As many as 131 IPS probationers, including 28 women, who completed 42 weeks of Basic Course Phase-I training at the prestigious Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy in Hyderabad had a rare opportunity to interact with Prime Minister Narendra Modi through a video conference. He is known to do this infrequently, but it thrills those who chance into one. During the basic course training at SVP NPA over two segments, probationers are imparted training in various indoor and outdoor subjects like law, investigation, forensics, leadership and management, criminology, public order and internal security, ethics and human rights, modern Indian policing, field-craft and tactics, weapon training and firing. This was their final training before field postings in their respective state cadres. In his address to the 2018-batch of IPS probationers, the Prime Minister urged them to excel in their careers. He also used the opportunity to plug the government’s new theme “Mission Karmyogi,” a scheme for capacity-building of civil servants, a task which the National Police Academy has been performing quite ably since its inception back in 1948. The theme immediately got national attention, way beyond police lines, as expected. The academy Director Atul Karwal, a 1988-batch IPS officer from Gujarat cadre, presided over the Dikshant (convocation) Parade and addressed the probationers.
Tough talk on J&K
The message is loud and clear from the Modi sarkar that no anti-national rhetoric, especially by the government employees, shall be tolerated at any cost. A year after abrogation of Article 370 and 35A, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has constituted a six-member committee, headed by J&K chief secretary BVR Subrahmanyam, to look into cases related to government officials allegedly indulging in anti-national activities. The high-level committee has been empowered to scrutinise cases and recommend action against officials involved in anti-national activities under Article 311(2)(c). Apart from the J&K chief secretary, the other members of the high-level committee include the administrative secretary to the home department, J&K DGP, the administrative secretary of the general administration department, additional DGP, CID and the administrative secretary to the department of law and justice. Experts say any government official, including IAS and IPS officers, if found guilty by the committee for “anti-national” activity can be dismissed from service without an inquiry. According to sources, it is rumoured that many government officers are under the scanner in Jammu and Kashmir for their involvement in ‘anti-national’ activities.
Media trial
What made seven former DGPs and a police commissioner approach the Bombay High Court in the Sushant Singh Rajput case? The media’s obsession with the Sushant Singh Rajput death case has overridden the raging coronavirus pandemic, our stalled economy and the Chinese threat on the border. After the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate and sundry agencies have been brought in by the Centre, the Mumbai Police has been forced into a corner. It has been accused of political bias and of botching up the investigation, though in the freestyle mud-wrestling that the nation has seen, it is hard to determine who is cleaner. Now, the former IPS officers have urged the court to put an end to the “media trial” and the “unfair, malicious and false media campaign” against the Mumbai Police. The petitioners include former Maharashtra DGPs MN Singh, PS Pasricha, DK Sivanandan, Sanjiv Dayal, Satish Mathur, K Subramanyam and former additional DGP KP Raghuvanshi, and former Mumbai police commissioner DN Jadhav. According to the petition, the adverse media campaign “appears to have been designed with sinister motives to tarnish the fair image of the Mumbai Police.” Significantly, the petition urges the court to frame rules or guidelines, which would help the media cover investigations that are sub-judice. But, for now, it is a no-holds-barred approach as far as sections of the media are concerned.
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