Gen Padmanabhan says army would bring in nuclear tactics

“The nuclear threat has manifested in the country’s neighbourhood and the army has to evolve and finetune its tactics and strategy to face it,” he told newsmen.

Asked to elaborate, the new Army Chief said reaction to nuclear-warfare would entail “rapid dispersal and rapid build- up” of forces.

Asserting that nuclearisation of the region had in no way changed the role of conventional forces, he said he aimed to make the army “lean and trim”.

Calls for Jehad emanating from the country’s neighbourhood needed to be taken careful note of, Gen Padmanabhan said. The contours of insurgency were rapidly changing colours, he said and demanded a “dynamic riposte”.

Stating that there had been an escalation in the proxy war situation in Jammu and Kashmir, he said this had been caused by an increase in the number of foreign mercenaries being pushed from across the Line of Control.

Padmanabhan said both the foreign-dominated groups and their backers in Pakistan were giving the cover of jehad in Jammu and Kashmir in pursuance of unleashing “raw terrorism against the local people and security forces”.

“Though there may be odd hiccups, we have got a good grip on the situation. We will defeat the nefarious aims of these mercenaries,” he said.

Advocating a sustained annual funding of three per cent of the GDP for defence, he said this would enable the army to modernise in a planned manner to ensure that while combating insurgency, the country’s operational preparedness to meet the conventional threat is in no way compromised.

Padmanabhan said his other thrust areas would be to bring in organisational changes and improve service-conditions. “Our effort would be to see that state-of-the-art weapons, equipment and latest technology are introduced and absorbed at the earliest,” he said.

Conceding that prolonged deployment of the army in combating insurgency and fighting the proxy war diluted the effectiveness of the troops, he said the army had made its views known to the Government on this, but till the authorities decided the army keeping its sense of “patriotism, professional ethos” would continue to deal with internal security.

He scoffed off reports of “fatigue syndrome” setting in army units in Jammu and Kashmir and said “the morale of forces across the Madhopur Bridge is very high. Maybe the morale in the capital could be low”.

Padmanabhan said the army had also made its views known to the Government on the restructuring of the armed forces, Ministry of Defence and on moves to integrate intelligence agencies. “I am certain that the Government which has set up special task force for these would take positive steps.”

On shortage of officers in the army, he said the publicity campaign launched by the army on recruitment had led to “a recent increase in intake”.

Earlier, the outgoing army chief Gen Malik said he was satisfied with his three-year tenure, which he described as “eventful”.

“These years were full of challenges and me and my men faced these tasks well,” he said.