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Why no full time Defense Minister?

nair

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A country like India which has such a large military does not have a full time defense minister...... The current Minister has to handle 2 big portfolios of Defense and Finance along with Corporate affairs. Dont you think we should have a dedicated Defense minister???? Recent Loc tensions increases the need of one.....

What you think??

@sancho @sandy_3126 @AUSTERLITZ @scorpionx @Abingdonboy @SarthakGanguly @kurup @AMCA @levina @seiko and others
 
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Completely agree .

Also keep in mind Arun Jaitleys health conditions .... he is just out of the hospital .

Both finance and Defence ministries require different heads .
 
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To negotiate the dichotomy between Finance and Defence ministry over the many stalled projects,it was imperative that they be headed by same minister for some time. If our finance minister gets first hand experience of urgency of defence related acquisitions then it is gona only help in long run.

I guess soon we will have new Defence Minister. Whom do you guys think would be ideal DM ?? I will back someone who understands defence very well and have been thick and thin of it so, my choice would be either VK Singh or Subramanian Swamy.
 
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I guess soon we will have new Defence Minister. Whom do you guys think would be ideal DM ?? I will back someone who understands defence very well and have been thick and thin of it so, my choice would be either VK Singh or Subramanian Swamy.

VK singh and Subramanian swami will be a disaster as DM......
 
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A country like India which has such a large military does not have a full time defense minister...... The current Minister has to handle 2 big portfolios of Defense and Finance along with Corporate affairs. Dont you think we should have a dedicated Defense minister???? Recent Loc tensions increases the need of one.....

What you think??

@sancho @sandy_3126 @AUSTERLITZ @scorpionx @Abingdonboy @SarthakGanguly @kurup @AMCA @levina @seiko and others
Fully agree and this is something I've bee asking since late June as Modi/the BJP had said there would be an expansion to the cabinet in early July including a full time DM- which never happened.

I just don't think this current situation is feasible in the long run. Yes, I can see the argument that a DM who is also FinM can speed up procurements but the actual evidence of this is hard to come by. And anyway a FinM Has much more to do than just clearing defence deals.

Defence and Finance are both crucial ministries that, IMHO, do require full time and dedicated ministers. No matter how good my Jaitley is there are only so many hours in the day and any attention he gives to one side will be at the cost of the other.

There needs to be a dedicated DM ASAP.


To negotiate the dichotomy between Finance and Defence ministry over the many stalled projects,it was imperative that they be headed by same minister for some time. If our finance minister gets first hand experience of urgency of defence related acquisitions then it is gona only help in long run.

I guess soon we will have new Defence Minister. Whom do you guys think would be ideal DM ?? I will back someone who understands defence very well and have been thick and thin of it so, my choice would be either VK Singh or Subramanian Swamy.

I agree with Nair. Neither Swamy or VK SINGH are suited for this role and WOULD actually have a damaging effect on the Indian military and its modernisation plans. Swamy has no official role in the NDA govt and this seems deliberate and Modi has wisely kept VKS away from the MoD by giving him charge of devlopment in the NE (a role I think he is well suited for).
 
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VK singh and Subramanian swami will be a disaster as DM......

So, who is your choice ??

Fully agree and this is something I've bee asking since late June as Modi/the BJP had said there would be an expansion to the cabinet in early July including a full time DM- which never happened.

I just don't think this current situation is feasible in the long run. Yes, I can see the argument that a DM who is also FinM can speed up procurements but the actual evidence of this is hard to come by. And anyway a FinM Has much more to do than just clearing defence deals.

Defence and Finance are both crucial ministries that, IMHO, do require full time and dedicated ministers. No matter how good my Jaitley is there are only so many hours in the day and any attention he gives to one side will be at the cost of the other.

There needs to be a dedicated DM ASAP.




I agree with Nair. Neither Swamy or VK SINGH are suited for this role and WOULD actually have a damaging effect on the Indian military and its modernisation plans. Swamy has no official role in the NDA govt and this seems deliberate and Modi has wisely kept VKS away from the MoD by giving him charge of devlopment in the NE (a role I think he is well suited for).

I know , you never wanted VK Singh even to join politics, let alone taking up any role in government. FYI VK Singh is depty Foreign minister too. But please do divulge who do you think would be most suitable DM .
 
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Virtually PM is also managing a good portions of Defense ministry.But OP is right we need a Defense Minister.
 
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A country like India which has such a large military does not have a full time defense minister...... The current Minister has to handle 2 big portfolios of Defense and Finance along with Corporate affairs. Dont you think we should have a dedicated Defense minister???? Recent Loc tensions increases the need of one.....

What you think??

There is no doubt about that we need a propper DM and when you read news reports or articles of officials of the forces, it will get evident. But as I recently said in another thread, it is also evident that the PM has changed the hierarchy in the government, to directly talk to bureaucrats or the heads of the industry and the forces, without having the actually responsible ministers of the related ministries in between. That might have advantages in some areas, in defence however it isn't because that's a far too big and important field to give a single person all the power, especially a PM that should have a lot of other things on his agenda too. I don't think he wants a propper DM, to intervene directly with the Chiefs, while Arun Jaitly mainly is the Finance Minister and takes the MoD only as a part time job, since the PM is the key anyway.
There is a huge discrepancy between the hard talk of the PM during the elections, with statements about hard and direct retaliation for any attack or incursion at our borders with Pakistan or China. The actions after being in power however are far different and for those though talks earlier, are actually looking weak. For days we had incursions from the Chinese, for weeks or even months tensions are raising at Pak borders, the embassy attack in Afghanistan..., but no official response from the PM or the part time DM! It don't need to be an insane statement based on emotions, that only makes things worse, but at least a public address to the Government of Pakistan to take actions, or even a open remark during the visit of Xi Jinping that would had put more pressure on him to resolve issues about the incursions would be important.
 
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MoD is pretty much a useless ministry since all executive decision rest in the hands of the PM and all operational decisions rest in the hand of the service chiefs.

Def. Minister will only act like final arbitration body when there is conflict between DRDO and Services or between DDP etc.
 
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A country like India which has such a large military does not have a full time defense minister...... The current Minister has to handle 2 big portfolios of Defense and Finance along with Corporate affairs. Dont you think we should have a dedicated Defense minister???? Recent Loc tensions increases the need of one.....

What you think??

@sancho @sandy_3126 @AUSTERLITZ @scorpionx @Abingdonboy @SarthakGanguly @kurup @AMCA @levina @seiko and others


I prefer the current arrangement, where Mr Jaitley is actively working for administrative and budgetary reforms of MoD and direct under sight from Modi ji....
It is still better than slew of usless Raksha Mantri's of the past.

Also remember Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and PVN Rao, held defence portfolio's along with the PM's position
 
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The way projects are being cleared and products are being de-licensed, I think current setup will work for a while.
 
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There is no doubt about that we need a propper DM and when you read news reports or articles of officials of the forces, it will get evident. But as I recently said in another thread, it is also evident that the PM has changed the hierarchy in the government, to directly talk to bureaucrats or the heads of the industry and the forces, without having the actually responsible ministers of the related ministries in between. That might have advantages in some areas, in defence however it isn't because that's a far too big and important field to give a single person all the power, especially a PM that should have a lot of other things on his agenda too. I don't think he wants a propper DM, to intervene directly with the Chiefs, while Arun Jaitly mainly is the Finance Minister and takes the MoD only as a part time job, since the PM is the key anyway.
There is a huge discrepancy between the hard talk of the PM during the elections, with statements about hard and direct retaliation for any attack or incursion at our borders with Pakistan or China. The actions after being in power however are far different and for those though talks earlier, are actually looking weak. For days we had incursions from the Chinese, for weeks or even months tensions are raising at Pak borders, the embassy attack in Afghanistan..., but no official response from the PM or the part time DM! It don't need to be an insane statement based on emotions, that only makes things worse, but at least a public address to the Government of Pakistan to take actions, or even a open remark during the visit of Xi Jinping that would had put more pressure on him to resolve issues about the incursions would be important.
I would like to throw this in the mix and highlight it:



Now usually this would be a role played by the DM so it seems that there is a unconventional hierarchy/stragey at work here involving the PM, Jaitley and NSA Dovel. Seems like it could be a pretty decent formula for success
 
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I would like to throw this in the mix and highlight it:



Now usually this would be a role played by the DM so it seems that there is a unconventional hierarchy/stragey at work here involving the PM, Jaitley and NSA Dovel. Seems like it could be a pretty decent formula for success

It is indeed a strange way of handling, NSA handling situation like this???? we will have to wait and see how this turns out.....
 
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I prefer the current arrangement, where Mr Jaitley is actively working for administrative and budgetary reforms of MoD and direct under sight from Modi ji....
It is still better than slew of usless Raksha Mantri's of the past.

Also remember Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and PVN Rao, held defence portfolio's along with the PM's position
Right!!
PV Narsimha Rao had held the industries portfolio with himself and brought in radical reforms.
And why not let Jaitley handle both the portfolios??
As FM and DM just in his first meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council somewhere in july he had cleared procurement proposals worth 21000 CR .This decision would've taken months had there been 2 diff ministers because there definitely would 've been coordination issues between the ministries....as always.
Jaitley has also successfully ended the monopoly of the public sector over aircraft production barring HAL from participating in the manufacture of transport aircraft to replace the Avros. So yeah I'm happy with the way things are goin on now.
Now usually this would be a role played by the DM so it seems that there is a unconventional hierarchy/stragey at work here involving the PM, Jaitley and NSA Dovel. Seems like it could be a pretty decent formula for success
In short Doval could be pulling the strings???
I'm glad...very glad :-)
 
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