L A T E S T      N E W S

All 3 Service Chiefs enjoy govt's confidence: Antony

NEW DELHI: In possible signs of thaw, Defence Minister A. K. Antony on Thursday appeared to be ruling out any action against Army Chief Gen. V. K. Singh but vowed to take the "strongest action" under laws against those responsible for the leak of his letter to the Prime Minister.

He disclosed that the Intelligence Bureau has been asked to go into the leak of the letter in which the Army Chief had said that the country's security might be at stake and said the government will get to the root of it and find out the persons behind the "anti-national" act.

"All the three service chiefs enjoy the confidence of the government. They are working...otherwise, how can they continue," he told reporters when he was asked whether Gen. Singh still enjoyed the government's pleasure and confidence.

At a press conference at the DefExpo, he was also asked whether the government would continue to "grin and bear" Gen Singh till retirement in May or ask him to go on leave following a spate of controversies surrounding him.

The minister's remarks on the confidence in the service chiefs came moments after a statement issued by Gen. Singh from Jammu that the leak of his letter should be treated as "high treason" and its source should be dealt with "ruthlessly".

Maintaining that no patriotic Indian would indulge in sensitive communication because it would only help the enemies, Antony said the report will be available at the earliest. "I assure you that we will not leave it there. We will make every possible attempt to find out the real culprits who have done this anti-national activity and they will be given the maximum punishment under the Indian Penal Code," he said.

Ever since he lost the battle over the age issue, Gen. Singh has been at loggerheads with the government and has given media interviews claiming he was offered a bribe of Rs 14 crore to swing a substandard defence deal. — PTI

Army Chief denies leaking letter to PM, calls it high treason

NEW DELHI: Facing demands for his dismissal, Army Chief Gen V K Singh on Thursday said the leak of his letter to the Prime Minister presenting a grim picture of the force's defence preparedness should be treated as "high treason" and the source of leakage dealt with "ruthlessly". The assertion by the General to trace the source of the leak came even as defence sources said the Intelligence Bureau had been asked to inquire into the leakage of the letter to the media.

As tensions between him and the government escalated over the leak of his official letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Gen Singh hit back saying a "cynical approach" to tarnish his reputation should stop.

In a brief statement released by Army Headquarters, Gen Singh, who is currently in Jammu and Kashmir, further said his official communication with the Prime Minister and Defence Minister was a "privileged" communication.

"The leakage of the letter should be treated as high treason. Cynical approach to tarnish my reputation should stop. Sources of the leakage should be found and dealt with ruthlessly," said Singh, who is due to retire on May 31.

Singh's leaked letter led to demands by SP, JD(U) and RJD for his dismissal yesterday even as Government and Opposition were agreed his concerns should not have come out in the open.

There was a strong demand to launch a probe how the letter was leaked to the media. It was also felt that the Army Chief should have first raised his concerns on the risk to the country's security directly with the Defence Minister. The General was also accused of breach of discipline.

The media leak of the letter came on top of an acrimony between the Army Chief and the government since early this week over his media interview in which he had claimed that he was offered a bribe of Rs 14 crore by a retired Lt Gen for swinging a sub-standard defence deal.

"I have made serious note of the observations. After consulting the Prime Minister and colleagues, we will take appropriate action," Antony said in Rajya Sabha yesterday after members expressed serious concerns over issues of national security.

Earlier today, reports published in the Indian Express revealed that General Singh had on Wednesday forwarded a letter sent by Trinamool MP Ambika Banerjee, calling for probe against Lt Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag in connection with 'procurement scam', to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI on Thursday confirmed receiving the letter which was written by Banerjee in May 2011.

In the letter MP Banerjee alleged 'procurement scam' in the Special Frontier Force, when Suhag was its Inspector General. Lt General Dalbir Singh is presently third in line to be Army Chief. Banerjee has also alleged payoffs for the purchase of night-vision devices, communication systems, weapons as well as parachutes, reported Indian Express.

The MP also named Army officers, including a former Army chief, who he alleged received crores in kickbacks for defence procurement and amassed "huge" disproportionate assets. Banerjee named agents who he claims dealt with these procurements, reported the paper.

On Wednesday, a leaked secret letter from the army chief to the Prime Minister that outlines major gaps in India's defence preparedness became another battleground between the force and the ministry, taking tensions between the government and General VK Singh to a dangerous and unprecedented level. Earlier Singh had claimed that he was offered a Rs 14 crore bribe for allowing substandard purchase for the defence forces.

Speculations are rife whether the government will act against Army chief General VK Singh once Parliament's budget session gets over, or will it deal with the issue after confirming the source that leaked his letter?

Talking to the media this morning, Banerjee accepted that he had sent a letter to the Prime Minister and Defence Ministry in this context but said that he had not sent any letter to VK Singh. He said that Gen Singh may be having a copy of the letter. Banerjee also said that though he received an acknowledgement of the letter, no action was taken in this regard. — PTI

Pak addicted to using militants against India: Pentagon

Washington: Pakistan has an "addiction" of "playing around" with militant groups against India, a top Pentagon official has said.

"They have an addiction to playing around with militia groups to achieve certain interests, particularly vis-a-vis India. That gets them in all kinds of trouble," Michael Sheehan, assistant secretary of Defence for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict, told lawmakers at a Congressional hearing.

Responding to questions, Sheehan said the US has been having discussion with Pakistan in this regard, but without much success.

"We've had these conversations with them forever about that. I don't see that changing. I don't see any set of talking points that's going to be delivered by some new diplomat that's going to change their mind," Sheehan said, adding the US has virtually "given up" in its effort to change the mindset of Pakistan with regard to India.

"It's the way they view the world. We have to understand the way they view the world and try to work through it. But it's not going to be easy, but I think at the end of the day we have been successful in the FATA in degrading alQaeda over the last 10 years despite all these problems.

"And I think that we're going to continue to work through it and hopefully again have another 10 years of success in degrading al-Qaeda's strategic capability in the FATA and elsewhere," Sheehan said.

Global trade summit begins in Delhi

New Delhi: BRICS summit kicks off in New Delhi today where leaders of the emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are set to discuss trade ties and several global issues.

New areas of cooperation are expected to be discussed at the meeting, said an official release.

Trade Minister Anand Sharma said, "There is a large untapped growth potential of intra-BRICS trade and investments which we are presently focusing on for exploitation."

Besides, the development banks of BRICS are in advanced stage of reaching a pact for extending cross-country credit in local currencies of the member countries, he said.

The theme of the 4th BRICS Summit is 'Partnership for Stability, Security and Growth'. The last summit was held in China in April, 2011.

The US is looking forward to the outcome of the New Delhi summit. 

Facebook offers Rs 1.34 cr package to Allahabad student

ALLAHABAD: Social networking giant Facebook has hired an engineering student here for a fat annual pay package of Rs 1.34 crore, one of the biggest offers made to alumnus of any technical institution of the country.

According to P. Chakravarti, Director of the Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT), a B.Tech student from the institute, who has requested that his name be withheld for "security reasons", received a letter on March 27 from Facebook confirming his appointment and the annual pay package on offer was stated to be $262,500 (approx. Rs 1.34 crore).

Interestingly, the MNNIT Director said the recruitment process began with a mail from Facebook "in October last year which was followed by nine rounds of telephonic interviews" before he was finally selected for the plush job, which would require the student, who hails from Kanpur, to move to Menlo Park in California after finishing his software engineering course at the institute.

"Many students from our institute have bagged lucrative jobs. We have knowledge of at least 30 of our alumni getting selected with packages of more than Rs 10 lakh from companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe etc", Chakravarti said.

"However, this one has been unprecedented and we are sure that no other student from any of the other institutions in the city or the more than two dozen National Institutes of Technology across the country has so far been offered such an awesome pay package", he added. — PTI