"I First Intend To Restore The Soldier's Izzat"

"I First Intend To Restore The Soldier's Izzat"
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The 20th Chief of Army Staff (coas),General Sundarajan Padmanabhan, has come in at a time when refurbishing defence management—and modernising the military—have become key imperatives. By experience and inclination, the new chief gels well with the new line of thinking in government and is keen to leave his mark. In his first exhaustive interview, the general talks at length with Outlook on the problems and the challenges the army faces. Excerpts:

What is your immediate task?

In the aftermath of Kargil, do you feel a need to bring about a change in Military Intelligence (MI)? Is the present set-up adequate?

How long will it take?

Shouldn't there be better coordination with other agencies?

Do you detect a sense of fatigue among our troops in Kashmir and the Northeast?

Is morale low after the Kargil experience?

Considering that both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers, do you feel a need to practise restraint?

Take the government's Ramzan ceasefire and its extension. Isn't this a cbm?

What are your strategic plans for revamping and restructuring the army?

What would these changes be?

Will there be a tactical shift in anti-insurgency operations in Kashmir? Especially in the wake of increasing attacks on army posts and camps?

But it does have shock value...

Has the challenge of militancy changed in logistic terms?Has there been a corresponding change in the army's tactics?

How long will the holding operations in Kargil continue? Will there be a thinning of troops in some of the front posts?

There has been criticism of the army for not communicating fully with the media. Don't you think its functioning has to be more transparent?

Are there lessons from Kargil?

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