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Congress‘s vengeance will cause civil war
Puneet Sundar, Soecial correspondent, Indiadaily Congress is busy to show secularism by taking it on BJP and RSS in Gujrat and else where. It is playing with fire in trying to subdue the mainstream India with heavy handedness. The statements from newly sworn in ministers are flaming discontent among the mainstream India. While Congress is silent about atrocities by the muslims in India and Pakistan, they are ready to show force on BJP, RSS and VHS. This will cause civil war in India that will not only wipe Congress out from political horizon for ever, also make India permanently non-secular and a declared Hindu state like Nepal. Recent decision to deploy CSIF (Federal Security Forces) in Gujrat, statements from Pranab Mukherjee and others point to that direction. In addition, Congress with hardly any majority in the central Government is making a new turn on nuclear use option. This game is dangerous.
India's nuclear management structure is set for a major overhaul. The new Congress-led government busy in finding suitable persons to head key departments associated with the nuclear management of the country.
Besides, looking for an appropriate person to adorn the all powerful post of the National Security Advisor (NSA), who actually holds the nuclear buttons on behalf of the Prime Minister, the government is also bound to name the heads for the Strategic Policy Group (SPG), the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), and the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS). Heads of all these bodies have either completed their term or have retired from the services.
The resignation of Brajesh Mishra on Tuesday here paved the way for the new Congress-led government to appoint new National Security Advisor (NSA). With two other contenders, K. Natwar Singh and Mani Shankar Iyer already getting ministerial berths, former foreign secretary J. N Dixit is now a front-runner for the post.
The convener of the NSAB, C.V. Ranganathan, a retired officer of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), has also completed his two-year term. Satish Chandra heading the NSCS also retired recently but was told to continue till the government finds his replacement. Chandra, a serving officer of the IFS, was previously the Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan.
Since this is the first transfer (of nuclear assets) since India became a nuclear weapon state, experts here had called for the appointment of a National Security Adviser (NSA) in advance of the government being sworn in. But, since the government formation and allocating ministerial berths to allies appeared a Herculean task, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi could not spare time to appoint country's new nuclear managers.
Set-up in 1998, India's three-tier nuclear management structure consists of a National Security Council (NSC), a Strategic Policy Group (SPG) and a National Security Advisory Board (NSAB). The Indian NSC, like its US counterpart, is essentially a high-powered political body chaired by the Prime Minister and consisting of important members of his Cabinet directly concerned with national security issues.
The SPG, which is chaired by the Cabinet Secretary, consists of serving senior officials responsible for policy-making and follow-up action in matters concerning national security plus the chiefs of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), the external intelligence agency. Its main task is to make policy recommendations to the NSC.
The NSAB consists of senior retired officials, civilian as well as military, who had dealt with national security during their career as well as distinguished academics and non-governmental scholars. Another body, the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) acts as the interface between the NSC, the SPG and the NSAB and coordinates the functioning of intelligence agencies
The NSCS also monitors the newly created set ups like the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the TECHINT, agency for the collection of technical intelligence and the special counter-terrorism center in the IB.
The NSCS also monitors the implementation of the various recommendations made by three special Task Forces set up by the Government to examine and report on internal security management, border management and defense management, which have been accepted by the Government.
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