IPS Private limited- R&AW India's top intelligence agency

NEW DELHI: Even as the country battles an unprecedented wave of terror, the Research & Analysis Wing, the country's prime counter-intelligence agency, has sunk to a new low in terms of corruption, nepotism, and misuse of its vast secret funds. Officials in the agency, far from helping the country fight its enemies outside, are busy fighting among themselves, further eroding its competence.At the centre of the rot is R&AW chief Ashok Chaturvedi, who is seen by many agency insiders as building his own coterie at the cost of its overall objectives. There is a subterranean battle for supremacy going on between officers of R&AW and those deputed to the agency from the Indian Police Service (IPS). According to a DNA investigation, within days of taking over as R&AW chief, Chaturvedi ordered the agency to hire his own private flat in Noida, on Delhi's outskirts, as a safe house. Over the years, R&AW has used an internal order to hire its own employees' houses for official use, after carrying out expensive renovations. A former R&AW chief's house in South Delhi and a Jammu house belonging to an employee who is part of Chaturvedi's inner circle are now R&AW safe houses using this logic. Another bungalow belonging to Chaturvedi, again in Noida, is presently under renovation with the agency's assistance. It is protected by R&AW personnel. As R&AW chief, Chaturvedi has almost autonomous control of over the agency's annual budget of over Rs1,000 crore.Sources spoken to by DNA said that R&AW may also have provided financial assistance to Chaturvedi's son based in Europe from discretionary funds meant for intelligence operations, but no documentary evidence on this was available. However, other sources confirmed this allegationThe decay at the agency is best symbolised by how a lower-level functionary, JC Kapoor, Chaturvedi's personal secretary, has managed to get his daughters into the agency without a whimper of protest. All of Kapoor's four daughters are employed with R&AW, and two of them — Simple and Dimple — are reportedly waiting for foreign postings after brief spells in Punjab to fulfill the "field" posting requirement. R&AW officials have to do field work before they get posted abroad.The eldest daughter, Soni Shukla, is in Delhi doing a foreign language course, possibly in expectations of another foreign posting. The youngest of the siblings joined the Aviation Research Centre in Delhi some time ago. Chaturvedi's detractors also talk of the R&AW chief's house being staffed by over two dozen agency personnel. Among them: staff to look after his dogs, two cooks, almost half a dozen telephone operators and four gardeners. Perhaps symptomatic of Chaturvedi's priorities, on September 27 he was watching a movie when the Delhi blasts happened. There are no reports that the movie buff rushed to action on hearing about the attacks.Senior officials also complain that they no longer have direct access to him, and instead have to deal with his inner circle. The intra-agency feuding has been worsened by an open dogfight between IPS officers, who have come on deputation to R&AW, and officers of the directly-recruited Research & Analysis Service (RAS). It is an open secret that RAS has sometimes been used to recruit the relatives of powerful bureaucrats without any transparency. Many who got into RAS in a similar fashion are now in senior positions, further contributing to the open fight. The fierce infighting between the IPS and RAS lobbies has also resulted in some shocking instances of misuse of authority. Two different sources confirmed to DNA that an RAS officer, who was forced to quit the agency after Chaturvedi took over, had in the past been caught illegally tapping the telephones of senior IPS officers, including the then chief of the agency.During DNA's course of investigations, each lobby was hurling the worst allegations against the other. And it was clear that lack of cohesion at the highest levels of R&AW is an issue of national urgency that needs addressing.

Identify the real cuprits of Mumbai massacre

Since last few days I have been watching the anger of vigilant citizens of India on various TV channels. I really feel pity and concerned about the perception levels and the remedies being suggested and everybody abusing the politicians. I am not a fan of politicians at all but people need to understand that the biggest culprits are the people from police fraternity who head the complete security and intelligence apparatus of the country. Starting from the national security adviser of India Mr MK Narayanan who seems to be less of a security adviser and more of a astrologer who can predict about Batla house encounter needing no inquiry to extend the culpability of this cold blooded murder to whole country and shielding criminals in uniform. But he completely fails to gear up his intelligence apparatus to make predictions about the repercussions of such a crime and very successfully drives India into the biggest disaster of the century where almost 200 people died instantly with 300 injured seriously. People please wake up and call for the dismissal of The police chief of Maharashtra state and the police chief of Mumbai along with all those police officers who were responsible for the intelligence apparatus including the chief of intelligence bureau. People must immediately demand for their termination of services without any pension and benefits to send a strong signal that inefficiency and deriliction of duty will not be tolerated at all. If the leadership completely fails to prepare its own apparatus than it has to pay the price.The complete government at the centre including the Prime Minister and the chairperson of the UPA and Gujarat Chief minister should be tried by a court of law for having given silent approval to the extrajudicial killings of a particular community and shielding the accused police officers and generating discontent among a particular community and in turn prepare a complete breeding ground for these terror acts. And we must remember that all these terrorist acts are the ex-pressions of complete failure of us as a civic society. We need to be very careful of all those cheats in power who have always been deceiving the country and its people by blaming the neighbours and their support to such acts. First we need to address our own Indian community and put our own house in order. As long as inequalities, injustice and police attrocities will exist in the country, such desperate acts may keep taking place as an ex-pression of frustration, we have been facing this violence in complete northeast India, we faced it in Punjab, we are facing it in Kashmir. Placing of NSG in four major metropolitan cities cannot be a solution, such specialised forces can only provide symptomatic treatment for the time being. What is most important, media must stop eulogizing the cold blooded murders by police and we introduce stringent accountability measures in police departments and intelligence apparatus of the country. Community leaders and political leadership must come forward sans their immediate vested interests and work together to redress the grievances of simmering discontent in various communities.

People of this largest democracy must know that morale bankcruptcy breeds corruption and sets in cowardice in human character, If you expect the corrupt police leadership hailing from Immune Police Service to be brave and give you the solution to terrorist violence then it is insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is called insanity and that's what people of india have been repeatedly doing. Jessica case and the heavy weight police commissioner responsible for providing leadership to delhi police that successfully destroyed the entire case to shield the culprits is rewarded with the job of writting the new police act and the IO of the case is placed under suspension after due promotion to the rank of ACP and later on High Court of Delhi is apprised that no one is to be blamed for the lapses in investigation. The successor to the hy. weight commissioner is rewarded with the chairmanship of UPSC.

We had Delhi massacre of 1984, 2002 gujarat pogrom, khairlanji, priyadrashini mattoo, Nithari, arushi case, Adobe India Chief's son's recovery and the police confrence proving its fallacy.Ansal plaza and now we graduate to Batla house but we have been shielding and promoting the criminals and all these criminal acts and injustices lead to expression of frustration of the young in shape of viloence and still this leadership doesn't feel ashamed and wants to continue misleading the country by distracting the attention to neighbours.

Please wake up and take all these real criminals to the gallows.

discrediting the real heroes by creating the fallacy of martrydom

First of all I pay homage to all the victims of terrorist violence at Mumbai, all those who died at Mumbai, irrespective of their nationality and profession including the police officers of so called Anti terror squad seems to have been failed by we indians for our dishonest ways and killing this largest democracy in its slow death by tolerating unethical practices and remaining indifferent to our own country by resigning to our fate by constantly complaining and blaming our favourable whipping boy "the politicians". I salute those brave heart commandos of NSG and Navy who fought the terror menace and saved india from further humiliation and loss of lives.But we must wake to the grim reality of this fact that the terror acts are not only the ex-pression of failure of our complete civic society but also complete failure of the Police leadership of the country that is heading the complete security and intelligence apparatus of the country. it is the same police leadership that takes the biggest bite of the cake of recent pay commission and degrades the armed forces and its officers in not only rank and status but also in perks and pay. These culprits must now know their place that it was same army navy and air force personnel that have been not only slighted by them but belittled by them. It amounts to also slighting the sacrifice of the NSG commando Major Sandeep and chander singh when we compare their courageous act of fighting militants in the face of iminent death with the the death of three police officers who died while travelling in their vehicle on way to hospital where they were going to check the welfare of their injured colleague. Their professionalism and response as the top cops of much eulogised Anti terrorist squad to the militant attack was to get killed without firing even a single shot and we eulogise their death that is no different then the death of other 186 citizens in comparison with the sacrifice of Major Sandeep and Commando Gajender singh. let us stop being dishonest to the real heroes by creating the fallacy of martrydom, let us not rob them of their credit because they are from armed forces where their colleauges can't become media darling and raise voices for discipline.Let us stop the fallacy of martrydom to police follies in the shape of "Batla house" and the encounter specialists of 100 cold blooded murders getting killed like sitiing ducks, it causes demoralising affect on the real warriors on whom the country can eventually bank. please wake up your conscience and be crystal clear and honest in heaping praises.

Batla House Encounter at L-18 on 19 sept 2008 and death of democracy

I happened to attend the national convention on rise of fascist forces organized by Anhad in conjucnction with 90 other organizations from around the country with about 750 delegates. all that I heard really intimidated me ,the short cuts of the police in the name of encounters have very serious rammifications.
The police , the courts , the politicians every one has colluded with silent approval to exra judicial killings against the poor and all out in inflicting injustice upon them. it is the begining of the slow death of democracy in india.

In Real life encounters there are no specialists, In cold blooded murders there are

Kindly refer to Sekhar Gupta's article in National interest(A different encounter) that appeared in Indian express dated 11 oct 2008. "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit attrocities" - VoltaireThe skills of articulating one's feelings and writting good prose should not give one an authority to subvert the minds of people, I think it will be good if we leave this job for our politicians. At least people from intelligentia should not start becoming part of such a propaganda, unless one is part of the nefarious game. And such an article appearing in a newspaper like Indian express leaves its readers nothing less than demoralised and frustrated as it seems to have embarked upon a retrograde journey against trust on the truth. Actually it is the police functioning that doesn't inspire confidence among citizens. professionalism of pot bellied special cell cops can be well understood by every armed force officer. The death of Inspector M.C.Sharma has really saved Delhi police of lots of explaining in the face of every unprofessional tactics and working. The actions of media and propaganda of it affixes the stamp of legitimacy and authenticity on every encounter that is very dangerous trend but let me tell you with my firm convictions that you need to live through the things to know where the truth lies.I had been part of anti militancy operations in Punjab, Kashmir, Assam, manipur and Nagaland for two decades with best available men at my disposal and was never so lucky with my men and realized that in real life encounters no one can become a specialist but in cold blooded murders one can. I can assure you that when you are exposed to live fire of a professional who has the advantage of even minutest of fortification with element of surprise with him, you have to be lucky to escape unhurt from his well deliberated fire, it doesn't give you second chance but It was ACP Rajbir Singh and Insp M C Sharma who could continue with their scores of alleged encounter killings to 100 and 75 respectively( and it is with every police sub inspector & Inspector as they are simply pawns in the hands of supervisory senior police officers who create these murder specialists by providing legitimacy and protection as a cover up to their own professional incompetence) and from my experience I can certainly say that the real life encounter that alleged Encounter Specialist ACP must have faced was his last one and we can similarly place the deceased Inspector's encounter too, I have all my sympathy for the bereaved family but it doesn't mean that we blindly start subverting a complete process to give legitimacy to the acts and omissions that have very serious repercussions and prove counter productive for society.I have all my regards to the popular sentiments of the public of this country that gets mislead very quickly but the death of a police officer in an alleged encounter should not give freedom to give legitimacy to the killings of two youths in questionable circumstances, rather police chief must volunteer for a judicial probe, the police that is not accountable to its citizens, certainly leads to erosion of trust and for the police to be effective in their role in their area, people must feel that they can trust them. Police chief must not forget that success or failure of police depends upon the sense of security prevailing in the community and faith of public and not on the scale of statistics of encounters.I did work with alleged elitist NSG(so called black cats) and currently associated with NATO( High Readiness Forces Land) as trainer and being an insider from the point of view of a security professional, our media and the police need to be educated and better trained so that innocent citizens like Inspector M.C.Sharma do not lose their life.It may not be out of place to mention here the death of a young IPS officer Mr.Jaswinder singh,DIG in Orissa in a similar encounter with the militants but his widow refused to accept the false Halo of martrydom to her husband and pursued the matter and finally it revealed the truth of another police encounter. I can provide the writer a whole list of such encounters that may open up his eyes about encounter truths.Our police doesn't have even clue on how to deploy arms when pitted against armed adversaries in built up areas and in my personal view I hold every police constable on the streets as a very big security hazard to the public life and property and in this regard I had written to the then DGP BPR&D Dr.Kiran bedi and that letter she had published on the website of Bureau of Police Research http://bprd.nic.in/writereaddata/linkimages/feedback14069794474.jpg. These armed police personnel are nothing more then an armed mob and our country will do much better without them being around. Senior Police officers are simply media managers and spin doctors and will go all out to thwart every attempt of seeking an investigation into the encounter, because it will expose their script writing. This is high time our country needs to redesign intake of police officers their career progression and training and public needs to rise to the occasion and question every action on the issue of accountability otherwise day is not far when we will boast of 12000 widows and 24000 orphaned children like Kashmir in every state.when ever there is terror strike in the form of bomb blasts we speak of intelligence failure but we never realize that the officers who become failures in there respective states, we get them on deputation to our so called intelligence bureau and bigger failures come to so called R&AW. all these officers are the ones who have no aptitude for intelligence working because they are IPS( who come with very good academic qualifications but learn swimming only on black boards and keep accumulating black board training hours with assured career progression in ranks also but when they are thrown in the water, they are bound to sink and take the entire nation to inevitable doom)working as intelligence officer can't be every one's cup of tea( Yea ! This I am saying out of my experience with these officers as I was unlucky to be part of intelligence operations too and working with those senior police officers who even lacked common sense forget about high average intelligence.)Our Indian police service has gone to militarisation rather beaten even military brass when it comes to public display of pomp and show but never learnt anything from its big brother(Military) when it comes to professional ethos and accountability. Recently centre goverment has given nod for creation of additional posts of special DGs(Lt.General rank) in central police organizations but they will be nothing more then burden on public exchequer, as there is hardly any requirement of them, there are no special operational plans that needs to be mobilized by these officers. Tactics of all the Operational plans of all these special cell organizations hover at the levels of sub inspectors and Inspectors. These additionally created Generals will never ever mobilige forces to the quantum of an army corps commander and needs to be done away with. There is big chasm that divides the real life functioning and requirements of these police organizations and the academic leadership with superfluous knowledge that is way beyond realistic operational requirements.The ultimate need of the hour is for the public to rise and question every act of these emperors on the issue of accountability, whether it is question of destruction and collection of evidence in Jessica case or Priyadarshini mattoo case, arushi case or Nithari case or ADOBE India Chief's son's release case or Ansal plaza case. that only will save the country from impending, inevitable disasters of special operations by Special Director Generals and their encounter specialists of Special Cells and we will keep creating martyrs and paying homage to Sharmas and Singhs and let me reiterate at the end of this email that in real life encounters there are no specialists but in cold blooded murders there are, because, real life encounters don't give you second chance but fake ones do.ADJ Singh

White wash and comissions-Hunter Better Than Nanavati

Hunter Better Than Nanavati
By R.B. Sreekumar
29 September, 2008Countercurrents.org
The Nanavati Commission report deserves the description as a whitewashing document of the aggressors than the conclusion of an enquiry. This is an immature, partisan and inconclusive report which has a political motive. It can only be seen only as a predetermined script. The report hides the heinous acts of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and co, who were the perpetrators of the violence. This is not a blind attack by me, but an analysis based on facts.
I am a police officer, committed to the Constitution, who has filed four affidavits before the Nanavati Commission. Every commission has the responsibility to analyse and probe the truth about the information even if it is scribbled on a torn piece of paper. As the report of a senior Intelligence officer in the state, my affidavits have their own seriousness in the state where genocide (it would be a big lie to history as well as to humanity to term the atrocities unleashed in Gujarat as Hindu-Muslim riot) took place. Many things, with proof, about the situations that led to the riots and the roles of the senior officials in them have all been included in the report submitted before the commission.
I have been threatened by Government Pleader Aravidn Pande and Home Secretary Murmu that it would cause repercussions if I tell the truth before the Commission. (Pande's poisonous hissings had been brought before the people of the country by 'Tehleka'). I have even recorded their speeches and presented before the Commission. The Commission had the responsibility to verify the truth about them. The Commission should also have recommended punishment for me had the affidavits I submitted been false. Instead of this the Commission canonized the perpetrators of the riots.
The Supreme Court has authorized a committee headed by former CBI director Dr. Raghavan to probe into the incidents. It also gives rise to a lot of suspicion about the submission of the Nanavati report when their work is in progress. This report disappoints every citizen who wants to see the rule of the law and secularism surviving in the country.
Right from the start there had been flaws in the workings of the Nanavati Commission. The Hunter Commission which probed the Jalianwala Bagh mass murder had recommended punishment and demotion of the British officials responsible for the incident. It is at once shameful and dangerous to note that a probe held in independent, democratic and secular India under a Justice is not even as honest as the Hunter episode. It will, in no way, be helpful to the people of India, instead, it will foster insecurity in the minority Muslim community and also create a mistrust in Muslims for the law and justice system of India.
This report has made Modi happy. BJP has also vociferously welcomed it. Because it is a report against a community, which they want to throw out from the country. Like Modi's men another group will also be happy about the report: the nefarious forces which want to exploit the discontent in the Muslim minds and attract them to become the pawns of terrorism. However who doesn't know both these forces have the same ulterior motive to exploit the situation created by bloodshed and instability.

R.B. Sreekumar was Additional Director General of Police in Gujarat.

Lodge FIR or go to jail

SC to police register FIR or face jailPosted By sunita On 11 August, 2008 (4:42 pm) In NewsNEW DELHI: Commoners, often harassed by the police’s refusal to register FIRs (first information reports), have turned the tables on the men in khaki, thanks to the Supreme Court. Stating that officials in India understood only the “crack of a whip”, the apex court on Friday ordered that a policeman turning away a person without registering his complaint could face contempt of court charges and cool his heels in jail if he failed to justify non-registration of the FIR. Brushing aside the apprehensions of some counsel who felt that an order as harsh as this could be prone to misuse by those who had an axe to grind against the police, the bench said that in India, officials were activated only by the crack of a whip. “In India, officials act only on huntering (flogging). India understands only ‘chabuk’ - this is the meaning of swaraj and this is the concept of swaraj (self-rule),” Justice B N Agrawal said. The cracker of an order came from a bench headed by Justice Agrawal, who on Thursday had a massive spat with a former law minister in open court before excusing himself from hearing a petition that had sought FIRs against judicial officers allegedly involved in the Rs 23 crore PF scam. The court has provided a detailed mechanism to citizens to make the police accountable. The bench comprising Justices Agrawal and G S Singhvi said if the police refused to register an FIR, the aggrieved person could move the area chief judicial magistrate with a complaint against the concerned officer. Posting the order on the Supreme Court website “so that the people of India may know what directions have been given by this court”, the bench said, “The chief judicial magistrate or the chief metropolitan magistrate, as the case may be, shall take action in a case of inaction upon filing of a complaint petition and give direction to institute the case within a specified time-frame.” If the police failed to act even thereafter, “the CJM or CMM shall not only initiate action against the delinquent police officer but punish them suitably by sending them to jail, in case the cause shown is found to be unsatisfactory”. Moreover, the concerned CJM or CMM court should intimate the disciplinary authority “at once by fax as well” about the errant officer, who would be immediately placed under suspension pending departmental proceedings. Acting on the petition of one Lalita Kumari who alleged that her complaint about her missing minor daughter was not acted upon by the UP police, the bench had on July 14 said that there was a general feeling across the country that the police tended to get pricey about registering complaints from commoners. “In a large number of cases, investigations do not commence even after the registration of FIRs and in a case like the present one, steps are not taken for recovery of a kidnapped person or apprehending the accused person with reasonable despatch,” the bench said and narrated a case wherein harsh orders passed by judicial officers in identical matters had led to assaults by policemen. To prevent such abuse of police powers, the court had on July 14 said that it was high time states were directed to make police register FIRs immediately on receipt of complaints. It had sought the response of chief secretaries and directors-general of police of states and UTs to the suggestion that failure to register FIRs would entail contempt of court action and a subsequent jail term. The failure of states, except Arunachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, to respond to the July 14 order made the court see red and it has asked the chief secretaries and DGPs to file their responses within two weeks. Failure to do so would warrant their personal presence in the court on August 25, the next date of hearing.

First Aid to farmers suicides

A budget for the urban rich, not farmersMarch 8 2008
CONTRARY to media hype, Indian Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s latest budget does not set a new direction. Nor does it address the huge imbalances in India’s recent growth pattern. The decision to write off farmers’ loans worth Rs60,000 crores is a belated acknowledgement of the grave agrarian crisis, which has driven 150,000 farmers to suicide in a decade. The write-off is welcome. But it’s not enough.
Sounds uncharitable? Consider that the recent problem with the Indian economy hasn’t been lack of growth. It’s lack of equity — income inequalities, and sectoral and regional disparities. The United Progressive Alliance’s last full budget was to correct this. It has failed to do so.
The much-touted Rs60,000-crore debt write-off has disarmed and confused the Bharatiya Janata Party. This is undoubtedly the largest such write-off. But it pales into insignificance beside the various exemptions, rebates, incentives and concessions provided to corporate taxpayers and rich individuals.
Last year, the government wrote off taxes and duties worth a colossal Rs2.79 lakh crores in this manner! This mind-boggling amount is more than four-and-a-half times the one-time relief for farmers, and equals one-half of all taxes collected. It includes Rs1.48 lakh crores in customs duty exemptions, Rs58,655 crores in corporate-tax concessions, and over Rs38,000 crores in income-tax exemptions.
Yet, there was no furore or accusation of scandal over this — a terrible comment on India’s economic discourse!
Now, full waiver only applies to loans from commercial banks, regional rural banks and cooperatives by farmers owning two hectares (five acres) or less.
But half such farmers borrow from local moneylenders. Seventy-seven per cent of marginal farmers owning less than 0.01 ha depend on moneylenders. So a majority of farmers are excluded from Chidambaram’s waiver.
Second, only the loans of farmers owning two ha or less are writen off. There’s 25 per cent debt relief to bigger landholders provided they repay the remaining 75 per cent. But it’s unrealistic, if not mean, to expect highly indebted farmers to repay that 75 per cent. They wouldn’t have borrowed the money unless they were desperate in the first place.
Third, a large proportion of India’s heavily indebted farmers cultivate unirrigated, low-quality land with small yields above the two ha ceiling. This is especially true, say, of the suicide belt of Vidarbha. A farmer owning five ha there is often distressed to the point of suicide. He/she stands to get virtually no relief.
A far better alternative would have been to write off loans in inverse proportion to holdings and yields — say, Rs30-50,000 for the poorest, Rs15-30,000 for the less poor, and a smaller sum for others.
This would also have taken some of the burden off the nationalised/cooperative banks, which are unlikely to be fully compensated for the write-off. It’s in nobody’s interest to weaken the public banks — unless the hidden agenda is to set them up for privatisation.
In contrast to his miserly approach to farmers stands Chidambaram’s generosity to rich income tax-payers, only 25 to 30 million people. Their taxes have been slashed to a point where they are the lowest in Independent India and among the world’s lowest.
A person earning Rs5 lakhs — thus belonging to the top two per cent — need pay no tax at all if s/he uses all available exemptions. And someone who earns Rs10 lakhs — and there are only three lakh such Indians, comprising one-hundredth of the population — will only pay a total tax of Rs 2.7 lakhs.
The tax regime has thus become even more regressive. To match this, Chidambaram has reduced taxes on cars, two-wheelers, air-conditioners, refrigerators, etc. This will encourage profligate consumption, and bloat GDP — thus creating a growth bubble, while adding to greenhouse emissions.
Chidambaram’s failure is glaring in six areas to which the UPA’s Common Minimum Programme gives priority: the public distribution system, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, health, education, social security, and reduction of regional disparities.
Instead of substantially expanding the PDS, he has raised its allocation by a paltry 3.5 per cent.
Forgotten is the goal of universalising it. The NREGA’s district-wise coverage has been doubled, but its allocation raised by just 14 per cent.
The budget’s health outlay is 17 per cent higher than last year.
But an annual increase of 35 per cent is needed over several years to raise public health-spending from the present miserable 0.9 per cent of GDP to the three per cent target.
As for social security, Chidambaram has ignored the thoughtful recommendations of the parliamentary standing committee on unorganised sector workers to give rights and entitlements, not flimsy schemes to which they contribute a premium. He has merely repackaged existing schemes for health insurance and passed them off as new. The UPA had promised to invest substantially in backward areas and states, and take urgent measures to reduce regional and subregional disparities in infrastructure, agriculture, industry and social development, which are now acquiring explosive dimensions — as the growth of Naxalism shows. The budget betrays this promise.
However, the budget has raised military spending by 10 per cent at a time when the defence ministry is returning about Rs4,000 crores unspent year after year. Including pensions, the defence allocation now stands at Rs121,160 crores — compared to a mere Rs34,300 crores for education.
Like the big tax breaks for the rich, this does not speak of balance or healthy public priorities.
Praful Bidwai is a senior Indian journalist, political activist and widely published commentator