An Indecisive Indian

Friends, this is an account of those heady days when last-minute hectic activities were on at ICF to turn out Train 18 latest by the third week of October, 2018. The Chennai firm, the protagonist as far main furnishing, nose cones, cab and toilets were concerned, had picked up speed and it appeared that, should we start receiving the second to fifth Transformers in the second week of October, it would be possible to turn out the rake by the end of the third week of October, employing what I would call the Dash recipe of testing a self-propelled train . Second to fifth because the first one was under extensive testing. Dash had planned to start assembling the second Transformers onwards and keep the train ready for testing as soon as the first Transformer cleared the tests. Massive infrastructural preparation works had to be taken up for the test and validation of Train 18. A self-propelled train has to be tested as a train after all the coaches are coupled. Our comm...

The Corps Commander, Lt. General level talks, 3 rd this month and second after the 15 th June skirmish, took place on 30 th June. It was a marathon meeting lasting some 10-12 hours and while we hear the repetition of the resolve to deescalate and disengage, specific details are not really known. As I said earlier, as these talks are on, we should hold our peace, neither trying to celebrate nor declare it a failure. Of course, we cannot ignore that military build-up by China continues unabated. We have also reinforced our positions considerably in recent weeks. One alarming feature is also important; Pakistan has also deployed two divisions along the LOC in the Gilgit Baltistan sector. So, is Pakistan trying to fish in troubled waters? Or has China shed its pretensions of being a world power and asked Pakistan to try their own pin pricks to destabilize Indian strategic plans? That would be quite a comedown. I have heard many experts in the last couple of days and opinions diffe...