Sunday, May 10, 2009

Views by more members

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From: papa sekhri papasekhri@hotmail.com
Subject: IESM-NEW MEMBERS
To: "REPORT MY SIGNAL (CS Kamboj)" kamboj_cs@yahoo.co.in
Date: Saturday, 9 May, 2009, 11:26 AM
Brig Kamboj Sir,
The following have become new members:-
1.SUB SUBODH MAJUMDAR-------EME---------200/
2.GP CAPT S C KHARBANDA-------AF----------500/
3.CDR KEWAL KRISHAN-----------NAVY-------500/
4.LT COL S K BAGGA---------------ARTY-------500/
5.LT CO RK LUTHRA---------------9 MADRAS--500/
6.LT COL R K MITTAL--------------EME---------500/
7.LT COL SARDEV SINGH---------EME---------500/
8.COL S C DEWAN-----------------INF---------500/
9.COL A S SIDHU------------------SIGS--------500/

The forms along with cheques will b sent by courier to GURGAON office today.
kindly info them.shall b grateful.
Col sekhri
(Keep it up Noida)
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From: Rangaraj Jairam jairamrr@yahoo.com
Subject: Forwarding of IESM forms&subscription
To: colram40@yahoo.com
Cc: colonelrajan@gmail.com, "CS Kamboj" kamboj_cs@yahoo.co.in , satbirsm@yahoo.com, prenjen@hotmail.com, seekayess@gmail.com
Date: Saturday, 9 May, 2009, 10:10 PM
Dear Veterans,
I am forwarding the IESM membership forms duly filled of the undermentioned veterans:-
1. 227199T MWO P.K.Murthy IAF 200/-

2. JC 307394 L Hony/Sub Maj S.Jayabalakrishnan Army 200/-

3. JC 181290P Nb/Sub R.S.Balakrishnan Army 200/-

4. 251346 F MWO P.Diravidamani IAF 200/-

5. 606505 Sgt P.Jaganathan IAF 100/-

6. 264010 Cpl Kumaravelu IAF 100/-

7. 275315 Sgt A.Irudayaraj IAF 100/-

8. 1235179 Hav R.Jayaraj Army 100/-

I am enclosing a crossed BOB Thanjavur Cheque No 678229 dt 09/5/09 payable IESM a/c HDFC Bank.I also forwarding the particulars of above veterans on XL Sheet for your records.Please forward receipt directly to individuals concerned.

Regards,

Col (retd)Ranga Raj Jairam,
Co-ordinator, IESM, Thanjavur ,
25 NDA, India Sqn.
(Keep it up Thanjavur)

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From: Col K Malaiappan -
To: CS Kamboj
Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 1:34 PM
Subject: Re: IESM SITREP 24 APR 09 -

7-5-2009
Dear Brigadier,

1. Thank you very uch for your prompt reply

2. WP No 21788/2008 dated 22-4-2009 is on reportmysignal.blogspot.comm in News head linesTEXCO NOT EMPANNELLED SECURITY AGENCY. If you click this the judgement appears.

Net in this is IAS Babus cannot hold any post in State ESM Corporations. At present is held by IAS Babus in PESCO, MESCO, TEXCO, and all other State ESM Corporations.

3. I got WP dismissed. My stand was that ESM Corporation 's Chairman and all other functionaries should only be retired commissioned officers of the Armed Forces who qualify to be ESM (O) as per Para 12 b of DGR Instructions www.dgrindia.com/security agencies)& these corporations are for the welfare of the retd officers and ESM and no non retired commissioned officers or non ESM should hold any post in state ESM Corporations. I appeared as Party in Person as Respondent and the Addl Advocate General of Tamil Nadu, two eminent Senior Advocates appeared for the Petitioner the TEXCO. On my submissions of policy, subject, object and purpose and countering all the irrelevant arguments of the Petitioner 6 WPs were dismissed on 9th and 16 th of March 2009 by Hon'ble high Court of Madras.


MATTER OF WIDER PROSPECT
4. IMA training was/is not included as service since the GCs entering IMA were not graduates. Now the entry level qualification is increased as Graduation for all type of entries in IMA/OTA at par with civil services Group I Officers recruitment where in minimum requirement AT ENTRY LEVEL for civil services is also Graduation and their trainingis taken as servie, given pay and allowances. Why not for Armed Forces also. Earlier it was negated since at IMA/OTA the entrants were not graduates. Kindly try for this also

5. Outcome of this Judgement. Over 15 000 ESM on SG duties with Govt establishments in Tamil Nadu will get additonal wages of over Rs 4500 pm and will be revised every6 months. TEXCO will have to be revamped by appointing over 57 retired commissioned officers, and over 70 ESM and illegally recruited civilians have to be thrown out. All legal Advisors, lawyers dealing with ESM issues in Tamil Nadu will be only Ex Service Officers/ESM qualified as Lawyers and practicing in High Court of Madras.


With best wishes and regards
Yours Sincerly
Colonel K Malaiappan (Retd), BE,MBA,(BL)
[DSM,DPMIR,D Tax,PGDFM]
Phones 91 44 2532 5757 Office
91 44 2663 1251 Residence
91 94443 83683 Mobile

389/2 Green Gardens
"L" Block
Annanagar East
Chennai-600 102
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From: Chander Nandwani c.nandwani@rediffmail.com
Subject: ONE-RANK-ONE-PENSION for Armed Forces
To: arunpratapsingh@gmail.com
Cc: garhwalpost@gmail.com
Date: Friday, 8 May, 2009, 5:49 PM
Dear Mr Arun Pratap,
As promised, I am forwarding an article on OROP as an attachment to this email for publication in your esteemed daily. You may edit it as deemed necessary without diluting its meaning & essence.
Regards,
Chander Nandwani.

Maj Gen Chander Nandwani,VSM (Veteran)
...........
Dilemma of Armed Forces (Faujis) on Voting

(An Article compiled from e-mails of IESM Members)

By Maj Gen Chander Nandwani, VSM (Retd.)

After years of neglect, the ‘Faujis’ have finally woken up to fight for their rights through constitutional and legal methods. In a Democracy the correct method of getting justice from the Government is either through formal representations or new found strength of the ballot. Therefore now is the time to rectify our grievances through the strength of the ballot.

The focus of this article is to highlight the negative impacts on national security due to seri­ous erosion in the morale of serving and retired faujis. Most faujis feel that the present UPA government has not even attempted to understand the problems faced by them when on duty, and treats them with indifference, even neglect. This can compromise collective performance in military combat, an unforgiving activity for which there is no runners-up award, and failure in which has huge negative, irreversible consequences both for the armed forces and the nation.
The proximate cause of lowered morale is the ‘Sixth Pay Commission (scPC)’ and the fact of there being no member in it to represent the faujis, who form not only the single largest segment of people affected by the scPC, but who also form the only segment that is denied fundamental freedoms under Articles 19(a) and 19(c) of the Constitution, and have condi­tions of service, promotion and retire­ment that are adverse when compared with other categories under consideration of the scPC.

Role of Armed Forces in Governance Functions

In order to maintain stability of govern­ance, the primary instrument of the union and state governments is the bureaucracy along with the central and state police forces, which comprise the civil administration. However, the armed forces are frequently called by the civil administration in “aid of civil power” to solve a variety of problems or handle emergency situations. It is necessary to point out that though the primary role of the military is to defend national borders and maintain India’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, it has been and still is very frequently deployed in its emergency role of aid to civil power. This is not to argue that the military should not be called out. After all, the mil­itary is a national body that is meant to serve the nation and its people.

The tasks assigned to the military range from controlling social violence, handling insurgencies, maintaining essential serv­ices and undertaking rescue and relief operations during natural or man-made disasters, even rescuing children fallen into wells. And all this is undertaken and executed despite a growing shortage of officers which stands at 14,264, with 11,238 in the army alone, mostly at the ground-working levels.

There are two primary reasons for the civil administration seeking help of the military. One is their acknowledged disci­pline, experience, expertise and specialisa­tion in handling large problems and tasks at the planning, management and execu­tion levels. The second is poor and declin­ing governance standards provided by the elected executive through the bureaucracy-police network. Use of the military in aid of civil power to restore internal stability is an instrument of last resort like a trump card for central or state governments. And it is the traditionally apolitical, secular and professional military that has made restoration of internal stability possible.

Faujis are subject to military law, and are therefore, denied the right to freedom of speech and expression to com­municate with the media under Constitu­tion of India Article 19(a), and the right to form associations or unions under Article 19(c), that are guaranteed to ordinary citi­zens including the bureaucracy and cen­tral and state police forces. Thus, faujis are, in fact, extraordinary citizens. But serving faujis do communicate with their colleagues, friends and relatives. Thus, most veterans are well aware of faujis’ grievances, their fears and anxieties, their desires and aspirations, their moments of pride and achievement and their motiva­tions. After all, every veteran was once a serving fauji. The grievances, fears, etc, of faujis do not reach the upper echelons of govern­ance partly due to the insulation of the military because of denial of constitu­tional rights, and partly due to the several layers of the military and bureaucracy. The result is that the innermost thoughts of the simple sepoy at the base of the pyra­mid or the junior officer who has the most direct contact with him rarely, if ever, get known outside the military. These are the thoughts that, when put together, indicate the individual fauji’s morale, and when aggregated, the morale of the military as a whole.

Apart from training, team-spirit and regimental tradition that are a part of morale painstakingly built up within the military, there are two external factors that contribute towards the morale of the individual fauji, namely, status (more appropriately, “izzat”) and salary. Pay scales are important to faujis, but anybody with the least familiarity with the military knows that izzat is always more impor­tant. The first is to satisfy the physiological needs of the fauji and his family, and the second is what motivates him to fight for national causes and if need be, sacrifice his life.

Devaluation of ‘The Fauji’

Live issues within the military, such as physically and psychologically trying serv­ice conditions, especially during internal security duties, insufficient living accom­modation, all jawans having to retire at the age of 38, 60% officers by the age of 54, and promotions (to which pay is linked) being very limited especially in the officer cadre, have been borne without much murmur. But now the dissatisfaction in the military is at high pitch, although this may not be seen by those outside “the system” – not even those who have access to intel­ligence reports, because most intelligence agencies keep uncomfortable facts away from the boss. The hard fact is that, justifi­able or not, most faujis and veterans har­bour a grudge against the bureaucracy, which they see as the hand behind the con­sistent denial of their just and fair demands. Admittedly, every person feels that his demand is just and fair. But we must note the great dissimilarity between what the fauji does, how he lives and works with risk to life and limb on the one hand, and on the other, bureaucrats who live rela­tively comfortable lives, receive assured promotions, draw higher salaries and earn more during their much longer service life.

It is appropriate to quote examples. Only 7% of military officers get promoted to Brigadier rank after 28 years of service, much of it in hard areas, while 100% of the Indian Police Service officers are ele­vated to the “equivalent” post of Director/ Deputy Inspector General after 14 years of service. Similarly, only 2% of military officers get promoted to the rank of Major General after 32 years of service, while 100% of IAS officers are promoted to the “equivalent” senior administrative grade after 14 to 18 years of service. (This coincidentally shows how the Indian Administrative Service is one-up on the IPS!). But this is not about officers alone, because the status inequity goes down the hierarchy to the sepoy who, though living a much riskier life and retiring much earlier, becomes inferior to his civilian counterpart.





Veterans (Retired Personnel) Grouse.

Pension (Deferred wage for services already rendered) is based upon pay drawn at retire­ment. Ex-servicemen have held a long-standing demand for “one-rank-one-pen­sion” (OROP), which means that regardless of when a fauji retired, those who retired with the same rank and the same length of service should receive the same pen­sion. This demand is based upon the fact that faujis, especially personnel below officer rank (PBOR), who retired long ago, draw much less pension than those who retired more recently and are in difficult economic circumstances. Thus, a sepoy who retired after 1 Janu­ary 2006 gets a pension that is 82% more than the pension of a sepoy who retired before 1 January 1996 and 37% more than a havildar who retired pre 1 January 1996, despite the sepoy being two ranks lower in the military hierarchy.

But the disparity between the older and the younger retirees is not unique to the defence forces. It is visible among the civilian employees too. However, the defence forces have a job profile which sets them apart from their civilian counterparts. And rank and hierarchy is an intrinsic part of the defence forces. OROP had not been acceded to by successive Central Pay Commissions (CPCs), even though it had been agreed to in principle by several elected representatives in various union governments. Faujis con­tinue to believe that the bureaucracy is behind such a refusal. It is learnt that, while discussing the OROP issue recently, a senior official of defence (finance) has said, “Finances are not an issue” or words to that effect, since the amount in ques­tion may be a mere Rs 600 crore. This view from the finance angle clearly reinforces the fauji’s apprehension that the bureaucracy is at the root of the con­sistent refusal.

Hitherto, military veterans had always silently accepted whatever the CPCs have granted by way of pension and allowances over the decades. The CPCs have always been headed and dominated by bureau­crats, who have little idea of and less interest in the working and living condi­tions of the fauji or the veteran and have made decisions for the largest segment of central government servants without their representation. The unfairness of successive CPC dispensations was not lost on military veterans, but their habit of acceding to “superior authority” hitherto ended in simple grumbling, mostly at per­sonal level. It needs to be noted that the worst sufferers of the neglect of veterans are the jawans who, after retirement at 35 years age, are too busy trying to recon­struct their lives to be able to afford time to join hands to make demands concerning pensions.

However, following the scPC, military veterans have organised themselves to agitate vigorously and have taken the unprecedented step of offering satyagraha by relay fasting at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi since mid-December 2008, and returning their hard-earned medals. The veterans’ relay fasting has been kept out of the media possibly due to bureaucratic influence on the government, and veter­ans become even more disillusioned. Ear­lier, police arrested senior retired general officers demonstrating silently in the Boat Club area with prior intimation to minis­try of home affairs, and were taken to the Tilak Marg Police Station. The continued stonewalling by the government, includ­ing the arrest of veterans mentioned above, has turned the mood of military veterans from unwilling acceptance into one of demanding anger. One may argue that the voice of military veterans is not important in the future of the country, but such an argument neglects the fact that the serving fauji is well aware of the socio-economic conditions of military vet­erans, and also knows all too well that he will one day join their ranks. Hence, today’s neglect of military veterans is tomorrow’s neglect of the serving fauji, and this is taking its toll on the morale of the fighting man. The position of faujis in the order of precedence has been steadily falling over the years relative to IAS and police appoint­ments. Faujis view this as deliberate deval­uation of military rank and as loss of izzat. This reflects lower down the military hier­archy in the matter of pay equivalence with bureaucrats and police officials. With the skewed recommendations of the scPC, it has resulted in police officers who hitherto drew less salary than their fauji peers, now drawing a higher salary despite less years of service. At the operational level in J&K and the north-east states, police officers have refused to serve under army officers of the rank of lieu­tenant colonel since they now draw higher emoluments according to the scPC. This has also happened between navy com­manders and coast guard officers. Herein lays serious risk of operational failure and consequent national security risk, and worse, further lowering of fauji morale.