Podcasts about agniveer

At first glance, Donald Trump and Willy Wonka share an unexpected similarity; both are influential, unconventional figures who control access to exclusive realms. While Wonka’s golden ticket sought a successor fueled by creativity and integrity, Trump’s Gold Card offers U.S. residency but only for those who can afford the hefty price tag. Hosts Neil Ghai & Prachi Verma, joined by Sukanya Raman, Country Head of Davies & Associates, Rajiv Khanna, Managing Attorney at Immigration.com, and David Lesperance, Managing Director of Lesperance & Associates, unpack the sharp differences between the EB-5 visa, a long-standing route for foreign investors and Trump’s Gold Card, a glitzier, costlier option with fewer obligations. They dive into what the Gold Card truly offers, the tax incentives it teases for the ultra-wealthy, and whether it’s a groundbreaking approach or simply EB-5 with a premium upgrade. As America’s immigration doors open wider but only for those with deep pockets we ask: Is this the new face of the American Dream?You can follow Neil Ghai on his Linkedin, Twitter profiles and read his Newspaper Articles. Check out other interesting episodes from the host like: The Lost City of Rakhigarhi, One Nation, One Election, Many Contentions, Polls On My Pod: Rumble in the Jungle of Jharkhand, Polls On My Pod: Haryana Potboiler: Caste Politics, Agniveer and Farm Distress, Polls On My Pod: J&K’s Decade-Long Wait Ends, and more! Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on ET Play, The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube Credits: DawnNews EnglishSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this International Women’s Day, host Nidhi Sharma goes beyond boardrooms and corporate success stories to bring you the voices of women who have fought against deep-seated prejudices and unimaginable hardships to create change at the grassroots level. Meet Shaheen Mallik, an acid attack survivor who turned her pain into purpose by founding the Brave Souls Foundation, helping 300+ survivors rebuild their lives. Hear from Purnima Devi Barman, the wildlife conservationist who transformed societal perception of the endangered Hargila Stork, mobilising an army of women to protect the species. And listen to Dr. Shikha Meel Barala, a legislator and IVF specialist who battles the deeply ingrained bias of son preference to this day. Their journeys are filled with resilience, determination, and a wistful longing for a world where such battles aren’t necessary. Tune in as we bring you their extraordinary stories of courage and change. Check out other interesting episodes from the host like: The Lost City of Rakhigarhi, One Nation, One Election, Many Contentions, Polls On My Pod: Rumble in the Jungle of Jharkhand, Polls On My Pod: Haryana Potboiler: Caste Politics, Agniveer and Farm Distress, Polls On My Pod: J&K’s Decade-Long Wait Ends, and more! You can follow our host Nidhi Sharma on her social media: Twitter & Linkedin Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on ET Play, The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Google Podcasts. Credits: National Geographic, The Better India, Cornell Lab of OrinthologySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Parliament was abuzz earlier this week as MPs debated the introduction of a landmark constitutional amendment Bill proposing simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies—widely known as One Nation, One Election. Advocates claim it will streamline governance and save resources, while critics warn it could marginalise regional parties and centralise power. In this episode, host Nidhi Sharma dives deep into the proposed 129th constitutional amendment–How does it aim to synchronise India’s electoral cycles, and what are its implications for federalism and democracy? What’s driving the NDA government’s push for this reform? Why is the Opposition so fiercely against it? And what’s next in this high-stakes political showdown?–with Members of Parliament, Manish Tewari, and Sanjay Singh and PRS Legislative Research’s Chakshu Roy. Join us as we unpack the complexities of this contentious Bill, its historical context, and its potential impact on India's political landscape. Tune in for a balanced analysis of one of India’s most ambitious and debated legislative moves. Check out other interesting episodes from the host like: Polls On My Pod: Rumble in the Jungle of Jharkhand, Polls On My Pod: Haryana Potboiler: Caste Politics, Agniveer and Farm Distress, Polls On My Pod: J&K’s Decade-Long Wait Ends Polls On My Pod: Muted Manipur & The Tamil Nadu Triangle, Arvind Kejriwal’s Arrest: An Opposition Shaken or Stirred? and more! You can follow our host Nidhi Sharma on her social media: Twitter & Linkedin Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on ET Play, The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Google Podcasts. ET Podcasts now has a new show. 7@7 is your quick, sharp sub 5-minute daily roundup of financial news from India and the world. Tune in to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Prime Music, Jio Saavn, Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts from! Credits: ANI, Mint, Times Now See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Political instability and the constant flip-flopping of voters define the predicament of the Jharkhand State Legislative Assembly since the turn of the century when it came into being. Despite the last two governments completing their terms, no political party can claim with conviction that they have cracked the code in Jharkhand. Join host Nidhi Sharma as she and ET's own Kumar Anshuman navigate the tricky electoral arithmetic of the state and bring to you the issues, parties and personalities that will decide the fate of one of the country's most resource-rich states. Don't miss out on this special election series – Polls On My Pod!: Polls On My Pod: Haryana Potboiler: Caste Politics, Agniveer and Farm Distress, Polls On My Pod: J&K's Decade-Long Wait Ends Polls On My Pod: Muted Manipur & The Tamil Nadu Triangle, Arvind Kejriwal's Arrest: An Opposition Shaken or Stirred? Alliance Arithmetic: Decoding the Political Jigsaw of Lok Sabha Elections 2024, and more! You can follow our host Nidhi Sharma on her social media: Twitter & Linkedin Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief' on ET Play, The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn,  Amazon Music and Google Podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Disclaimer: This video is intended solely for educational purposes and opinions shared by the guest are his personal views. We do not intent to defame or harm any person/ brand/ product/ country/ profession mentioned in the video. Our goal is to provide information to help audience make informed choices. Order 'Build, Don't Talk' (in English) here: https://amzn.eu/d/eCfijRu Order 'Build Don't Talk' (in Hindi) here: https://amzn.eu/d/4wZISO0 Follow Our Whatsapp Channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaokF5x0bIdi3Qn9ef2J -------------- Subscribe To Our Other YouTube Channels:- https://www.youtube.com/@rajshamaniclips https://www.youtube.com/@RajShamani.Shorts

As Haryana heads to the polls, we dive deep into the state's political landscape, where the Jats have long held sway. Once a battle between Congress and INLD, Haryana's political scene has seen new players emerge in recent years. Our special election series Polls On My Pod explores the dynamics of this small but crucial agrarian state. Join host Nidhi Sharma and ET's Jatin Takkar as they break down the key factors that could shape the vote. Check out the other interesting episodes like Polls On My Pod: Muted Manipur & The Tamil Nadu Triangle, Arvind Kejriwal's Arrest: An Opposition Shaken or Stirred?, Alliance Arithmetic: Decoding the Political Jigsaw of Lok Sabha Elections 2024, and more! You can follow our host Nidhi Sharma on her social media: Twitter & Linkedin ET Podcasts now has a new show. 7@7 is your quick, sharp sub 5 minute daily roundup of financial news from India and the world. Tune in to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Prime Music, Jio Saavn, Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts from! Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief' on ET Play, The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube. Credits: Amar Ujala, HW News EnglishSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Major Avinash Sahani is a former Special Forces paratrooper and team commander, specializing in corporate and VIP security management. He is also an experienced skydiver and underwater diver. He currently works in an undisclosed location in the African country of Mozambique. In this episode Vinamre and Avinash talk about: - What do men fear most and how to be mentally strong. - Reality of Mozambique, issues with modern education. - How he survived the Para SF training, dealing with death and trauma. - Why Agniveer scheme is bad for the army, How Armed Forces in India are compartmentalized. - Struggles of retired army men in India, problems with Parachute Regiment in India. - Who's more powerful in the US - The Military or The President. If you want to know more about the Para SF and the different armies of the world, watch this episode. Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 3:13 - What do men fear the most? 6:33 - How can you become mentally strong? 13:21 - Speaking different languages 15:45 - Situation in Mozambique 19:45 - How can you be disciplined? 27:24 - Are you Special Forces material? 30:21 - How he survived the 90-day Para SF training 36:10 - Problems with the young generation 40:49 - Dealing with the trauma of people around you dying 44:08 - The idea of death in the military 49:10 - Is there a courage pandemic now? 53:30 - Problems of modern education 56:50 - Has he shot someone? 58:35 - Problems of the Parachute Regiment in India 1:08:56 - Views on the roadmap of General Bipin Rawat 1:11:53 - Does the Taliban have better equipment than the Indian Army? 1:13:24 - Philosophy of the Indian Army is not clear 1:15:33 - Weapon profiling of NATO 1:19:30 - Why don't VIPs hire ex-Indian Special Forces? 1:21:26 - How can India be better? 1:23:33 - The problems with the Agniveer Law 1:36:40 - Is it hard to find a job as an ex-army man in India? 1:40:55 - India hires third-party security to protect Indian embassies abroad 1:42:41 - Is the military more powerful than the president in the US? 1:51:53 - Conclusion ==================================================================== This is the official channel for Dostcast, a podcast by Vinamre Kasanaa. Connect with me LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinamre-kasanaa-b8524496/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vinamrekasanaa/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/VinamreKasanaa Dostcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dostcast/ Dostcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dostcast Dostcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557567524054 ==================================================================== Contact Us For business inquiries: dostcast@egiplay.com

Welcome to The Arun Pandit Show Season 2, Episode 8! In this insightful podcast, Arun Pandit sits down with Col. Rajeev Bharwan, a highly respected Indian Army Colonel with over 21 years of experience. Col. Bharwan shares his deep knowledge of the Indian Army, including the importance of discipline, the mindset of soldiers, and the secrets behind the Gorkha regiment's bravery. He also discusses crucial topics like India's Agniveer scheme, time management in the military, and the challenges faced by our armed forces. This episode is a must-watch for anyone interested in understanding the life of an Indian soldier and the strategies that keep our nation safe. Whether you're curious about military life, the role of women in the army, or India's internal security, this podcast covers it all.

Bharat Karnad is Emeritus Professor for National Security Studies, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and Distinguished Fellow at the United Service Institution of India. His most recent book, Staggering Forward: Narendra Modi and India's Global Ambition was published by Penguin in September 2018. Previous books include Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet) (Oxford University Press, October 2015), Strategic Sellout: India-US Nuclear Deal (2009), India's Nuclear Policy (Praeger, 2008), Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy, now in its second edition (Macmillan, 2005, 2002), and Future Imperilled: India's Security in the 1990s and Beyond (Viking-Penguin, 1994). He was Member of the (First) National Security Advisory Board, Member of the Nuclear Doctrine-drafting Group, National Security Council, Government of India, and, formerly, Advisor on Defence Expenditure to the Finance Commission, India. Educated at the University of California (B.A., Santa Barbara; M.A., Los Angeles), he has been a Visiting Scholar at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne, and Foreign Fellow at the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies and the Henry L. Stimson Centre, Washington, DC. He lectures at the top military training and discussion forums, including CORE (Combined Operational Review and Evaluation), DRDO Annual Directors' Conference, National Defence College, Higher Command Courses at the Army War College, College of Air Warfare, College of Naval Warfare, College of Defence Management, College of Military Engineering, and at Army Command and Corps level fora and equivalent in the other two Armed Services, and Defence Services Staff College, and also at the Indian Administrative Service Academy, Foreign Service Institute, and the National Police Academy. He was commissioned by the Headquarters, Integrated Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence, to conceptualize, conduct for several years, and lecture at the annual Strategic Nuclear Orientation Course for Brigadier-rank officers and equivalent from the three Armed Services, and conceived and conducted the first ever high-level inter-agency war game on the nuclear tripwire in the subcontinent (at the Army War College, 2003).

*கள்ளச்சாராயம் - பெட்ரோல் பங்கில் பதுக்கப்பட்ட மெத்தனால்!*அதிமுக-வை மீட்டெடுக்கும் வேளையில் 90% நிறைவு! - சசிகலா *அக்னிவீர் இழப்பீடு: மோதிக்கொள்ளும் ராகுல், ராஜ்நாத் சிங்... உண்மை என்ன?*ஜிகா வைரஸ் பாதிப்பு: அனைத்து மாநிலங்களுக்கும் எச்சரிக்கை? * போலே பாபாவைத் தப்ப வைக்க உபி அரசு முயற்சி?*`மூன்று ஆண்டுகளில் 31,000 பெண்கள் மிஸ்ஸிங் - மத்தியப்பிரதேசத்தில் அதிர்ச்சி!*UK Election: போட்டியிடும் எட்டு தமிழர்கள்!-The Imperfect Show Podcast

Major General G.D. Bakshi is a retired Indian Army officer, renowned for his service in the Jammu and Kashmir and his role in the Kargil War. He has received the Vishisht Seva Medal and the Sena Medal for his distinguished service. A prolific author and defense analyst, Bakshi has written extensively on military history and strategy. Post-retirement, he remains a prominent commentator on national security issues. 0:00 Why Jammu is under attack 4:57 General Bakshi on 90s Ops 9:03 Reasi barbarism 12:58 Ops in Rajouri Poonch 14:45 Troops reduction in Army 19:00 Problem with Agniveer 21:17 Big difference in Ops in Kashmir Vs Jammu 23:22 Don't be defensive PLEASE 28:49 How Brigadier Acharya was punished 31:40 Manpower is critical in mountains - Kargil example 33:45 Don't cut down army strength 34:52 Indian Army won't get good soldiers with Agniveer 37:30 Reforms in Agniveer 42:54 Pak's Modus operandi has changed in J&K now 44:20 Army has to go on offensive 47:00 Narco angle - new method in J&K 49:07 General Bakshi's recommendations

Colonel (retd.) Yogander Singh is a retired Indian Army officer and military historian, with special focus on Haryana. He has written several books, most prominent among them being 'Hal Wa Samshir: Politico-Military History of Haryana'. Future Ready Indian Army and 'Effective Deterrence: Thoughts on India's Security Policy and Structures in the Twenty-first Century'.

Did Agniveer Cost BJP Haryana_ Rajasthan and U_P _ Election impact of Agnipath - Gen PR Shankar

After Nitish Kumar's support to Narendra Modi 3.0, JD(U) puts forth Agniveer, caste census demands, Extensive campaigns indicate Kejriwal not suffering from life-threatening ailment: Delhi court, Delhi water shortage: Supreme Court directs Himachal to release surplus water, Monsoon expected to advance to Mumbai in 3-4 days: IMD, Anil Kapoor to host Bigg Boss OTT 3: Know when and where to stream the show

Bright on Buddhism - Avatamsaka Sutra - Book 30 - The Incalculable Join us as we read and discuss Book 30 of Thomas Cleary's translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra! Resources: Prince, Tony (2014). Universal Enlightenment, An introduction to the teachings and practices of Huayen Buddhism. Kongting Publishing Company Ltd. Taiwan.; Beer, Robert (2003), The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols, Serindia Publications; Burley, Mikel (2007), Classical Samkhya and Yoga: An Indian Metaphysics of Experience, Routledge; Cook, Francis H. (1977), Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra, Penn State Press, ISBN 0-271-02190-X; Debroy, Bibek (2013), Mahabharata, Volume 7 (Google eBoek), Penguin UK; Jones, Ken H. (2003), The New Social Face of Buddhism: A Call to Action, Wisdom Publications, ISBN 0-86171-365-6; Goudriaan, Teun (1978), Maya: Divine And Human, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers; Kabat-Zinn, Jon; Watson, Gay; Batchelor, Stephen; Claxton, Guy (2000), Indra's Net at Work: The Mainstreaming of Dharma Practice in Society. In: The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Science, and Our Day-to-Day Lives, Weiser, ISBN 1-57863-172-6; Lee, Kwang-Sae (2005), East and West: Fusion of Horizons, Homa & Sekey Books, ISBN 1-931907-26-9; Malhotra, Rajiv (2014), Indra's Net: Defending Hinduism's Philosophical Unity, Noida, India: HarperCollins Publishers India, ISBN 978-9351362449 ISBN 9351362442, OCLC 871215576; Odin, Steve (1982), Process Metaphysics and Hua-Yen Buddhism: A Critical Study of Cumulative Penetration Vs. Interpenetration, SUNY Press, ISBN 0-87395-568-4; Ram, Tulsi (2013), Atharva Veda: Authentic English Translation, Agniveer, pp. 910–911, retrieved 24 June 2014 Do you have a question about Buddhism that you'd like us to discuss? Let us know by tweeting to us @BrightBuddhism, emailing us at Bright.On.Buddhism@gmail.com, or joining us on our discord server, Hidden Sangha https://discord.gg/tEwcVpu! Credits: Nick Bright: Script, Cover Art, Music, Voice of Hearer, Co-Host Proven Paradox: Editing, mixing and mastering, social media, Voice of Hermit, Co-Host --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brightonbuddhism/message

The recent war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Middle East have provided valuable lessons when it comes to the nature of future military modernisation and defense innovation. While traditional warfare remains relevant, we are seeing a shift towards multi-domain operations that are more kinetic and are increasingly utilizing autonomous weapons. As India seeks to boost its defence exports, its domestic industry will have a role to play. Several factors have played a role in the recent spike in defence exports—regulatory initiatives, enhanced capability of the private sector, and the desire among other countries to diversify away from their traditional defence partners and look at India instead. Additionally, the INDUS-X initiative between India and the U.S. has also been noted as a welcome mechanism to encourage further defence cooperation in other emerging technologies such as quantum computing, space, cyber-security, and deep-sea technology.What are the potential opportunities that international collaborations present? Will India's domestic industry be able to meet the armed forces' requirements? In this episode of Interpreting India, Ajay Kumar and Konark Bhandari talk about the current status of defence innovation in India and the emerging trends in this space.  Episode ContributorsAjay Kumar is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie India. He served as the defense secretary of India between August 2019 and October 2022 and is the longest serving secretary in the Ministry of Defence, where he also served as secretary in the Department of Defence Production. As defense secretary, Ajay Kumar was the key architect for several major transformations, including the restructuring of higher defense management in the country and formation of the chief of defense staff in the Indian Armed Forces; the launch of the Agniveer scheme—a historic reform in recruitment, training, and retention of personnel in the Armed Forces. Konark Bhandari is a fellow with Carnegie India. He is a lawyer who has researched certain areas in the digital economy, focusing primarily on approaches to antitrust regulation of companies in the digital realm. He had earlier worked at India's antitrust regulator, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), where he worked closely with senior officials on a variety of matters. He is also an avid follower of the regulation of the space technology ecosystem and is keen to contribute to that discipline. Additional ReadingsINDUS-X: Charting the Way Ahead for India-U.S. Defense Industrial Cooperation, by Konark Bhandari. Can a Defense Innovation Bridge Elevate India-U.S. Defense Cooperation? by Konark Bhandari. Sameer Lalwani on India-U.S. Defense-Industrial Cooperation.U.S.-India Defense Innovation Collaboration: Building on a Promising Start by Konark Bhandari. Every two weeks, Interpreting India brings you diverse voices from India and around the world to explore the critical questions shaping the nation's future. We delve into how technology, the economy, and foreign policy intertwine to influence India's relationship with the global stage.As a Carnegie India production, hosted by Carnegie scholars, Interpreting India, a Carnegie India production, provides insightful perspectives and cutting-edge by tackling the defining questions that chart India's course through the next decade.Stay tuned for thought-provoking discussions, expert insights, and a deeper understanding of India's place in the world.Don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to join the conversation and be part of Interpreting India's journey.

This is the Catch Up on 3 Things for the Indian Express and I'm Flora Swain.It's the 18th of January and here are the headlines.In the latest in a series of attacks on commercial vessels in the Western Arabian Sea since last month, a vessel came under a drone attack late on Wednesday. It elicited a prompt response from the Navy's Guided Missile Destroyer INS Visakhapatnam. In a statement, the Navy said that INS Visakhapatnam, a mission deployed in the Gulf of Aden for anti-piracy operations, swiftly responded to a distress call by Marshall Island flagged MV Genco Picardy following a drone attack. MV Genco Picardy, with 22 crew including nine Indians, reported nil casualties.With five days to go to the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the idol of Ram Lalla sculpted by Arjun Yogiraj will be placed in the Sanctum Sanctorum today.The idol was gently lowered into the 'grabh grah' or sanctum sanctorum of the Ram temple with the help of a crane early this morning. Later in the day, the idol will be placed on a throne following 'mandap pravesh' rituals. The Pakistani military conducted a series of "highly coordinated" retaliatory strikes against "terrorist hideouts" in Iran this morning, As per reports, at least nine people have been killed in the assault. The strikes came two days after Iran's missile and drone strikes in Pakistan's Balochistan province. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, quote, "This morning Pakistan undertook a series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts in Siestan-o-Baluchistan province of Iran." Unquote. It said a number of terrorists were killed during the intelligence-based operation — codenamed "Marg Bar Sarmachar".Several train and flight operations were disrupted as dense to very dense fog conditions prevailed over Delhi and parts of North India, including Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, early today. The fog conditions were accompanied by a cold wave which is likely to continue over some parts of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh over the next four days. Meanwhile, the minimum temperature in Delhi was recorded at 6.6 degrees Celsius.An Army soldier was killed and two others injured on Thursday in a landmine explosion near the Line of Control in Rajouri district's Nowshera sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Pointing out that the deceased was an Agniveer, sources said that all the three were evacuated to Army's Command Hospital at Udhampur where he succumbed.This was the Catch-Up on the 3 Things by The Indian Express.

VIDHYAMANGALAM | വിദ്യാമംഗളം | AGNIVEER

India Vs China on LAC Leads to Agniveer Reform _ Lt Gen PR Shankar, Sanjay Dixit

हिंदी में Question that matters you and has been asked in previous SSC Examinations, this episode has 20 important questions from ancient history, which will surely let you score extra marks. This podcast is produced by Alfa Defence Career Academy, kishanganj, Bihar. We prepare you in physical & written for Agniveer, Bihar Police & CAPF and similar examinations. best setup with indoor facilities and library.

Colonel Hunny Bakshi is a decorated retired Indian army officer who led the Technical Support Division (TSD), a covert intelligence counter terror ops unit.

नमस्ते दोस्तों!The Ranveer Show हिंदी के 116th Episode में आप सभी का स्वागत है. आज के Podcast में हमारे साथ जुड़ चुके हैं Colonel Tushar Joshi जो एक Senior Level Military Professional है और ये Kumaon Regiment के भी हिस्सा रह चुके है। देश के लिए उनके दिए गए Contribution को देख कर हमें गर्व Feel करना चाहिए।   इस Podcast में हम बात करेंगे ढ़ेर सारी बातें  Colonel का मतलब क्या है, Nagaland की वाडिया, Dense Forests, Leeches के Attack से कैसे छुटकारा पाए, Banana Forests, Jungle में Survive कैसे करे, Poisonous Snakes और Wild Mushrooms, Gucci Mushrooms और Human Species के सबसे Close Cousins के बारे में।   साथ ही साथ हम बात करेंगे कैसे कुछ लोग Bollywood के Indian Army Films, URI, LOC, Border Movie और Shershaah के Army Reviews, Kargil War की कहानी, Indian Army का जज़्बा, Combat Training के बारे में और भी ढ़ेर सारी बातें। मैं आशा करता हूँ कि ये Video आप सभी Viewers को पसंद आएगा। खास तौर पर उन सभी को जिन्हें Indian Army के किस्सों के बारे में जानने में Interest है।   Indian Army की Shraddha और कैसे वो अपनी Energy Boost कर सकते है जैसी चीज़ों के बारे में हम Discuss करेंगे इस Hindi Podcast में सिर्फ और सिर्फ आपके Favourite BeerBiceps Hindi Channel Ranveer Allahbadia पर।

नमस्ते दोस्तों! The Ranveer Show हिंदी के 112th Episode में आपका स्वागत है। आज के Podcast में हमारे साथ जुड़ चुकी हैं Special Forces के Ex-Operator और Combat Diver Chandra Vijay Singh जिन्होंने अपने Life के 28 Years India की सेवा में दिया है। SF के साथ-साथ इन्होंने NSG यानि की National Security Gaurd के रूप में भी देश की सेवा की है। इस Podcast में हम बात करेंगे इनकी Early Life, Special Forces Training, Special Forces की Training और Mindset, Soldiers की Life, Parajump Accidents, First Combat Experience, Anti-Nationalists In South Valley के बारे में। साथ ही साथ हम करेंगे MARCOS, Underwater Creatures, Sharks का खतरा, Jelly Fish की मार, Ocean में Dive करने में Precautions, Para Jump In Water, Wild Animals, Eating Monkeys, Survival Of Soldiers During Mission के बारे में ढ़ेर सारी बातें। मैं आशा करता हूँ कि ये Video आप सभी Viewers को पसंद आएगा। खास तौर पर उन सभी को जिन्हें Indian Army और Special Forces के बारे में जानने में Interest है। National Security Guard क्या होता है, Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan कौन थे, Special Forces का सबसे खतरनाक Mission जैसी चीज़ों के बारे में हम Discuss करेंगे इस Hindi Podcast में सिर्फ और सिर्फ आपके Favourite BeerBiceps Hindi Channel Ranveer Allahbadia पर।

Agniveer: Brave warriors fighting Christian Missionaries | Sanjeev Newar | #SangamTalks SrijanTalks

नमस्ते दोस्तों!The Ranveer Show हिंदी के 104th Episode में आप सभी का स्वागत है. आज के Podcast में हमारे साथ जुड़ चुके हैं Para SF यानि Special Forces के जवान Major Sushant Singh जी, जो Traveller और Adventurer है। साथ ही में वे एक बेहतरीन Cyclist, Mountaineer और Martial Artist है।     इस Podcast में हम बात करेंगे ढ़ेर सारी बातें Sushant जी के Himalayan Experiences, Yeti कौन है, Yeti के Footprints, Indian Army के Expeditions, Mountaineers की खोज, Nepal के लोगों की Secrets, Himalayas की संजीवनी के बारे में।   साथ ही साथ हम बात करेंगे Mount Makalu की चढ़ाई, Kailash पर्वत का असली सच, Mansarovar Lake और Kailash यात्रा, Tibet, China, Kailash Parvat की Divine Energies और Chinese की Kailash पर खोज, UFO Sightings के बारे में और भी ढ़ेर सारी बातें। मैं आशा करता हूँ कि ये Video आप सभी Viewers को पसंद आएगा। खास तौर पर उन सभी को जिन्हें Mountains और Adventures के बारे में जानने में Interest है।   Aliens, Indian Government की Yeti पर राय, Western Ideology, Yeti Footprints, Indian Mountain Ranges, Secrets Of Himalayas जैसी चीज़ों के बारे में हम Discuss करेंगे इस Hindi Podcast में सिर्फ और सिर्फ आपके Favourite BeerBiceps Hindi Channel Ranveer Allahbadia पर।

नमस्ते दोस्तों! The Ranveer Show हिंदी के 98th Episode में आप सभी का स्वागत है. आज के Podcast में हमारे साथ जुड़ चुके हैं Para SF यानि Special Forces के जवान Major Sushant Singh जी, जो Traveller और Adventurer है। साथ ही में वे एक बेहतरीन Cyclist, Mountaineer और Martial Artist है। इस Podcast में हम बात करेंगे ढ़ेर सारी बातें Sushant जी के Life As A Retired Army Officer, Adventurous Life, Martial Arts, Chinese Martial Art, Tai Chi और Kung Fu For Beginners, Shaolin Temple, Bodhidharma और Badrinath के बारे में। साथ ही साथ हम बात करेंगे Parachute Jumps, Sky Diving, Jumping From A Plane, 10 Feet Long Jump, Mountains, Mountaineers Guide For Beginners, Mount Everest, Egypt, Pyramids, Pyramid Of Giza, Red Pyramid के बारे में और भी ढ़ेर सारी बातें। मैं आशा करता हूँ कि ये Video आप सभी Viewers को पसंद आएगा। खास तौर पर उन सभी को जिन्हें Mountains और Adventures के बारे में जानने में Interest है। Ancient Aliens, Sahara Desert, New Zealand, Australia, Wild Animals, Wombat, Tigers Snakes, Aliens, And Gods जैसी चीज़ों के बारे में हम Discuss करेंगे इस Hindi Podcast में सिर्फ और सिर्फ आपके Favourite BeerBiceps Hindi Channel Ranveer Allahbadia पर।

Season 2 of AMV podcast with Rofl Gandhi. Rofl Gandhi is one of the best Indian satirists. He challenges the ruling party's propaganda through his sharp wit and political humor. He has gained a massive audience on Twitter who always wait for his unique takes on the contemporary socio-political situation in the country. Rofl Gandhi is one of the best Indian satires who through his sharp wit and humor challenges the propaganda of the ruling party. This podcast doesn't have any corporate funding or support so the contribution by listeners is very important for its survival. Please support it here: 1. Patreon (Most preferred medium): https://www.patreon.com/anuragminusverma 2. BuyMeACoffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Anuragminus 3. InstaMojo:(UPI/Gpay/PayTm) : https://www.instamojo.com/@anuragminusverma/ 4. PayPal (ONLY People living outside India can pay through it): https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/AnuragMinusVerma?locale.x=en_GB Some of the topics discussed during the podcast The story about Vaccine certificate Viral Video of Modi in New York's Blues Club. Countering the Right-Wing Trolls and propaganda through Satire. Spread of Misinformation in Social Networks and limits of countering misinformation by fact-checking websites. Agniveer scheme and the bleak situation of unemployment in India Rofl's advice to maintain mental health on the internet amidst all the vicious trolling Can BJP be lauded for Droupadi Murmu's selection, who is all set to become the first-ever tribal woman president? Links of Videos Discussed during the podcast: Zee News and Sudhir Chaudhary's response to my video: https://youtu.be/K2wyWcdY02g Please rate the podcast on Spotify. Rofl Gandhi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/RoflGandhi_ Anurag Minus Verma's Twitter: https://twitter.com/confusedvichar Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minusverma/?hl=en Credit for the Music: Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker Stream & Download : https://fanlink.to/tmw_way_home Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Please rate the podcast on Spotify.

The Agnipath scheme which aims to reform the way the armed forces recruits new soldiers, has been met with criticism and protests across the country. But what is the problem the policy is trying to solve and why is it so problematic? In this episode, Pranav R Satyanath is joined by Pranay Kotasthane and Lt Gen (ret) Prakash Menon to discuss the fundamental of the Agnipath scheme, the unintended consequences it creates and the alternatives.Follow Pranav on Twitter: https://twitter.com/duke_notnukemFollow Pranay on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pranaykotasFollow Prakash on Twitter: https://twitter.com/prakashmenon51Check out Takshashila's courses: https://school.takshashila.org.in/You can listen to this show and other incredible shows on the new and improved IVM Podcast App on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/iosYou can check out our website at https://www.ivmpodcasts.com

Ask Me Anything Ep 88 with Sanjay Dixit - Ask Sanjay Dixit About Agnipath Scheme, Agniveer, Gyanvapi Politics, Muslims in India, Bhagwat Gita, JD Legal, Worship Act 1991, Politics, Geopolitics, Dharma, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, RSS

Ten percent of vacancies in central government jobs in Group C and 20 per cent in Group D are reserved for ex-servicemen. For public sector banks, central public sector units and CAPFs, the reservation is 14.5 per cent in Group C and 24.5 per cent in Group D. But, Directorate General Resettlement data shows that states, central public sector units, and Central Armed Police Forces have failed to recruit against the vacancies reserved for ex-servicemen. Only 2.4 per cent of veterans who applied for a job could get one because of that. As of June last year, ex-servicemen constituted only 1.15 per cent of the Group C strength and 0.3 per cent of the Group D strength in 94 of the 170 CPSUs. Between 32 central ministries, only 1.60 per cent of the 22,168 positions reserved for veterans have been filled. The Indian Railways could only fill 1.4 percent of the positions reserved for retired armed forces personnel.   A spokesperson for the Indian Railways has said that recruitment for around 24,242 vacancies of ex-servicemen was currently underway. For the ten defence PSUs, where the Centre has announced a 10 per cent reservation for the Agnipath scheme, veterans comprised only 3.45 per cent and 2.71 per cent of Group C and Group D posts, respectively. As of June 2021, only 0.62 percent of positions reserved for veterans have been filled by paramilitary forces, which are made up of the BSF, CRPF, ITBP, SSB, and CISF. Meanwhile, the central government has announced that 10 percent of vacancies in the CAPFs would be reserved for Agniveer. This graphic should reveal itself category by category, like Central Public Sector Units first, and then in order. It should be matched to the script above in VO3, where CPSUs come first, followed by central ministries and then paramilitary forces, in that order.    By the end of 2020, Bihar, UP, Punjab and Haryana, which cumulatively account for 80 per cent of the Indian armed forces, had given jobs to only 1.5 percent out of the 200,000 veterans who had registered for a job. Officials of state Sainik Boards say that while most states have reservations under the ex-servicemen quota for all positions, they are reluctant to recognise the graduation certificate issued by the military. Under the Agnipath Pravesh Yojana, young candidates will be recruited for four-year tenures of service in the military. As many as 46,000 Agniveers are to be recruited this year. From each batch of Agniveer, the government will retain the best. Up to 25 per cent of each year's intake will be chosen to remain in service. While the government has announced reservations across sectors for the Agniveers, the hiring trend of ex-servicemen in government sectors does not paint an optimistic picture. The morale of those who secure our borders is just as important as the weapons we arm them with. The government should consider the following question -- if the Agniveer find themselves worrying about an uncertain future, will that bode well for the country?

Economic inequality has many negative consequences. But could it also motivate individuals and groups to engage in political violence? A recent research paper titled Poor Prospects—Not Inequality—Motivate Political Violence, in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, claims that it is not static inequalities but the deterioration of an individual's economic prospects that motivates them to engage in political violence. Aarushi Kataria and Atish Padhy examine the paper's claims and theoretical grounding, using other existing literature and approaches in the study of political conflict.Click here to read the paperFollow Aarushi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aarushi_KatariaFollow Atish on Twitter: https://twitter.com/socratishhCheck out Takshashila's courses: https://school.takshashila.org.in/You can listen to this show and other incredible shows on the new and improved IVM Podcast App on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/iosYou can check out our website at https://www.ivmpodcasts.com

India Policy Watch: The Road Of FireInsights on burning policy issues in India- RSJThe Union Defence Minister along with the chiefs of the three armed services on Tuesday announced the ‘Agnipath’ scheme for recruitment into the Indian military. You can read more about the scheme here. I have summarised the key features below:The soldiers under this scheme (referred to as ‘Agniveers’) will be enrolled for a duration of four years in a conscription or tour of duty (ToD) like model that’s prevalent in other countries. They will be paid between INR 30,000 - 40,000 per month during their tenure apart from risk or hardship allowance as applicable. 30 per cent of their salary will be deducted as a voluntary contribution into a corpus called ‘SevaNidhi’ with a matching contribution from the government. Roughly put, the soldiers will get this SevaNidhi package of about INR 11.7 Lacs plus the interest accumulated on this amount at the end of their four years of service. Few other post-retirement benefits are thrown in, including a life insurance cover and access to a bank loan of INR 18.2 Lacs against the SevaNidhi package.About 25 per cent of Agniveers will be absorbed into the regular cadre after four years. The rest will receive an Agniveer Skill certificate, the SevaNidhi corpus and some preferential treatment in getting into the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) and maybe even state police forces. The Agniveers who leave at the end of four years, however, will not get the usual entitlements of gratuity and pension. This is huge. Over a period of couple of decades, this could mean only about 25 per cent of the forces will have the pension benefits that are available to all today. The enrollment under this scheme will be on an all-India and an all-class basis. This will be, by itself, a distinct rank in the armed forces with its own insignia. The likely implications of this are quite significant. The recruitment of soldiers today, especially in the army, is based on state-wise quotas and on the retirement of soldiers from various regiments that are class based. Class here should be read as an euphemism for caste or community. Drawing Agniveers on an all-class basis will mean withering away from the traditional structure of regiments. It could also mean a larger representation of states where unemployment rates are high because there might not be state-wise quotas anymore. This could further alter the composition mix of the armed forces.The government also positioned this as a move that will infuse youth and vitality (or ‘josh’ and ‘jazba’ as mentioned in various media reports) into the armed forces. The whole thing including the names Agnipath and Agniveer sounds like a campaign for an early 1990s Nana Patekar film. You could soon shoehorn Agni Pariksha (for the recruitment tests), Krantiveer (best Agniveer cadet), Yugpurush (lifetime achievement award for Agniveers), Angaar, Tiranga, Prahaar and so on. You get the picture. We are in this territory now. Anyway, the average age of the armed forces which is 32 now will come down by about five years. The younger workforce will be more technology-savvy that will be more attuned to the changing nature of modern warfare. Also, the 75 per cent of Agniveers who will go back into civil society will serve as a disciplined and nationalistic labour pool to draw from for organisations. There will be Agniveers in every village and taluk who will improve the moral fibre of our society. We will have no riots, no littering, no traffic violations and no crime. The retired Agniveers will change us. Because they will put the nation first. Always. Like Arnab. Well, that’s the official line anyway. BacklashUnfortunately, the response to the scheme hasn’t been what the government was expecting. There have been protests, arson and general lawlessness by unemployed youth that seems to be spreading across the country at the moment. A large section of retired armed forces officials too have questioned both the scale and speed of a change like this. The issues agitating them have some basis:There have been very few recruitment rallies during the two years of the pandemic. About 60,000 soldiers retire every year and this gap is filled up during the regular recruitment drives. It is safe to assume there's a 1.5 Lac gap that’s opened up since 2020. The expectation among aspirants was this will get filled up in the next year or so. That apart, there are those in the middle of their recruitment process who are unclear about their status now. Roughly put, there could be more than a crore of youngsters under the age of 21 who were waiting for these recruitment drives to restart. What they have now instead is about 46,000 open positions for the current year with a 25 per cent probability of a long-term career in armed services with full benefits. If you work the numbers, it also suggests a reduction in armed forces count by about 1.5 - 2 Lacs (about 10-15 per cent of the workforce) over the next four years. I’m not sure if that’s also a stated intent of this scheme but it will be a collateral result unless the Agniveer recruitment numbers are ramped up significantly in the following years.There is an inherent contradiction in acknowledging a modern military requires advanced warfare systems, technical know-how and expertise that takes years to build and having only 25 percent of personnel working on longer tenure commissions. Will the constant churn come in the way of managing these systems? Will there be institutionalised knowledge management that will be able to handle this scenario? Also, the eventual dismantling of the class-based system that this move seems to portend will need to be thought through. It is fundamental to how the army operates today.The other question is about the prospects of the 75 per cent who will be released every four years. This is a number that will keep rising over a period of time. All the romanticisation of the armed forces and its discipline aside, these will be youngsters without a college degree and with limited technical skills. How useful will they be to the wider world? Not much if you go by the current record of hiring of retired defence personnel. They will have to study further and acquire specific skills to be employable. To expect CAPF or the state police force to absorb them is a bit optimistic. Also, there are aspirants for those jobs too with their own patronage system who will scuttle these moves. Lastly, for all the josh and jazba that are likely to come free because of this move, it will be useful to understand the repercussions of having a workforce that knows only one in four among them will qualify for the longer commission. What behaviour will this engender in them? How objective will the criteria for selection be? And if the 75 per cent who are released struggle to get jobs and earn their livelihoods, the feedback loop to the future cohorts will be immediate. The situation will turn more fraught at the end of every four-year cycle. The comparison with other countries that have a ToD model is useful but it is important to appreciate we are a US$ 2000 per capita economy with over 40 per cent of the employable labour pool either without a job or underemployed. In other countries, those who want to continue to be in the armed forces almost self-select themselves. These arguments, for and against aside, this is a good example to understand the complexities of policymaking, especially in defence, in India. A Difficult ProblemLet’s begin with the single most important policy objective for armed forces now in India. This is quite stark and apparent - it needs to modernise its defence infrastructure and increase its capacity in areas of modern warfare like the air force and navy. Given the threat perception on its borders, this is an already delayed exercise. You can read a detailed ORF report on India’s platform modernisation deficit here for more. TL;DR: yes, we do have a modernisation challenge on hand. And it is quite bad.Now the key question is what’s coming in the way of modernisation? There are multiple answers to this but on the top of that list is a lack of funds. The defence budget has broadly remained around 2.2 per cent of the GDP over the last decade. India has struggled to contain its fiscal deficit and it has limited ability to allocate more to its defence budget. As we have written on umpteen occasions, the Indian state is spread wide and thin. It does way too many things badly. Therefore, it cannot find money to do things it must. More importantly, pension benefits (24 per cent) and wages (28 per cent) take up over half of its budget. These numbers, especially pension outlays, will continue to grow in the coming years as the full impact of OROP (one rank one pension) plays out. The OROP that came into effect in late 2015 is a known and acknowledged policy mistake that is quite simply unsustainable. But it is almost impossible to walk back on that now. So, the search for circumventing that burden is one of the factors that has led to this scheme. A bad policy decision has a long-term downstream impact and this is a classic case of that playing out. Even if the Agnipath scheme is implemented as it stands today, the easing up of the pension burden will take decades to play out. The need for modernisation of the armed forces is as of yesterday. But the government is hoping through a combination of a 10-15 per cent reduction in the strength of the military and a long-term solution to control the burgeoning pension bill would have given it some room to ramp up on modernisation without increasing defence outlay. There are various estimates of the net present value of the expenditure on a single soldier who joins the armed forces today. At fairly conservative estimates of discount rates, wages and future pension benefits, Pranay estimates this to be about INR 1 crore. In my view, that is the absolute floor for that value and it might be around INR 2 crores if one were to take a bit more realistic assumptions. So, a 1.5 - 2 Lac workforce reduction could mean a significant availability of funds to modernise the defence platforms over time.  Growth, Growth, GrowthThat’s likely the thinking that’s gone behind the scheme. Everything else including the messaging on josh and jazba or having retired Agniveers in every village is to make it palatable to the public. It is difficult to acknowledge openly to people that the economy cannot support the defence requirements of India when you have made nationalism and nation-first important planks of your political strategy. This communication plan could have worked except it had to contend with the other real problem of the Indian economy at the moment. Lack of jobs. For reasons that could take up another post, the Indian economy isn’t generating enough jobs for its large youthful population. Roughly, India needs to create between 15-20 million non-farm jobs every year to keep pace with those entering the labour force. The labour participation rate has remained in the 40-45 per cent range for a long time. New job creation data can be contentious but it is difficult to argue that India is creating anything more than 3-4 million jobs every year. The quality of many of these new jobs isn’t great. The merry-go-round of employees switching jobs and getting big hikes in the IT/ITES sector shouldn’t blind us to the reality in the broader economy. There aren’t enough jobs. The two prerequisites for job creation, an 8-9 per cent GDP growth and skew towards sectors like construction, infrastructure or labour-intensive exports aren’t being met. The reason the job crisis hasn’t snowballed into a larger political and social issue is the immense faith in the PM among the youth. There’s a strong belief among them that India is on its way to becoming a superpower. The regular dose of nationalism and jingoism that’s amplified by the media helps continue this narrative. A related issue here that accounts for the violent protests is the lure of government jobs. The public sector jobs at the junior levels have become more remunerative than similar roles in the private sector in the last decade. As much as people love quoting the salaries of the CMDs of PSU Banks or the senior IAS officers and comparing them to the compensation of private-sector CEOs, the reality is that at mid to junior levels the government jobs are better paying. You can dig deeper into the wage bills of listed PSUs and compare them with their private counterparts for evidence. The other supposed benefits of a government job like job security, work-life balance and a possibility of rent-seeking (though low in defence jobs) make the package very attractive. This has meant a dramatic reversion in trend of people hankering for public sector jobs that had waned in the first couple of decades of liberalisation. So, a reduction in the number of such jobs or cutting down their benefits as the Agnipath scheme is likely to be isn't going to be accepted despite the great popularity of the PM and the ruling party among this segment. Their expectation, in contrast, is for the number of government jobs to go up.Considering the constraints, it is difficult to see what else the government could have done here. The need to reduce wage and pension costs to fund modernisation is real. And given the fiscally conservative instinct of this government, it won’t deficit fund the modernisation programme. As is its wont, it has chosen to put a bold announcement with emphasis on other benefits while trying to solve its key problems under cover. There’s this myth that a big bang approach to reform is the only model that works in India. That’s wrong. A lot of what has looked like big reforms in India have actually had a long runway that’s often invisible to people. A more comprehensive reading of the history of ‘91 reforms makes this clear. So, the usual template has been followed so far: minimal consultation, no plans to test it out at a smaller scale and instant big bang implementation. The results are unsurprising. I am guessing we will see a similar script play out for the next few months. There will be rollbacks (a few have been already announced), some concessions that will tinker around years of service or percentage releases, and a few sops thrown in, to temper the anger. If I were to give more credit than is due to this government’s planning chops, I might even say it possibly did this on purpose. Release a more extreme form of scheme, brace for impact and then roll back to the position that you always wanted in the first place. It is one way to game public opinion to your favoured outcome. Of course, a more impactful solution to this is to acknowledge the mistake that OROP is and shift the pension of defence forces onto a voluntary, defined contribution scheme like the NPS which has been implemented since 2004 for all new recruits joining government services, except defence. That is the only sustainable solution to this problem. But dispassionate policy making in defence sector in India is difficult. All kinds of emotions about izzat, vardi, naam and nishaan get mixed up. Nana Patekar gets in the way of clear-headed thinking.  * (with apologies and acknowledgement to Harivansh Rai ‘Bachchan’)Addendum— Pranay KotasthaneFor a researcher working on the public finance of defence, the Agnipath scheme is an important milestone. Over the long term, it has the potential to substantially reduce the pension burden. And as RSJ writes, the scheme will have no impact on the allocations for modernisation in the short term. Nevertheless, this scheme is important for the single reason that just as today’s deficits are tomorrow’s taxes, today’s reforms become tomorrow’s savings. Many commentators suggest that India’s defence expenditure problem can be solved merely by increasing defence expenditure to 3 per cent of GDP, from the current allocation of 2.04 per cent. That’s hardly the case. Projecting current growth rates of defence spending components over the next ten years suggests that even if the government were to agree to a 3 per cent spending, pension spending will grow rapidly enough to allow only an incremental increase in the fiscal space for capital outlay.Keeping the public finance angle aside, I took away two lessons in politics.One, the political narrative that can be used to sell a policy solution sometimes matters more than the solution itself.In an article for the Times of India in March, I listed four alternatives before the government to manage personnel costs. The three solutions that were dropped tried to address the pension problem directly. It wasn’t possible to project these solutions as achieving any other objective. In contrast, the solution that was picked up, i.e. Agnipath, was the only one that allowed the government to skirt the fiscal motivations for this reform. The government went in with this stated objective: “attracting young talent from the society who are more in tune with contemporary technological trends and plough back skilled, disciplined and motivated manpower into the society.”  No mention of the fiscal angle. At all.This strategy itself had mixed results in the early days. Politically, it allowed the government to make statements such as these: “We never see the Armed Forces through the perspectives of savings. Whatever we need to spend, the government is willing to spend. Our aim is to defend the country’s borders. Whatever needs to be spent, will be spent.” — Mr Rajnath Singh, Union Defence MinisterHowever, not acknowledging the real reason why these reforms were mooted, created an impression that the government has needlessly and suddenly foisted another disruptive scheme on unsuspecting masses.Two, the government failed to align cognitive maps of important stakeholders, yet again. Pension reforms are wicked problems everywhere in the world because there are strong endowment effects of a large, organised collective at play. Some of you might recall that a couple of years ago, nearly 800,000 French people protested and disrupted key services across the country in opposition to the proposed pension reform. That reform merely aimed to consolidate 42 different pension schemes, with variations in retirement age and benefits, into a universal points-based system. Even so, the government had an excellent, indigenous pension reform example at hand. As we’ve written many times before, the civil services pension reform of 2004 was a rare example of introducing a scheme to reduce the pension burden without protests. Despite this example, the government chose to opt for an Agnipath scheme that made some applicants suddenly ineligible for selection. The resulting protests and violence eventually made the government relax the age criteria this time. The government mandarins would surely have anticipated these consequences. To smoothen the transition, the government could’ve done regular recruitment along with the Agnipath recruitment this year. Over the subsequent three-four years, it could have increased the intake for the latter and tapered down the intake in the regular induction in a phase-wise manner. But it chose a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel. Global Policy Watch: Social Media’s Rule of Three Global policy issues relevant to India— Pranay KotasthaneSocial media continues to confound us all. By now, we all have read a number of hypotheses on how social media rewards “evil”. In the initial days, social media’s tendency to push us into echo chambers was oft-cited as the mechanism that made people more extreme in their views. Then came the view that the evil lay in the “likes”, “retweets”, and “share” features, which promoted an asymmetric virality. Thereafter came the notion that it was the economic models that were to blame. Advertisement-led services and Big Tech monopolies were the real problems, we were told. And over the last four years or so, it’s the algorithms and recommendation engines of social media companies that have been the target. Despite these arguments, we still don’t have a conclusive answer. Several studies have refuted many of the assertions made above. And so, let’s take a step back from specific social media apps, and instead ask: what are the meta-mechanisms that make all forms of social media a powerful instrument? I can think of three interrelated mechanisms. All three mechanisms are connected to sociological and cognitive behaviours in the Information Age.One, Social Media expands our Reference NetworksReference Networks is a term used by psychologists to mean “people whose beliefs and behaviour matter for our behaviour”. A really small part of our behaviour is independent of others’ actions and beliefs. Most of our behaviour is interdependent, i.e. it depends on what people in our reference network say or do. For most of human history, geographic proximity largely determined our reference network. For instance, our on-road driving behaviour is shaped by people who are around us and whom we consider ‘like us’. TV, radio, books, and newspapers have played a major role in creating new horizontal comradeship (or what Benedict Anderson called ‘imagined communities’), but these media did not supplant the importance of geographically proximate reference networks. Social media, by contrast, expands our reference networks like never before. People across the world can now influence our perceptions instantly and repeatedly. And by this reference network expansion, I do not imply the ‘echo chambers’ trope. Courtesy of social media, our reference network in fact now includes many more people who think unlike us. Sociologist Zeynep Tufecki explains this mechanism using a beautiful metaphor:“While algorithms will often feed people some of what they already want to hear, research shows that we probably encounter a wider variety of opinions online than we do offline, or than we did before the advent of digital tools.Rather, the problem is that when we encounter opposing views in the age and context of social media, it’s not like reading them in a newspaper while sitting alone. It’s like hearing them from the opposing team while sitting with our fellow fans in a football stadium. Online, we’re connected with our communities, and we seek approval from our like-minded peers. We bond with our team by yelling at the fans of the other one. In sociology terms, we strengthen our feeling of “in-group” belonging by increasing our distance from and tension with the “out-group”—us versus them. Our cognitive universe isn’t an echo chamber, but our social one is. This is why the various projects for fact-checking claims in the news, while valuable, don’t convince people. Belonging is stronger than facts.” [MIT Technology Review, August 2018]Expressed another way, every issue becomes global by default because our reference networks are also global. Two, Social Media expands the Overton WindowRepeating what I had written about this particular mechanism in edition #130. The Overton Window framework suggests that for any political issue, there's a range of socially acceptable positions that's narrower than the range of all possible positions. These socially acceptable ideas are seen as being inside the Overton Window — they are mainstream and uncontroversial. On the other hand, policy positions outside it are viewed as shocking, upsetting, and electorally harmful. The key insight of this framework is that, with social pressure, the Overton Window can shift over time; today's radicals may become tomorrow's moderates. In the Information Age, something even more striking has happened. The Overton Window on practically every issue has been stretched such that nearly all possible positions on an issue have become socially acceptable. With that happening, the older institutions, which earlier exuded authority, are shredding legitimacy with every decision they make.With the old gatekeepers no longer wielding the same power as earlier, the range of opinions on any issue can be extremely broad. And combined with the fact that each of those views attracts a new reference network, the Overton Window of social acceptability gets stretched.Three, Disproportional Rewards for Extreme ContentMany analysts say that this mechanism is a result of skewed algorithms and the incentives arising out of an advertisement-based model. While that’s partly true, there’s a deeper reason: information overload. Persuasion is a key power in the information age. Persuading someone requires attracting someone’s attention. And since attention is a scarce commodity in a crowded information environment, the only way to attract it is to come up with something surprising and shocking. Consider this analogous example. If I were to write “Lng Yrs g, W Md Tryst WTh Dstny”, you would immediately identify that I’m talking about Nehru’s iconic 1947 speech, despite me dropping all vowels. From an information theory perspective, vowels carry “less” information content because they occur more frequently. In contrast, consonants contain “more” information because the probability of their occurrence is low.In a similar manner, a news feed post which reads “There was a bomb blast in Kabul”, carries less information, because this has quite unfortunately become a regular occurrence over the last few years. In contrast, a shocking opinion or news like “Russian information ops influenced the 2016 election results” surprises us, and hence carries more information. Over time, not only does the Overton Window expand, it becomes broader at the two poles. My proposition is that many real-life events attributed to social media (positive or negative) can be explained by a combination of these three mechanisms. Consider the work done by an online group DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19) in mid-2021. Their work alone changed the conversation on the Wuhan lab origin theory (RSJ wrote about it here). In this case, the expanded reference network allowed a band of interested folks to build on each other’s work. The Overton Window expansion meant that the group could put forward an idea that seemed preposterous at that time. And a skew towards surprises meant that their idea didn’t just die away in a closed in-group, but instead sailed across the globe.HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters[Article] Janan Ganesh has a cracking column in FT, which discusses a favourite topic of ours: economic growth. Sample these lines from the column: “The looming recession will be painful. But it will also drive a certain kind of post-materialist humbug from polite discourse. Growth will be harder to dismiss as a bean counter’s tawdry obsession when there is so little of the stuff to go round.”[Article] Zeynep Tufekci’s analysis of “how social media took us from Tahrir Square to Donald Trump”.[Post] Gurwinder from The Prism has this terrific insight: ideologies are memetic superbugs. His words: “The most successful ideology in the West today, wokeism, has succeeded because it’s perfectly configured, not to establish social justice, but to establish more copies of itself. It’s a memetic superbug evolved for contagion rather than truth or compassion, and if contaminating others requires it to delude the senses, twist the truth, and darken the heart, then so be it.”[Tweet] The always-insightful Bryan Caplan’s take on intersecting echo chambers lights a bulb. He says: “If you want to combat error, critique your in-group. You speak their language and they trust you, so you might persuade someone. If you want to raise your status, critique your out-group. They won't listen, but your in-group will love it.” The latter tendency dominates the former by a big margin, I guess. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit publicpolicy.substack.com

In this latest SBS Hindi bulletin: Advocates of Julian Assange call for the Federal Government to intervene to stop his extradition to the United States; The Victorian government announced changes to the state's coronavirus rules; In India, 10% quota for Agniveer in the Central Armed Paramilitary Forces (CAPFs) and Assam Rifles  and more news.      

Introduction Time:0.10 - 2.50 तू न थकेगा कभी, तू न रुकेगा कभी, तू न मुड़ेगा कभी, कर शपथ, कर शपथ, कर शपथ, अग्निपथ अग्निपथ अग्निपथ जब हरिवंश राय बच्चन ने अपनी कविता अग्निपथ में लाइनें लिखी होंगी, तब उन्हें क्या पता था कि अग्निपथ नाम की केंद्र की योजना के खिलाफ लोग रेल जलाते नहीं थकेंगे, सांसदों और सिधायकों के घर तोड़ते नहीं रुकेंगे। अब तक आप समझ ही गए होंगे कि मैं क्या बात कर रहे हूँ यहाँ। मैं बात कर रही हूँ केंद्र द्वारा लाई गई अग्निपथ योजना की। देशभर में यही खबर छाई हुई है, और इसलिए नहीं क्योंकि लोग उत्साहित हैं इस योजना का फायदा उठाने के लिए, बल्कि इसलिए क्योंकि लोग गुस्साए हुए हैं, स्टेशन से लेकर घरों तक इस योजना के खिलाफ नफरत की लपटें उठ रही हैं। सेना में भर्ती की प्रक्रिया में बदलाव पर इस योजना को लेकर पूरे देश में आक्रोश (Protest) है. अग्निनपथ योजना (Agnipath Scheme) को लेकर प्रदर्शनकारी देश के अलग-अलग हिस्सों में अपना विरोध जता रहे हैं. इसी बीच आज बिहार (Bihar) में लखीसराय (Lakhisarai) में प्रदर्शनकारियों ने नई दिल्ली से भागलपुर जाने वाली विक्रमशिला एक्सप्रेस ट्रेन (Vikramshila Express Train) में आग लगा दी. इस ट्रेन की 12 बोगी आग लगने से क्षतिग्रस्त हो गई.  इस दौरान जलती ट्रेन में यात्रा कर रहे एक शख्स की मौत हो गई. लखीसराय के डीएम ने एबीपी न्यूज को बताया कि यात्री बीमार था और ट्रेन से यात्रा कर रहा था. उसे लखीसराय के सदर अस्पताल ले जाया गया, लेकिन उसे बचाया ना जा सका. रेल मंत्री ने की अपील की कि भैया railway को नुकसान मत पहुंचाओ ये तो तो सार्वजनिक संपत्ति है, तुम्हारी भी है मगर लोगों के सर पर रोष सवार है। वो कहाँ किसी की सुन रहे हैं। मगर जहाँ हम सब इस आगजनी की खबर अपने सामने TV और social media पर चलती देख रहे हैं, वहीँ कई लोगों को पता ही नहीं है कि प्रदर्शन क्यों हो रहे हैं और और अग्निपथ योजना आख़िर है क्या। तो आज FYI पर हम बात करेंगे कि असल में अग्निपथ योजना क्या है और क्यों मच रहा है इस पर बवाल नमस्कार, आदाब, सत्श्रीअकाल, मैं हूँ Sahiba Khan और आप सभी के समक्ष हूँ, ABP Live Podcasts की खास पेशकश - FYI पर। आज बात होगी अग्निपथ योजना की। तो सबसे पहला सवाल, क्या है अग्निपथ योजना जवाब - भारत सरकार ने जून 2022 में रक्षा बलों (यानी कि Army, Air Force और Navy) के लिए अग्निपथ भर्ती स्कीम का ऐलान किया (Agnipath recruitment scheme), जिसके अंतर्गत भारतीय सैनिकों की भर्ती अब सिर्फ चार साल के लिए की जाएगी. अग्निपथ योजना के तहत सैनिकों की भर्ती प्रक्रिया में एक बड़े बदलाव की घोषणा भारत के रक्षा मंत्री राजनाथ सिंह (Defence Minister Rajnath Singh) ने की (Agnipath Scheme). इस योजना में सेना में चार साल के लिए युवाओं की भर्ती का प्रावधान है. साथ ही उन्हें सेवानिवृत्ति के साथ सेवा निधि पैकेज दिए जाने की योजना भी इस स्कीम में शामिल है (Agnipath Scheme Job Duration). इस स्कीम के तहत सेना में शामिल होने वाले को अग्निवीर कहा जाएगा (Agniveer). सेना की इस नई भर्ती स्कीम को रक्षा मंत्री राजनाथ सिंह ने थल सेना अध्यक्ष जनरल मनोज पांडे, वायु सेना के चीफ मार्शल वीआर चौधरी और नेवी चीफ एडमिरल आर हरि कुमार की उपस्थिति में लॉन्च किया. अग्निपथ योजना का लक्ष्य आर्मी सर्विस की प्रोफाइल को उपयोगी बनाना है (Agnipath Scheme Objectives). हर साल योजना के तहत 2 बार भर्ती होगी। हर भर्ती में 40-50 हज़ार भर्तियां होंगी। इसमें 17.5 साल से लेकर 21 साल तक के लड़के फॉर्म भर सकते हैं, हालाँकि नौजवानों का आक्रोश देखते हुए सरकार  अभी-अभी फैसला लिया कि अब उम्र 23 साल तक बढ़ा दी है मगर केवल इस साल के लिए। 21 साल की उम्र में क्या दिक्कत थी और युवा क्यों इस पर भड़के हुए हैं, ये सब आगे बताएँगे। अभी basic कोरा-कोरा समझें कि योजना क्या है। आगे बढ़ते हैं। योजना के तहत हर इंसान को 6 महीने की ट्रेनिंग दी जाएगी और उसके बाद वो लोग केवल बचे हए 3.5 साल तक सेना में भर्ती रह सकते हैं जहाँ युवाओं को पहले साल 4.76 लाख का पैकेज मिलेगा,यानी कि हर महीना कुछ 40 हज़ार, जो चौथे साल तक बढ़कर 6.92 लाख तक पहुंच जाएगा. यानी कि हर महीना करीब 58 अट्ठावन हज़ार। इसके अलावा इस योजना में रिस्क और हार्डशिप अलाउएंस भी मिलेंगे. चार साल की नौकरी के समाप्त होने के बाद उन्हें 11.7 लाख रुपए की सेवा निधि मिलेगी जो टैक्स-फ्री होगा (Tax Free Service Fund for Agnipath Scheme). अब ये जो हर महीना 40,000 और 58 (अट्ठावन) हज़ार की बात कही जा रही है, इसमें से 30% कटेगा आपकी सेवा निधि का पैसा। इस योजना एक का मक़सद है  कि सेना में जवान लोग ज़्यादा भर्ती हों इसलिए उम्र कम राखी गई है। Lt Gen BS Raju ने कहा कि "सेना के जवानों की औसत आयु लगभग 32-33 वर्ष है। अग्निपथ योजना के साथ, लगभग 8-10 वर्षों में, हम सैनिकों की प्रोफाइल को लगभग 26 वर्ष तक कम करने में सक्षम होंगे। यह सेना को ज़्यादा फिट बना देगा। अभी फिलहाल हम बस इस योजना के main features की बात कर रहे हैं। इन बातों पर लम्बी व्हर्चा करने के लिए हम थोड़ी देर में Lt. Gen. Shankar Prasad से बात करेंगे और उन से समझेंगे कि इन शब्दों में कितनी सच्चाई है। फिलहाल आगे बढ़ते हैं। हालांकि Lt. Gen. Rameshwar Roy का कहना है कि ये योजना गलत समय पर आई है। हमारे ऊपर हर तरफ से दुश्मन देश का खतरा मंडरा रहा है। 2020 में चीन ने दिखा दिया कि वो क्या कर सकते है। पाकिस्तान भी उसी का दम भरता है। क्या इतने छोटी उम्र के लड़के इन दिक्कतों को समझ पाएंगे। एक मक़सद ये भी है कि सेना को और ज़्यादा heterogenous यानी कि विषम बनाना। हर जगह के लोग apply कर सकते हैं, उन्हें अलग-अलग टुकड़ियों में बाँट दिया जायेगा।  सरकार सेना पर हर साल काफी पैसा खर्च करती है। सरकार का कहना है कि सेना में लोगों की pension और उनके रख-रखाव का खर्चा बचे तो वो सेना के आधुनिकीकरण यानी कि modernisation में खर्चा करें। इस योजना से पहले ही लोगों उनके हक़ का पैसा देदिया जायेगा और ज़्यादातर लोग तो 4 साल बाद सेना छोड़ ही देंगे तो वो पैसा भी बचेगा। 11 लाख की पेंशन एक बार में मिल जाएगी और जीवन-भर pension की झंझट भी नहीं रहेगी।  सरकार का कहना है कि ये बदलाव कई नए ज़माने के देश कर चुके हैं और उन्हें इसका अच्छा फल भी मिल रहा है। Israel से लेकर France तक सभी देश कभी न कभी ये बदलाव लाये हैं। ऐसा इस scheme के समर्थक बोल रहे हैं। मगर जब मैंने Retired Lt. Gen. Rameshwar Roy से बात की तो उन्होंने कहा कि Israel, France, इन देशों से हमारे देश की तुलना कैसे हो सकती हैं। भारत कितने अलग-अलग देशों के साथ अपना border share करता है। हमारी दिक्कतें अलग हैं, हमारे आस-पास दुश्मन मुल्क़ ज़्यादा हैं जो एक तीली भर दिक्कत का भी फायदा उठाने से बाज़ नहीं आते। Lt. Gen. Rameshwar Roy ये भी कहते हैं कि 6 महीने में कोई जवान सेना की बारीकियों को कैसे समझ पायेगा। सेना में सबसे ज़्यादा ज़रूरी होता है मनोबल - Conditioning of the mind. वो बताते हैं कि Siachen में हर साल combat से ज़्यादा मौतें लोगों की वहां की ठण्ड के कारण होती हैं। तो हम कैसे 6 महीने में 18-20 साल के लड़कों से उम्मीद कर सकते हैं कि वो अपना मनोबल नहीं खोएंगे। एक अहम feature ये भी है कि जितनी भी भर्तियां होंगी, उनमें से केवल 25% लोग ही सेना में 15 और सालों के लिए में सेवा देंगे - यानी कि अगर 100 लोग हैं तो केवल 25 लोग ही आगे सेना में सेवा दे सकते हैं। इस पर बाकियों के लिए सरकार का जवाब ये है कि उन्हें ऐसे skill-set दिए जाएंगे कि उनकी नौकरी लग्न बहुत आसान हो जायेगा और नौकरी के लिए भी उन्हें 4 साल बाद पैसे मिलेंगे ताकि वो अपना खुद का कुछ व्यापार कर सकें या नौकरी पा सकें। इस पर भी कई लोग आलोचना कर रहे हैं, जो आगे बताएँगे। योजना AIAC यानी कि All India All Class के तहत काम करेगी। आपको पता होगा कि सेना में बटालियन होती हैं अलग-अलग groups की और ये बटालियन होती हैं जगह, जाति और धर्म के आधार पर। मगर AIAC के तहत सभी जगह के लोगों को भर्ती किया जाएगा और उन्हें अलग-अलग बटालियनों में दाल दिया जायेगा। इस पर भी विवाद है। Retired Lt Gen Tej Sapru (retd), पूर्व जीओसी-इन-सी पश्चिमी कमान का हिस्सा थे। Sapru गोरखा बटालियन से आते हैं और उनका मानना है कि इस तरह अलग-थलग लोग अगर किसी भी बटालियन का हिस्सा बनेंगे तो सही नहीं रहेगा। नेपाल की अर्थव्यवस्था में गोरखा रेजिमेंट का बहुत योगदान है। इसी कारण चीन अब तक नेपाल पर अपनी साख  नहीं जमा पाया है और नेपाली भारत के प्रति वफादार रहते हैं। अब अगर उसमें अगर छेड़-छड़ होती है जैसे पेंशन नहीं आती है, उम्र कम होती है तो भारत और नेपाल के रिश्तों में दरार आ सकती है। तो ये तो थी अग्निपथ योजना। अब बात करते हैं Lt. Gen. Shankar prasad से क्योंकि वो हमें देंगे ऐसा ज्ञान जो सिर्फ एक एक्सपर्ट ही हमें दे सकता हैं। Lt. Gen. Shankar prasad सेना का हिस्सा रहे हैं, वो इस योजना के साथ-साथ रणभूमि में लड़ने की बारीकियां भी समझते हैं। उनसे जानते हैं कि वो इस पर क्या मत रहते हैं। Interview तो Lt. Gen. Shankar prasad ने हमें काफी बेहतरीन ज्ञान दिया इस योजना के बारे में। उम्मीद है आप सभी को इस योजना से सम्बंधित ज्ञान समझ आया होगा। ये भी समझ आया होगा कि नौजवान, जिन्हें भारत की रक्षा करने के लिए सेना में जाना था, वो आख़िरकार क्यों खुद ही देश का नुक्सान करने पर तुले हुए हैं। मज़ाक तो ये भी चल रहा है कि अब सरकार के bulldozer कहाँ गए। मगर खैर ये थी ABP Live Podcasts की ख़ास पेशकश FYI. आवाज़ है मेरी यानी कि Sahiba Khan की और पॉडकास्ट की sound-designing की है Lalit ने। मिलेंगे अगले FYI में। अपना ख्याल रखें। नमस्कार Host: @jhansiserani Sound designing: @lalit1121992 Guest: Lt. Gen. Shankar Prasad (retd.)

Introduction Time:0.10 - 2.50 तू न थकेगा कभी, तू न रुकेगा कभी, तू न मुड़ेगा कभी, कर शपथ, कर शपथ, कर शपथ, अग्निपथ अग्निपथ अग्निपथ जब हरिवंश राय बच्चन ने अपनी कविता अग्निपथ में लाइनें लिखी होंगी, तब उन्हें क्या पता था कि अग्निपथ नाम की केंद्र की योजना के खिलाफ लोग रेल जलाते नहीं थकेंगे, सांसदों और सिधायकों के घर तोड़ते नहीं रुकेंगे। अब तक आप समझ ही गए होंगे कि मैं क्या बात कर रहे हूँ यहाँ। मैं बात कर रही हूँ केंद्र द्वारा लाई गई अग्निपथ योजना की। देशभर में यही खबर छाई हुई है, और इसलिए नहीं क्योंकि लोग उत्साहित हैं इस योजना का फायदा उठाने के लिए, बल्कि इसलिए क्योंकि लोग गुस्साए हुए हैं, स्टेशन से लेकर घरों तक इस योजना के खिलाफ नफरत की लपटें उठ रही हैं। सेना में भर्ती की प्रक्रिया में बदलाव पर इस योजना को लेकर पूरे देश में आक्रोश (Protest) है. अग्निनपथ योजना (Agnipath Scheme) को लेकर प्रदर्शनकारी देश के अलग-अलग हिस्सों में अपना विरोध जता रहे हैं. इसी बीच आज बिहार (Bihar) में लखीसराय (Lakhisarai) में प्रदर्शनकारियों ने नई दिल्ली से भागलपुर जाने वाली विक्रमशिला एक्सप्रेस ट्रेन (Vikramshila Express Train) में आग लगा दी. इस ट्रेन की 12 बोगी आग लगने से क्षतिग्रस्त हो गई.  इस दौरान जलती ट्रेन में यात्रा कर रहे एक शख्स की मौत हो गई. लखीसराय के डीएम ने एबीपी न्यूज को बताया कि यात्री बीमार था और ट्रेन से यात्रा कर रहा था. उसे लखीसराय के सदर अस्पताल ले जाया गया, लेकिन उसे बचाया ना जा सका. रेल मंत्री ने की अपील की कि भैया railway को नुकसान मत पहुंचाओ ये तो तो सार्वजनिक संपत्ति है, तुम्हारी भी है मगर लोगों के सर पर रोष सवार है। वो कहाँ किसी की सुन रहे हैं। मगर जहाँ हम सब इस आगजनी की खबर अपने सामने TV और social media पर चलती देख रहे हैं, वहीँ कई लोगों को पता ही नहीं है कि प्रदर्शन क्यों हो रहे हैं और और अग्निपथ योजना आख़िर है क्या। तो आज FYI पर हम बात करेंगे कि असल में अग्निपथ योजना क्या है और क्यों मच रहा है इस पर बवाल नमस्कार, आदाब, सत्श्रीअकाल, मैं हूँ Sahiba Khan और आप सभी के समक्ष हूँ, ABP Live Podcasts की खास पेशकश - FYI पर। आज बात होगी अग्निपथ योजना की। तो सबसे पहला सवाल, क्या है अग्निपथ योजना जवाब - भारत सरकार ने जून 2022 में रक्षा बलों (यानी कि Army, Air Force और Navy) के लिए अग्निपथ भर्ती स्कीम का ऐलान किया (Agnipath recruitment scheme), जिसके अंतर्गत भारतीय सैनिकों की भर्ती अब सिर्फ चार साल के लिए की जाएगी. अग्निपथ योजना के तहत सैनिकों की भर्ती प्रक्रिया में एक बड़े बदलाव की घोषणा भारत के रक्षा मंत्री राजनाथ सिंह (Defence Minister Rajnath Singh) ने की (Agnipath Scheme). इस योजना में सेना में चार साल के लिए युवाओं की भर्ती का प्रावधान है. साथ ही उन्हें सेवानिवृत्ति के साथ सेवा निधि पैकेज दिए जाने की योजना भी इस स्कीम में शामिल है (Agnipath Scheme Job Duration). इस स्कीम के तहत सेना में शामिल होने वाले को अग्निवीर कहा जाएगा (Agniveer). सेना की इस नई भर्ती स्कीम को रक्षा मंत्री राजनाथ सिंह ने थल सेना अध्यक्ष जनरल मनोज पांडे, वायु सेना के चीफ मार्शल वीआर चौधरी और नेवी चीफ एडमिरल आर हरि कुमार की उपस्थिति में लॉन्च किया. अग्निपथ योजना का लक्ष्य आर्मी सर्विस की प्रोफाइल को उपयोगी बनाना है (Agnipath Scheme Objectives). हर साल योजना के तहत 2 बार भर्ती होगी। हर भर्ती में 40-50 हज़ार भर्तियां होंगी। इसमें 17.5 साल से लेकर 21 साल तक के लड़के फॉर्म भर सकते हैं, हालाँकि नौजवानों का आक्रोश देखते हुए सरकार  अभी-अभी फैसला लिया कि अब उम्र 23 साल तक बढ़ा दी है मगर केवल इस साल के लिए। 21 साल की उम्र में क्या दिक्कत थी और युवा क्यों इस पर भड़के हुए हैं, ये सब आगे बताएँगे। अभी basic कोरा-कोरा समझें कि योजना क्या है। आगे बढ़ते हैं। योजना के तहत हर इंसान को 6 महीने की ट्रेनिंग दी जाएगी और उसके बाद वो लोग केवल बचे हए 3.5 साल तक सेना में भर्ती रह सकते हैं जहाँ युवाओं को पहले साल 4.76 लाख का पैकेज मिलेगा,यानी कि हर महीना कुछ 40 हज़ार, जो चौथे साल तक बढ़कर 6.92 लाख तक पहुंच जाएगा. यानी कि हर महीना करीब 58 अट्ठावन हज़ार। इसके अलावा इस योजना में रिस्क और हार्डशिप अलाउएंस भी मिलेंगे. चार साल की नौकरी के समाप्त होने के बाद उन्हें 11.7 लाख रुपए की सेवा निधि मिलेगी जो टैक्स-फ्री होगा (Tax Free Service Fund for Agnipath Scheme). अब ये जो हर महीना 40,000 और 58 (अट्ठावन) हज़ार की बात कही जा रही है, इसमें से 30% कटेगा आपकी सेवा निधि का पैसा। इस योजना एक का मक़सद है  कि सेना में जवान लोग ज़्यादा भर्ती हों इसलिए उम्र कम राखी गई है। Lt Gen BS Raju ने कहा कि "सेना के जवानों की औसत आयु लगभग 32-33 वर्ष है। अग्निपथ योजना के साथ, लगभग 8-10 वर्षों में, हम सैनिकों की प्रोफाइल को लगभग 26 वर्ष तक कम करने में सक्षम होंगे। यह सेना को ज़्यादा फिट बना देगा। अभी फिलहाल हम बस इस योजना के main features की बात कर रहे हैं। इन बातों पर लम्बी व्हर्चा करने के लिए हम थोड़ी देर में Lt. Gen. Shankar Prasad से बात करेंगे और उन से समझेंगे कि इन शब्दों में कितनी सच्चाई है। फिलहाल आगे बढ़ते हैं। हालांकि Lt. Gen. Rameshwar Roy का कहना है कि ये योजना गलत समय पर आई है। हमारे ऊपर हर तरफ से दुश्मन देश का खतरा मंडरा रहा है। 2020 में चीन ने दिखा दिया कि वो क्या कर सकते है। पाकिस्तान भी उसी का दम भरता है। क्या इतने छोटी उम्र के लड़के इन दिक्कतों को समझ पाएंगे। एक मक़सद ये भी है कि सेना को और ज़्यादा heterogenous यानी कि विषम बनाना। हर जगह के लोग apply कर सकते हैं, उन्हें अलग-अलग टुकड़ियों में बाँट दिया जायेगा।  सरकार सेना पर हर साल काफी पैसा खर्च करती है। सरकार का कहना है कि सेना में लोगों की pension और उनके रख-रखाव का खर्चा बचे तो वो सेना के आधुनिकीकरण यानी कि modernisation में खर्चा करें। इस योजना से पहले ही लोगों उनके हक़ का पैसा देदिया जायेगा और ज़्यादातर लोग तो 4 साल बाद सेना छोड़ ही देंगे तो वो पैसा भी बचेगा। 11 लाख की पेंशन एक बार में मिल जाएगी और जीवन-भर pension की झंझट भी नहीं रहेगी।  सरकार का कहना है कि ये बदलाव कई नए ज़माने के देश कर चुके हैं और उन्हें इसका अच्छा फल भी मिल रहा है। Israel से लेकर France तक सभी देश कभी न कभी ये बदलाव लाये हैं। ऐसा इस scheme के समर्थक बोल रहे हैं। मगर जब मैंने Retired Lt. Gen. Rameshwar Roy से बात की तो उन्होंने कहा कि Israel, France, इन देशों से हमारे देश की तुलना कैसे हो सकती हैं। भारत कितने अलग-अलग देशों के साथ अपना border share करता है। हमारी दिक्कतें अलग हैं, हमारे आस-पास दुश्मन मुल्क़ ज़्यादा हैं जो एक तीली भर दिक्कत का भी फायदा उठाने से बाज़ नहीं आते। Lt. Gen. Rameshwar Roy ये भी कहते हैं कि 6 महीने में कोई जवान सेना की बारीकियों को कैसे समझ पायेगा। सेना में सबसे ज़्यादा ज़रूरी होता है मनोबल - Conditioning of the mind. वो बताते हैं कि Siachen में हर साल combat से ज़्यादा मौतें लोगों की वहां की ठण्ड के कारण होती हैं। तो हम कैसे 6 महीने में 18-20 साल के लड़कों से उम्मीद कर सकते हैं कि वो अपना मनोबल नहीं खोएंगे। एक अहम feature ये भी है कि जितनी भी भर्तियां होंगी, उनमें से केवल 25% लोग ही सेना में 15 और सालों के लिए में सेवा देंगे - यानी कि अगर 100 लोग हैं तो केवल 25 लोग ही आगे सेना में सेवा दे सकते हैं। इस पर बाकियों के लिए सरकार का जवाब ये है कि उन्हें ऐसे skill-set दिए जाएंगे कि उनकी नौकरी लग्न बहुत आसान हो जायेगा और नौकरी के लिए भी उन्हें 4 साल बाद पैसे मिलेंगे ताकि वो अपना खुद का कुछ व्यापार कर सकें या नौकरी पा सकें। इस पर भी कई लोग आलोचना कर रहे हैं, जो आगे बताएँगे। योजना AIAC यानी कि All India All Class के तहत काम करेगी। आपको पता होगा कि सेना में बटालियन होती हैं अलग-अलग groups की और ये बटालियन होती हैं जगह, जाति और धर्म के आधार पर। मगर AIAC के तहत सभी जगह के लोगों को भर्ती किया जाएगा और उन्हें अलग-अलग बटालियनों में दाल दिया जायेगा। इस पर भी विवाद है। Retired Lt Gen Tej Sapru (retd), पूर्व जीओसी-इन-सी पश्चिमी कमान का हिस्सा थे। Sapru गोरखा बटालियन से आते हैं और उनका मानना है कि इस तरह अलग-थलग लोग अगर किसी भी बटालियन का हिस्सा बनेंगे तो सही नहीं रहेगा। नेपाल की अर्थव्यवस्था में गोरखा रेजिमेंट का बहुत योगदान है। इसी कारण चीन अब तक नेपाल पर अपनी साख  नहीं जमा पाया है और नेपाली भारत के प्रति वफादार रहते हैं। अब अगर उसमें अगर छेड़-छड़ होती है जैसे पेंशन नहीं आती है, उम्र कम होती है तो भारत और नेपाल के रिश्तों में दरार आ सकती है। तो ये तो थी अग्निपथ योजना। अब बात करते हैं Lt. Gen. Shankar prasad से क्योंकि वो हमें देंगे ऐसा ज्ञान जो सिर्फ एक एक्सपर्ट ही हमें दे सकता हैं। Lt. Gen. Shankar prasad सेना का हिस्सा रहे हैं, वो इस योजना के साथ-साथ रणभूमि में लड़ने की बारीकियां भी समझते हैं। उनसे जानते हैं कि वो इस पर क्या मत रहते हैं। Interview तो Lt. Gen. Shankar prasad ने हमें काफी बेहतरीन ज्ञान दिया इस योजना के बारे में। उम्मीद है आप सभी को इस योजना से सम्बंधित ज्ञान समझ आया होगा। ये भी समझ आया होगा कि नौजवान, जिन्हें भारत की रक्षा करने के लिए सेना में जाना था, वो आख़िरकार क्यों खुद ही देश का नुक्सान करने पर तुले हुए हैं। मज़ाक तो ये भी चल रहा है कि अब सरकार के bulldozer कहाँ गए। मगर खैर ये थी ABP Live Podcasts की ख़ास पेशकश FYI. आवाज़ है मेरी यानी कि Sahiba Khan की और पॉडकास्ट की sound-designing की है Lalit ने। मिलेंगे अगले FYI में। अपना ख्याल रखें। नमस्कार Host: @jhansiserani Sound designing: @lalit1121992 Guest: Lt. Gen. Shankar Prasad (retd.)

Putting yet another status quo to rest, the government announced a big structural reform in the armed forces this week. The consequences of this shake-up will take a few years to manifest, but the radical move has taken even defence experts off the guard. On Tuesday afternoon, fresh from a meeting of Cabinet Committee on Security -- which was led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- a beaming Rajnath Singh dwelled into the details of the project before media persons. He was flanked by chief of three Services – who head the world's second largest standing defence force.   Under the scheme, named ‘Agnipath', Defence Minister Singh said that “patriotic and motivated” youth will be given the chance to serve the three forces for a brief period of four years. Starting this year, about 45,000 youths between the age of 17.5 and 21 years will be recruited. They will almost hit the ground running after a basic training of six months. After completion of their four years of service, 25% of the ‘Agniveers' will be selected for regular cadre, where they will serve for another 15 years before retiring with pension and other benefits. The remaining 75% ‘Agniveers' will be demobilised with an exit package of about 12 lakh and a certificate. About half of the exit package money will come from their own contributions as a portion from their salary which will be between Rs 30,000 to 40,000. Those who join the services after Class 10 will get the certificate of 12th standard after the job completion. But they will not be entitled to any pension or other post-retirement perks which regular soldiers avail. Currently there are about 1.4 million personnel on active duty. In their first year, ‘Agniveers' will be paid a customised package of Rs 30,000 per month, rising incrementally each year to Rs 40,000 in the fourth year. In addition, they will be paid risk and hardship allowances on a par with the three services. Throughout their service, 30 percent of their salary – a sum of Rs 9,000 per month in the first year, rising incrementally to Rs 12,000 per month in the fourth year – will go into Agniveer corpus fund. So why did the government take this step? In this year's Union Budget, India allocated ₹5.25 trillion for military spending. And in this ₹1.19 trillion went towards paying the pensions of ex-servicemen. According to experts, over 70% of the defence expenditure goes into salary and pension. As of 2020, India has about 32 lakh defence pensioners and every year this number goes up by 55,000. It leaves little room for the army to spend on capital expenditure, including buying of big-ticket weapons, modern military systems, fighter jets etc. In 2015, the government gave the nod to implement one-rank-one-pension scheme. It ensured equal pension to military personnel retiring from the same rank with the same years of service, irrespective of the date of their retirement. The then defence minister Manohar Parrikar had said that it added a “huge fiscal burden” on the state. So through the ‘Agneepath' scheme, the government obviously wants to cut the pension budget in the long run. Another benefit of the scheme, cited by the government, was that it will bring down the average age of the army. India has the world's largest youth population. About 40% are between 13 to 35 years. Rajnath Singh said that with the scheme, the average age of soldiers will gradually come down to 24-26 years from the existing 36. But the scheme drove a wedge between defence experts. Some are favouring it, while others saying that it may hit the combat effectiveness of the armed forces. Meanwhile, according to some reports, there was a sense of gloom among army aspirants across the north Indian towns. Most of them asked what they would do after four years of service. In rural belts of UP, Haryana, Punjab, Bihar etc. an army job is tied to honour. Job security and pension after retirement offered youth some sola

With a take home salary of Rs 21,000, armchair bureaucrats have placed an Agniveer, who would stake their life for India, even below a lower division clerk. ----more---- https://theprint.in/opinion/tour-of-duty-will-expose-youth-to-military-life-dont-let-bureaucracy-fail-it-like-note-ban/996888/ 

New announcement by Government of India on recruitment --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chsushilrao/message

The Mullah-Missionary-Marxists are dusting up old propaganda dressed up as history against the Hindu resurgence. Accusing Nupur sharma of blasphemy in the matter of their own Hadis, saying that Hindus also destroyed Buddhist temples to justify Islamic barbarism, and Aryan Invasion Theory. Vashi Sharma of Agniveer and Sanjay Dixit discuss.

Why is it important to preserve the Hindu Demography? Vashi Sharma of Agniveer, the organisation that is most active on the ground in doing ghar wapasi of tribals and dalits, joins Sanjay Dixit to flag this issue, which is critical to India's survival as Bharat.