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DRDO scientist booked for ‘raping’ wife

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SAMAY LIVE -23 September 2013

A Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) scientist was on Sunday booked for allegedly raping his wife.

“A case has been lodged case against Tapas Kumar Majumdar, who is working with food research laboratory wing of DRDO, on the complaint lodged by his 30-year-old wife this evening,” Raipur Superintendent of Police O P Pal told reporters.

According to the woman, who is a school teacher in Raipur, the accused had married her in 2011, while keeping her in dark about the status of his earlier marriage.

He had told her that he had taken divorce from the first wife and then got married with the complainant, who later came to know that Majumdar had not taken divorce, the SP said.

“A case has been registered against Majumdar under sections 376 (rape), 419 (cheating by personation), 496 (marrying fraudulently) and 498 (A) (subjecting wife to cruelty),” the SP said.

Majumdar is currently posted at Mussorie in Uttarakhand.

Further probe is on and suitable action will be taken in this connection, the SP added.

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Chinks in the Armour – What ail DRDO, India’s Premier Defence Organigation?

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Rediff.com – News-Special Part- III

‘DRDO took up Arjun before it learnt to make tanks’

George Iype

Some 20 years ago, the defence ministry entrusted the DRDO with two projects: the development of a battle tank and a multi-barrel rocket launcher system.

The DRDO called the former, assigned to it in 1974, Arjun, and the latter Pinaka.

Two-plus decades later, the Arjun is considered a major failure. And so is the Pinaka. The Indian army found the latter passed only seven of its 29 requirements.

Defence experts allege that DRDO continues to work on Arjun and Pinaka just to keep its laboratories open.

“The Arjun main battle tank is not world class and has failed to meet the required levels of accuracy. But DRDO is keeping it alive because it does not want its factories to close down,” says Major General (retd) Ashok Mehta.

Experts like Major General Mehta feel the Arjun could have been a tank with potential if DRDO had got its act together. But the premier defence research organisation continues to exert pressure on the army to accept a limited series of production for the Arjun.

Army officers say it is politics and not the tank’s potential that is at work in the defence ministry, which last year placed orders with the Avadi Ordinance Factory to manufacture 124 Arjun tanks.

“I am happy to inform you that not only is the army satisfied with the Arjun tank’s performance, but it has placed an order for 124 more such tanks,” Defence Minister George Fernandes had told Parliament. “With this India has achieved the capability for indigenous manufacture of battle tanks.”

Army officials, however, say no other defence agency in the world must have spent 25 years and Rs 3.5 billion on developing a tank that has failed to perform.

“We have wasted money and time in producing a tank that is just not a world class product these days,” an army officer in Hyderabad says.

Insiders say the army was not “satisfied with the Arjun’s performance” as Fernandes claimed, but was coerced to accept it by the DRDO.

N K Mohan Pillai, a retired army officer who witnessed the Arjun trials, says the tank lacked three vital strengths. First, its engine is weak. Second, its suspension needs permanent maintenance. Third, its gun control is not accurate enough to obtain first round kill probability.

“In fact, the main problem was that DRDO took up the Arjun project before learning how to make tanks,” Pillai remarks.

In 1994 when DRDO announced that the Arjun tank was ready for production, then army chief General B C Joshi witnessed the trials. He sent a note to the DRDO and the defence minister saying the tank fails to meet standards and therefore was unacceptable. General Joshi then laid down a dozen imperatives that DRDO should take to improve upon the tank.

General Joshi’s main concerns were that the tank that weighs 57 tonnes lacked armour protection and vital suspension for crew comfort and gunfire accuracy.

But DRDO, which has showcased the Arjun as its finest indigenous product, claims that the problem is not with the tank, but with the army.

“The army is used to handling only T-72 tanks. For the soldiers who have fired T-72 tanks, operating the Arjun is a gigantic task. So we have told the army to train their crew before accusing us of inferior production,” a DRDO engineer says.

Despite DRDO’s claims, many in the army believe that the 124 Arjun tanks will drain the exchequer just like the multi-barrel rocket launching system Pinaka did.

In 1999 the Comptroller and Auditor General severely indicted DRDO for its failure to develop critical components for Pinaka after spending Rs 424.5 million on the project.

The defence ministry had entrusted DRDO with the Pinaka project in 1980. The deadline given was 1994. Twenty years later DRDO is nowhere near finishing. The war heads and all the three vehicles necessary for launching the rockets are yet to be developed by DRDO. Against the requirement of eight types of warheads, only three have been developed. Of this, one is not acceptable to the army and the other is only a dummy.

“The delay in the development of the EWPinaka has compelled the army to depend on our existing 20 kilometre-range system even during Kargil conflict. The DRDO is entirely responsible for this,” charges an army officer.

According to experts, the Pinaka system has met just seven of the 29 requirements of the army during trials. The indigenous rocket launcher lacks the promised range, fire power, loading time of the salvo and deployment time.

These, however, are “minor problems” according to DRDO.

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Oldies of DRDO cling on to their jobs post retirement

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 Gautam Datt   |   MAIL TODAY  |   New Delhi, October 25, 2012 

P.S. Krishnan and Avinash Chander.

Dozens of top scientists at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are working on extended tenures despite the government disfavouring the policy of retaining officers or specialists after their retirement.

According to guidelines, tenures can be extended only in “exceptional circumstances”. The DRDO, however, justifies the extensions, saying only valued experts whose replacements are not easy to find are given the privilege.

In response to an RTI query, sought by Rajeev Chauhan of Meerut, the DRDO released a list of 37 scientists – 12 of them in the distinguished category – who are working on extended tenures. This was disclosed only after the intervention of the chief information commissioner following an appeal.

Defence scientists retire at the age of 60. The department of personnel and training (DoPT) rules for extension of specialists in the medical and scientific fields mention the problems in giving such experts extra tenure.

Oldies of DRDO

“Not only does the next man miss promotion but often several people miss consequential promotions all along the hierarchy,” the department noted.

Keeping this in mind, procedures were evolved to ensure that extensions to the superannuating scientists are resorted to only in really exceptional circumstances, the guidelines said.

The main conditions are that the “retiring specialist should not just be one of the outstanding officers but is really head and shoulders above the rest, or the other specialists are not ripe enough to take over the job”. The DRDO, however, claims that while it largely adheres to the DoPT rules, they are not strictly applicable to the strategic community which also includes ISRO and atomic energy.

Sources said the DRDO has 7,000 scientists out of which extension to 37-odd experts is “minuscule”. The DRDO follows merit- based flexible complementing scheme for promotions which is not linked to availability of vacancies, they said. They feel that most people at 60 are still active and gain substantial wealth of experience in highly specialised areas that needs to be tapped.

Some big names are on extended terms and are vital to the success of their respective programmes.

Topping the list is Avinash Chander, chief controller of missiles and strategic system, who is steering the long range strategic missiles programme.

The list of 37 scientists includes 12 distinguished scientists, 13 scientists “H” and remaining 12 scientists “G”. While detractors allege that extensions indicate a system of favouritism, the DRDO says every case passes through two expert panels which approve the move.

According to govt guidelines, tenures can be extended only in exceptional circumstances.

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AK Antony seeks probe into allegations against Abhishek Verma in defence deals

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Rohini Singh, ET Bureau May 7, 2012, 12.51AM IST

NEW DELHI: Defence minister AK Antony has asked investigation agencies to probe into charges levelled against Delhi-based businessman Abhishek Verma, by his former partner, accusing him of acting as a middleman in several defence deals and parking over $205 million in accounts in a bank in the US.

“I have asked the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate to investigate the allegations. The defence secretary has also been asked to take necessary action,” Antony said.
These allegations have been made by C Edmond Allen, head of a New York-based company called Ganton Limited, in a series of letters to Antony. His charges cover purported dealings between Ganton, which Allen – a non-practising attorney – said was incorporated in the US state of Delaware on Verma’s instructions, and major equipment suppliers to the Indian armed forces such as Rheinmettal, Augusta Westland, Hellenic Defence Systems and Hawker Beechcraft.

A top CBI official said the investigations were at a preliminary stage. “We are in touch with Allen and have asked him to submit the documents in original,” said the official. He also said the agency is coordinating with the Enforcement Directorate as there were allegations of large scale money laundering.

Verma, the son of former Congress leader Srikant Verma, is an accused in the naval war room leak case where several sensitive defence documents were stolen and allegedly leaked to Thales, the maker of Scorpene submarines.

He has denied all charges levelled against him by Allen, and said documents implicating him have been forged. Verma said he had received a notice from the Enforcement Directorate asking for an explanation for the money in the accounts but was unable to comment since the matter was sub judice.

“As several petitions filed by me against C Edmonds Allen are pending in various Indian and foreign courts and these cases are somehow connected to alleged foreign exchange violations in which trial is going on in India under FERA Act for ten years, it will not be possible for me to comment as matters are sub-judice,” he wrote.

According to Allen, the escrow accounts belong to Verma but he had the right to handle them as a result of agreements signed between the two in April 2000 and February 2004. Allen has alleged that the money in these accounts has been obtained through illegal means and that Verma has acted as a middleman in several defence deals. Verma, in turn, has issued legal notices to Allen to return the money and a case has been filed in a district court in New York, according to documents reviewed by ET.
Verma, the son of former senior Congress leader Srikant Verma and MP Veena Verma has business links with Jagdish Tytler, a Congress Working Committee member and the party’s Odisha in-charge. Tytler’s fashion designer son, Siddharth, is a founder shareholder in a company along with a former director of Ganton, Arjun Arora. Siddharth Tytler had also signed a joint venture agreement with Ganton India.

Confirming this Jagdish Tytler also told ET that he knew Verma as his parents were colleagues of his. He denied any knowledge of defence deals that Verma is alleged to be involved in.
Tytler also confirmed being an arbitrator in a dispute involving Ganton and another company over nearly hundred acre of land in Noida which belongs to the Yamuna Express Industrial Development Authority.

People close to Verma say that the allegations levelled against him were at Tytler’s behest, a charge that has been strongly denied by both Tytler and Allen. Allen, however, told ET in an email that Tytler and Verma were very close but had fallen out recently over the Noida land deal.

Allen has also alleged that Verma has often flaunted his links with several powerful politicians which has supposedly ensured that no enquiry is initiated against him. Allen also claims to posses several sensitive defence documents allegedly emailed to him by Verma which show his ‘easy access within the government’.

Corruption Charges

The letters to Antony paint a picture of labyrinthine corruption in defence deals with Verma allegedly at the centre. Some of the documents linked to the case, were publicly released by India Against Corruption (IAC) in late April, a group linked to activist Anna Hazare, after Allen sent the documents to lawyer Prashant Bhushan. In a blog posting in New York Times dated April 27, Allen was quoted as saying that he had approached it after Indian authorities showed no interest in his allegations.

In a letter to Antony dated March 28, 2012, Allen alleged that German firm, Rheinmetall AG, paid Ganton $530,000 to reverse its blacklisting by India’s defence ministry. The money was supposedly paid through the firm’s UBS account in Switzerland, according to bank statements of Ganton Limited, and an invoice generated by the company.

Emails sent by ET to Rheinmetall officials did not elicit a response.

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Skeletons tumble out of Tatra-tainted Natarajan’s closet

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FRIDAY, 20 APRIL 2012 00:16 PNS | NEW DELHI HITS: 263 – The Pioneer

Under VRS Natarajan, PSU giant BEML was involved in large scale irregularities that went beyond Tatra truck deal. The CBI on Thursday registered an FIR against him for cheating and criminal conspiracy in hiring a consultancy firm without tendering process.

The noose is fast tightening around Natarajan, who has been Chairman and Managing Director of defence PSU BEML for almost a decade, with the CBI set to more cases following sanction for prosecution granted by the Defence Ministry.

At least six complaints of alleged financial misdemeanour by Natarajan is under CBI scanner.

After registering a case against Natarajan and Director of Coimbatore-based Astral Consultants CS Srivatsan for allegedly tweaking tenders to favour the private firm by cheating BEML, the CBI conducted searches at the official and residential premises of the duo at Bangalore and Coimbatore.

Natarajan, Srivatsan and other unnamed persons have been booked under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and certain provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The case related to award of contract for the implementation of Enterprises Resource Planning Project in the public sector undertaking during 2004-09.

According to the CBI FIR, Natarajan and Srivatsan were part of alleged criminal conspiracy to award work worth Rs40 crore to Astral Consultants.

“It is alleged that the accused persons were parties to a criminal conspiracy entered amongst themselves at Bangalore and other places during 2004-09 to cheat M/s BEML in the matter of award of different works relating to the implementation of Enterprises Resource Planning Project in M/s BEML causing wrongful loss to M/s BEML and wrongful gain to others,” a CBI spokesperson said here.

Teams of CBI officials reached the Bangalore-residence of Natarajan, residence of Srivatsan, besides Coimbatore office of Astral and took into their possession some “incriminating” documents related to the tendering process and communications exchanged with the company, CBI sources said.

Natarajan is already facing CBI heat for his suspected role in a separate case regarding alleged irregularities in the procurement and supply of Tatra all terrain vehicles to Army. Natarajan has not been named so far in the Tatra procurement scandal case but the agency suspects that he was the mastermind of the entire scam.

The agency suspects that Natarajan in collusion with Vectra boss Ravi Rishi renewed the deal between BEML and UK-based Tatra Sipox in 2003, four years before the same was to be renewed, for supply of the all terrain vehicles to the Army. Tatra Sipox, according to the CBI FIR, was an intermediary firm and not an original equipment manufacturer. The original manufacturer of the Tatra trucks is Tatra Venus and defence procurement rules provide for procurement from OEMs only.

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23 yrs and first fighter aircraft hasn’t taken off

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Express Investigation: Delayed Research; Delayed Organisation – Part – Four

23 yrs and first fighter aircraft hasn’t taken off

Amitav Ranjan , Siv Aroor
Tags :
Posted: Wed Nov 15 2006, 00:00 hrs
New Delhi, November 14:

At its last meeting in December 2005, the General Body of the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the society developing the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, recorded one fact: the Indian Air Force, despite official plans to ultimately buy 220 LCAs, would order only 20 aircraft.
And that the IAF had refused to push the order up until it’s convinced that the new 2010 deadline, the project’s third consecutive time over-run, would be met.

The IAF had more than a reason.

According to latest official figures that will shortly be tabled by the Standing Committee on Defence in a report for Parliament, available with The Indian Express, DRDO’s 23-year-old indigenous fighter aircraft programme, taken as a whole — including the radar, jet engine and Naval variant — would have wiped away a minimum of Rs 9444.5 crore by 2010. Aggregate cost over-run: Rs 4,094 crore. Delay: 12.5 years and counting.
By DRDO’s own testimony in June to the same committee, there are still “certain complexities,” although it claims it will produce the 20 LCAs on order from the IAF by December 2011. But that would still be understandable if the LCA was in any way ready.

Five months after the ADA meeting, Air chief S P Tyagi communicated in no uncertain terms to then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee that his force could not depend on the programme in the short term. Shortly thereafter, he told The Indian Express: “We have to see if it is a suitably modern aircraft when it is complete. Right now we just cannot take any decisions. We can only wait for initial operational clearance (in 2008).”

The implication: the IAF is not sure if the LCA would have slipped down a few generations by the time it’s inducted. But the Standing Committee only had this to say: “The Committee are constrained to note that, keeping in view the ever-increasing delay in operational clearance of LCA, early induction of the same as IAF squadrons seems to be an unrealistic proposition.”

Just how unrealistic it is is something that has come to characterize the LCA programme ever since its inception in August 1983, and culminating now in a gravely unready fighter aircraft that the IAF could have no choice but to induct in large numbers from 2012.

Consider the following: Despite a battery of nine test pilots who have been embedded with the LCA programme, the IAF has refused to officially certify any technological aspect of the LCA apart from its structural strength, until initial operational clearance (IOC). Air Headquarters said so, in a written reply to this newspaper. The clearance should have been achieved by 2007 but its new schedule is 2008.

After a four-year wait following the rollout of the LCA technology demonstrator in 1997 for a first flight, former Air chief S Krishnaswamy made out an official case in 2003 for a “limited series induction” of the aircraft to give the IAF a chance to familiarize itself. He told The Indian Express, “The LCA is not full in any way, each prototype is different. I was a staunch supporter of indigenisation but am also very critical. How long can you keep on developing a product?”

The eight promised Limited Series Production fighters, envisaged as a part of the Rs 3,301.78 crore second phase of the programme, are nowhere in sight. The LCA, which should have undergone weapons trials by 2003, will now only undergo “dummy” trials in December 2007 according to DRDO chief M Natarajan, putting a big question mark on the possibility of IOC by 2008.

The real problem: the HAL-DRDO multi-mode radar, the very brain that will guide the LCA’s weapons, is not ready. After spending Rs 166.8 crore since 1997, HAL has decided to bring in a foreign technical partner to bail it out. The radar has been tested on an HS-748 Avro, but persistent problems with software and its signal processor have forced HAL and DRDO to admit their failure.

DRDO has justified the delays and their impact on the IAF’s preparedness by pointing to a revision of the development strategy because of a foreign exchange shortage in the 1990s, US sanctions, re-designing composite wings for weapon definition after January 2004 and extensive on-ground and independent evaluation.

After a cost and time overrun of Rs 2,456 crore and 13 years since 1996, DRDO admitted to the Standing Committee in June that it could complete the Kaveri engine only under a foreign joint venture. Problems that have crippled the Kaveri, according to the latest DRDO testimony, include critical glitches in aerodynamic, aero-mechanical, combustion and structural integrity.

Most significantly, DRDO has admitted to the Committee that to improve performance and safety issues, a JV could be attempted. Former DRDO chief V K Aatre said: “When I retired (in August 2004), there were some loose ends in the programme involving the radar and jet engine. But I am surprised they have still not been resolved.”

The DRDO was pulled up in January by the Standing Committee to explain how the LCA’s delays would impact the IAF’s modernization. Their reply: “IAF only can state the possible impact of delay on modernization exclusively due to LCA.”

But at Air HQ, an unofficial and approximate damage analysis of the LCA’s delay, shared with The Indian Express, is to the tune of Rs 11,440 crore in forced upgrades (some variants of the MiG-21 that the LCA was to replace will be forced to serve till 2019-2021 at least) and stop-gap acquisitions.

This does not include the purchase of 126 fighters potentially worth Rs 30,000 crore that the IAF will shortly begin an acquisition process for. In an unusual move, the Naval LCA will use air data systems from Russia’s state-owned Rosobornexport, which will also create a shore-based test facility for the Rs 948.90 crore development. MiG Corporation will conduct a design review and be DRDO’s chief consultant.
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6,000 cr wasted, 10-yr delay & they want 150,000 cr more

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Express Investigation: Delayed Research; Delayed Organisation – Part – One

 6,000 cr wasted, 10-yr delay & they want 150,000 cr more

Amitav Ranjan

Posted: Sun Nov 12 2006, 00:00 hrs

New Delhi, November 11:

Make India prosperous by establishing a world-class science and technology base…provide our Defence Services the decisive edge by equipping them with internationally competitive systems and solutions… design, develop and lead to production state-of-the-art weapons systems…

That’s the “vision” and the “mission” the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) has proudly spelt out for itself.

An investigation by The Sunday Express into official records that include detailed testimonies by the Ministry of Defence to a Parliamentary Standing Committee — its report is yet to be tabled in Parliament — shows that if there’s one thing this behemoth of 50 laboratories with a staff of about 33,000 has developed to almost perfection, it’s this: wrapping itself around the flag to hide a record of delay and non-delivery in virtually all major weapons programmes.

At a time when China is rapidly modernising its armed forces through international collaboration and acquiring advanced technology from abroad, the DRDO has become a prisoner of its own misleading slogan on self-reliance. In preventing the armed forces from buying urgently needed weapons with brave talk, “we can make it here”, and failing to deliver, the DRDO has introduced uncertainty into the government’s defence planning.

According to latest official records, obtained by this newspaper, in 12 of its showpiece projects, none of which is anywhere near completion, the DRDO has overshot sanctioned estimates by Rs 6,013.43 crore in just the last 10 years. The projects include the crucial guided missile programme, the Arjun tank, the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA Tejas), the Samyukta communication system and Kaveri jet engine.

To put this in perspective, this cost overrun is larger than DRDO’s budget of Rs 5,356 crore for the current year. And this is reflective of just 12 projects. It speaks nothing of 427 others, all in varying states of drift. And yet DRDO claims, “Global level R&D and any world-class defence product can be brought out in competitive time and cost.”

These were the words used in a September 22 presentation to the Standing Committee especially in the year of the organisation’s biggest symbolic failure, the Agni-III strategic missile.

But if cost overruns were not enough, consider this: Records show that for all major projects, DRDO’s average time overrun is 10.11 years (see chart). For example, a 16-year delay for the Arjun tank and 12 years for just Phase I of the LCA Tejas.

Responding to a written questionnaire from The Sunday Express, DRDO chief M Natarajan, who has also been involved with one of DRDO’s biggest failures, the Arjun tank, says: “This is a complaint which I hear very often. But one should understand these are all R&D projects. All advanced countries face similar situations. If you say that we are always late, then it would not be fair to us. We generally deliver the goods on time.”

If that were true, Natarajan must have had a trying time explaining that on October 29 at the very first DRDO presentation to new Defence Minister A K Antony. Drawing comparisons with the China-Russia relationship, Defence Secretary Shekhar Dutt reportedly wanted to know why there were such “massive delays” in DRDO projects and persistent technological gaps.

Former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy was more direct. Called in a year after he retired to give testimony, he told the Parliamentary panel: “For improvement in DRDO’s working, it is essential to make fundamental changes in organization and structure with accountability to the user and to do work in time.”

Krishnaswamy couldn’t have been more spot on. For, although DRDO defended its performance by blaming the three services — they change their requirements while development is in progress, they spend too much time on trials — here’s just how bad the current situation is: In the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th Plans, with DRDO’s failures a compelling factor, according to the Defence Ministry, the country has spent an average of 24.25% of the Defence budget on imported systems to fill in holes caused by DRDO’s non-delivery. That translates into roughly Rs 42,376 crore since 1991-92.

Even the “self-reliance” index, the one plank the entire DRDO justifies itself on, has remained static for the last 15 years. Ironically, in 1991, it was President A P J Abdul Kalam, then DRDO chief, who charted out a plan to push self-reliance up to 70% by 2005. Today’s self-reliance index, according to the Ministry’s own estimate: 30 per cent.

 

Kalam, in fact, started the Self-Reliance Implementation Council (SRIC) in 1992 and monitored it to check for slippages and gaps. But that was more an academic exercise than anything else. For five years now, the council hasn’t met once.

Papers are only “activated” when Parliamentary questions are asked. In what has the armed forces on tenterhooks now, on October 29, the DRDO recommended to Antony that a “certain percentage of defence acquisitions be earmarked exclusively for DRDO and indigenously developed products.”

The total cost of 439 projects currently in progress with DRDO adds up to Rs 16,925 crore, with just 17 of those adding up to Rs 13,560 crore, most of them on time and cost extensions. In September, DRDO asked, in its testimony to the

Parliamentary committee, for an assured allocation of Rs 1,50,000 crore at the rate of Rs 10,000 crore per year for the next 15 years starting 2010.

It’s time Antony asked the DRDO a few questions, beginning with the Integrated Guided Missile Development programme. There is no indigenous weapons project as prestigious as this, neither is there one that matches its record of repeated and expensive failures.

Every project has to fructify within a given timeframe, otherwise it will just begin to drift and lose focus

Air Chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy

DRDO needs greater accountability. We have not been able to get the maximum out of DRDO, even though self-reliance should be our core

Gen V P Malik