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The year will be remembered for its negatives and controversies. This is unfortunate considering that the Indian armed forces, the world’s fourth largest military, is an important instrument of state power and is viewed to be central to India’s attempt to seek greater power accommodation of its rise as both a regional and an economic power. This year’s discourse was dominated by one major negative and controversy each, both linked to senior officers in the Army. For the first time in the armed forces’ post-Independence history, a serving service chief revealed anomaly in his date of birth as recorded at the time of recruitment and took a stand on insisting that this be ‘corrected’. In addition to the question of whether it is morally appropriate for the Army Chief, General V. K. Singh, to seek a change in his date of birth towards the end of his career and after having attained the top position, the issue, equally significantly, brought to fore anomalies in the functioning of the Army’s Adjutant-General branch and the Military Secretary branch. How did these two departments, pivotal to personnel issues, end up recording varying dates of birth of an officer who eventually rose to become an Army Chief? This is a subject for investigation along with whether there are more such anomalies. A grave negative was the conviction of three Lt-Generals, one of whom was dismissed from service, a second cashiered and awarded three years’ rigorous imprisonment, and a third awarded loss of seniority in a land scam in West Bengal. The conviction of the high-ranking three star generals, a Military Secretary, a Corps Commander and the Director-General (Supply and Transport) — all key positions — raises a serious question on leadership and integrity of some sections of the Army’s leadership. This cannot be cited as a one-off considering that the Army has and continues to be periodically rocked by scandals comprising moral, financial and professional corruption. It was not without reason that General V. K. Singh acknowledged on assuming the post of Army Chief last year that his service needs to accord attention to its ‘internal health’. Not much was achieved on acquisitions and induction of new weapon systems and platforms. Many of these are still in the pipeline as part of a much-needed and delayed major modernisation plan envisaged to involve an expenditure of about $ 50 billion by the end of the current decade. The Ministry of Defence finally narrowed down its selection for the medium range combat aircraft (MRCA) to the European Fighter Aircraft and the French Rafale, both from Europe. It involved the surprise rejection of the US F-16 and F-18 fighters and also the MiG-35 offered by India’s traditional weapons supplier, Russia. A significant development was the US offer to involve India in the development of its most advanced fighter, the F-35, even as India signed agreements with Russia for the co-development of a fifth-generation fighter aircraft. The Indian Air Force finally got its C-130J Hercules transport aircraft bought explicitly, however, to transport the Army’s Special Forces. Big-ticket weapon systems and platforms such as the 44,500 tonne Russian Admiral Gorshkov (rechristened as INS Vikramaditya) and the French-made Scorpene submarines continue to await induction as does also the lease of a Russian nuclear-powered submarine, which has been delayed owing to a fire on board during sea trials. The Army continues to grapple with insurgency in Kashmir and militant violence in the North-East. The debate over abrogation of the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) has added to the concerns of the Army, which is deeply engaged in counter-insurgency operations in the trouble-torn state. In addition to the much-delayed induction of weapon systems, especially in the Army, all three armed forces continue to be plagued by officer shortage. The issue is numerically acute in the Army, which continues to average a shortfall of about 11,500. The issue is qualitatively acute in the technology and capital-intensive Navy and Air Force, which operate sophisticated technology on board aircraft, ships, submarines, and on land. All this has a collective bearing on the efficiency of the services, especially in view of the increasing sophistication of weapon systems that require qualitatively superior and technology-savvy youth to lead, direct and operate such systems during war.
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A major breakthrough was achieved when scientists created a wonder drug which kills cancer. In fact, the medicine is believed to wipe out some of the most deadly forms of the disease. The KG5 drug is likely to be available in less than five years.
All three armed forces continue to grapple with the issue of officers’ shortage. The issue is numerically acute in the Army, which continues to average a shortfall of about 11,500.
Big deal for the forces
European nuclear research scientists claimed that they are close to discovering the elusive Higgs Boson, the “God particle” that confers mass on matter. It is thought to be one of the building blocks to the universe. But they are still some way from confirming the existence of a sub-atomic particle that is one of the cornerstones of modern physics. The Cern laboratory in Geneva confirmed that measurements by its £5b Large Hadron Collider have come closer than previous searches to detecting the sub-atomic particle, whose existence was first hypothesised in the 1960s.
Observations by the US space telescope Kepler pinpointed a planet orbiting another sun. It is the closest thing to Earth that has been detected to date. Kepler 22-b is about 2.4 times the size of Earth and lies in the “Goldilocks zone” around its home star. Conditions on the new planet are neither too hot nor too cold.
In spite of half a century of sending probes to Mars, space engineers still have a shaky record of success. Out of the 38 Mars missions, 19 have suffered some kind of major flaw, a failure rate of 50 per cent. The latest victim of the Great Galactic Ghoul was the Russian
Phobos-Grunt mission, which was supposed to fly on a 10-month mission to Mars after its recent launch. Instead, it found itself stuck in orbit only a few hundred miles above the Earth.