Indian Armed Forces

Does Nirmala Sitharaman Have a Personal Interest in Opening Cantonment Roads? | NewsClick Information in the public domain shows that there may be some truth to the allegations of conflict of interest and that the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) decision to open cantonment roads did not take the Local Military Authorities (LMAs) into confidence.

These guys are doing a wonderful job getting us real stories about the veterans of the country.
Do check it out....

https://m.facebook.com/veteransofindiastories/

Veterans of India - Stories This page brings out the heart warming and touching stories of India's veterans. Portrait after Portrait

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A delegation of UFESM/IESM will visit R&R hospital to meet The Commandant/Doctor's attending to Danish the brother of Cpl Mohd. Sartaj who is serving the IAF on Saturday October 17, 2015 at 11.00 AM. The delegation will interact with members of Media outside Gate # 2 of R&R Hospital on Rao Tula Ram Marg at 1130 h.The recent incident in Dadri and a couple of other incidents has sent shock waves through the serving and veteran community with regard to the safety and security of our families.
We at UFESM have taken this issue very seriously. We would like to draw attention of the GOI and society at large on two Major actions to be initiated to obviate the fear psychosis that has set in amongst the rank and file of the armed forces and veterans respectively.
To this end we are holding a press conference at our media Centre at 1300 h, 1.00 PM on Sat 17 Oct 2015. We request you/your representative's presence for the same.
Maj Gen Satbir Singh,SM Chairman IESM & Advisor UFESM will address the gathering.
For queries please contact Name: Col Anil Kaul, VrC Number: +91-9810272291

'The nation which does not respect it's soldiers, is not truly a free nation'
STAND UP FOR https://t.co/IAxX4tCwg9

Deepest Thoughts on Twitter “The ugly truth.”

What a saga...What a hero...What a man! My humble salutations to him.
This is an inspirational story of raw courage, unspeakable determination and an unimaginable
never-say-die spirit!
Deependra Singh Sengar stands apart from the rest of us. May his tribe increase!
Do not miss this fantastic story, this great piece defining the ultimate limits of human endeavour and fighting spirit...
And guys Ivan Crasto is a dear friend, a one course senior from NDA who hails from Goa...last we met was during the Kargil ops...who took premature retirement soon thereafter...
Some of you may recollect in the mid eighties cable car mishap at 'Timber Trail'Himachal Pradesh state...Crasto then a capt saved the lives of those stuck there...was awarded Kirti Chakra for this brave act...
Regards,
Manobendra
Soldier of Fortune (The untold Story)
- A True Story
What an incredible, inspiring true story of a soldier! Read on, as a brave soldier pays a fitting tribute to another.
Soldier of Fortune (The untold Story)
This is a story of raw courage.
A true story of incredible courage of a soldier, whom I've had the privilege of knowing. Someone, who would just not take "NO" for an answer, despite the challenges life threw at him. A story that needs to be told.
There is inevitably a strange, almost labored disconnect between the urgent, distinctive ‘pop’ of the speeding bullet as it whizzes past you and the apparently languid, disarmingly slow movement of those around you. A sardonic, yet glowing affirmation of the theory of relativity, if you will. Those who have been inactive combat and had the privilege of being fired at, would know. Deependra Singh Sengar did. More than once!
It was the day after Valentine’s Day, 1998. Sengar had just been received at the Guwahati airport by the unit’s es**rt team. At 5’6” and 52 kgs in weight, you could easily mistake him for the a postgraduate student at Guwahati University. Sengar was re-joining the unit in active operations in the North East - after weeks of pleading, screaming & struggling against the orders of Col Ivan Crasto, the Commanding Officer - to man the administrative rear echelon of the unit in a cosy, sleepy town in Himachal Pradesh.
That is who he was – a man of action. And men of action, as you would know, abhor routine admin jobs!
The first message he overheard, 15 minutes in transit, on the secured communication radio link was garbled. 5-6 senior militant leaders in a house, armed with automatics, pin point location, high credibility of info, apparent transit profile, likely to move out soon. The Quick Reaction Team (QRT) from the unit was starting out, but could hit target only in an hour. Sengar quickly realized that with a short detour, he could be at the target in 20 mins. Saving 40 mins could mean the difference between success and failure.
A flurry of messages later, Sengar had convinced the Battalion HQ that he and his es**rt team were best positioned to initiate contact with the militants before they disappeared. The QRT could follow. Now, es**rt teams are usually a rag tag team of whoever is available. Fully kitted out, sure – weapons, ammo, secured communication - the works. But still, certainly not the first choice of guys for going into combat with. But that didn’t deter Sengar. He swung in and hit the target in 20 mins, as planned. A short, sharp exchange of fire ensued. 2 reds down, 3 had fled.
It is then that Sengar realized that he had been hit. Two bullets had pierced through his abdomen, making a clean, almost unnoticeable entry in the front and a classic, disproportionate exit wound in his back. What they call in the medical world, rather disparagingly, a ‘clean’ shot.
The rest was a blur. The flurry of the evacuation process. Hand carried, on four wheel drive, by chopper, through the local hospital in the neighborhood, and then to the Base Hospital at Guwahati. The long, unending line of surgeries. Cut, sew & cut again. After about 15 days of chopping and pasting, the docs were confident of partial recovery in a time frame of about 18-24 months.
A miracle, they called it. But then, they hadn’t seen miracles - as yet.
Sengar was no pushover who could be tied down to a hospital bed. He was up and about in 45 days. He read books on his condition and realized that psychological recovery was as important as medical one. He started doing what was in his reach- whether strict army hospital rules allowed or not. Sneaking out of the hospital, hobbling along to the theatres to watch practically every movie worth watching. & some which didn’t fit even that bill. 60 days from that fateful day, a Unit officer was getting married. Sengar, attired in a Lungi & a kurta (he couldn’t wear anything else – the scars hadn’t yet healed), with tubes and bags (If you must know - A colostomy bag & a bag directly attached to urinary bladder) immodestly but practically hanging out of his modest frame, hired a car and travelled 5 hours one way to Dehradun.
“Huh? All this to attend a frikking marriage??", You might ask. Well, Sengar wasn’t the type who’d let anything – certainly not a little thing like 25 grams worth of random molten lead that burnt independent, solitary furrows through his intestines - come in the way of having the pleasure of seeing one of his mates being led, willingly to the gallows!!
Sengar hated hospitals. Much to the deep dismay of a bevy of nurses there. He was back in the unit by early May, 98. The docs, fed up with his constant supplications to be released, grudgingly allowed him to get back to the unit, with the solemn promise that he would not exert himself, and stay confined to the unit HQs (chuckle chuckle).
Too difficult for someone who was called “Rocket” by the junior officers as Sengar was the recipient of the coveted "Dagger" in the Commando course, the one who was known for being one of the most physically fit officers and men.
Around this time, a training exercise was being conducted in the eastern sector and Sengar saw a chance to prove his fitness. He pleaded with Col Crasto to be allowed to get there, to ‘man the telephone’. Crasto finally caved in after Sengar was able to convince the doctors to pronounce him “fit” for active duty. Sengar had amazingly, defying every single precedent of recorded medical recovery in cases similar to his, convinced the docs to upgrade his medical category to SHAPE1.
He pleaded, struggled, nagged, nudged, begged, threatened, and resorted to blatant emotional blackmail of the vilest means known to be posted on the Eastern Sector.
In the middle of the exercise, news broke about the Kargil conflict and the unit was to airlift a team for the Kargil war. Sengar was back to doing what he loved best - back to action, leading a team. He led his team to capture Neelam post in the Kargil war, which was the highest post captured in the whole engagement by the Indian Army. By August 99, officially the Kargil war was over, but escalated engagements along the LOC still required the unit to stay in the area. And Sengar’s team was in the middle of action – again.
In Sep 01, Sengar was hit again.
A violent firefight with a group of freshly inducted militants. A burst of fire from an AK-47 tore through his upper thigh and hip. Bleeding profusely and his hip bone in tatters, we knew if we didn’t evacuate him in time, we’d lose him. A paratrooper in the Divisional HQ, a chopper pilot, who was on a routine training mission learnt of Sengar being hit. Without waiting for authorization, violating every rule in the book, flew in, he landed at a hastily secured patch at the base of the hill feature and evacuated Sengar to the hospital through a route not allowed for Indian aircrafts - Sengar reached hospital in 45 mins! A couple of more mins of delay, and he would have been history.
Back to the ‘cut n sew’ story; only, this time, it was more serious than the first. Sengar survived. Barely. He was transferred to Delhi’s super specialty Army hospital two months later and it was then, that his parents were brought to Delhi and the news broken. All this while he was told that he would recover and be back in action in a short time- It took him another month to finally learn from the docs their verdict – He would never walk again.
This was a body blow (pun unintended) even for Sengar. He decided to quit the Army. He had no interest in peddling files clad in the fabulous olives. Once he had waded through the rivers of emotion, which lasted all of 24 hours, he decided to take charge of his apparently fragile destiny.
Sengar started researching options of an alternate career path. He was 30, single and had the energy of a bull - or three. It didn’t take him long to realise that he needed to tame the beast called ‘CAT’ - the Common Admission Test, to take a shot at passing through the portals of the premier business schools.
As he did a SWOT analysis, he identified that his analytic skills weren't what they once were. So, he decided to take on the task of conquering Arithmophobia – his paranoia of numbers. He got all the math books and diligently went through class four to class 12 books. Minor hiccups like the fact that he had to be carried from his hospital bed to the car, or the fact that they had to make special provision for him at the classes, so he could recline on an ad hoc chair and take notes didn't bother him one bit.
Sengar took the CAT in Dec 2000. Based on his results, he got a call from 15 of the 16 B schools he had applied to - IIM (A), IIM (B), IIM (C), IIM (L) …. A veritable who’s who of the B school list. Four days after he hung up his beloved Olive Greens, he got married. Eight days later, he joined the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Two brilliant years of number crunching analysis later, Sengar graduated with distinction - on crutches.
Today, Sengar is a top management professional with Microsoft, in Singapore with a doting wife and two wonderful kids. If you thought that’s the final update on his story, wait, because, there is one final flourish.
After ten long years on crutches, Sengar decided he had had enough. He chucked his crutches into a corner & decided to rough it out. Slowly, and with tremendous perseverance, he started walking. In under a year, he was going for short jogs. In Sep 13, on a trip to India, he decided to revisit his old unit. He got in touch with the Commanding Officer, who invited him to go for a run with the unit in the standard Battle Physical Efficiency Test- with loaded backpack and a weapon.
And Sengar did...The ‘Rocket’ had returned...To a hero’s welcome.

Wishing everybody a happy Signal Corps Day!

Jai Hind

"MY NATION, MY VALENTINE"

Here comes "Feb 14" urf "valentines day". The couples are planning for a lovely day and the singles(like me) want a miracle to happen.

Generally, people celebrating valentines day have a specific order of doing things that day...
0000hrs: Call your loved one(s) and express your undying love for them.
0800hrs: Wake up and get ready in the best possible combination you can ever imagine.
1000hrs: Meet them in CCD, Barista, McDonalds, Pizza Hut etc etc.
1600hrs: Go for a movie, particularly in IMAX, PVR, Big Cinemas etc etc.
2000hrs: Go to a nice restaurant for dinner and some wine(okay any kind of booze).
2300hrs: Lots of hugs, lots of kisses and finally back to your house, and dream about the day...or, u know...

Now lets see the timetable of a soldier out there on the frontline...
0400hrs: Wake up and make your weapon battle ready.
0600hrs: Stand guard.
0900hrs: Stand guard.
1200hrs: Stand guard and chat with the guy who is 20ms away, bitching about how sad their commanding officer is!!!
1500hrs: Stand guard.
2100hrs: Stand guard and try and sneak the little bit of chocolate thats part of ration.
0000hrs: Stand guard...Cause he lost the bet and has first watch.
In between he waits for a letter from his wife(?) and a good meal if he is lucky enough!!!

All this sounds pretty interesting. Doesn't it!!! We always think of our loved ones. But don't you think there is someone being left out. This year let us remember another category of human beings. The ones, who instead of celebrating themselves, leave their family back home and attend the call of duty just to make sure that people like us can celebrate and enjoy. Yes, I am talking about the Indian Soldier. During war we talk about how should we support our troops and how we should do something for them. But where does this thought disappear during days like these!!! We want them to stay awake so that we can sleep in peace, but we can't remember them on even a single day in 365 days!!! They put their lives in danger knowing that this valentine's eve, their organisation will give them a red rose.

Lets also not forget all the officers whose daughters are old enough to know what this day implies, and are in relatively more comfortable tents worrying about what their wives said about the boys who came home; or those poor troops who have the unfortunate job of being on mess duty this day and listening to the cook explain how anything his wife cooks can't beat his food (this while he splashes some of the rum from the bottle in his left hand while he stirs the pot with his right). Let us also not forget all the unit dogs and stray cats who bask in all the attention given to them by love-sick and home-sick troops and the glares on the back of these lovelorn troops by the unmarried ones who just want a date "NO-STRINGS ATTACHED".

So this year let us just try and spare some thought for those brave men, guarding the frontiers and also give them a rose to show that even if we are not there with them, we are there for them (people '20-30,F' are welcome to attach any phone numbers, pictures or articles of clothing they may wish to send). Here's to them and any who will serve in the future... HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

You can live stream the Republic Day parade here...
http://republicday.nic.in/

Wishing everybody a happy 64th Republic Day!

'earthquake'-call the army , 'kid in the borewell'-army rescues,'train accident'-deploy the army ......! Yes, you are clld whenever the machinery of the country fails , but ,you are forgotten when the soldiers are BEHEADED, when an ex army chief is ROBBED OF HIS SECURITY , when jawans and officers return their medals for one rank ,one pension,when barkha dutt and sagarika ghos find pride n pleasure to invite Musharraf over mindless leadership summits , when karan thapar questions whether Indian media reacted correctly ,when even minor allegations of corruptions are telecasted to present it like the scam of the decade,n how farce has the army become . Army , you don't respond back because these are our own people. Because sacrifice and integrity are values embedded deep within, and any AMAN KA TAMASHA from the plush a/c rooms ,wont reiterate you ,because ,you are made up of sterner stuff. You are the mighty INDIAN ARMY ,celebrating your day . A GLORIOUS ARMY DAY,with better Hopes for ,things in the future .*salute*
"Happy 65th Army Day to everyone! Salute to The Indian Army!"

Jai Hind!
:)

Happy Lohri everyone :)

१३ राजपुताना राइफल्स रेजिमेंट के
जवानों ने दो दिन से खाना नहीं खाया है और
यहीं कह रहें हैं
कि जब तक बदला नहीं ले लेंगे अन्न का एक
दाना भी नहीं खायेंगे और इसी तरह भूखे प्यासे
ड्यूटी करते रहेंगे वो बार बार अपने अधिकारियों से एक ही बात कह रहें
हैं."साहेब, एक बार आदेश दे दो फिर देखो हम
क्या करते हैं
उन्होंने हमारे दो साथियों को बेरहमी से मारा है
हम उनकी पूरी बटालियन को लम्बी नींद सुलाने
को तैयार हैं बस एक बार आदेश दे दो....
दैनिक जागरण, १० जनवरी, पृष्ठ संख्या १५

Lets see how many people in this country set out for a candle march for those two soldiers who were shot and decapitated and beheaded, how many people go on a hunger strike to push the govt. into doing something about this case, making a move against Pakistan. As an Indian, i officially hang my head in shame. The govt. let us down when capt. kalia gave up his life for this country. They did nothing when the ceasefire treaty was broken for the first time. And i doubt they will do anything now, when the agreement has been violated innumerable times. Pak army knows that. And hence have the guts to come into OUR country and shoot OUR men IN OUR VERY OWN NATION. Our misfortune? The army has strings attached to the govt. SHAME!

- Devika Singh