Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

LOGISTIC SUPPORT

ANAMOLOUS SITUATION

Need to boost eco tourism
By : Radhakrishna Rao

For more than a decade now environmental...more

Power to Transfer: The
portenPtous power
By: Mohinder Singh

Bezbaruah, the FERA Enforcement Director of recognized integrity and zeal, was...more

Is Jayalalitha the
personification of
bad faith in BJP politics?
By: Jayant Muralidharan

Shakespeare said "frailty thy name is woman." Jayalalitha...more

Intelligence need
for integrity
By: Bimla Bhatia

Defence Minister George Fernandes recently emphasised, more

EDITORIAL

LOGISTIC SUPPORT

Army has done commendable job in intercepting essential supplies of rations meant for mercenaries hiding in jungles or entrenched at heights. This has naturally opened the all important chapter of how supplies reach the militants. Who are the suppliers? Above all the persons that act as couriers or conduits. Those who ensure supply of rations could also be the elements sending weapons and other inputs to maintain the logistic support to militants of all hues. Another question that naturally crops up pertains to the role of local administration at district tehsil and block level. There are personnel dealing with food supplies, with law and order, with transportation and with of course general administration. Last year also reports of large supplies surfaced and were duly commented upon in these columns.

It is good that at least one consignment of supplies meant to sustain them in difficult and hostile terrain is denied. But that is not enough. To be precise similar consignments have been reaching the ultras, courtesy apathetic local administration which also includes active involvement of some employees in eusuring smooth supplies to various destination in any quantity required by the militants. Surely, it is not the job of the Army to block such supplies. It is just chance interception. Essentially, it is purely the job of the civil administration to do their part of the job in counter-insurgency operations. Choking of logistic support is the instant winner. As long as regular supplies of men, material and rations reach them, they can indeed sustain militancy as long as our hostile neighbour desires. Those familiar with military history know very well that the best way to defeat the enemy is to blow up their supply lines including bridges. That is how even invading armies are also stopped by making their movement to either halt or slow it down. Either way it is the supply line or the choking of supplies to what one calls as logistic support. It was exactly denial of this support to advancing German armies which attacked USSR during second World War that resulted in massive defeat for the mightiest German armed forces which had already conquered half of Europe. It thus follows that whosoever facilitates supplies of essential inputs to the enemy cannot be friend of the people or the State. They are out and out anti-nationals and in full league with Pakistan. Although General Brar has recently stated that sharp edges of militancy have been sufficiently blunted in Doda but if supplies continue reaching them they are likely to come back full circle as soon as weather becomes kind and conducive to hit at least soft targets. In winter their strategy is to lie low until our side starts either hibernating or go complacent. Same is true of Rajouri/Poonch belt and it can be no different in valley. The nasty game of somehow sustaining militancy through the winter months is on.

It is here that role of civil administration needs specific mention. Army has been doing commendable job under most trying circumstances but not so with the jobs which essentially fall within the domain of civil administration. It is the duty of all functionaries at various rungs to see that those involved in facilitating supplies to the ultras are identified and booked under the law of the land. This entails strengthening of local intelligence and instant action as soon information is conveyed to the executing agencies like the police or the civil supplies department or anyone found involved in such supplies to the enemy. While shopkeepers may not exactly know the purpose for which large purchases are made, it is their duty to inform the concerned about any suspect purchases. Same is true of transporters and/or any other business channel. Unless civil administration performs its role effectively, Army alone cannot do the job. Let there be full accountability as far as district administration of militancy infested districts is concerned. There was a time when people used to provide shelter and food to the militants on demand. This stands fully denied to them as people hate any intrusion into their privacy. This means peoples cooperation is fully available. Army confirms that people have been cooperating with them and most of their targeted counter insurgency operations are based on such information from the common people. There is thus no excuse for the civil administration not to get similar cooperation from everyone. Such inputs cease to flow when administration fails to take instant action. Consequently, informants become the targets of militants. Better coordination amongst various civil departments can indeed help choke all supplies to the militants and thus starve them to death or compel them to come down in the open to be finished by the security personnel. It is ridiculous to think that such supplies can ever reach the enemy without being noticed by the administration functionaries and without full and active connivance of some employees who continue strike sympathetic chord with pro-Pak militants, locals as also mercenaries.

ANAMOLOUS SITUATION

Director General CRPF Mr M N Sabharwal informs that the projected addition of 20 battalions in CRPF continues to remain elusive for want of requisite finances. Some months back Home Minister L K Advani had mentioned such augmentation in CRPF strength in view of the large burden of internal security. He had mentioned that 234 districts out of a total of 510 are disturbed in this country due to widespread expansion of ISI activities. Prime Minister A B Vajpayee as also Defence Minister George Fernandes have stressed many times that money will not be allowed to come in the way of national security requirements. Internal security is indeed more important than the external one since most of the deterioration is attributed to foreign funded and sustained insurgency. It is quite strange that despite such compulsions of augmenting CRPF strength, required budgetary support is not readily forthcoming. DG CRPF mentions that instead of CRPF remaining a reserve force, 87% of it is deployed on regular duties. In addition there is growing pressure on CRPF to relieve BSF personnel doing internal security duties. There is also tremendous pressure from the Army not to involve its personnel on internal security. CRPF Chief further complains that Rapid Action Force which is an offshoot of CRPF has also been deployed on duties which do not befit its primary role of moving rapidly to any riotous location to control it or pre-empt it. Likewise even ITBP finds its role totally compromised.

It seems there is total confusion in the ruling apparatus which they have inherited from predecessor Governments. Wrong deployment, overdeployment and under deployment of any force is detrimental to morale of the respective force. If all forces have to perform internal security duties then why not amalgmate them in a single entity. As long as their respective role remains well defined, they must not be stretched to the break-up point. And the beginning has to be made with creation of at least 20 more CRPF Battalions who in turn would relieve BSF and ITBP from internal duties. BSF in turn would relieve Army so that the latter could fully concentrate on safeguarding long borders of the country.

Need to boost eco tourism
By : Radhakrishna Rao

For more than a decade now environmental groups in different parts of India have been up in arms against the promotion of ecologically unsustainable tourism that invariably exerts a severe strain on the natural assets and delicate environmental balance.

From the magnificient snow capped Himalayan slopes in the north to the palm fringed surf kissed silvery beaches of Goa in the west, tourist spots all over India are rapidly becoming victims of unchecked and unceasing flow of visitors from India and abroad.

In fact for a large segment of population in the Himalayan region as well as in Goa tourism is a significant source of income and a veritable lifeline of the economy. But in the mad rush to promote tourism as a means to boost the economy, the vital symbiotic relationship between tourists and environment has been overlooked. Indeed Sunderlal Bahuguna, the father figure of the Chipko movement aimed at creating environmental consciousness in the Himalayas, has stressed on the need to save Himalayan environment from the onslaughts of the tourist flow.

Significantly, Himalayas hold a great fascination for tourists, nature lovers, pilgrims and adventure-seekers for this mountain range par excellence abounds in holy rivers, lush green meadows and innumerable pilgrim centres.

In a significant development, an ecotourism joint venture between China and UNDP is being launched to help alleviate poverty stricken people in the Mount Everest region. As envisaged now, the project is expected to generate income and protect the ecology and biodiversity of Quamolongma Nature Preserve (QNP) bordering Nepal.

Promotion of the concept of eco tourism in the Himalayan region is considered significant in that it would go a long way in preserving the natural beauty of this mountain region which attracts thousands of tourists from around the world.

The much debated eco tourism in essence involves ecologically sustainable, nature friendly tourism that inculcate a spirit of environmntal appreciation among the tourist. Moreover, the creation of infrastructural facilities meant to attract tourists should not disturb the eco-system in any manner.

Similarly, discarding of non biodegradable substances like polythene bags, that choke water streams and despoil the mountain eco-system, should be banned as part of the eco-tourism scheme.

On another front, construction of high rise tourist resorts especially in the fragile Himalayan region should be banned in the interest of the long term ecological sustainability. Small hotels and resorts are ideally suited for tourist spots in that region.

Here, in the Himalayan heights, tourists should avoid making open fires at the camp sites. For it could lead to the conflagration in the forests nearby. In the ultimate analysis, eco tourism appears the only answer to the problems of increasing pollution, traffic jams, shortage of water and befouling of rivers and waterways.

The one hundred years old and more picturesque hill station of Darjeeling in the sub Himalayan West Bengal stands out as a mute witness to the havocs wrought in by an increasing tourist flow. Congested and narrow roads, drying up water taps, mushrooming concrete jungles dotting in the geologically unstable hill sides and drying up water springs and disappearing forest stretches in Darjeeling demonstrate the fall out of tourist flow averaging at five lakhs per year.

Over the last five years, more than 300 hotels have sprung up in the around Darjeeling. No wonder, the wreckless construction activities in Darjeeling have led to massive soil erosion and landslides.

Originally, Darjeeling was meant for a population of 20,000. Environmentalists in this beautiful hill station point out that nearly half of the thirty natural springs in the 38 sq km Senchal Sanctuary just outside Darjeeling which feeds the lakes supplying water to the town, have dried up.

The fate of Nainital in the Himalayan Uttar Pradesh is no better than that of Darjeeling. Here too massive tourist influx has led to the population of massive magnitude in Naini lake, in the heart of the town. Further, mounting automobile pollution has been blamed for the growing incidences of respiratory diseases in Nainital.

And in Goa environmentalists have blamed the mushrooming hotels and resorts for the drying up of water sources blotting out of farms and fields with serious consequences for ecological well being of the state.

In the southern state of Kerala hailed as God's own country, eco tourism seems set to make strides in a big way. Here nature tourism and backwater tourism have become a big money spinner for the captains of tourism industry. Innovations by young enterpreneurs in the state have resulted in the setting up of tourist resorts that offer nothing but nature at its best.

For instance, Mohand Das, promoter of Rice Fields says, ''it is the true village life that we offer and as such it is an ethnic habitat and not a resort.'' The Rice Fields is a sixty-year-old traditional Kerala house set against the lush greenery of paddy fields.

On the other hand, Dream Resorts Ltd has set up a resort amidst a lush green stretch of 150 acres of plantations in the depths of Western Ghats. Similarly, the so called backwater tourism in the state had become a big draw with both the domestic and overseas tourists.

Indeed, a guided tour through the panoramic backwaters of Kerala provides a refreshing change to the tourists on the look out for an exotic experience. Mirror-still lagoons, picture postcard lake sides, palm fringed canals, tiny shimmering rivulets all go to showcase Kerala's bewitching beauty that is both unspoilt and unknown.

Further, the ancient healing system of Ayurveda is being harnessed to draw more and more foreign tourists to Kerala. Today Ayurvedic package tours are becoming popular with Western tourists on the look out for an Oriental healing experience.

According to UKS Chauhan, Director General of Kerala tourism, of the 1.8 lakh tourists visiting the state annually, at least half opt for some forms of Ayurvedic treatment and most of them are foreigners. PTI Feature

Power to Transfer: The portentous power
By: Mohinder Singh

Bezbaruah, the FERA Enforcement Director of recognized integrity and zeal, was given marching orders; transferred unexpectedly for reasons best known to the authorities. A fig leaf was held out in the shape of a letter from the Chief Minister of Delhi asking for Bezbaruah's services as Transport Commissioner. Only at the intervention of Supreme Court was the transfer cancelled-some say, temporarily.

This is one of the very rare instances of a transfer getting cancelled on judicial intervention. All Governments at the Centre and states have consistently maintained that postings of officials was purely an administrative matter; a discretionary power for which they were not required to furnish reasons to any outside agency. Even an effected employee is left to make the best guess for being shifted to what looks like a punishment posting.

High placed politicians almost make a virtue of keeping secret their motives behind particular transfers. And, as an isolated case of messy transfer may well attract unwelcome attention, the exercise is usually cloaked within a string of general postings and transfers. The whole thing is usually sorted out in secret conclaves, keeping no record of reasons. No wonder our postings process has developed a mystique of its own.

Politicians have this problem. They deal with a bureaucracy that was designed to be nonpolitical. Entry is through a competitive exam held by the Union Public Service Commission, a statutory body. And there are detailed regulations about promotions and penalties. Indeed it's a conundrum how a highly elitist and centralized civil service has survived in an increasingly contentious and power-hungry democratic polity.

Conflict between bureaucratic and political authority exists in every society and Government. Our politicians, however, nurse a grouse--evidently justified--that the bureaucracy has failed in its basic function of providing the common man with the services expected of an administration in modern times. These services, whether it's power supply or poverty alleviation programme, are not only short and poor in quality but also riddled with corruption and favouritism. While bureaucrats lay the onus on political interference, politicians blame it on red tapism.

Laws ostensibly prevent any politically motivated promotions or penalties but do not protect civil servants from being assigned arbitrarily. Power over postings is the key to power of politicians over bureaucracy. And this can be an awesome power. S.L. Khurana, the redoubtable Home Secretary during the Emergency, is simply reverted to his State. And there they post him as Chairman of an inconsequential Corporation dealing with agricultural implements. A change of party in power, and presto, he's posted back as Delhi's Lt Governor and later Governor to the prestigious presidency of Tamil Nadu. Such cataclysmic ups and downs are not uncommon, but in administrative parlance all these postings are treated as "routine'', meriting no public explanation or even the need to record reasons.

Jethmalani, the Urban Affairs Minister, has worked out a new refinement. With the transfer of the Ministry's "obstructive'' secretary getting delayed beyond his patience, the minister virtually divested her of all the powers and functions of a secretary--to draw salary doing nothing. If you can't get rid of a bureaucrat, render him or her a nullity by taking away that person's functions. It's still a moot point whether any legal remedy can be invoked against such stripping.

A generalist service like the IAS has another peculiarity. Its members are supposed to be fitted for handling almost any job. Consequently they manage to grab many a plum new assignment but then they can also be easily shifted to "punishment'' postings--both the Centre and the State retain not a few of these.

Another phenomenon increasingly in evidence is of bureaucrats being shifted from post to post more frequently than efficient job performance would justify. This pattern is getting quite common in States, especially in field postings. District collectors, for example, in several States are averaging a tenure of one year when the optimum is put at three. Such excessive mobility adversely effects the capacity of the bureaucracy to provide leadership; continuity of expertise is disrupted and so also the motivation of an officer to align himself with local conditions.

That way, postings with a fixed tenure, protected through statute, such as members of Union Public Service Commission, CAG, Election Commissioners, Judges and similar other enjoy a tremendous advantage. Such protection transformed Seshan into a bold crusader for cleaner elections. A host of statutory bodies with fixed tenure for members are one sure way of strengthening administrative functioning and curbing corruption.

Defenders of the postings system view it as a way to punish incompetent or corrupt officials. But transfer is a poor surrogate for performance ratings and accountability for output. And transferring away a corrupt official is nothing but sending the problem to another place.

In actual, practice, many a bureaucrat is shifted because he isn't found amenable enough to the dictates of local politicians. Or he happens to hurt some powerful vested interest in the course of his work. Transfer is the stock threat hurled out against an unyielding bureaucrat.

Admittedly the system encourages unscrupulous officials to ally themselves with particular politicians, to the mutual benefit of both parties. The official gets his coveted posting and all that goes with it. The politician is helped to spread his patronage and influence, garnering votes and funds.

Is there a solution to capricious transfers? The problem has been deliberated at length by administrative reform commissions, committees and umpteen other forums. There have also been recommendations for major changes in the system. Yet hardly any of these proposals have been acted upon.

Why does a system so poorly designed to achieve development goals allowed to persist? Surely it shouldn't be that difficult to conceive or implement a solution to capricious transfers. There could be rules to curtail the ad hoc criteria governing transfers.

Yet the perverse practice persists, possibly getting exacerbated with the rising political pressures. And prospects of a significant improvement appear dim. Anyway the problem isn't currently eliciting any worthwhile attention in the policy-making quarters.

Politicians are clearly loathe to accept any restrictions on their transfer powers; the one real power they wield over the bureaucracy. Some observers of Indian political and administrative scene go as far as to say that power over postings is the key to understanding corruption.

Is Jayalalitha the personification of bad
faith in BJP politics?
By: Jayant Muralidharan

Shakespeare said "frailty thy name is woman." Jayalalitha who had time and again buffeted the Vajpayee Government with withdrawal threats, has given a breather by declaring her unequivocal support to the Centre, proving the poet wrong for a while. The other lady, the Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee resigned from the Central Coordination Committee of the ruling coalition earlier this month, her dramatic protest provoked a reaction that is by now all-too-familiar. Senior partner BJP immediately rushed an "emissary" -- no less than Union Defence Minister George Fernandes -- to "trouble spot" Calcutta. His "mission" -- to "placate" yet another "difficult" ally. This routine, as well as the political vocabulary that undermines it, has almost come to be naturalised in current political discourse in the nine months that the BJP has led a coalition Government at the Centre, particularly through its experience of dealing with two ladies.

As newspaper editorials seized the moment to compare Banerjee's "politics of unpredictability" with that of Jayalalitha's, the issue that Banerjee had raised was all but obscured. Little or no attention was paid to the reason she had cited for her exit from the Coordination Committee -- that it was "inactive and ineffective", and that the BJP had consistently ignored her repeated appeals to convene a meeting to consider ways and means of controlling escalating prices.

It is not incidental that Banerjee's resignation should have elicited the above reactions. The terms set by BJP's particular brand of coalition politics dictate both that Mamata Banerjee's protest should be projected and dismissed as merely the Didi-doing-an-Amma, and that the matter of the Coordination Committee meeting should be quietly put on the backburner. "After all, with allies as unpredictable and unreasonable as Jayalalitha, where is the possibility of coordination.?"

During its nine months in power, the BJP was consistently used Jayalalitha as a motif to its political advantage. It has played upon her recalcitrance until it becomes an alibi for its own acts of commission and omission. At various times, it has used Jayalalitha as an excuse to mount the moral high-ground in the coalition, to claim the status of victim, to excuse its misgovernance, to shirk its responsibility, as senior partner, of working out and strengthening institutions of participatory coalition governance. It has been able to do so through a sustained and deliberate demonisation of Jayalalitha.

At the same time, it is impossible not to recognise Jayalalitha's own generous contribution to the exercise. Tamil Nadu's Puratchi Thalaivi is perfectly cast in the role. Never one to be accused of responsible politics, she has revealed in keeping the coalition Government on tenterhooks from the outset. Her brinkmanship began with the deliberate delay in sending her letter of support to the coalition Government to the President. It has continued till her recent outburst against the Cauvery River Water Authority set up by the Prime Minister to resolve the long-standing dispute. Through it all, her self-serving agenda has been only thinly veiled -- one that article 356 be deployed to tell the Karunanidhi Government in Tamil Nadu, and two, that the many corrupt cases against her be taken care of?

The argument, therefore, is not that Jayalalitha is not recalcitrant. The argument is that it suits the BJP that she is so. Further, that the BJP is, to a large extent, responsible for her being so. Jayalalitha's recalcitrance is not merely idiosyncratic. It is a structural part of the BJP's politics. Jayalalitha only answers to perfection the requirements of the role which has been scripted by the BJP. In fact, if Jayalalitha had not existed it might have been necessary for the BJP to invent her. The argument, therefore, is that the BJP must be stripped of the pretence of self-righteous injured innocence that it has so assiduously cultivated.

There is ample evidence to prove that Jayalalitha is a syndrome internal to the BJP's politics. To begin with, the party chose to ally with her knowing full well that it would have to play a cat and mouse game to keep the alliance going. It knew even then that Jayalalitha is master of an opportunistic politics of personal benefit, and that for Jayalalitha there is no cause bigger than herself. The BJP also knew that Jayalalitha had been arrested in December 1996 after being implicated in eight cases of corruption. Jayalalitha's self-serving demands, therefore, cannot have taken the BJP by surprise. It can be safely presumed, in fact, that the party had cynically factored them in when it forged the alliance. How legitimate, then, is the party's moral indignation when Jayalalitha plays true to form?

Further, after the alliance had been forged the BJP left Jayalalitha with no option but to be her worst. To a large extent, the AIADMK chief was compelled to throw her now infamous public tantrums because the BJP made no effort to work out a working relationship with its ally. Alongwith other allies, Jayalalitha has been kept out of the decision-making process in crucial issues. The news of the Pokhran blasts reached the BJP's allies through media reports; there was no prior surprise by the Centre's decision to recommend President's rule in Bihar immediately after receiving the Governor's report. There was a similar lack of consultation on the decision to include Udham Singh Nagar in the proposed State of Uttaranchal and on how best to curb escalating prices of essential commodities.

With the BJP refusing to convene the Coordination Committee meetings frequently, even on vital issues, the message has been clear to all allies: Periodic armtwisting and the occasion tantrum are the only way to make themselves heard. Jayalalitha was quick in proving her expertise in both. But soon enough, other allies also saw light and followed suit. Whether it was the Akalis on the US Nagar issue, or Mamata Banerjee on rising prices, they all had to threaten to review support, a la Jayalalitha, to draw the BJP's attention.

The sequence, then, came to be as follows: Ally raises public protest on an issue; BJP urges ally to exercise restraint and air views not in public but in the Coordination Committee is not convened because BJP is unwilling; allies continue to air grievances and threat in public; Government is on edge; hectic backroom emissary politics staves off crises ... The BJP blames it all on Jayalalitha.

The reluctance to call coordination meetings, the tendence to either patronise or demonise allies, is essentially the consequence of the BJP's political mindset. The party's world view is basically homogenous and homogenising. The BJP is out of place in a pluralist coalition arrangement. Even though it leads a 18-party coalition, it holds on fiercely to its self-image of a crusading monolith. It is this that makes the party first create conditions conducive to the growth of Jayalalitha-like ally, and then manipulative her to its advantage.

It is necessary that the BJP's game is exposed. It is essential that the party's responsibility for Jayalalitha's politics of brinkmanship is pointed out. Jayalalitha is no external threat to the BJP's led Government. She is part of it, and not just technically so as a partner-in-governance. Jayalalitha is the personification of the bad faith that is inherent in the BJP's politics. (INAV).

Intelligence need for integrity
By: Bimla Bhatia

Defence Minister George Fernandes recently emphasised on the need for improvement in areas like communications, collation and dissemination of intelligence to give a sharp edge to the military. This coincides with the coming into being of the much awaited National Security Council.

Apparently the Defence Minister has his finger on the pulse to have diagnosed the need to revamp military intelligence which acts as a force-multiplier as nothing else.

History, however, is replete with instance of incomplete or inadequate intelligence, or when adequate intelligence inputs are available, of ignoring or making faulty assessments.

In 1962 adequate inputs about the Chinese intentions to attack were available but there existed a lack of expertise or will to turn these inputs into assessments. When we talk of Military Intelligence (MI), it does not operate in isolation. The MI functions within the realm of assessments and estimates formulated at the national level.

At the apex level the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) is the only agency for acquiring external intelligence through various means. The strategic intelligence thus obtained is further synthesised at the joint intelligence committee (JIC) to formulate assessments that must be used to address national security concerns and shape the foreign policy.

The efficiency of our intelligence acquisition keeps coming to the fore. Our hasty deployment in Sri Lanka best illustrates the intelligence void in which the army was blooded in what essentially was first perceived as peace keeping operations.

In his book "Assignment Jaffna', Lt Gen S C Sardeshpande comments rather wryly but truthfully: "The RAW had shown no signs of ripening and seemed to come under the influence of artificial ripeners extracted from political pharmaceuticals to produce intelligence that suited.

"Many of its operatives were amateurish, methods ludicrous and processing of intelligence selectively convenient. Its findings and assessments did not help us much in our 30 months venture and evoked even less confidence in its output and quality."

The army's ground assessment in Sri Lanka frequently differed with what the RAW processed and doled out, and events proved that the army was generally on the right lines.

The MI's estimates mostly related to tactical intelligence, being constrained in the strategic realm by limited acquisition capability. In any case the army's deployment, objectives and operating environment were determined by and set within the framework of the "strategic assessments" churned out at the macro level, the quality and motivation of which have been described.

Intelligence assessments to address internal security concerns have also been at best fragmentary and isolated, steeped again in convenient and platitudinous brands. Nothing illustrates this better than the lingering insurgencies in our periphery.

Capping all ineptitudes signifying intelligence failure was the unfortunate Operation Bluestar in June 1984. This was unfailingly the most botched up military operation of our times backed by convoluted political expendiency. A typical military proclivity to pretend that alternatives do not exist got exacerbated in this case by a line-up of sycophantic generals from South Block down the line to Amritsar.

This combination of a political failing and a military fiasco arising out of faulty assessments had wide-ranging repercussions, as we now know. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated, as was the Army Chief General AS Vaidya. Indira Gandhi's felling by her own security guards resulted in the horrendous killing of thousands of innocent Sikhs which alienated them - it could not have been otherwise.

Pakistan capitalised on our follies and helped in setting Punjab aflame, expanding the unrest to Jammu and Kashmir which we are still tackling.

This highlgihts the importance of integrity amongst those charged with piecing together intelligence inputs for interpretation and synthesis. In the face of inconvenient conclusions that analysts may reach, they must have the courage of conviction of presenting these assessments that may run contrary to the establishment's thinking

To encourage such independence of thought amongst intelligence analysts, it would be prudent to grant them a degree of functional autonomy. To place the JIC under the National Security Council -- of which it also forms the secretariat -- would in a way curb the JIC's independence and restrict its output to be confined to the line of thinking of the top boss or the national secuity advisor.

This will restrain the element of creativity within the intelligence fraternity, and can give rise to unacceptable and dangerous flaws in intelligence assessments, again with hazardous consequences. PTI Feature