GEO-STRAREGY IRAN -PAK :Iran President Rohani’s Visit To Pakistan: Impact For India

SOURCE:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/31032016-iran-president-rohanis-visit-to-pakistan-impact-for-india-analysis/

Iran President Rohani’s Visit To Pakistan: Impact For India – Analysis

                                       By

                        Dr Subhash Kapila

 

 

 

Iran's Hassan Rohani. Photo by BotMultichillT, Wikipedia Commons.

 

By SAAG March 31, 2016

Iran perceives its relations with India on a strategic plane and much differently from its “brotherly relations” with Pakistan, notwithstanding any contemporary prodding by China and Russia on Iran to firm-up relations with Pakistan in pursuance of adding Iran to the China-Pakistan Axis, preposterous as the latter may sound to foreign policy specialists.


President Rouhani’s first visit to Pakistan comes nearly three years after assuming Iran’s Presidency, though Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif has visited Iran twice in the same period, namely in May 2014 and in January 2016. This itself vividly indicates the reality that it is Pakistan in its tight-rope dance of balancing Pakistan’s relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran that is now engaged in assiduously wooing Iran, moreso after Iran’s nuclear deal and lifting of international sanctions.


Iranian President’s visit to Pakistan recently concluded should not have any impact on the existing Iran-India Strategic Partnership as the strategic convergences that bind Iran and India are far more firm than any nascent strategic convergences with Pakistan that may sprout in the future.

Currently, the Iranian President’s visit to Pakistan needs to be perceived in India as more of a political outreach by Pakistan than an Iranian political outreach to Pakistan. Analytically, this context can best be examined by detailing the strategic divergence and strategic convergences that exist between Iran and Pakistan.


Strategic divergences between Iran and Pakistan are many and divisive ones, essentially. Heading the list is Pakistan’s military involvement in Afghanistan and destabilising Afghanistan for over two decades with Pakistan Army’s use of Taliban and the Al Qaeda. Afghanistan’s stability is a strategic imperative for Iran in view of Iran’s equally long borders with Afghanistan. Pakistan Army left no stone unturned to adopt stances which were adversarial to Iran’s interests. Can Iran forget the massacre of nearly a dozen Iranian diplomats in Mazar-e-Sharif years back?


The second notable divergence in Iranian-Pakistan relations dwells on Pakistan’s unremitting religious persecution of its 15% Shia population within Pakistan and in Balochistan. Pakistan Army was a passive spectator in the mass killings of the Hazara Shias in Afghanistan by the Taliban regime operating under Pakistan Army dictates. Iran is viewed widely as the spiritual leader of the Shia Muslims and they look upon Iran to protect them. Pakistan would have no answers as to why the ‘brotherly sate’ of Pakistan persecutes fellow-Muslim Shias?


The most striking and significant divergence which characterises Iran-Pakistan relations dwells on Pakistan’s strategic, political and economic dependency on Saudi Arabia. In fact, it can be safely asserted that Pakistan’s foreign and security policies are not only out-sourced to Riyadh but also mortgaged to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia can be said to have indulged and continuing in the indirect ‘capacity-building’ of the Pakistan Army to act as an existential military counter-weight on Iran’s Eastern flank to serve its own strategic interests. Iran is surely cognizant of it.

The border incidents on Iran-Pakistan frontiers and the hit-and-run incidents by Pakistan Army Sunni militant affiliates do not seem to have gone unnoticed in Tehran. So also was Pakistan’s record of providing a firm-base and launching pad for US Special Forces and US intelligence penetration of Iran.

In this context it was rather ironic that the Pakistan Army Chief, General Raheel Sharif called on the Iranian President’s Pakistan visit and complained of Indian intelligence agency RAW’s operations in Balochistan operating from Iran. The Iranian President snubbed Pakistan on this count in a press conference by asserting that he had been hearing such rumours for a long time and advised Pakistan that “The problems of this region cannot be solved militarily, and must be solved through talks, like the Iranian nuclear problem was.”

Can India read this assertion of the Iranian President’s ‘brotherly’ advice to Pakistan and to Pakistan Army Chief in particular that Pakistan should cease its proxy war and continuing terrorist attacks on India?


Notably, in marked comparison of regional equations, it was the Pakistan Army Chief, General Raheel Sharif who personally went and called on the Iranian President and made his complaints against India’s involvement in Balochistan. Contrast this with the present Afghanistan President being made to call on the Pakistan Army Chief at his office during his first visit to Pakistan.



Coming to Iran-Pakistan strategic convergences, even when viewed nascently, one finds it hard to come out with some substantial observations. Iran cannot hopefully wish for Pakistan to change its foreign policy formulations on Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia is too deeply entrenched in a dominating controlling position in Pakistan’s domestic politics and both the Pakistan Army Chiefs and Pakistani Prime Ministers run to Riyadh when domestic crises erupt. Pakistan Army has not shed its obsessive fixation on securing Afghanistan to provide ‘strategic depth’.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the half a dozen MOUs signed in Islamabad during the Iranian President’s visit focussed on health, diplomatic training and trade and commerce. Two additional border-crossings were agreed to and there was some mention about terrorism as a scourge to both countries.

One development that has raised some concern in foreign policy circles in India is the decision to work out cooperation between the Pakistani port of Gwadur and the Iranian port of Chah Bahar in which India is making sizeable investments for trade access to Afghanistan and Central Asia. I would not read much into it as militarily impacting India. At best it is one more trade connectivity between these two neighbouring countries seeking to increase trade volumes. .Surely, Iran would respect India’s strategic sensitivities and not permit Pakistan to complicate things for India at Chah Bahar


Iran cannot choose its geographical neighbours as India similarly cannot. This is the perspective that India’s foreign policy establishment must maintain when analysing Iran-Pakistan relations. Pakistan would take years to obliterate the ‘historical strategic distrust’ that divides Iran-Pakistan relations.

Pakistan would have a lot of ‘whitewashing’ to do on this count to convince Iran and mere Chinese and Russian pressures to improve Iranian ties with Pakistan will not suffice to make Iran do a U-turn in its strong relations with India

India does however need to keep a close watch on Chinese and Russian pressures on Iran to cement its ties with Pakistan for their respective interests.


Concluding, once again, it needs to stressed that India must recognise the strategic imperatives to make-up double-time the political set-backs in Iran-India relations in the ten years of the previous Government.

TOPICS:Foreign PolicyIndiaIranMiddle EastPakistanSaudi ArabiaSouth AsiaTalibanTerrorismTrade

About the Author

SAAG

SAAG is the South Asia Analysis Group, a non-profit, non-commercial think tank. The objective of SAAG is to advance strategic analysis and contribute to the expansion of knowledge of Indian and International security and promote public understanding.

 

 

CHINA-PLA : Politics Of China’s Military Reorganization

SOURCE:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/31032016-politics-of-chinas-military-reorganization-analysis/

Politics Of China’s Military Reorganization –                                    Analysis

                                      By

                            Bhaskar Roy*

 

Soldiers with the People's Liberation Army at Shenyang training base in China. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen, U.S. Air Force.

 

By SAAG March 31, 2016

China’s President Xi Jinping, who is also the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) chaired a path – breaking meeting of the CMC from November 24 to 26, 2015 which brought about wide ranging structural changes in the country’s defense doctrine. The doctrinal changes have not been spelt out, but only the structural changes have been publicly emphasized.

Have these changes improved the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) fighting capability to any significant extent? The answer is both yes and no. But politically, huge changes have been made.


As Mao Zedong said, the Party commands the gun. This slogan still remains emphatic in the Party-PLA relationship. The converse is also true. The gun protects the Party.

This symbiotic relationship between the two have not been without stress periodically, but the size and power of the CPC always prevailed. Marshal Lin Biao tried to oust Mao, but failed. CMC first Vice Chairman Gen. Yang Shangkun and his half brother Yang Baibing, member of the CMC, planned to topple the President Jiang Zemin leadership. The problem was that the Yang family was close to the then undisputed leader Deng Xiaoping’s family, whereas Jiang was the hand picked Party chief of Deng. The Yang brothers were eased out of the PLA, while Jiang was protected by Deng. The last such attempt was made by Chongqing Party Chief Bo Xilai with some army officers’ support, but mainly with the support of political heavyweight and member of the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC), Zhou Yangkang. From the military angle former Vice Chairman of the CMC Xu Caihou and some other senior military officers were prosecuted for corruption, as was Zhou. Jiang Zemin was seen as the head of this network trying to eliminate him. Basically a political-military nexus against Xi Jinping.

While Xi Jinping felt that he had all other sections of the country in his grip, he was not sure about the military. But he understands the politics of the military very well, having experienced the Cultural Revolution during his youth, seen the PLA’s role during the 1989 Tiananmen Square students’ uprising when some PLA officers declined to move against the protesting students, and worked with defense minister Geng Biao.


The power of military commanders was something that the Party had always to reckon with. Hence, traditionally the political Commissars were placed a notch higher than military commanders. Political and ideological education in the armed forces was intensive, emphasizing that the Party was supreme and the role of the PLA was dual- protect the Party and safeguard the country.

 But after the PLA’s lackluster performance against Vietnam in 1979, the political leaders shifted focus to professionalism under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping; political education suffered.


Although Deng held the nominal post of vice premier, he had to remain chairman of the CMC as the new political leaders were not acceptable to the powerful military leaders as CMC chairman.

To trim the wings of the PLA, Deng Xiaoping reduced the number of Military Regions (MRs) from eleven to seven. He wanted to break what is known in Chinese history as “Mountain Warlordism”. The MR commanders and Commissars, who worked in tandem, had become a power unto themselves. They became almost unaccountable to the CMC. The astute Deng worked things gradually to eventually install Jiang Zemin as the chairman of the CMC. To control the military top leaders, Jiang simply bought them over through promotions and perquisites. That, in some ways started the rot in the PLA, but helped Jiang maintain influence at different levels for a long time. While Xi appears to have erased Jiang’s influence in the Party, the PLA and the conglomerates, he is yet to initiate action against him. This is something to consider in the coming months at least.

In the guidelines on deepening national defense and military reform on January 01 by the CMC, it was stated that the “CMC chairman responsibility system” must be fully implemented to ensure that the top leadership of the armed forces is centralized in the “hands of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC” (Xinhua, January 01, 2016). The Xinhua went on to record “thus (the reform) must be under the central leadership of the CPC, the CMC and CMC chairman Xi”. The CPC’s absolute leadership of the armed forces must be consolidated and perfected.


The CMC guidelines reveal that all stops have been pulled out to establish Xi Jinping’s total supremacy over the armed forces. He has already established his grip over the Party. Independent decision making power has been taken away from the PLA.
As an immediate effect, newspapers published by the MRs have been disbanded. These newspapers were controlled by the political Commissars and commanders of MRs and were important political instruments in their hands.


In February, it was announced that the sevens MRs would be regrouped into five “theatre commands”. The four military departments, General Staff, General Political, General Logistics and General Armaments, have been reorganized into fifteen departments. The Second Artillery (strategic nuclear force) has been renamed Rocket Force. A Strategic Support Force department has also been set up.

It can be seen that the reorganization has elevated the level of importance of the navy and air force, which in turn has reduced the huge power and influence of the army. The establishment of the General Command of the army is a critical decision both in terms of political command and military management. The overall political directions will now lie exclusively with the General Command, that is with Xi, the CMC and CPC Central Committee’s senior leaders (read Politburo and its Standing Committee). In the forces’ structure the General Command would be able to have more horizontal interaction to improve clarity and efficiency. Earlier, the military structure was more vertical, especially in the ground forces. The restructure has distributed responsibility more widely, but with oversight.


Space warfare, cyber warfare and the amorphous asymmetric warfare are given a more organized space. These are areas that need to be watched very carefully, especially the countries in which China has gained a strong foothold in areas of cyber technology. Chinese Trojans are real threats and not the fertile imagination of counter-intelligence agencies in these countries. In this connection another Chinese Trojan cannot be overlooked. This is the Confucius Institutes
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute]   being established in a number of countries including India.


China has already secured its land area. They expect no challenge. The next step is to legitimize control of the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Third, they will want to display their power projection abroad and establish parity with the USA in this half of Asia (up to the Persian Gulf). Parity with the USA means keeping the USA from challenging China from the Korean peninsula to the South China Sea, and having the USA withdraw support to Taiwan. This will be followed by dealing with India militarily on the border issue. This is the major movement of the “China Dream”. China has moved some distance in all these areas, and the “One Road, One Belt” strategy is already on wheels.


All these, unless China undergoes an internal transition when their leaders learn to think rationally instead of being heady with power.

Although China has stopped the propaganda of “inevitability of a third world war” it may be working towards that.

The reorganization of the armed forces is scheduled to be completed by 2020. By that time the 19th Party Congress would have been held and Xi Jinping is expected to be in a much stronger position, filling in the Politburo, its Standing Committee and the provincial posts with hand picked people.
The question being asked is whether Xi Jinping would step down after the completion of ten years as Party general secretary and crossing the age of seventy. Or, will he perpetuate his rule in the mould of Mao Zedong?

Will those whose fortunes have been affected by Xi give up and disappear? That is unlikely to happen. Many “yes men” of today will turn around. In Chinese politics there is no full stop. The wheel is still to turn a full circle.

*The writer is a New Delhi based strategic analyst. He can be contacted at e-mail grouchhart@yahoo.com


























 

OROP KRANTI: OROP and Beyond

SOURCE:FACEBOOK


 


    One Rank One Pension‏@MissionOROP
                       4h4 hours ago 

One Rank One PensiMissionOROP

#OROPandBeyond We cannot slacken after what has been achieved. We have to take the  agitation to a logical conclusion  pic.twitter.com/lXqm2g98cN

          

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
#

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

PARTITION OF INDIA : The Untold Story of the Partition of India

SOURCE:
http://www.popxo.com/2015/08/tribut-to-the-real-heroes-of-india/



      The Untold Story of the Partition of India                                   narrated
                                        By
                        Nawazuddin Siddiqui  

 

 

 

 

 

Published on Aug 16, 2015

 

Watch some of the untold stories of Partition of India and Indian Independence as narrated by Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

 

 

 

BBC VIDEO 

 

 

India Pakistan Partition BBC Special Presentation  COMPILED

BY 

Tabarak Abbas Siyal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Published on May 17, 2012

I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 CPC: ARMED FORCES PITCH FOR IZZAT MEDIA-BABU NEXUS RELECTS IT AS BETTER COMPENSATION.

SOURCE:
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/7th-central-pay-commission-armed-forces-pitch-for-better-compensation-common-pay-matrix/






  DONT HAVE EVEN REMOTEST  EXPECTATION OUT OF THIS SAID PRESENTATION. THE FATE OF ARMED FORCES IS SEALED AS FAR AS 'BABUs' ARE CONCERNED. IT WAS THE SAME CABINET SECRETARY ALONG WITH SECRETARIES OF DEFENCE & FINANCE COMMITEE WHICH HAD SHOVED THE ARMED FORCES ANOMALIES OF 6CPC UNDER THE CARPET & UPA II HAD OK yed IT.


In the environ of vote bank politics,  governance of ARMED FORCES  has got no place in the government. It is time ARMED FORCES be made into constitutional body to manage its own affairs & be directly answerable to the Parliament. Even in the existing set up Ministry of  Defense  should be, - like Planning -, be thrown out of the window lock stock & barrel. No one will stand to lose except Babu for which forces has no love lost- VASUNDHRA

 

7th Pay Commission: Armed Forces Pitch for Better Compensation, Common Pay Matrix

                            Sushant Singh

7th Pay Commission: The absence of the military in the Empowered Committee has been a major cause of concern for the defence services.

According to those present at the March 11 meeting, the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha spoke before the presentation by stating that the issues about to be raised are important as there is discontent among the rank and file.

According to those present at the March 11 meeting, the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha spoke before the presentation by stating that the issues about to be raised are important as there is discontent among the rank and file.
At about 10 am on March 11, the three military chiefs were in the meeting room of the cabinet secretariat to attend a crucial briefing. The Pay and Allowances Review Committee (PARC) of the three services, comprising Major General rank officers, had been allotted 45 minutes to brief the Empowered Committee of Secretaries to process the recommendations of the Seventh Central Pay Commission (7th CPC).
The Empowered Committee is chaired by the Cabinet Secretary, PK Sinha and is meant to function as a screening committee to process the recommendations with regard to all relevant factors of the 7th CPC in an expeditious, detailed and holistic fashion. The Empowered Committee consists of 13 secretaries, which includes nine IAS officers, one IPS officer and one from Railway Board. There are, however, no military officers on the committee. “We are 29.7 per cent of all central government employees, as are the Railways. They have a member on the Committee but we don’t. The IPS, with strength of only 4,675 officers, has a member,” a senior military officer told The Indian Express.
The absence of the military in the Empowered Committee has been a major cause of concern for the defence services. The emotions of those in uniform have been running high since the time 7th CPC submitted its recommendations to the government in November last year. Military officials monitoring various social media platforms told The Indian Express that they have been “shocked at the vehement anger and outrage” among military personnel “not only against the civilian bureaucracy but also senior military officials” over the recommendations of the 7th CPC.


The issue has been discussed at the highest levels in the services where fears of things going wrong, in case corrective steps are not taken to address the anomalies by the Empowered Committee, have been expressed by the military hierarchy. These fears were the reason for the three military chiefs to take the unusual step of being present for the briefing of the Empowered Committee. Even earlier, immediately after the 7th CPC submitted its report, the three chiefs had jointly written to the defence minister about their concerns over its recommendations.
According to those present at the March 11 meeting, the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha spoke before the presentation by stating that the issues about to be raised are important as there is discontent among the rank and file. Requesting the committee to look favourably at the issues, he highlighted the fact that the status of the armed forces has been downgraded in the 7th CPC, and for the military, status and honour is the most important aspect of their service to the country.
The 25-minute PowerPoint presentation by PARC raised four demands before the Empowered Committee. The first demand was for grant of a Common Pay Matrix for the military and the civilian employees. The Defence Pay Matrix of the 7th CPC has only 24 pay levels while there are 40 pay levels for the civilians. This means that all military officers will stagnate at the pay reached after 31 years of service, which will, in turn mean that their pensions will be Rs 20,000 less than their civilian counterparts.
Senior civilian government officials say that due to higher number of ranks in the military compared to the civilian bureaucracy, it is not feasible to have a Common Pay Matrix. They say that the defence services were thus offered the option of a separate pay commission, which was rejected by them. “Our attempt is to get fully integrated into the system, at par with the civilians. Going for a separate pay commission defeats that purpose. We instead want to have a member on the pay commission,” explained a military official.
The second demand of the military pertained to Reciprocity of Allowances. A large number of allowances are applicable to civilian employees but not to the uniformed personnel. In April 2009, the government issued a letter stating that all compensatory field and other allowances applicable to the armed forces will also be applicable to the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF). But the allowances of CAPF have not been extended to the armed forces.
In its presentation, PARC furnished the example of a CAPF DIG in Leh would be earning an allowance of Rs 57,500 while a Brigadier will get only Rs 17,000. Similarly, a military jawan deployed for disaster management like flood or earthquake relief shall get no allowance while a National Disaster Response Force will gets Rs 6,000 every time he is deployed, and a CAPF jawan will earn Rs 17,000.
“The comparison with CAPF is not fair. Some of their allowances look high because of the concept of detachment and special duty allowances. The military now wants the option, at every place, to choose between either the CAPF allowance or the military allowance, whichever is higher. This is prima facie not fair,” countered a senior civilian bureaucrat. The military’s third demand is for restoration of weightage in pensions, which has been removed by the 7th C. The weightage in terms of years of service, because of early retirement of military officials, was removed by the 6th CPC but it was restored for JCOs and jawans in 2009 by a committee headed by the then finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee. It was further enhanced by two years by the government in August 2012.
The military also wants the disability pension to be applicable on a percentage basis as it is to civilians. This was the case so far, but the 7th CPC has recommended a slab-based system for the military. It means that while an Additional Secretary would get Rs 60,000 as disability pension, a Lt General will earn only Rs 27,000.
The fourth demand of the military is about other allowances such as the technical allowance. The memories of a mutiny in the Indian Air Force in 1996, due to vast difference in the allowances of pilots and others, are fresh in the minds of the military hierarchy. With the removal of Tier-2 of technical allowance recommended by the 7th CPC, a pilot will get Rs 25,000 as allowance while his technical counterpart will get only Rs 3,000 per month. This, the military fears, is bound to raise discontent.
The presentation by PARC earned a word of praise from the Cabinet Secretary who promised to go into the details. But the military is concerned as the pending six ‘core anomalies’ from the 6th CPC have not been resolved so far. A committee of secretaries formed in 2012 to resolve those anomalies, recommended that they be resolved by an expert body, the 7th CPC. But those anomalies in status and parities were not addressed by the 7th CPC.
The 2012 committee of secretaries was formed by the government after then defence minister, AK Anthony wrote in June 2012 to the then Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, warning that “There is growing discontentment among the Defence service personnel and Ex-servicemen across all ranks, due to various anomalies in the fixation of pay and pensions. My apprehension is that unless we take some corrective action, issue may take a bad turn.”
Four years down the line, the military hierarchy now fears that the former defence minister’s words may turn out to be prophetic.

Source: India News – IExpress

OROP KRANTI : ATTEND MEETING TO HEAR ON THE "FUTURE OF 'JANTAR MANTAR'"

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	Anil Kaul posted in Indian Ex Servicemen Movement.         Anil Kaul March 27 at 10:57am   Calling all ESM members from across India, state convents. Volunteers, associates. colleagues enthusiasts participants , to congregrate at JM on 03 Apr 2016 after 1000h to hear for yourself the VERYimportant decisions with regard to the future of JM. Come one Come all

7 CPC & ARMED FORCES : MILITARY SEETHES AT PAY COMMISSION SUGGESTIONS- KEEP ON SEETHING !!!

SOURCE:


                                    MILITARY SEETHES  AT PAY  COMMISSION SUGGESTIONS
                              By
                    Ajai Shukla

           New Delhi  March 23, 2016

**********************************************************************************

 

- KEEP ON SEETHING !!! - Vasundhra

 

 

Published on Mar 20, 2016

While netas play politics over patriotism, soldiers are fighting for pay parity. The seventh pay commission says Indian Police Service and Indian Forest Service will be at par with the IAS, leaving the military behind. On We The People, we debate the pay panel's recommendations. Why this pay divide? Will politicians who are playing patriotic games put their money where their mouth is? In crises like the recent Jat agitation, the Army is often replacing civil administration, but is not being paid as much. Why is this so? Should Armed Forces have a separate pay commission?

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The Seventh Central Pay Commission recommendations, handed over to the government in November, have aroused bitter resentment within the military. On March 11, the three service chiefs made a presentation to the "Empowered Committee of Secretaries", a 13-member panel headed by the cabinet secretary, which is looking into the recommendations. The army, navy and air force are waiting to see if this panel will tone down clauses that former army chief VP Malik has termed "a killer for the military."

This impression is rampant amongst soldiers, sailors and airmen, even though the Seventh Pay Commission has raised baseline military salaries by about 15 per cent, taking the pay of a lieutenant (the entry grade for officers) to Rs 56,100 per month; and that of a sepoy (the entry grade for ratings) to Rs 21,700 per month. This is significantly lower than the 40 per cent increases handed out by the Fifth and Sixth Pay Commissions. One of the Seventh Pay Commission members, Rathin Roy, underlining the imperative to curb government spending, has admitted unapologetically: "We are the stingiest pay commission, ever."

In addition to pay, soldiers get a special allowance called "military service pay", which exists in most militaries in forms such as the British army's "X-Factor Pay". The Seventh Pay Commission raises it for officers from Rs 6,000 to Rs 15,500 per month; and for persons below officer rank from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,200 per month.

 

In addition, soldiers get a "risk and hardship allowance", based on the profile allocated to every military station. The highest grade on the matrix is Rs 25,000 per month, but serving on the Siachen Glacier and Antarctica entitles a soldier to a special grade of Rs 31,500 per month.

Totting up these allowances, the Seventh Pay Commission chairman, Justice Ashok Kumar Mathur, in an interview to The Economic Times on December 20, claimed he had recommended 30 per cent higher salaries for the military than civilian services would draw.

His logic was based on the dubious premise that military service pay constitutes a component of salary. In western military salary structures, such allowances are not salary, but compensation for the "intangible hardships" of military service. These include long separation from families, wives being unable to work, and children changing schools frequently and growing up without their father, et cetera.

During its deliberations, the Seventh Pay Commission asked the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) to compare military salaries in India with those of major foreign armed forces. While the IDSA study was relatively unbiased, the Commission chose to interpret them selectively, applying purchasing power parity to boost the value of Indian military salaries; and then comparing them with the per capita income of the concerned country. Given India's abysmal per capital income, military salaries look good by comparison. The Seventh Pay Commission uses this to argue that India's military is paid very well by international standards.

It's the comparison, stupid!

Since the hefty raises of the Fifth and Sixth Pay Commissions, few soldiers claim they are poorly paid. Even so, festering resentment stems from the widespread belief that civilian officials, particularly from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), conspire to whittle away the military's relative status. Soldiers point to a host of generous allowances and the assured promotion benefits that are triggered for entire civilian batches as a result of the first officer of that batch getting promoted. A key element of this was instituted by the Sixth Pay Commission through a mechanism called "non-functional financial upgrade". This mandates that when an IAS officer from a particular batch is promoted to a certain rank, all his batchmates from some sixty Group 'A' central services also start drawing the higher pay scale two years later, irrespective of competence or vacancies in that rank. The military had taken up a case for a similar upgrade, but this was not agreed to. The Seventh Pay Commission does not recommend its extension to the military either.

Thus, while practically every civilian central service officer would make it to the top pay grades, the army will remain a sharply pyramidal meritocracy, where less than one per cent of officers are promoted to lieutenant general rank (higher administrative grade, in pay commission scales). Those soldiers who do not make the cut - including meritorious officer, who are held back only because of limited promotion vacancies at each rank - are entitled to neither the power nor the pelf of higher rank since the army has no non-functional financial upgrade. The military's demand for parity has been one of the five "core anomalies" of the Sixth Pay Commission, and was strongly pressed before the "Empowered Committee" last week.

Cost-to-company

Adding to the bitterness amongst soldiers is the argument, increasingly voiced by civil service officers, that soldiers' emoluments should be evaluated in terms of "cost-to-company", taking into account all their emoluments and facilities. Top generals argue that the armed forces constitute "the cheapest gun fodder", since they incur the least lifetime cost to the government. They point out that soldiers incur the lowest induction cost, since they do not get paid salary during their training period, unlike civilian officers and the Central Armed Police Forces. They have the lowest retention cost, since they retire early, thus drawing salaries for less time than civilian counterparts; and they also have the lowest advancement cost, since relatively small numbers are promoted to higher rank, leaving many languishing at lower pay grades. Finally, soldiers also incur the lowest pension costs, since their pensions are fixed at 50 per cent of the last pay drawn - at lower pay grades in most cases.

The army has slowly - and sullenly - come to terms with the "first amongst equals" status of the IAS, which has been inexorably institutionalised since the Third Pay Commission noted that "an IAS officer gets an unequalled opportunity of living and working among the people, participating in planning and implementation of developmental programmes, working with the Panchayati Raj institutions, coordinating the activities of government departments in the district and dealing directly with the problems of law and order." Given this, the Third Pay Commission granted the IAS (and the Indian Foreign Service) three extra increments at each of three successive seniority grades - senior time scale, junior administrative grade and selection grade - to which IAS officers are promoted at four, nine and 13 years of service, respectively. Since the other services got just one increment at these grades, IAS/IFS officers accumulate six extra increments by the time they have served 13 years. This lead in emoluments continues through their service.

However, successive governments have ensured the military remains the "first amongst uniformed services." The Seventh Pay Commission now upsets this balance by recommending that "the criticality of functions at the district administration level holds good equally for the IAS, Indian Police Service (IPS) as well as the Indian Forest Service (IFoS)." It recommends that six additional increments be extended also to the IPS and IFoS.

The military chiefs have argued strongly before the "Empowered Committee" that the military - which they term "the instrument of last resort" - does not have the option of "handing over an adverse situation to any other government agency". They have argued that, while the police and central armed police force personnel often lay down their lives, including in cross border firing, they incur a "lower level of risk" compared with the armed forces, which "actively seek encounters with terrorists and close combat with the enemy, despite the high risk of death". The chiefs have argued that military service demands higher levels of proficiency, commitment and sense of sacrifice.

There is little to suggest, however, that the government is listening. The anomalies of the Sixth Pay Commission still remain unresolved, including the five "core anomalies" that include the military's demand for non-functional financial upgrade. A committee of secretaries that was constituted in 2011 heard the military for a month and then tossed the ball into the court of the Seventh Pay Commission. There is little to suggest the military's current representations would be treated with greater sensitivity.







































































 

REVIEW REPORT ON REDRESSAL OF GRIEVANCES -RAKSHA MANTRI’S COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS

SOURCE:
http://mod.gov.in/writereaddata/Reportcc.pdf

                   MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

 
                              REPORT

                     RAKSHA MANTRI’S
              COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS
REVIEW OF SERVICE AND PENSION MATTERS INCLUDING POTENTIAL DISPUTES, MINIMIZING LITIGATION AND STRENGTHENING INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISMS RELATED TO REDRESSAL OF GRIEVANCES
                                 2015


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http://mod.gov.in/writereaddata/Reportcc.pdf