Months of acrimony for army chief and the government

New Delhi:  The furore over Army chief General VK Singh's letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that has been leaked is just one among a series of incidents that have severely strained ties between the General and the government in this year.

Here is a timeline of the chain of events that has snowballed into an ugly confrontation between the two parties:

JANUARY 2012
This proved to be the near-climax of the simmering age row issue when General VK Singh dragged the government to the Supreme Court over his date of birth. He thus became the first serving Army chief to have taken this unprecedented step. The General contended that he was born in 1951 vis-a-vis 1950 which found mention in at least two Army records. He held his ID card, service record and promotion files to prove his stand. But the government though held that matters of promotion and seniority of General Singh were based on 1950 as his year of birth, citing two documents with the Military Secretary's branch.

The General had already applied to the Defence Ministry in December 2011 to accept his claim but without success. This was critical as it would decide when the General would retire - if the government had accepted his year of birth as 1951, he would get an additional 10 months to continue in office. General Singh is scheduled to retired in May this year.

The government tried its best to settle the matter outside courts but the row escalat6ed with several former Army officers backing the General's claim. The Centre too refused to budge as it worried that a change in stand would set an unhealthy precedent and affect its critical succession plan.

FEBRUARY 10, 2012

In the Supreme Court, it was Advantage Government as the judges indicated that they were not in favour of entertaining General Singh's petition. He withdrew it and was told to stick to the schedule and retire by May 31, 2012.

FEBRUARY 28, 2012

Having already suffered a setback in the court, there was further humiliation in store for General Singh as the government cancelled his two-day official trip to Israel. The Ministry of Defence cited "critical situation in the Middle East" and advised him to go towards the end of the year, knowing fully well that the he would have retired by then.

MARCH 25, 2012
The Defence Ministry again tried to sideline General Singh after it refused to consider his proposal in the appointment of a top military official to the post of Director General of Assam Rifles.

MARCH 26, 2012
The bribe bomb that General Singh dropped this week on the government is being seen as a direct fallout of this acrimony. He alleged that he was offered a Rs. 14 crore bribe in 2011 to clear a deal for substandard trucks by a retired Army Officer.

MARCH 27, 2012
In a further bid to corner the government, General Singh said that he had informed Defence Minister AK Antony about the bribery issue.

MARCH 28, 2012
The controversy was quickly followed by a confidential letter that General Singh had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on March 12 2012, detailing deficiencies in the military, which was leaked to the media.

The letter reveals highly-sensitive information including how the Indian Army's entire tank fleet does not have critical ammunition as also how its air defence is 97% obsolete. The letter also outlines how the Special Forces are short of essential weapons and the gaps in surveillance and night-fighting capabilities.
MPs cutting across party lines hit out at General Singh for the leak, even as the source of the letter still remains unconfirmed. 

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Rupee drops to lowest in more than 2 months

Mumbai: 

The rupee gave up early gains and skidded to its lowest in more than two months on Monday, pressured by oil payments and subdued shares.

India imports about 80 per cent of the oil the country consumes and refiners are the biggest buyers of dollars in the currency market, with their demand tending to peak towards the close of each month when they make payments.

Tension between Iran and United States is likely keep demand for dollars strong as Indian companies would look to clear import dues as early as possible before any financial sanctions are imposed on Iran's customers, traders said.

New Delhi, which buys nearly 12 per cent of its oil needs from Tehran, could be exempted from tighter U.S. sanctions, the International Energy Agency's executive director told Reuters.

At 10:54 a.m. (0524 GMT), the rupee was at 51.27/28 to the dollar, weaker than last week's close of 51.17/18. It weakened as far as 51.30, a level last seen on January 16 according to Thomson Reuters data.

The drop was halted on expectation the central bank would intervene to smoothen volatility. The Reserve Bank of India is suspected to have sold dollar on two occasions last week to shore up the currency.

"Outlook on the rupee seems a bit bearish as month-end dollar demand from oil companies will be strong," said a currency trader with a brokerage. "On top of this equities too look weak."

The main share index was down more than 1 per cent on worries about growth and stalled reforms encouraged market players to roll over short positions before the expiry of monthly derivatives on Thursday.

Technical charts too point towards possibility of more pressure on the rupee.

The one-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were at 51.84.

In the currency futures market, the most-traded near-month dollar-rupee contracts on the National Stock Exchange, the MCX-SX and the United Stock Exchange were all around 51.31, on a total volume of $1.29 billion.

Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012

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After man spends 7 months in jail, real killers found

Mumbai:  Seven months after Deepak Pawar (32) was arrested for scripting a robbery at his employers' shop, in which two people were shot dead, Crime Branch officers allege that VP Road police made a wrongful arrest.

According to the Crime Branch, a different group, who were arrested while attempting to commit a crime yesterday, were responsible for the murder of the owner of Bharat Steel Yard, Lalchand Vishnoi, and his cousin, Ratna Ram on July 6, 2011.

"The accused were arrested with firearms in their possession from Sane Guruji circle, Tardeo. The dacoits were meeting to commit a crime, when we arrested them.

During interrogation, they have revealed that they were involved in firing at Vishnoi and Ram," said an officer from the Mumbai Crime Branch. The individuals arrested have been identified as Govindutta Rajput (28), Nauseb Khan (26), Mohmmad Alam (28), Rabiullah Khan (30) and Mohmmad Shakeel Khan (20).

Arrest in haste?
VP Road police had then claimed to have solved the double murder case within 24 hours of the incident with the arrest of Pawar, who had been working in Bharat Steel Yard, an iron-and-steel trading firm, for the past seven years.

On learning of the fresh arrests, Senior PI Rajendra Chavan of VP Road police station said, "Two robbers who acted on the behest of Pawar are yet to be arrested and this is the reason why we have not been able to file a chargesheet.

There is a possibility that those arrested by the Crime Branch are the attackers who acted on Pawar's instructions.

Once we get the custody of the accused we will be able to get a clearer picture." However, when Crime branch officials were informed about the VP Road police comments, they claimed that these dacoits were not familiar with Pawar.

The incident
On July 6, 2011, two men entered the shop in the 7th Lane of Khetwadi, V P Road. Pawar asked them what they wanted. One of the robbers slapped him and he fell down.

When manager Lalchand Vishnoi intervened, one of the robbers fired at him. Later, they fired at his cousin, Ratna Ram. Both were declared dead before they were admitted to the hospital.

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Over 100 govt websites hacked in three months

New Delhi:  A total of 112 government websites belonging to various state government agencies, Planning Commission and Finance Ministry were hacked in the three- month period ending February 2012, Parliament was informed today.

"During the period December 2011 to February 2012, a total number of 112 government websites were hacked," Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

These hacked websites belonged to the agencies in the government of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim and Manipur, he added.

It also included agencies of Ministry of Finance, Health, Planning Commission and Humar Resource Development.

The website of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd was hacked on December 4, 2011 by the 'H4tr!ck' hacker group, Mr Pilot said.

The Minister added that the number of Internet frauds involving Rs 1 lakh and above have declined over the last three years from 269 cases in 2009 to 125 cases in 2011.

"However, after taking into account the Internet frauds wherein the amount involved in individual cases is less than Rs 1 lakh, the total number of Internet frauds were 864 involving Rs 824.05 lakh, 2,232 cases involving Rs 1,234.94 lakh and 1,798 cases involving Rs 787.39 lakh for the calendar year 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively," he said.

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