the Faustian audacity and brazenness with which leading lights of this UPA dispensation have been treating this country and its citizens. The thing is: for various reasons including hubris, they seem convinced they will get away with and end up scripting another monster called UPA-3 after 2014. Each time the UPA regime and its members are enmeshed in a scandal or a scam, each time a UPA courtier is caught with a hand in the till and each time a whistle blower gathers the courage to expose a misdeed, out comes the proverbial “clean chit” in a jiffy.

Some weeks ago, the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra Ajit Pawar was addressing a gathering of the faithful in the hinterland. The state, which is already notorious across the world for record number of farmer suicides, is facing an unprecedented man-made drought and life threatening water shortages. Ajit Pawar was irrigation minister for about a decade when the dams meant to store water went dry in the state. How does he react to this calamity? You must be living in a fool's paradise if you thought Pawar was contrite. In typical UPA style, he ridiculed a farmer and an activist who were on a hunger strike for more than 50 days protesting against dry dams and publicly announced: do they expect me to urinate in the dams to fill them with water? After the usual uproar and outrage, his uncle Sharad Pawar chided the 54 year old Ajit for his ‘youthful impetuosity’, gave him a "clean chit" and made him sit on a token one day fast in front of a Mahatma Gandhi statue. Poor Mahatma Gandhi!. Another colleague of Ajit Pawar pushed the brazenness envelope even further. The Maharashtra Home Minister R.R Patil engineered a diktat whereby he would personally supervise the transfers and postings of even junior policemen in the state. Since offensive words like publicly urinating were not involved, there wasn't much outrage. Remember, R.R Patil was Home Minister when Pakistani terrorists struck Mumbai on 26/11. So incensed was India at his incompetence and blasé arrogance that even the brazen UPA was forced to drop him. But then, the UPA won elections and Patil was back as Home Minister. Oh yes, there were many enquiries into administrative failures during 26/11. But R.R Patil got a “clean chit”.

Ask any objective and unbiased observer (a difficult person to locate nowadays) and she will tell you unhesitatingly that Maharashtra today is one of the worst governed states in the country. And yet, either the Congress or some version of Congress has ruled the state continually ever since the state was formed except a five year stint of the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance.  The same unbiased observer will tell you that the odds favor yet another UPA victory next year in the assembly elections because of a fractured opposition.

Such cockiness is not restricted to Maharashtra. It was in full public display last year when the whistle blower bureaucrat of Haryana Ashok Khemka made serious allegations against Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. The brief story of Robert Vadra is: he started with Rs 50 lakh and bought land near Gurgaon by giving cheques to the owner; cheques that were not encased. Incidentally, nobody seems to know how he got even the Rs 50 lakh! The real estate company DLF then buys the land from Robert Vadra for hundreds of crores. The moment this dubious deal was made public, Khemka was given a punishment posting and a battery of top Haryana officials and Congress spokespersons rushed ahead to castigate Khemka and give a “clean chit” to destiny's son in law Vadra. Subsequent revelations show that Vadra also bought huge tracts of land in Rajasthan mysteriously before their values jumped manifold. Even for this, Vadra was given a “clean chit”. Why is the Haryana government so brazen and cocksure? Well, the man who could topple the Congress government in Haryana, Om Prakash Chauthala is himself behind bars, convicted on charges of corruption and the opposition seems to be in disarray! Forget the political situation in Haryana. What is to be admired and marveled at is the nonchalance with which Congress courtiers  insist that Robert Vadra transformed Rs 50 lakh to Rs 500 crores in double quick time because of his unique entrepreneurial skills and not because of any hanky panky.

Robert Vadra is a lucky entrepreneur. Not just because he has married into the first family of India, but also because he is smart enough not to publicly challenge the first family. Look at what is happening to another “young” entrepreneur Y.S Jagan Reddy, son of the late Y.S Rajasekhara Reddy who was the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and one of the favorites of 10 Janpath till he died in a helicopter crash some years ago. It is almost one year since Jagan Reddy was arrested by the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation and not Cruel and Brazen Intentions!) on charges of corruption and for allegedly amassing disproportionate assets. Now, according to the CBI, Jagan Reddy amassed hundreds and thousands of crores of ill gotten wealth when his father was chief minister between 2004 and 2009. No action was taken against him; no steps were initiated to prosecute him by any authority even after the death of his father. Till he openly revolted against the Congress High Command and 10 Janpath. Soon after Jagan declared war on his party, and the Congress sensed that it was almost certain to lose Andhra Pradesh, the “caged parrot” was unleashed and Jagan Reddy remains in jail. The million dollar question is: would he be behind bars if he was more patient and not demanded that he be forthwith made the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh? Surely the man himself must be pondering over that inside jail. Meanwhile, Congress leaders remain blasé about Andhra. They know that they will lose the “Telengana” seats to the regional party TRS and the rest of Andhra to Jagan Reddy. But they seem confident that both TRS and Jagan will have no option but to do business with the Congress after 2014. Blessed are the arrogant, more so when they have weapons like the CBI to unleash!

Read more......

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA