Lt General Bikram Singh will be the next Indian army chief; will take over from May 31 when incumbent General V K Singh finally steps down after losing the controversial age case in the Supreme Court. I wonder how come just a communiqué from the central government is sufficient on such a critical appointment. There was no appearance of a nervous prime minister on the state TV to make this ‘crucial’ announcement.
There were neither any heated debates on TV channels nor were there any fiery press conferences held by politicians voicing on promotions and extensions of army chief or intelligence head. Very rare we find the Indian troika (if there is any) – President, Prime Minister and Army Chief, negotiating the government’ internal and foreign policies. Similarly we never noticed threatening gestures from the armed forces spokespersons of serious consequences for the sitting government on this or that matter. There is something somewhere wrong with India. Perhaps they are spending a higher value of their GDP on the armed forces.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia