India Today

“We do not accept change, we are status quoists”

Q. You will be completing two years as CDS. What will your report to the government be?

My main charter was to move forward on the integration [of the three services], which I am on track. I am looking at all four theatre commands coming up near-simultaneously. MTC (Maritime Theatre Command) has moved fast, land-based theatre commands have also moved fast. We have some issues with the air force regarding resources, but an Air Defence Command has to come up. How they will manage the resources, we want only the air force to do, but you need to integrate all airspace management. ADC will manage your airspace commands.

When I look at theatre commands, I always give the example of the 1971 war when General [Jasjit Singh] Aurora was the eastern theatre commander. But to make that theatre, we had sufficient time. [In] future battles, you won’t get time, you won’t even know that war has started, because it may start with non-contact warfare first—the adversary may actually target

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from India Today

India Today2 min read
The Right Balance
WITH THE POST-COVID RECOVERY IN FULL SWING, MAINTAINING THE country’s fiscal balance is a must. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman was justly applauded for not hitting the panic button or taking drastic fiscal management measures during the pa
India Today2 min read
Gowda Knows
If you’re a Sherlock Holmes fan, you’ll remember the passage from ‘The Greek Interpreter’ where Sherlock describes his elder brother Mycroft—supposedly, a greater deductive mind. But the man had “no ambition and no energy” to follow up on the leads h
India Today5 min read
Shah At Home
TWO DAYS BEFORE AMIT SHAH FILED HIS NOMINATION PAPERS FROM GANDHINAGAR—a seat the Union home minister first won in 2019, with a margin of 557,000-plus votes—he visited 30 voters for whom he is the designated panna pramukh. A panna is a page in the el

Related Books & Audiobooks