A publicity blitz is unleashed every time the Defence Acquisitions Council meets and “clears” some proposals, creating an impression that military modernization is well in hand ~ and without saying so specifically, contrasting that with how under AK Antony that process had been in limbo. Fair enough, politicking on security issues is now par fo the course.

Though Mrs Nirmala Sitharaman had recently iterated her capacity to “politics” along with the best of the rest, her defence credentials demand that she directs her ministry to come really clean ~ not just another of its vague, inane, denials ~ on the report doing the media rounds that an internal assessment has established only eight-10 per cent of the 144 acquisitions approved over the last three financial years have fructified.

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Is policy paralysis endemic to South Block? An effective publicity machine is a poor substitute for an adequately-equipped military machine: did dissident Arun Shourie not assert that “managing headlines” was a core-competence of NDA-II?

A recent presentation from the minister of state for defence pointed to the acquisition process being dogged by “multiple and diffused structures with no single accountability, duplication of processes, avoidable redundant layers…no real-time monitoring, and no project-based approach” ~ just the very cobwebs that with her taste of commerce in her assignment prior to her elevation Mrs Sitharaman had been expected to set about clearing ~ since Arun Jaitley was overworked in the other block of the Central Secretariat and (by his own admission) Manohar Parrikar was never comfortable without the uniquely-flavoured Goa fish curry.

Riding piggy-back in frontline fighters and availing of the other photo-ops the defense sector provides is just not good enough. More so when the present government loses no opportunity to flay Congress administrations for having failed to “deliver”.

To drive the point home painfully deep, the presentation also mentions that the “Make in India policy in defense production languishes due to procedural delays, failing to take off in any concrete manner”. It is not surprising that the MoD backed off from commenting on the presentation emphasizing the importance of taking cognizance of “hard, uncomfortable facts”.

Facts that will not be wished away by the opening of an Army-built passenger overbridge at Elphinstone Road station in Mumbai’s suburban railway network. Ministering to defense calls for “sterner stuff”.

The intricate processes in the MoD ~ actually no official, civil or military, wishes to be perceived as pushing a particular project ~ has resulted in non-fructification of proposals for a range of small arms, fighter aircraft, helicopters, drones, submarines, artillery.

The project for replacing the MiG-21 has just been further complicated by the decision to include twin-engine jets in the equation: Parrikar had cited lower costs when insisting on a single-engine alternative. Such twists and turns only result in the red tape getting increasingly knotted: NDA or UPA ~ the soldier’s needs gets little priority.