Field Marshal S H F J 'Sam' Manekshaw, independent India's greatest military commander, would have turned 100 on April 3, 2014. To mark the occasion and to celebrate a brilliant mind and one of India's best-loved soldiers, we reproduce, with kind courtesy of the Indian Defence Review, the Field Marshal's lecture at the Defence Services College, Wellington, on Leadership and Discipline.
French Defence Minister Herve Morin explains why India and France have such an important relationship.
'Instead of emerging as a more cohesive unit geographically, politically, economically and in orientation, 33 years hence, nearly 55% of Pakistan is witnessing vicious insurgencies which could lead to further vivisection. More than half the country has slipped into anarchy and the remaining may also follow if Islamabad does not carry out a drastic reassessment of its nationhood.'
'A national government will help us to harness the totality of national resources to fight the war against the coronavirus most effectively,' state Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
"The ultimate aim should be to have at least four such submarines so that at least one, if not two, are on patrol duty at all times," said Padmanabhan.
'The period after the end of the Cold War has seen a more coordinated use of the Indian Navy in conformity with some of our foreign policy objectives,' says Admiral Arun Prakash.
'It is a trap, which creates a vicious circle of dependence on unreliable foreign sources.'
The 3,000-strong force, plus its highly trained dog squad, is responsible solely for the protection of one person: Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi.
'The defence minister is stuck in the trivial and frivolous with a clerical mindset merely to prove his so-called 'honesty" overlooking the primary aim of adding sufficient military muscle and firepower to the defence services,' says Bharat Verma.
Lieutenant General Harbakhsh Singh, GOC, Western Command, disobeyed the then army chief and took on a superior Pakistani armoured column. The Indian Centurion tanks outgunned the more modern Pakistani Patton tanks in the battle at Khem Karan, that proved the turning point of the 1965 War. Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd) salutes the Soldiers' General.
'It is certainly time for New Delhi to open up. Not only should it go ahead at full steam with the roads to the LAC, but the government must also allow tourists to visit these stunningly beautiful areas of Indian territory.'
'Crafting a coherent, transparent and consistent policy vis-a-vis our neighbours, leave alone the rest of the world, is unlikely to be high on the priority list of the new Indian government, which will be sworn in before June,' says Ramananda Sengupta.
Let us hope that what happened in 1962 will never happened again, prays Claude Arpi
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