The cover story this month is on internal security; assessing how we live dangerously in metropolitan cities. While this issue has been on our editorial list for a long time, the immediacy was provided by a recent seminar on how to make cities safe organised by FCCI with one session moderated by executive editor, Ghazala Wahab. A plethora of issues were on the table: CCTV, police modernisation, private guards, CISF, proposed State Industrial Security Forces (SISF), arms for self-protection and so on. The running string through all these was an over-arching callousness towards others: little can be accomplished without people’s cooperation. In the wider sense, terrorism which has come to stay in India owes much to a lack of awareness and seriousness amongst people and authorities. Case in point is how the paramilitary forces entrusted with internal stability are being treated by their higher-ups. For this reason, we have included the CRPF and BSF within the ambit of our cover story.
In addition, we bring a variety of stories in this issue. Much as a curtain-raiser we have an interview with the vice-chief of air staff, Air Marshal D.C. Kumaria. Next, there is the insider view-point on shortage of army officers by a recently retired adjutant general.
We bring you two special ‘on the spot’ reports. FORCE Bangalore correspondent, Atul Chandra was invited by Boeing as part of the India media team to visit their facilities spread across the US. He spent 10 days there fascinated by what an iconic defence establishment is all about. We bring you his reports in two parts, in this issue and the next one which is a special on the Indian Air Force to mark the Air Force Day on October 8. The second report is by our Moscow writer on a first hand visit to the Rubin Design Bureau, one of the important competitors for the Indian Navy’s P-75I programme, the second line of conventional submarines. With the new chief of naval staff, Admiral D.K. Joshi taking over command on August 31, we hope this critical operational gap in the sea-arm will be plugged soon.
We also bring you our usual report from Kashmir. This time we also have a story on militant attack on the Wullar barrage; it remains to be seen if this is a harbinger of fresh trouble. Next, I must mention the new Chairman of Swedish Saab defence group for its Indian subsidiary. What fascinated me is that Saab chose to appoint its own country’s ambassador as its defence head in New Delhi; an unusual appointment to say the least. I am happy to have been the first journalist to have met the new Saab Chairman.
We have our industry section, and of course, a special article by our regular contributor, Maj. Gen. Mrinal Suman on the recent announcement of technology being a part of offsets in the defence procurement procedure. On this note, happy reading!
Editor |