M A I N   N E W S

Services moot cyber, aerospace & special forces commands 
Ajay Banerjee/TNS

New Delhi, June 12
The Chief of Staff Committee (CoSC), a body comprising the Chiefs of the three Services, met yesterday to fine-tune an upcoming policy on having three additional tri-Services commands with each of the Services heading one of it.

However, unlike the existing tri-Services commands or staff formations in India, which have Commanders appointed by rotation from each of the three Services, the new Commands will be entrusted with one service making it the overall in charge with officers and staff coming in from all three services.

The CoSC, headed by Air Chief Marshall NAK Browne, at its meeting yesterday fine-tuned the policy for having three new tri-Services commands, the aerospace command, the cyber command and the special forces operations command.

According to the existing suggestions made at the CoSC meeting yesterday, the IAF is likely to get the aerospace command, the Navy will get the cyber command and the Army will be responsible for the special forces operations command, sources said. The logic for each has been assessed. The number of special forces with the IAF - called the Garuds - and the under the Navy - called the Marcos, are too small in number to be sustainable on their own.

These will be brought under the control of the Indian Army which has some 10,000 troops trained and kept ready for any ‘commando style’ operation.

Also, the Army provides the National Security Guards with some its best trained men. This will be fitted within the newly increased capacities by way of specialised planes like the just-inducted C-130-J and the soon-to-be-inducted heavy lifter - the C-17. Both can land on mud-strips. The C-130-J demonstrated it at a recent exercise called Livewire in the desert. The proposal is to base the aerospace command with the IAF that will draw forces from the Army and Navy besides getting some component of the DRDO. In the future, the specialised ‘X-band’ radars, which can spot a 6-inch object some 4,600 km away and can provide live imagery, can be aid to this command.

The need to have one Service in-charge of one command stems from the ‘not-so-smooth’ experience of India's only operational theatre command at Andaman and Nicobar Islands which has a Lt-General, Vice-Admiral or Air Marshal heading it by rotation. This model had not been successful according to the feedback and assessment of the CoSC, hence the need to have one Service responsible for the command and draw the mandated resources from the other two.