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Comment by ashray | Hacker News Reader

Uhh.. India buys so many tanks, aircrafts, etc. because politicians here take a healthy cut on those deals. There's no strategy involved, it's pure business. Also, pointing at Pakistan as the enemy works because of long term cultural issues. The one time that the navy chief mentioned China's a worry - everyone scoffed at him and he was almost fired.

Source: My father was a senior air force pilot and was being coerced into buying obsolete airplanes from a dealer since the home minister's son was involved in making the deal.

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Did you read the whole article? The corruption in big military deals is mentioned as a big worrying factor.

That's an excellent idea, have the military bring their own tanks from home and air-force pilots to own their own jets.

That will teach them to be more careful with the gear too!

sorry no offence, but that story sounds like less believable to me for some reasons. 1. airplane deals are not cleared by anyone but the senior most of general rank airforce officials, so can you please mention your father's exact rank level again?

2. Home minister's son you say? which home minister if you can mention?

3. If my father was a such a senior air force pilot, I would rather not be even mentioning this, because this is a accusation, and it really means a great deal to do so without proof. A family member of a senior airforce official, sounds a lot unbelievable to me. Sorry, but I can't believe your 'sources'

1. It has to be cleared by pilots, senior pilots in that list even clerical level staff come at places. If some one with expertise objects then that objection is either bought, or objector is coerced or sometimes eliminated (esp.) if the deal runs quite long into millions. This 'clearing by expertise/experts' thing was explained by a friend of mine currently posted at Yelahanka AFS.

2. I would like to know this too. Chidambaram has a son who is a crook and I am sure the father is one too. Not sure he was the one mentioned.

3. Well, this sounds credible(your counter-point I mean) and worrying :-)

>because this is a accusation, and it really means a great deal to do so without proof.

This is part of the attitude that gets on my nerves really. Public media is not a court of law. And that was by design that goes along with democracy. I won't deny the design has its problems, but i am more interested in seeing how the design can be improved. If you don't want to examine, just ignore the accusation.

You are complaining a bit too much. Why?

So the exact details of the OPs story doesn't add up. Maybe it's because they're lying, maybe they're being deliberately vague as pr. your third point.

It certainly is plausible, the Indian government is well known to be highly corrupt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India#Politics

What I mean is that, I do not deny corruption prevalent in India, but, what I do question is his 'sources'. This is an opinion, not a question. I found it doubtful, thus I said. I felt it was worth mentioning, because my family is related to the armed forces as well, so anyone wrongfully hiding behind a fake persona putting a bad light on armed forces is also hurting me.

Fake persona ? I'm a regular at HN and use my real name here. Hardly a fake persona. You seem to be taking a rather emotional standpoint here for no valid reason.

I know you are a real person (duh!), but somehow I'm having doubts about the rest of it. Maybe I'm just being extra sceptical, but it would really help if you can prove your dad is really what you say he is.

For rather obvious reasons he's not likely to want to provide proof. Please stop asking for it.

If you know anything about how things work in India, you won't ask him to give concrete proof about dad. For the safety of his dad and other family members, he is right to keep details secret.

Maybe you're a journalist or something. Obviously he can't give away the exact details dude.

I'd rather not share any details even though my father passed away earlier this month. Rest assured, when I say senior pilot, I mean at the highest echelons of the forces. Yes, General Rank level indeed.

Maybe you don't know how deals work but they often require a recommendation from the people who are going to actually USE the equipment.

I don't see why you seem to be so upset about this. It's hardly a secret in India. I didn't say that my father agreed to be party to this, and neither do many other senior military officials, but this is a dirty game and no one denies that.

As for you not believing my sources, frankly, I don't really care.

For reference, this was within the last 10 years.

I up-voted your parent and would down vote you if I could, here is why

(a) Defense deals are not the domain of the home minster, their oversight is the responsibility of the defense ministry.

(b) There have been 2 home minsters in the last 10 years Shivraj Patil P Chidambaram

Shivraj Patil and his children, Shailesh Patil and Archana Patil have faced regular accusations of corruption. The reports of their corruption are in the domain of land acquisition and obtaining permits for business that they would not otherwise have likely received. This was largely done using their fathers name and listing their home address as the home ministers residence in New Delhi. But neither of them are involved in the business of arms.

Chidambaram has 1 son Karti Chidambaram, who likewise has benefited from his fathers association. Chief among which was accusations that he received 5% stake in Aircel as kickbacks for other approvals from his father. Quote from wikipedia "according to The Pioneer and India Today reports, documents show that approval to the foreign direct investment (FDI) proposal was indeed delayed by about 7 months by P Chidambaram.". This was during the time that Chidambaram held the position of Finance minister. It would be likely that Karti benefited later from his father holding the home portfolio in the same manner as Shivraj Patil's children.

(c) From your own admission in this response, your father was to only make recommendations for purchase of equipment which is vastly different from have the authority to make purchase, which is what you claim in the first. I take it from the 2 comments that he recommended their purchase. Your comments show poor form for claiming something that is clearly not true.

(d) Last but not the least, your father spoke about matters that he had no reason to be addressing outside of his work place. The exceptions could be his role as a whistle blower which is definitely not the case here.

As someone whose father worked as director of DRDO organization and had purchasing authority for research equipment for a lab that employed 100000+ employees and 1000+ scientists, I can assure you my father never even in passing mentioned any work related information outside of work for obvious security implications.

EDIT: edited for formatting.

point (D) mentioned by you is the exact reason, I first doubted him. This is not something someone of that senior level usually does, nor does any of his family members do the same.

In his defense his father was in the Air force, he retired at the rank of Air Vice marshal and I would guess at the time when he claims to have heard from his father of the incident his father was the rank of Air commodore.

On "Air commodore" from wikipedia "Air commodore (Air Cdre in the RAF and IAF, AIRCDRE in the RNZAF and RAAF, formerly A/C in the RCAF) is a one-star rank and the most junior of the air-officer ranks". Note air-officer ranks are fairly high and take a number of years of service to achieve. However these ranks are fairly low when it comes to procuring equipment.

"Air Vice marshal" is one rank higher.

I do think he believes what he claims in his comments, I am just pointing out that his beliefs are vastly exaggerated. His father was likely asked about his recommendations of the aircraft but is unlikely to have any knowledge beyond that about the reason that a particular aircraft was procured. Everything else that he has heard is hear say.

Far more relevant is that the defense ministry has been headed by A.K. Antony since 2006. Antony is known for his incorruptible record and simple personal life, wikipedia has about 10+ references on where this claim originates from. Antony like wise has a very low profile and is rarely in the news. For anyone following Indian politics it is fairly well know that there are a handful of non-corruptible politicians across all affiliations in India. Antony has always been included amongst those.

Well, I would have rather not shared all this information but at the time my father was an AVM (i.e. a two star general) and was also the head of the air wing of the border security force. As head of an entire fleet, he pretty much had the authority to decide and recommend what he pleased. Also, his recommendations were of paramount importance, especially concerning new purchases. Obviously he wasn't happy when he was asked to recommend something in particular - and he didn't, that's probably why the deal failed.

So no, my beliefs are not highly exaggerated. They are just based on whatever was going on at the time. Take it as hearsay, take it as whatever you want.

I do however request that you remove/edit your post as it is personally identifiable and I will delete this post as well. I'd rather not have an online archive of all these things directly related to my father.

>I do however request that you remove/edit your post as it is personally identifiable and I will delete this post as well. I'd rather not have an online archive of all these things directly related to my father.

It would have been smarter to not post any information that could be linked to your identity in the first place.

Yes, but I wasn't being specific for that very reason. It's one thing to say "My dad was a senior official and had so and so experience" and it's another to have other people post personally identifiable information.

But in retrospect, it's probably not worth it because I'm not as invested in the argument as the other side. It was just to share an interesting story and nothing more.

I will apologize right now, of my free accord, if I doubted you wrongly. I'm going to be less of a skeptical person, and accept that yes he is what you said.

But I do want to make a note, that the opinion stating, that corruption is like bonfire in India, is wrong, it is not that rampant, it appears large, because of recent wave of it getting much media and public attention. Its like mud, it shouldn't be tossed in the air so it can fall on those who are not corrupt. Its too easy to say everyone is corrupt, hard to recognize who is corrupt and who is not. Plus point (D) above was something, I was not able to put in more clear words myself. It is not a good behavior, something, a lot of people in armed forces and alike avoid.

Are you joking? I travel to India frequently for business. I can assure you corruption is rampant at all levels I've had the misfortune of being in contact with (which is not very high level at all). You need to bribe everyone in Indian govt. to get them to do their jobs, for which they already get a salary.

The entire border security force falls under the home ministry. They buy large amounts of defense equipment. Get your facts straight before making a mountain out of a molehill. Recommendations at that level are the same as endorsements - and are also necessary for deals to go through FYI the particular deal I spoke of did not go through.

There's no point arguing this as I'm not really trying to prove anything here. India's defense deals suffer from large amounts of corruption and there is no question about that.

To say that certain people are only attracted to certain kinds of corruption as your post says is almost laughable.

It's also strange that you just registered to say all of this on a hacking related forum. Makes me think of you as the same person as rikacomet. You certainly don't have any credibility.

"less believable"?? Clearly, you are not familiar with India. In fact, if there is a huge arms deal for defense forces (or huge deal for anything), you can bet there is involvement of at least one politician to take his cut.

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