Publication

Defence Procurement Procedure The Unfinished Agenda

It has been a long time since the first set of instructions on defence procurement was issued in 1992. Since then, however, there have been several refinements and additions, based on the feedback from the stakeholders and the experience of the Defence Ministry itself, culminating in the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2011. This is presently under review and it would be reasonable to expect that the changes being contemplated will result in further refinement of the procedure and address some of the concerns expressed from time to time.

Parliament and Defence Preparedness

The leakage of the former Army Chief General V.K. Singh’s secret letter of 12 March 2012 to the Prime Minister, on large scale deficiencies in the Army, created an uproar in Parliament. While the issue of who leaked the letter and the motive behind the leak is under investigation by intelligence agencies, the bigger aspect that needs to be examined is how did we reach this level of hollowness, and what needs to be done to rectify the situation and avoid a recurrence in the future.