Articles By Lt Gen Prakash Katoch
Fifty Years Since Haji Pir: Where did we go wrong?
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Vol. 30.3 Jul-Sep 2015 | Date: 11 Sep , 2015
50 years have gone by since the capture of Haji Pir Pass by India and its return to Pakistan under the Tashkent Agreement. Where did we go wrong? We have had Parliament resolutions that Kashmir...
Military’s Izzat – who is responsible?
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 07 Sep , 2015
Much that remains under cover various administrations, by now it is well known that as per the Rules of Business of Government of India, the responsibility of the defence of the country remains...
The Debilitating Politico-Military Disconnect
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Vol. 30.2 Apr-Jun 2015 | Date: 02 Sep , 2015
The security imperatives for India are multiple and dynamic with a volatile neighbourhood including an aggressive China and an irrational Pakistan that refuses to stop following a state policy of...
Modernisation of the Indian Infantry
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Vol. 28.1 Jan-Mar 2013 | Date: 30 Aug , 2015
It is important to note that in 21st century conflict situations not only will operations be increasingly inter-agency involving greater applications of ‘all elements of national power’, but...
India’s Sub-Conventional Warfare Deficit
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Vol. 30.1 Jan-Mar 2015 | Date: 28 Aug , 2015
National security strategies should aim at the creation of national and international political conditions favourable to the protection or extension of vital national values against existing and...
New Tri-Service Commands
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 22 Aug , 2015
Newspapers on August 20 blared headlines ‘Govt gets cracking on three new Tri-Service Commands’. The “cracking” part was amusing for in 2004-2005 the same hype was created about the...
Maldives – in path of Chinese squall
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 20 Aug , 2015
As per media reports, Maldives president Abdulla Yameen has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to assure him that there will be no militarization in the Indian Ocean. This was obviously in...
A Nation Shamed - and the mafia marches on
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 17 Aug , 2015
Early last year, the former COAS, Gen VK Singh (now MoS in the Modi government) went to lay a wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate accompanied by 7-8 veteran General Officers – all...
India First - States must engage in reviving nationalism
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Date: 15 Aug , 2015
The challenges to India are numerous. The multi ethnic, multi cultural, multi linguistic expanse had given rise to the slogan of ‘Unity in Diversity’ but we have hardly shown any acumen in...
Talking to Taliban – Af-Pak honeymoon that never was
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 12 Aug , 2015
By nailing Pakistan for engineering the recent terrorist attack on Kabul airport, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has signaled that the much touted Afghanistan-Pakistan honeymoon that never was, is...
Canards of Military Coup – another James Bond
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 28 Jul , 2015
As if the lies of a purported army coup by a journalist in 2013 were not enough, not prosecuting him had the obvious fallout for inviting more such acts. So, now we have a former IB officer,...
Permanent Chairman COSC – cementing Parkinson’s in defence
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 24 Jul , 2015
Media reports that the proposal to create the new post of a Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) is at “an advanced stage of planning” now, albeit this has to be ultimately...
Media Canards of Military Coup
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Date: 17 Jul , 2015
John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff at the New York Times, respectfully referred to as the ‘Dean of His Profession’, said during his farewell speech in 1953, “There is no such thing, at...
The Track II Googly – crafty or naïve ?
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 14 Jul , 2015
Something is amazing about the propensity with which Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistani NSA can lie. Witness his statement post the Modi-Nawaz meeting in Russia that both leaders had agreed to address...
Respect and Armed Forces
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 09 Jul , 2015
Much has been written and spoken about Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s statement; one of the reasons that respect of the armed forces has diminished is because for the last 40-50 years we...
Af-Pak - Strategic Conflict Coalescing
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 01 Jul , 2015
It is interesting to observe the myriad colours of geopolitical power play being enacted in the Af-Pak region. Closer home, in Pakistan, the anti-Shia sectarian violence has already claimed 170...
Digitizing Defence & Security - beyond Digital India
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 22 Jun , 2015
There is no denying that the Digital India initiative taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy has no parallel in...
Af-Pak Region – murky waters
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 06 Jun , 2015
The dynamics of the Af-Pak region are changing rapidly. And this is not just because of the farcical election in Gilgit and Baltistan slated for June 8, while a Federal Minister of Pakistan dons...
China – what lies behind the mask?
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 01 Jun , 2015
According to a post on the Facebook, while Prime Minister Modi was visiting China, an Op-Ed in China’s Global Times stated, “Due to the Indian elite’s confidence in their democracy, and the...
OROP – diminutive in deeper malaise
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 29 May , 2015
There is plenty hoopla about OROP and with reason – some angered, some amused, some complacent. Articles have appeared that veterans are disappointed and are losing faith in the government....