NEW DELHI: At least one person was killed on Friday as angry youths in parts of India burned train coaches, blocked highways and attacked police with rocks, in a second day of violent demonstrations against a new short-term government recruitment policy for the military, police officials said.
The death occurred in Secundrabad in southern India where nearly 500 protesters vastly outnumbered police as they rampaged the railroad station for more than an hour, police said. Another 15 people were reportedly injured.
Protesters attacked police with rocks and police used batons and fired shots to disperse them. One protester was killed in the police firing, a police officer said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
Television images showed people setting empty train coaches on fire and vandalizing property belonging to railroad authorities. They burned tires and blocked rail tracks, disrupting train services in the region for several hours. No injuries were immediately reported.
Under the new job program announced by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh this week, the armed forces this year can recruit 46,000 men and women in the age group 17.5-21 but only for four years. Seventy-five percent of them will be compulsorily retired after four years with no pension benefits.
A full-time recruited soldier serves for over 35 years.
The violence also hit eastern Bihar state where protesters set six train coaches on fire and damaged railroad stations, including offices and electronic installations. The protesters also blocked highways for hours, said S.K. Singhal, a police officer.
Protesters threw rocks at the homes of top governing Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Renu Devi and Sanay Jaiswal in Bettiah, a town in Bihar state, Singhal said. No one was injured.
The large-scale protests caused the cancelation of 30 trains with another 29 trains diverted to safer routes and 30 trains with passengers left stranded at different places in Bihar state, said Virendra Kumar, a railroad spokesman.
In northern Uttar Pradesh state, protesters threw rocks at buses in the city of Varanasi.
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which is facing national elections in 2024, is under pressure to provide jobs as India’s economy recovers from the pandemic slump. One idea behind short-term military recruitment is that those trained by the armed forces can later seek jobs with police or the private sector.
The government’s rationale also appears to save money by avoiding the pension burden by retiring them after four years. Pension pay-outs have averaged just under a quarter of India’s overall defense budget for years, leaving limited funds for the military’s modernization, said Rahul Bedi, a military analyst, in a blog post.
With 1.4 million active personnel, India’s military is the world’s second-largest after China, and the third-largest spender.
Army recruitment was halted for the past two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and thousands of aspirants spent the time preparing themselves to join the military.
“Now we are being told that we will have the job only for four years,’’ a protester said.
Defense Minister Singh late Thursday extended the age limit by two years as a one-time exception, noting there was no military recruitment for the past two years.
V.P. Malik, a retired Indian army chief, said the youths’ disappointment was understandable.
“The government and the armed forces have to do more work on their outreach to justify and explain the scheme to the youth,” he said in an interview with The Times of India newspaper.
At least one dead in protests over India’s military recruitment policy
https://arab.news/9uqkv
At least one dead in protests over India’s military recruitment policy
- Police fired shots in the air on Thursday to push back stone-throwing crowds in the northern sate of Haryana
- Large-scale protests caused cancelation of 30 trains with another 29 trains diverted to safer routes
Israeli firm loses British Army contract bid
- Subsidiary Elbit Systems UK’s campaign for $2.6bn program was marred by controversy
- Senior govt civil servant overseeing contract was dined, handed free Israel tour
LONDON: A UK subsidiary of Israeli weapons giant Elbit Systems has lost its bid to win a prominent British Army contract, The Times reported.
The loss followed high-profile reporting on controversy surrounding Elbit Systems UK’s handling of the bid.
The subsidiary led one of two major arms consortiums attempting to secure the $2.6 billion bid to prepare British soldiers for war and overhaul army standards.
Rivaling Elbit, the other consortium led by Raytheon UK, a British subsidiary of the US defense giant, ultimately won the contract, a Ministry of Defence insider told The Times.
It had been decided following an intricate process that Raytheon was a “better candidate,” the source said.
Elbit Systems UK’s controversial handling of its contract campaign was revealed in reports by The Times.
A whistleblower had compiled a dossier surrounding the bid that was shown to the MoD last August, though the report was privately revealed to the ministry months earlier.
It alleged that Elbit UK had breached business appointment rules when Philip Kimber, a former British Army brigadier, had reportedly shared information with the firm after leaving the military.
Kimber attending critical meetings at the firm to discuss the training contract that he had once overseen at the ministry, the report alleged.
In one case, Kimber was present in an Elbit meeting and sitting out of view of a camera. He reportedly said he “should not be there,” according to the whistleblower’s report.
In response to a freedom of information request, the MoD later admitted that it had held the dossier for seven months without investigating its claims. Insiders at the ministry blamed the investigative delay on “administrative oversight.”
A month after being pushed on the allegations by The Times, a senior civil servant completed an “assurance review” in September and found that business appointment rules had not been breached.
Other allegations concerned lunches and dinners hosted by Elbit UK in which civil servants at the heart of the contract decision process were invited.
One senior civil servant was dined by the British subsidiary seven times, while rival Raytheon did not host events.
Mike Cooper, the senior responsible owner at army headquarters for the army training program, also traveled to Jerusalem with two senior British military officers.
He took part in a sightseeing tour funded by Elbit Systems, the British subsidiary’s parent company.
In response to the allegations, an MoD spokesperson said in a statement: “The collective training transformation programme will modernise training for soldiers to ensure the British Army can face down the threats of the future.
“We will not comment further until a preferred tenderer announcement is made public in due course.”
Amid mounting criticism of Israel within the British military establishment, four former senior army officers, in a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, recently urged the government to end involvement with Israeli-owned or Israeli-supported weapons companies.
“Now is not the time to return to business as usual with the Israeli government,” they wrote, urging harsher sanctions.
