Wampum

nalijawk or kwajilan?

Water beats Rock. Navy beats Tribes.

The haigiography for Vice Admiral Raman Puri, PVSM, AVSM, VSM, Chief of Integrated Service Command doesn't include keeping the Medecins Sans Frontieres and Oxfam terrorists off of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, but it should. This guy is the top of the command tree that has men with guns keeping medical equipment and doctors, and food and water, from getting to the Tribal Reserves. His peers are the three Chiefs of Staff (Army, Navy, Air) and the President of India.

Vice Admiral Raman Puri assumed charge as the second Chief of Integrated Service Command (CISC) on 17 October 2003. The CISC is an interim arrangement to look after the integration of the defence services under the proposed Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) plan. He is responsible to provide assistance and reports to the Chairman of the COSC (Chiefs of Staff Committee), currently Air Chief Marshal Srinivasapuram Krishnaswamy, to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the planning process and bring about the jointness amongst the Indian Armed Forces. His present post would become the Vice Chief of Defence Staff (VCDS) once the CDS, who would be permanently presiding over the COSC comprising the three service chiefs, is appointed. He is supported by a Joint Integrated Defence Staff (JIDS) with elements from the three services and various departments in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

The nomenclature was changed from CIDS (Chief of Integrated Defence Staff) to the present one when Vice Admiral Raman Puri took over. A specialist in gunnery and missile systems, he served as the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief (FOC-in-C) of the Eastern Naval Command (ENC), prior to this appointment. Before taking over command of the ENC in January 2002, he had served as the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff (DCNS) at the Naval HQ in New Delhi and the Fortress Commander of Andaman & Nicobar Command (ANC). His operational commands included India's first aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, the missile destroyer INS Rana and corvette INS Vijaydurg. He was also the commandant of the Naval College of Warfare. Widely respected in naval circles for his interest in technical matters, he is expected to use his expertise well in his new appointment.

But maybe it isn't just an antenna farm... I read through the MoD (India) position papers so see why the Island Territories (Andaman and Nicobar) are ... more important to the military than any other collection of rocks, peasants and shopkeepers, Nothing reallly that interesting, so far, just the Exclusive Economic Zone, a Coast Guard problem, and its cognates, refugees, drug runners, transiting tanker pollution, likewise grist for the Coasties, Then I saw this out of sequence fragment. The para below this fragment was beancounters. The para above was Defense Technology unified mumble. I read this. Then I backed up and carefully re-read all of the text.

Andaman and Nicobar Command : The first tri-Service Joint Command was established in October 2001 in Andaman and Nicobar under the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) who exercises control over all force components of the three Services and the Coast Guard located in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The C-in-C, Andaman and Nicobar Command reports to the Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee.

Management of Strategic Assets : Keeping in view the nuclear, chemical and biological dimensions of our security environment and in keeping with our commitment to no first use of strategic assets, the Government has approved establishment of requisite structures for administering the Strategic Assets and also set up the Strategic Forces Command.

India has a collection of Sov boats, including two Foxtrots, ten Kilos, and they leased a Charlie for the N-boat experience, with five to ten Akula-II Class boats in fab or on plan, as well as four HDW 209 boats. Only the Akula-II Class boats are designed to be ballistic missiles boats, though SLCMs with nuclear packages are possible for a larger range of the boat inventory.

Maybe it is more than an antenna farm. The US has Kwajilan to sink outbounds. Maybe India needs a distant venue to sink outbounds too, or maybe it needs a distant venue to source outbounds from..

Calls to Inda are cheap. I think I'll call Raman Puri. Before Aditya Singh got India's Hidden Fortress, it was his little secret, he created it, and now he's just four heartbeats away from CinC.

Posted by EBW at January 3, 2005 06:31 PM | TrackBack