What is the Chicken Neck Corridor and What is its Geopolitical Significance?

If you look at the map of present-day India, you'll find that towards the northeastern parts of the country, its vast landmass shrinks down to a very narrow passage before widening gradually into the sub-Himalayan region of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal; this area is commonly referred to as North Bengal. It is also important to know that a tiny part of the state of Bihar also falls within the Chicken Neck. 

Siliguri Corridor or Chicken Neck Corridor is a global geo-strategic
flashpoint  

This narrow corridor is the Siliguri Corridor, better known as the Chicken Neck Corridor. The enemies of India, primarily Pakistan, China and the growing pan-Islamic fanatical demography of Bangladesh look at this narrow corridor with a lot of hope and anticipation, which they see as India's 'Achilles Heel'.

The Chicken Neck Corridor is a geo-strategic flashpoint in the Indian sub-continent, precisely for this reason and also because India is a major continental power today with the fourth largest

defence capability in the world. Any attempt to harm India by trying hit it at the Chicken Neck Corridor will result in a massive response from this country.

India is a nuclear power with the fourth largest stockpile of nuclear weapons along with highly capable and tested long range missile-firing capacity in addition to one of the world's most efficient and battle-tested conventional defence forces.

Any misadventure in the Chicken Neck Corridor by any of these enemy countries will lead to a massive response by India that will escalate the cost of the misadventure to unacceptable levels for these countries.

Asymmetrical warfare by enemy forces in Chicken Neck Area

Countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, whenever the latter comes under the rule of anti-India elements, have concluded that they are in no position to fight a conventional war against India since they won't last more than a month in such a war. They simply don't have the military capability.

As far as Pakistan is concerned, it continues with a policy of nefarious attritional and asymmetrical warfare against India through a network of pan-Islamic outfits based all over the Indian sub-continent in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Pan-Islamic strategy of conquest focuses on infiltrating and
overwhelming the target location with population   

The pan-Islamic strategy is to apply their trademark population pressure on the Chicken Neck Corridor like they do elsewhere – quietly and surreptitiously infiltrate and populate the target area.

Unfortunately for India and its West Bengal state, this is taking place at an alarming rate even as you read this blog. As if that is not enough of a peril, a substantial part of the Bengali Hindu population of the Chicken Neck area is as disunited and clueless as they are in the rest of Bengal.

Of course there are pockets of Hindu resistance across the whole of Bengal but most of these are scattered and unconnected to each other, as a result of which, they have no political or strategic leverage against pan-Islamic forces.

Direct threat posed by China on the Chicken Neck Corridor

China of course, is a different kind of threat – it is a superpower with enormous economic and military capability along with an authoritarian communist political leadership. It has its own aspirations of global dominance and a peculiar style of intimidating and pressurizing neighbours even if they are peaceful and do not threaten China in any way.

Ever since it occupied and subjugated Tibet in 1959, China got access to Chumbi Valley, a narrow river valley that juts in between the Indian state of Sikkim and the Himalyan kingdom of Bhutan, a close ally of India.

On the southernmost part of Chumbi Valley, lies an elevated plateau known as Doklam, which is in Bhutan and has always been part of it. Till the time it was independent and sovereign, Tibet never claimed the Doklam plateau but after its occupation by communist China, the latter began claiming this plateau.

The reason is simple – China wants this militarily advantageous location and leverage that against India. On the other hand, as a brother nation of India, Tibet never cast evil eyes on the Chicken Neck Corridor. Why would it...it was a kind of theocratic state, quite distinct and different from the toxic Islamic republics that we see all around us. 

Doklam plateau in Bhutan overlooks India's Chicken Neck Corridor 
and China desperately wants the plateau gain military advantage  

Communist China simply cannot resist the temptation of capturing the Doklam plateau as it gives it an open view of the plains of North Bengal right up to the Chicken Neck corridor and beyond. So, China began bullying tiny Bhutan to hand over the Doklam plateau to it and drove the Bhutanese border troops out of the plateau.

That was when Indian troops went in after Bhutan sounded an SOS and literally kicked the Chinese PLA out of Doklam plateau. The Bhutanese troops are back on Doklam plateau while the Indian troops keep a close watch at the India-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction where the Chinese PLA has camped on the lower ground.

Chicken Neck Corridor is a global strategic flashpoint

All these reasons as already explained and many more have combined to make the Chicken Neck area a global flashpoint. India is a very strong nation today and has the capacity to pose a serious threat to China deep in its Han heartland including the capital Beijing.

However, the fragility of the geo-strategic situation of the Chicken Neck Corridor is a bitter reality that India will have to deal with. There needs to be some proactive thinking about widening this corridor in the Indian security establishment so that the threat perception of the Chicken Neck is effectively contained.

We need to learn from Tibet, which was at peace with itself before the brutal Chinese occupation and today it is paying the price for such disregard of their national security.

It is a different matter that the Congress government of India led by Jawaharlal Nehru had shamelessly let Tibet down during its hour of need. As Indians, we can only hang our heads down in shame for this disgraceful act by the people we had chosen to run our nation.

All of India's enemies are in cahoots with each other in the sinister game of sabotage and subterfuge that is going on in the Chicken Neck area. There is some degree of Chinese assistance and collaboration for Pakistan and its proxies in their anti-India activities in this region although it could be said that such collaboration is at a tertiary level.

How is the Indian Army Tackling the Shortage of Officers in its Ranks?

To meet the shortage of officers in the army, a plan is being made to open a new service selection board as per breaking news in Hindi and other sources. Three new service selection boards will be opened by the end of this year. At present there are 12 service selection boards in the country. 

New Service Selection Boards (SSB) will be opened to meet the shortage of officers in the Indian Army. Indian Army is working on this and is preparing to open three new SSBs by the end of this year. In total there are currently 12 boards which will soon become 15. 

As per aaj ka taja samachar there will be only four selection centres and new boards will be under the operational control of some of the existing boards. The Army currently has four selection centres, which are Jalandhar in north zone, Bhopal in central zone, Bengaluru in south zone and Allahabad in east zone. 

Source: CareerPower

Under which of existing centres will the new boards operate?

According to Army sources quoted by breaking news in Hindi, the three new SSBs that are going to be opened will operate under the operational control of the Jalandhar, Bengaluru and Bhopal centres respectively. 

At present there are three boards under the Bhopal Selection Centre of the Indian Army and with the addition of a new board the Bhopal centre will now have control over four boards. 

There are two boards each under Bengaluru and Jalandhar SSB centres and in both, one more board each will be opened under their respective operational control. 

Under the Allahabad SSB centre there are already five boards and that could be the reason why no further centres have been assigned to it. At present there is a shortage of about 9,900 officers in the army and it is mostly at the company commander level. 

According to aaj ka taja samachar quoting army sources, this shortage is gradually reducing and will reduce further in the coming time and this is because the level of attrition is quite low at present. 

Attrition refers to how many people leave the army for multiple legitimate reasons, including retirement. The number of officers retiring from the army is less than the recruitment.

More SSB centres will result in more officers joining the army 

The Indian Army official quoted on breaking news in Hindi, said that having more service selection boards obviously allows more candidates to be screened and interviewed for selection. This will effectively remove the shortage of officers in the army. 

More officers will be required to evaluate more candidates and hence more officers are being trained for the same. Every year more than 10 lakh youth apply for the Indian Army officers’ role and around 80,000 were shortlisted for SSB interview. 

In 2020-21, 1,250 youth cleared SSB and attended pre-training; in 2022, 1,340 youth were selected and in 2023, 1,700 candidates were selected as per reports on breaking news in Hindi. 

Indian army is methodically tackling the shortage of officers 

There are a total of 19 ranks in the Indian Army, out of which nine are officers. At present, about 6,000 officer posts are vacant in the army. According to an army official, the shortage of officers is continuously decreasing as the army is doing everything necessary to meet these shortages. 

The army is also working on a broad-based plan to meet this challenge and that is expected to further improve results in the future. 

FAQs 

Q. What is required for a candidate to qualify for Service Selection Board [SSB] interview for military officer cadre? 

Ans: In order to qualify for the SSB interview a candidate must first clear the Combined Defence Services [CDS] or National Defence Academy [NDA] written examination. 

Q. After clearing SSB interview where do the successful candidates go for army officers’ training? 

Ans: The SSB interview for army officers takes place at two levels: 

i) CDS – For candidates between the ages of 19 and 25, whose minimum qualification is a bachelor’s degree 

ii) NDA - For candidates between the ages of 16 years 6 months and 18 years 6 months  

Establishment of Composite District Legislatures in India Cannot be Delayed Anymore

 It is just a question of time before the debate shifts to the “root cause” of the strife in the alarmingly large number of districts that the Maoist extreme left wing terrorists control. The official figure for the number of districts under Maoist influence is 200 but actually it is much more than that. We’re living in denial as usual although that isn’t going to change the ground realities or the root causes of the disquiet. So what are the root causes? Hunger? Grinding poverty? State apathy? Complete absence of governance in the countryside? Apparently, they are. Now, isn’t it already over 6 decades that this has pretty much been the state of affairs? 

So, what new hardware is going to be unloaded in these areas now that it’s going to change everything in a whiff? It also depends on what is special about the hardware and who’s in charge of the unloading to make any difference? All over the world and across all walks of life, if a particular delivery mechanism doesn’t work, the usual practice is to either rectify it or replace it. The governance delivery mechanism in India especially in the countryside has been malfunctioning from day one of our independent existence. So, what do we do? We wait for six decades till our dirt poor folks can take it no more and go wild. We want to do good for these poor folks. After all, they’re our blood brothers, our very own countrymen. Fair enough, there’s no doubt about the good intentions. However, good intentions must be followed up with worthy action or else everything goes down the drain or mysteriously vanishes as has happened till now. 

The NREGA is a good idea but only if it is delivered well. Unfortunately, there are hardly any areas where the NREGA could be delivered and leveraged optimally. These are hard-earned taxpayers’ money and that’s why they shouldn’t get wasted. Let’s face it – the failure of the Indian state to deliver anything to our dirt poor folks is mainly due to the faulty administrative structure at the level where the government of India actually interfaces the multitudes in our countryside. This level begins from the districts downward. The districts in India are not democratically structured as the union and the states are. The pyramid of the Indian administrative system bottoms out at the state level and from the district level downward, it presents a truncated, divided and confused scenario. 

At the district level, not only is the legislature divided between the urban (Nagar Palika) and the rural (Zilla Parishad) areas but even the executive authority is not an elected member of either legislature. In fact, it is normally a rank outsider, who in many cases, is not even from the state itself let alone, the district. Of course, we’re talking about the district collector who is normally an IAS officer and is a government appointed authority. Any district resident has all the reasons to ask ‘why is it so’? Especially, when this rank outsider is found wanting in the conduct of his duties in almost all the areas he is responsible for. To add salt to the wound, the district collector is not accountable or answerable to either the Nagar Palikas or the Zilla Parishads. In fact, he heads them and in most cases, they are answerable to him.

Now, if this is the scenario at the top of the district administration what should be expected at levels further down at the sub-divisional and block levels? So, is it any wonder that no governance worth the name ever reached the dirt poor folks who are staking their lives to protect the Maoist terrorists today? I’m not saying even for a moment that everything will start working well immediately after an overhaul of the district administrative structure. It might not, for all we know but if we have a proper democratic structure in the districts as in the union and the states, then true accountability emerges and deals with the rest, especially non-performance. People then have the option of replying democratically to misrule and not fall into the trap of the totalitarian monsters like the Maoist terrorists. 

On the other hand, who are we to impose this quasi-authoritarian district collector on the people of the districts? It is illegal and unconstitutional and if the matter is properly presented in the courts, the ruling will be decisively against the state governments or whichever authority is found to be imposing such administrative coercion on the people of the districts. Such coercion will be seen by the courts as standing in the way of democratic decentralization, e.g. a composite district legislature, from evolving in the districts. Without a composite district legislature emerging there’s no way that districts can ever have an executive authority which is democratically elected and is accountable to the people of the districts. It’s a simple enough solution if we really want to arrive at one because all it needs is just a little mental adjustment. We have to stop thinking that a composite district legislature would weaken the state administration without strengthening district administration.

In fact, that was the sentiment of the 2nd ARC (Administrative Reforms Commission) which had the good sense to suggest that the office of the district collector has to make way for an elected district mayor who will be accountable to a composite district legislature or a district council. Accountability in governance from the district level downward is not possible without this democratic decentralization and delivering NREGA and other worthwhile government programmes without an accountability mechanism will just remain a pipe dream. The Maoist problem has only added urgency for the recommendations of the 2nd ARC with respect to district governance, to be implemented without any further delay. The question is, who will bell the cat?

Why Doesn't India Have True Democracy at the District Level?

 The never-ending story of district collectors caught with wealth, hundreds of times more than their known sources of income, has been an ugly reality since the early days of British colonial oppression. It can be safely argued that this creature – the district collector, would have evolved nonetheless, had it been any other colonial power ruling the roost in India instead of the British.

The brazen pomp and grandeur along with the autocratic power and prestige that is usually associated with the job of a district collector in the perception of the average Indian, is illusory and misplaced on the one hand and utterly disgraceful, on the other. It’s a strange paradox – most people are awestruck by the power and ‘prestige’ of a civil service officer serving as a district collector and at the same time, is critical of the damage this officer of the government is doing to the nation. 

There have been good district collectors and some that have laid down their lives in the line of duty and a grateful and saddened nation have always saluted these bravehearts. However, the bulk of the district collectors that collide with criminals to loot public wealth have no business to cite the examples of these honest officers and ride piggyback on their sacrifice. Rather, we should ponder over why these honest officers had to pay such a high price for steadfastly doing their job. 

It’s not difficult to see why good officers have found it impossible to survive in the district collectorate. The entire structure of the district collectorate is a mockery of democracy and is institutionally and morally untenable. The district collector lords over the district as the executive authority with overriding powers to control the district level legislatures – the Zilla Parishad and the Nagar Palikas. Naturally, the collectorate has become the hub of the worst forms of vested interests. 

The district collector is a government appointed officer with no connection to the district he lords over, much like the collector during the British Raj. He is not accountable to the people of the district but they, including their elected representatives in the Zilla Parishads and Nagar Palikas, are accountable to him. Strangely, the voluntary sector constitutional ‘specialists’ who talk about power to the people, don’t bother about this sore thumb sticking out of Indian democracy. 

The question today, isn’t about a few good collectors getting sacrificed at the altar of corruption or whether the ‘rustics’ at the Zilla Parishads are fit to run their districts. It is about the basic question – can you have such an autocratic entity as a district collector with all the wrong attributes and infamy, right at the heart of the world’s largest democracy? Let’s even overlook the never-ending stories of collectors amassing astronomical wealth for the time being and focus on the basic question – why on earth have collectors to wreck our districts? Why shouldn’t the people of the districts have the right to govern themselves like it is done at the union and states? 

What are we going to do with our waste?

Heaven knows...as long as we just let it rot as waste, it won't be of any use to us. It reminds me of a wonderful title I came across on a brochure promoting an event in Mumbai, on waste management, in 2009 - WASTE IS NOT A WASTE TILL IT IS WASTED. I was given the job of proofreading the dummy copy before it went for printing. 

It will remain a loaded phrase for as long as we have waste in our planet or elsewhere in our universe and I've come to accept it as the mantra for waste management. I don't know where the brochure came from or why it ended up on my table but I'm thankful that I got to see it. So, hats off to whoever developed that wonderful line. 

Now, what are we going to do about the piles of waste lying everywhere in this country? I'm no expert of waste management nor am I a social scientist but I can see a couple of things right away when I think of the filthy 'wasteland' that my country has become. First, three-fourths of the visible waste everywhere seems to be plastic and second, we're a slack race that hasn't been able to rise to the level where it matters one bit, to us. Yet, I'm told that there are parts of the country where things are much better than where I live. I happen to be in Delhi NCR.

I've never been to Kerala or anywhere in the South, for that matter, except Hyderabad, for a couple of days where I didn't find time to see the Charminar! I didn't find Hyderabad too different from any of the other Indian cities I've been to. However, Kerala has been in the news for all the right reasons except for the unfortunate event when those paranoid Italian security guards ended up killing two of our fishermen, mistaking them for Somali pirates. Getting back to the point, Kerala boasts of a near cent percent literacy rate, near advanced economy HDI, a 50 billion USD+ temple treasure equivalent to or more than the state's total debt, to speak of a few.

Now, I hear that the state is pretty clean and green. Well, I have no doubt about the greenery as I've seen enough high resolution pictures of different parts of Kerala but when I heard about the comparatively better civic sense in Kerala, from more than one or two individuals who were from the north, I was pleasantly surprised. So, is it true? 

A part of India with one of the highest population densities, that has found a way to manage its waste? They call it 'God's own country' in the world of advertising and marketing and if Kerala has found a way to manage her waste, then it deserves every bit of this larger-than-life tagline.

I'm sure that a lot of people are already talking about the piles of unattended waste on our roadsides. I've also seen the lack of interest in our mainline mass media (TV and Print) to cover this issue in any way. If and when they do, they seem to do it with an air of nonchalance just as they would like to avoid covering everything in Kashmir that relates to ethnic cleansing of three quarters of a million Hindus who are now refugees in their own country. 

It's evident that plastic poly bags and packs are the main source of waste in India and the obvious first step is to ban them altogether, even if it means the loss of a few million jobs that are dependent on enterprises manufacturing such poly bags and packaging. We need to find ways to use this labour force to produce bio-degradable packaging material. The biggest hurdle in this endeavour - we're a slack race with no sense of our own priorities and will probably remain that way till kingdom come. 

Should We Worry About Thermal Paper Proliferation?

 Everywhere you go, from retail stores to movie theaters and from public transport vehicles to petrol pumps among others, the servicing personnel are eager to give you a receipt for the transactions you do. Any old timer with memories going back to the 70s, 80s and 90s would be pleasantly surprised by this new enthusiasm of point of sale (POS) personnel in giving away receipts for transactions. Moreover, the receipts are given away instantly, printed from compact, hand-held printers, a little larger than calculators. If the eagerness for transparency is admirable, the efficiency of instant bill generation is positively impressive. And yet, some folks refuse the receipts as if these are infectious objects.

Process of thermal printing
The paper used to print the receipts instantly, is known as thermal paper and the compact hand-held printer is a direct thermal printer. Contrary to conventional printing, here the printer doesn't use any consumables like ink, dye or ribbon; instead it uses heat to produce the print output or what we commonly refer to as printed matter. How? Well, as already mentioned, thermal paper has a chemical coating on the side where the printing takes place. When exposed to heat, it produces images or scribbles or whatever the heat exposure directs it to do.

On a thermal printer, the print head is designed to transfer heat in a controlled manner after being programmed to produce the desired print output. There is a small slot for a thermal paper roll, which is just about the size of a camera film reel, to fit into the printer. For the user, there can't be anything simpler since the thermal paper roll can slide into the slot just as easily as a camera film reel slides into a camera. This printer can be integrated to a large cash register or it can function as a standalone billing device. It's convenient and fast for both users and customers; so why are some folks skeptical? 

Hazardous chemical coating on the receipts
The controversy surrounding the thermal paper receipts is related to Bisphenol-A, a supposedly hazardous chemical compound, about which, opinion is divided among the experts. Some proclaim it to be hazardous, while others don't. However, the debate still hasn't gained traction in the mass media on a scale that could make everyone conscious about any issue with the compound, at least here in India. Understandably, it has not been long that thermal paper has been in use in India on any meaningful scale and so, awareness about it's likely hazards is not there, as much as it is elsewhere.

While the debate rages on, it would be naive to just overlook the possible hazards to humans, of direct exposure to thermal paper. It functions as a color developer in thermal paper, where it is present as 'free' and in non-polymerized state, which is supposedly more hazardous than when it is present on plastic and polymer products. In this 'free' state, humans exposed to BPA run the risk of absorbing it through their skins. Now, that's surely worrying although those arguing against the existence of any such risk put forth their own views about BPA on thermal paper. The likely outcome is rather serious - cancer, lung and kidney infection among other worrisome conditions.

As an end user and a customer, who likes convenience and efficiency, I would not like to let go off the thermal paper printer that the retail store or petrol pump personnel use. However, I can't overlook the fact that many countries have banned the use of BPA in all forms. Here in India, we are on a growth path with many retail segments going through sustained periods of boom; we need the efficiency to sustain that boom. The debate on BPA in India is as good as absent and it's not surprising. We still live hazardous lives - drive like maniacs on the roads, are oblivious to product adulteration and generally don't understand a whole lot of risks. Seems BPA is going to be with us for some more time. 

It's High Time Indian Politicians Got Their Dressing Right

 A couple of years ago we heard the phrase “suit boot ki sarkar” being used as a jibe by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to score brownie points over rival, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). So, what was the brownie point he wanted to score? It is the perception that the vast majority of the Indian people dislike the affluent folks who like to dress up in suits and boots.

Why? Because this vast majority are supposedly poor rural folks who hardly have anything to wear other than the loin cloth that MK Gandhi used to wear. But is that true? I don’t think so. Today, if you look at the average individual on the street, male or female, they are invariably young and hardly look more than 30 years of age. They all turn up in western outfits such as shirt and trousers or jeans.

Strangely enough, Indian politicians, irrespective of whether they are young or old, BJP or Congress or any other party, seem to share Gandhi’s perception that the bulk of the country’s people don’t like politicians who dress up in western outfit. That explains why all these politicians dress up in white kurta and churidar or pyjama, which instead of helping them align with the attire of common folks, actually mark them out as a different species altogether. So, in India, if you are a politician in northern India, you wear white knee-length kurta with pyjamas or churidar.

And if you are a politician in southern India, you wear white shirt and white dhoti wrapped around, lungi style.

Interestingly, 90% of the crowd they interact with, turn up in western style shirts or T-shirts along with trousers or jeans. So, what are these politicians trying to prove to the common people? Are they trying to tell them that only those who dress up in these ethnic outfits have the right to be political leaders in India? Or are they trying to tell the common folks that wearing ethnic outfit reflects simplicity and purity, which MK Gandhi, whom many consider the “Father of the Nation”, had preached? Now, there’s no harm in wearing ethnic attire but you can’t force people to wear them against their will. Neither can you build an ‘Old Boy’s Club’ of folks who wear ethnic attire and stonewall the rest, just because those folks wear western outfit. 

If wearing ethnic outfit is a non-negotiable virtue then why don’t the government servants like civil service officers, police personnel, military personnel, banking service personnel, etc. wear these ethnic outfit? How about asking the army personnel posted in the Himalayan frontier, to wear white ethnic outfit since the “Father of the Nation” had said it reflected purity and simplicity? Honestly, I think our politicians have become caricatures of a different world with which the common man doesn’t connect. They want to be seen as ‘pure and simple’ folks dressed in white ethnic clothing but they also want people to dive to their feet the moment they step down from their expensive super luxury vehicles. Whom are they trying to fool? 

It’s time for our leaders to gradually start filtering out the extravagant nonsense in the name of simplicity and purity and get closer to the people, dressed like the common man, in simple shirt and trouser. It’s not my place to talk about how the women leaders ought to dress up but like the women in the military and police, let them also make their adjustments if they feel it is necessary. The women leaders anyway don’t stand out as separate caricatures amongst the women crowd they interact with. It’s our male leaders who need to get real and get closer to the man on the street. Leave the ethnic wear for special occasions like cultural festivities, etc. For business, get down to shirt and trouser. That’s what the common man in India wears – in the urban, suburban or rural areas.