Your Ad Here

Friday, July 24, 2009

10 years later: The war that India forgot

SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend
It used to be an eerie landmark; the tree I saw everyday in the summer of 1999, blackened and ripped by incessant bombing at the old brigade headquarters, is green again.

But much else has withered. The legacy of the Kargil war, one of the toughest wars of modern military history — far tougher than Iraq and Afghanistan — has been shortchanged by India’s politics.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government has mostly looked away since 2004 when it came to observing the anniversary of the BJP government-era war. President Pratibha Patil was requested to come to Drass, but declined, army sources said.

To read the full article, click here..
To read the ePaper, visit: http://epaper.hindustantimes.com

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Shame in Orissa

SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend
A Christian soldier who fought in the 1999 Kargil war against Pakistan is in a refugee camp today after he and his family were driven out from their native village by Hindu mobs.

Motilal Pradhan of the 244 Medium Artillery regiment lost one of his brothers when his house in the riot-ravaged Kandhamal district was set on fire on August 24.

"I have fought against ULFA (the Assam militant group), served in insurgency-infested Baramulla region and fought in Drass sector during the Kargil War. We were called Drass Devils," he told HT as he stood in the middle of the government-run refugee center - one of the two such centers - in Bhubaneswar. There are around 500 others like him at the center.

"But now," Motilal said, "I cannot return to my own village." Motila1and several others have got a message from his village: reconvert to Hinduism and then think of returning to Gadragaon.

To read the full article, click here..
To read the ePaper, visit: http://epaper.hindustantimes.com

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,