Season's Greetings

Wish You a Merry Christmas
&
A Happy and Prosperous New Year

Actionable Intelligence

Reliable sources say that there definitely was useful information that was available. If an input says that a ship carrying terrorists has left from Karachi, the Navy and Coast Guard cannot say we want the name of the ship and the names of the terrorists so that we can intercept them. What they should have done is to send out a message to subordinate formations and ask them to step up surveillance and board a few ships at random so that the terrorists would know that they were taking a major risk of being apprehended. If the terrorists managed to land despite such checks, the Navy and the Coast Guard could then have said that with the available intelligence we did what we could.
This is not to say that the intelligence agencies did all they could. However the technical competence of our intelligence gathering, especially the external intelligence gathering, is very high. They can’t go to town crowing about their supremacy for it will compromise our sources of information as well as intelligence gathering techniques.

Abhaya Case - Arrest a Closure motion?

The entire episode of the CBI team arresting the so called culprits in the Sr. Abhaya case within a few days of taking over the investigation seem to be running along a well scripted plan. This may be the only way for them to close the case as the courts were not allowing them to do so otherwise. The clever ploy seem to be to arrest the priests and nun who have been in the distrustful eyes of the public all along and charge sheet them. When the verdict comes they may be acquitted for want of sufficient evidence. Thereafter there will be one or two appeals and the case will be logically closed.
The public and Joemon Puthenpurackel is happy because they could see a couple of priests and a nun in cassock arrested and paraded and the media gleeful for they could feast on the visuals as well as the report. And above all it’s a win win situation for the CBI. If by chance the arrested are guilty a feather in their cap, if not, relived that they could finally close this ignominious case once and for all. That leaves everybody except the priests and the nun; in case they are innocent, the mental agony and the irreparable damage to their reputation will be indelible.

Upendra Verma IPS

After the indomitable K.J. Joseph and the gentleman officer P.K. Hormis Tharakan, according to seniority it was rightfully Upendra Verma’s turn as DGP Law and Order. It is true that both the UDF as well as the LDF Governments neglected the services of the brilliant officer. Maybe they did not want an uncompromising person to head the state police force.
However Mr. Verma should thank the powers that be for unwittingly sparing him the ignominy of presiding over the extremely politicised force which has to dance to the tune of their political masters, more so in the present dispensation. The incidents of politicians and their cadres forcefully taking away detainees from the police station almost every other day has severely eroded the credibility of the force to act impartially.
Mr. Verma should take heart that even though both the Governments meted out injustice to him, the discerning public had taken note of the bias against him.

When will Indians start being proud of themselves

The answer to Monsieur Francois Gautier’s question, “When will Indians start being proud of themselves and their own culture and stop looking down on their own society?” is, we will do so only when people of other countries start looking at us in admiration.

For this to happen, to name a few, we must have six lane express ways crisscrossing the length and breadth of our country, Bullet trains speeding from one end to the other, hop in and out of flights and trains at everybody’s convenience, have uninterrupted supply of cheap electricity, petrol and diesel at one tenth of today’s prices, and last but not the least, get fifty US dollars for every single Indian Rupee! (By that time the drinking water, health care and education of the under privileged which are our perennial problems would have ceased to exist.)

If ever someday it happens then we will hold our heads high.

Indian Administrative Service and their penchant for Flags

Recently travelling along the state highway a VIP car with beacon light passed by flying not the national flag but a new and hitherto unseen flag. The car did not have any stars denoting the high ranks of the police and military personal that usually fly flags. After a few weeks when I saw the same flag being displayed on the official car of the District Collector it became evident that the IAS cadre was getting even with their IPS counterparts. It seems the IAS cadre which considers God, IAS and the rest of the world in that order, couldn't digest the IPS officers above the rank of DIGs flying flags on their official vehicles, so they invented one for themselves, since even the chief secretary doesn’t have an official flag to show about.
Flags are better left to uniformed personals. Are the IAS officers planning to don uniforms too to stand out in the crowd. Pray what will they do for the stars, use stripes instead?

Variants of Punishments & Genes of mischief

Born and brought up in the midst of rubber plantation, where educational institutions were far and few, I was packed off to the boarding school as early as five years old. My first alma mater was a famous convent school in Kochi where boys only of the safe age group of five to ten were allowed.
Rest of my school years were with the Carmelite fathers of Mary Immaculate, pioneers in running educational institutions like military garrisons. One evening the rector stormed into the study hall holding a small packet, which a mischief monger had stealthily put in his room. None of the boys would own up responsibility as immediate expulsion would be the consequence. The academic year came to a close and there was a purge, all suspects were asked to find other schools to complete their further studies. Though not remotely connected with the mischief I too was disgracefully discharged from the school. For a eighth grader it was equivalent to capital punishment. With pull and push I managed to get admission and complete the rest of my schooling in another school of the same congregation though at a different location.

As living surroundings hadn’t changed much, I too admitted my son to a co-educational boarding school in the first standard itself. It was a smooth passage from the first to the seventh, the so called safe phase. While in class eight he slipped out of the hostel at night to buy snacks for his friends and himself. He was caught by the matron while sneaking back and reported to the principal. Naturally the principal send for me. I arrived a bit apprehensively thinking, “Like father like son”, he too will be dismissed from the school. On reaching the school my younger son casually asked me, “Dad in which class were you when you were compulsorily sent off”. The import of his query was apparent; yes I too was in the eighth. However the punishment my elder one got was, thanks to the changed times, cancellation of day out for the rest of the term.

Couple of years passed without further incidents. One day I was again summoned by the principal. He was caught for bullying his juniors. As the matter was serious and since I too disapproved of his behaviour, I agreed with the principal to take any punitive action that she considered appropriate. I was praying silently that the punishment should be anything but dismissal, since new admission in the tenth class was very difficult to obtain.

Incredibly the punishment he got for bullying the boys in the junior dormitory was to stay in the girls’ dormitory for a week. To be politically correct I pretended to be annoyed. Surreptitiously I thought “A few more years and he’ll wish for more of the same kind of punishment”.

Had he known that his paternal and maternal Grand fathers were college mates at St. Philomina’s, Mysore and that both of them were packed off from college, he would have said “ Dad don’t blame me, blame it on the genes.”