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Death at Kupwara

Fragging of an Indian Army Jawan in a heavily guarded Zangli garrison at Kupwara is an event that brings the entire situation closer than many of you can imagine. It is a sombre thought, to say the least. While reams have been written and published about the stress that the Army Jawan is in today, it remains deeply unsettling whenever a case of fragging gets reported. suppose earlier the troops were from villages, were hardy by nature, and used to privations. The way the communications have opened up, with mobiles giving instant information about problems at home ( without any means at the disposal of the Jawan to sort the problems from his field area), increased awareness of continued service in hell holes without adequate compensation, .. all this, I supppose, does fray the nerves to a great extent. No man lives in an island, whenever the bell tolls, it tolls for thee - the words of John Donne reverberate today, and I cannot stay smug in the thought that the case was not pertaining t
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Fogged out at Delhi Airport

There was fog in the air. Though I left bleary eyed from home, albeit with a song in my heart, at 5 AM this morning, fate had other plans for the day. Together with hundreds of other hapless passengers, I remained cooped up in the security lounge, waiting for boarding the aircraft, flight delayed due to the annual scourge of Delhi airports- fog in the air. All the high-fangled CAT systems they speak about seem to have met the waterloo of ill trained pilots; a sad fact of life ensured by runaway competition in the sky, and airlines tightening up at their purses, all of this combined with a virtual drought of quality pilots. Things only got worse after we were herded(in retrospect, that is the right word) into the aircraft. We sat in the aircraft for TWO WHOLE HOURS, while the congestion created due to fog started getting cleared by the Delhi ATC. In effect, we were on the ground for six hours before getting airborne. To top it all, we are now going to Chennai, to return to our ultimate
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