AK Antony lists anti-corruption measures as major achievement

[Rahul9090]

Defence Minister AK Antony today listed the cancellation of AgustaWestland chopper deal and his coming down heavily on the irregularities in defence deals as his major achievement during his seven-year tenure in Defence Ministry.

Ordering of CBI probes in alleged scams such as Rolls Royce bribery, Adarsh, Srinagar and Jodhpur land scams were his achievements, a Defence Ministry release said. It was issued prior to announcement of schedule for general elections and implementation of the Model Code of Conduct. "Behind his characteristic unassuming demeanour, there exists a value system which comes down heavily when irregularities are detected in defence deals. He will not stand by any act of omission or commission that will bring the Armed Forces to disrepute or let it tarnish the ideals of the officers, no matter however influential or mighty the accused might be," the release said.

The Ministry said during the seven years of his tenure as the Defence Minister, Antony "took a slew of measures to not only clean up the procurement process but also to give out a strong signal to both domestic and foreign vendors to not to resort to unfair means to win defence contracts." "Six firms were debarred by the Defence Ministry in March 2012 following probe by the CBI. It also terminated the 556.26 million Euro AgustaWestland deal for purchase of 12 VVIP helicopters on grounds of breach of the Pre-Contract Integrity Pact (PCIP) and the agreement by AWIL," it said.

The Ministry said Antony had ordered a CBI probe into allegations of bribery in supply of Tatra trucks for the Army and in March 2014, he gave the green signal for a CBI probe into the allegations of the appointment of "an intermediary in the deals concluded between the HAL and the Rolls Royce company of UK, in contravention of the contract rules."


AK Antony lists anti-corruption measures as major achievement | Latest News & Updates at DNAIndia.com

 

[Abingdonboy]

No doubt that under his term as Def Min things in India's defence procurement field have got significantly cleaner, the process is now incredibly stringent and above board. 99.99% of all allegations in the last 5 or so years of wrongdoing have turned out to be nothing but malicious fabrications.

However, as a result, the entire procurement process is now INCREDIBLY slow. There is a middle ground to be found, hopefully the next govt's DM can sort this mess out..

 

[axisofevil]

I cant blame AK.....the reason for all these delays is due to the incredible corruption in India. For those who didn;t know, this was and remains the most lucrative position for corruption Has anyone realized how many senior officers are engaged in corruption ...even after retirement? They are using their connections and facilitating that the next round of officicers are ppl who they are intimately connected to....wake the fuk up

 

[kurup]

Indecision marked Antony’s record tenure

The tenure of the country’s longest-serving defence minister, AK Antony, may go down in history as one marked by several pending decisions on defence deals. These decisions, if taken on time, would have fast-tracked India’s much-needed defence modernisation. However, that was not to be.

India is projected to spend approximately $100 billion on military modernisation during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-2017). However, only a small fraction of that amount has been spent since the start of the Plan, thanks to delays in decision-making.

Antony’s tenure — he assumed office in October, 2006 in the UPA-I government and retained the crucial portfolio in UPA-II — also saw the US pip Russia to emerge as India’s top business partner for defence supplies. It is another thing that Russia awaits payment of $12 billion for all the military equipment supplied over the past six years or so.

Experts say during Antony’s tenure a host of crucial defence deals integral to India’s defence modernisation and involving non-US global vendors have been put on hold.

Sample this: In the two tenures of the current US President Barack Obama, India has spent close to $10 billion on US defence hardware, including purchases of aircraft, helicopters and missile system platforms. However, the $20-billion medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) project to acquire 126 French Rafale fighters has been put on hold due to shortage of funds. The R3,000-crore deal for acquiring 197 ‘reconnaissance and surveillance’ helicopters to replace the aging Cheetah/Chetak fleets of the IAF and Army has met the same fate.

India has ordered equipment worth $10 billion from the US in the past five years through Washington’s foreign military sales (FMS) programme, a government-to-government method for selling US-built platforms. But New Delhi could not take decisions on the proposed acquisition of 22 Apache attack helicopters (around $1.4 billion), 15 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters (around $1 billion) and 145 M-777 ultra-light howitzers ($885 million).

The $8-billion deal for six conventional submarines from Russia has not progressed despite the MoD being aware of the Indian Navy’s ageing submarines. The futuristic joint development projects for the armed forces, ammunition requirements of the artillery, tank fleet for the Army and the upgrade of T-90 tanks with the Russians has all been pushed back, revealed executives at Rosboronexports of Russia.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on defence, in its report presented to Parliament last April, stated that there has been a “steady decline” in the number of defence contracts signed during the 11th Plan period. The number of contracts signed during the period is 84 in 2007-08, 61 in 2008-09, 49 in 2009-10, 50 in 2010-11 and 52 in 2011-12, said the report.

The IAF and the Indian Navy are the worst affected in the go-slow work ethic that gripped the defence establishment during Antony’s tenure. The IAF has been losing its strength drastically, being reduced to 32 squadrons from 40. And the Indian Navy is operating aged submarines and losing precious equipment and lives.

The long delays in acquiring MMRCA is also badly hurting the IAF’s fighting capability. The deal with French company Dassault that makes Rafale was okayed 22 months ago, but is yet to be inked as the cost-negotiation committee has not finished its work.

Indecision marked Antony’s record tenure | idrw.org

 

[egodoc222]

most honest incompetent defence minister in the history of independent india!!!

 

[kurup]

Antony Has Little to Gloat About as Defence Minister

The defence ministry has unwittingly opened itself to close public scrutiny by the manner in which it has praised Defence Minister A K Antony’s stint in a 11,000-word press release.

The fact of the matter is that if a balance sheet were to be drawn up of Antony’s seven-and-a-half-years as defence minister, he would come out in unflattering terms.

Indeed, Antony would go down in history as a defence minister who starved the country of essential armaments which jeopardised the country’s defence and left it vulnerable to external aggression.

Clearly, civil-military relations have never been as bad as they are today and the morale of officers and soldiers is at its lowest ebb. It would be wrong not to apportion a lion’s share of the blame for this on the country’s defence minister.

It was during Antony’s time that an Army chief, General V K Singh, became the first serving Chief of Staff to drag the government to court as official records allegedly mis-stated the year in which he was born. The whole issue could have been handled much better.

While he was in office, General Singh wrote a secret letter to the Prime Minister, which leaked out, highlighting the critical deficiencies in equipment, weapon systems and ammunition and the toll that delayed purchases were taking on the country’s military preparedness.

Recently, during Antony’s defence ministership, Naval chief Admiral D K Joshi resigned when, in a space of six months, two submarine mishaps claimed as many as 20 lives after repeated representations for adding to the ageing submarine fleet fell on deaf ears.

While the country was in dire need of modernisation of the armed forces and the augmentation of military equipment, during the current year, Antony acquiesced in the finance ministry diktat to cut spending by Rs 10,000 crore in the capital acquisitions for the Army, Navy and Air Force, arguing that fiscal adjustment was necessary since the economic situation was grim.

It is a matter of deep concern that the move has caused a major slowdown in the ongoing acquisition projects—from aircraft and helicopters to howitzers and missiles and further pushed back the already much-delayed $20-billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project to acquire 126 fighters which was to be inked by March 31.

The UPA government has not only failed to upgrade the ageing fleet of the Indian Navy but also the vital equipment of other armed forces to the level that even their immediate critical requirements are not being met due to lack of funds and bureaucratic wrangles.

If there is one attribute on which Antony can be lauded, it is in regard to his personal integrity but corruption in the armed forces and the use of middlemen to bag contracts continues unabated. Antony should have come up with a proper mechanism to legitimise and regulate defence agents, but he did not do that.

Antony debarred six global armament firms in 2012, to add to the ones blacklisted earlier; cancelled the VVIP helicopter contract; and referred over 100 cases to CBI during his tenure to send “a strong signal” to all vendors to desist from “resorting to unfair means to win contracts”.

But the fact is that all this has failed to stem the rising tide of corruption in arms deals, with shady middlemen continuing to merrily flourish and scams coming out into the open every now and then. The long-winded cumbersome arms procurement procedures provide much opportunity for wheeling and dealing at every stage. The entire system needs to be streamlined and simplified. Blacklisting has proved counter-productive.

All said and done, Antony has little to gloat about.

Antony Has Little to Gloat About as Defence Minister | idrw.org

 

[Tshering22]

SO much for the honest guy working under the most anti-Indian government in India in our modern history.

What is the use of such honesty when it is costing our troops' lives the same ways a dishonest government's approach will be?

He is anyway a robot in Her Majesty G's hand.

With a government structure like this, we don't need China and Pakistan to worry about as threats.

 

[kurup]

How Antony's incompetence has left India's defences in a mess

'The defence minister is stuck in the trivial and frivolous with a clerical mindset merely to prove his so-called honesty overlooking the primary aim of adding sufficient military muscle and firepower to the defence services,' says Bharat Verma, editor, Indian Defence Review.

In the past seven years Defence Minister A K Antony's incompetence has ensured that India's military capability rapidly shrinks.

Primarily, the tax-payer spends money on appointing the defence minister to make certain that India's armed forces receive incremental modernisation and sufficient military capabilities to safeguard the territorial integrity of the Union as well as to defend increasing strategic interests.

In addition, he is solely responsible for the upkeep of the well-being and morale of the forces.

However, Antony, possibly the longest serving defence minister, belied expectations and instead created a huge obstacle course in modernisation of the armed forces and permitted maligning of the Indian Army by his defence secretary at various stages.

Antony, the most 'honest' defence minister will probably be remembered for the unprecedented number of scams that happened during his tenure and nothing more.

For all the professed honesty that Antony touted on taking over, should have made him clean up the rampant existing corruption in defence public sector units and ministry of defence.

Under his leadership it appears that the primary national objective is not to add military capabilities to ensure the nation's security but to find ways to guarantee maximum kickbacks.

Frankly, nobody involved in the decision-making process is really concerned about the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft being inducted on time to shore up the rapidly declining firepower of the Indian Air Force; or about the Indian Navy receiving submarines in time; or with the tremendous collateral damage the nation suffers on its borders with Pakistan because the infantry is ill-equipped.

Despite similar levels of corruption, China never overlooks the primary objective of building military muscle. Frankly, no other country does except India.

The Defence Procurement Procedure document created by Antony and the babus of the MoD has become a huge obstacle course in procurement, which is difficult to fulfill by foreign vendors.

The defence minister is stuck in the trivial and frivolous with a clerical mindset merely to prove his so-called 'honesty' overlooking the primary aim of adding sufficient military muscle and firepower to the defence services.

The result is that the air force has stated that it is unable to successfully tackle the emerging China-Pakistan two-front threat.

The non-replacement of dwindling and ancient submarine fleet of the Indian Navy has not only left a gaping hole in underwater warfare, but is also taking toll of officers and sailors lives in peacetime. Imagine the large casualties that will occur during war.

In the army, the artillery lies empty, ground air defence does not exist, the 333 infantry battalions have not been modernised and lack mobility and sufficient firepower.

Unfortunately, the officers and the men of the military are not only deeply anguished, but also very angry.

Antony is unable to control the babus in the MoD and the result is unbridled corruption inside the ministry.

It is amazing that top classified documents of the air force found their way from MoD to an American agent via middleman Abhishek Verma. The American partner sent the documents back after differences occurred between him and Verma to the MoD. The MoD certified that these were highly classified documents.

Till date the honest defence minister has not investigated, or concluded and taken to tasks the babus who are responsible for the leakage. It appears that these documents are available for a consideration in MoD.

The bribe takers are Indians sitting in seats of power. They are never taken to task, but the foreign vendor who is forced to part with his money is automatically blacklisted on mere hearsay, thereby derailing the military preparedness of the nation.

The defence minister appears to be passing his time at the cost of the tax-payer and as such is heavily dependent on the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy in turn is running riot by fighting cases in courts against its own military. It is overlooking all rulings in favour of the military by the armed forces tribunal.

The former defence secretary Shashi Kant Sharma refused to settle legitimate 'pay and pension' demands of the veterans despite losing the case in every court. Today, he stands in contempt of court in the Supreme Court.

Further, despite stating that there was no attempt at a military coup, Antony has not ordered a retired Supreme Court judge to investigate the 'fake military coup' that Shashi Kant Sharma tried to create, to malign the Indian Army. Responsibilities need to be fixed as to why the MoD was hell bent on demoralising its own army.

Admiral D K Joshi, a highly upright officer with integrity, resigned as naval chief in protest because of the third rate equipment being supplied by the ministry, which was taking lives of officers and men during peace time.

This was in the best tradition of the military where the chief could not safeguard lives of his men and was totally disgusted with the defence minister's incompetence in resolving the problems that the navy is facing.

The head that should have rolled was A K Antony for the mess he has created.

How Antony's incompetence has left India's defences in a mess - Rediff.com India News