A recent seminar on the UCC in J&K – planned and then cancelled – does not speak well for the Army.

The government would do well to reconsider the feasibility of implementing NPR-NRC-CAA, and re-visit it with careful, consultative, all-party thinking.

The “soldier-volunteer” and “selfie-point” initiatives for political purposes are measures which politicise the armed forces. The government cannot be unaware of the Army Act and Army Rules, which prohibit political activity.

In Bengaluru, criminal cases were registered against 70 citizens for marching peacefully and silently against tree-felling and flyover construction alongside the iconic Sankey tank.

Notwithstanding the controversy created by three very senior veterans denying that they endorsed the letter, the content of the letter remains the view of the veterans who endorsed it.

The matter of 400 serving soldiers recently petitioning the Supreme Court, following 356 serving soldiers who beat them to it by a couple of weeks, has exposed the military, bureaucratic and political leadership as never before.

The initiative perhaps indicates that the soldier feels that he is being prosecuted unjustly despite the applicability of AFSPA. Whatever decision the SC may take, it appears that the soldier is at the end of his tether.