TRANSCripT OF SPEECH GIVEN by ACM SINGH AT the 2025 KHATRE MEMORIAL LECTURE

TITLE: The INTRICRACIES of operation sindoor

Chief Marshal Major, Marshal Rajaram, Dr. Sunil, all the senior veterans here, my colleagues from the blue uniform, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning to you all. Did you all notice that when I said members of the media - thoda mera gala khush ho raha tha, I have a special connection of Bangalore, media and AP Singh. I hope I am lucky this time.

First of all, my heartfelt gratitude to the Air Force Association Karnataka chapter and to HAL for continuing this legacy lecture where we honor this legend, Air Chief Marshal Katre. Enough, I think, whatever I had written down about him has already been spoken. All I can say is, you know, it is the visionary like him and like many others who are seated in front of me, especially in the front benches. It's because of you all that we in the Air Force, the current people, are getting our direction, getting our motivation and remaining steadfast towards the service of the nation and doing a job that is expected of us. A very big thank you to all of you for guiding us.

My connection with Air Chief Marshal Katre goes back to 1984. I actually remember the date when I met him. I met him only once in my lifetime, in his lifetime also of course. That was on 21st of December 1984. I don't know, you people must be wondering how I remember that date. But some secret was let out in my introduction. I got commissioned on that day. And the reviewing officer was Air Chief Marshall Katri. And our 134 PC and the parallel course 75 GDOC happened to be the only courses that have been reviewed by Air Chief Marshall Katre. So, very proud moment today for me to stand here on occasion, you know, when we are honoring that figure who actually gave me my wings, literally and figuratively both. Actually, you can say that was my birthday that I was born in the Air Force.

I must especially thank Mr. Sameer Katre for, you know, being here today. He's son of Air Chief Marshal Katre. He's come all the way, especially to be here, and he does it every year. Thank you very much, sir.

We talked about Op. Sindoor. I thought today that also I saw that Sindoor topic had come when they were settling down the slides. So you know what I'm going to talk about. You know, when just now there was somebody said that somebody said that a lot of good work done and my name was being taken, I get a feeling as if I am that non-playing captain whose team does very well, but the accolades go to that captain. So I wish I was in the cockpit doing something actual, but I fought this war from an air-conditioned office. But yes, that is how life is. And I can't praise my team. I can't get words to praise them. They have done exceptionally well. And, you know, I'm very, very proud of my team, the entire Indian Air Force.

One thing that really stood out in this was the way we fought. At the helm of the affair, my biggest worry, because we keep having those exercises, is we keep trying our, you know, exercising ourselves in op-like situations, but they are not operations, they are operations-like situations. And in those, having seen how things are done, my biggest worry was that will everybody come together or will there be, you know, I will do this, no, no, no, sir, I will do this. One command is going one way, the other command is going the other way. Air headquarter is trying to do something else but the command headquarters wants to do something else. Somebody is saying, no, know as per so and so book this is my job and not his job who is he to tell me. None of this not even once did I have to sit down and try to solve things not even once. I think that's a blessing to have a force like that and again I say, I can only thank my predecessors who have trained us like that to be like that whatever may be when the time comes we are all together.

So I will today take some time in covering that operation, Operation Sindoor. And this will be, from my perspective, what we did. And in the end, I will also cover some takeaways from it, whatever, you know, what was responsible for success. Like I just now covered one part, but I will try and cover some points on that. And in case I find that I am running ahead of time, then I will cover something else. I am not really prepared for that part.

Now, of course, another point I just now wrote down. Air Marshall Rajaram said that, you know, this hall is full because you are here. They all want to hear you. But, sir, I can see 50% are blues. And out of that, I think I am 80% are detailed to be here today. Having gone through their times, I understand everything. But all those who have been detailed, please listen. Okay, don't sleep.

So we all know what happened, that unfortunate incident of Pahalgaam where so many people were killed, a nation had to respond. And all that is in open media, how we were trying to achieve some things diplomatically. At the same time, we had to give them a befitting reply. We had also said, it was made very clear that this time it should be an emphatic thing that we do. We must send the message across loud and clear to them. It should not be something just limited to launch pads and training areas. It should be their leadership, the terrorist leadership should be challenged.

So we were all called in and we discussed a few options, then all the other agencies also joined in, and then we decided on those nine targets. I don't know how clear it is here. From my angle it's not looking very clear, the text part of it. So, like you see, I can make it easier for you by the red dots that you see on the map were the seven targets that were very close to the border and LC, and they were to be taken on by Army with their integral weapons. And those two blue dots, they drawn them little bigger. They were the two main headquarter buildings, that is Bahawalpur and Muridke, headquarter complexes, not buildings, that were to be taken on by Indian Air Force.

So this was decided. Also when I say taken on by Indian Air Force, that doesn't mean that only Indian Air Force was to work towards that. All of us were working together, including naval assets were involved in – their weapons were used in these areas, where the agencies were involved. And in the planning, we were all the three services together along with other agencies.

So this plan was made, discussed, even the escalation metrics were made and discussed as to where can it lead to, what can happen, and if this happens, what is going to be our response. So it was a nicely planned effort and the date was decided. It was the sixth and seventh night, date and time. And it was decided based on weather, based on what pattern we were seeing across the border of their movements and their actions. And we decided that time. And we decided that it will be in one go we will address all nine targets. And like I said, Air Force was targeting these to the border.

So it was not that we could do something with small drones or weapons of small caliber. They were all nicely hardened structures. So we decided to go with long-range weapons to keep ourselves safe from their defenses, but at the same time, accurate weapons to get the targets while not causing any other damage to the areas around. And special emphasis throughout has been that there should be minimum civilian casualties who are not involved with this.

So, as far as Bahawalpur is concerned, this is how that complex looks on map. And if you look at it, there were some, DMPI is basically our point of impact that we decide where we are going to hit. So there were some buildings where we had intelligence of their senior leadership staying, some buildings where other people stay, and of course the main Marcas building where the congregations used to take place and all the training used to take place. So these points were decided. And I'll show you some of the pictures of what we achieved.

Now, before and after the attack, of course, these are satellite pictures and after the attack pictures are immediate pictures that we got. Before the attack pictures which have been built over a period of time. So you will find there is a clarity issue and there is a different kind of satellite which is giving you.

So here you can see the damage which is of course not coming out very clear in this but other pictures. Here, these two buildings, you can see the damage much clearly. Again another big set of buildings and you see the damage that is coming out. What I can show you here is there is hardly any collateral that you see. Of course, from that distance it is not very easy to make out, but still all the adjacent buildings are fairly intact. The buildings that were targeted were based on intelligence. And this is the main building of theirs, where the weapons have gone in and it's badly damaged.

Now, one thing which was good this time was that not only did we have the satellite pictures, we also had a lot of inputs from the local media which was giving us the inside pictures. These were areas that were open to public kind of areas. So there were a lot of people who were going in and out. So on the net we could get pictures like this and videos like this. This is the same building that I just showed you. So look at the damage that has been caused inside. It's all on the open net available. So I have also picked up from there. So this target was about 100 kilometers away from the border. We did not have a way to send BDA mission that far away. So the damage assessment has been done based on only the, or accuracy assessment has been done based on damage that we see on the pictures from the satellites and also what we got from the media.

As far as Muridke is concerned, this is what it was, the LeT headquarters. These are the two main buildings, these circles should be here on this building and this building and these two circles are in this area. This again is their, if I can say, the senior leadership's residential area where they were staying and these were their office building and their building where they used to get together to conduct their meetings.

This is one of the videos that we have because this was within our range. So we could get this video from the weapon itself. If you notice here, somewhere here was the first impact of the previous weapon. And if you see the next one, the video continues. You can see the smoke of the previous weapon somewhere here. And this weapon is for the main building, that big building that we see. That was the point of impact. And this is the damage that you see on the… they have sorted me out here, my team.

So, before attack, these were DMPI 3 and 4. And after the impact, it's not very clear. The display is not very clear. But I think the brightness of this big display is always an issue. So, this is the DMPI, this is the bomb that you saw in that video before. And we see on the main and one on the office building. Office building, you can see it's already decimated quite badly. Here you see just a pinprick. Let it be. It's just a pinprick here.

But I want to bring out something here. You know, when we did Balakot, we had something similar. I have a slide on that. You see here in Balakot also, we had similar, you know, the pinpricks being seen from the satellite pictures. And here in this building also, we see a similar kind of impact point. And in Balakot, we could not get anything from inside and it became a big issue trying to tell our own people, unfortunately our own people, as to what we have been able to achieve. We had intelligence of what has gone on inside. We had intelligence of human kind of intelligence where we had a very clear picture of inside in terms of there has been huge damage. There have been so many terrorists which have been neutralized. But we could not convince our own people that look we have achieved that. But the same again, a thing like this would have given us the same problem. But we were lucky and we got these videos on the open.

This is the same building from inside. You see the amount of damage that it has created. Because all these penetration weapons, the sound is from that video. they cause this kind of damage. From outside you get a feeling as if it's just a small hole. So I'm very happy that this time we were able to take care of that ghost of Balakot, that we were able to tell the world what we have achieved.

Coming back to Sindoor, again, after this what we did, we were able to -- so this was -- we were able to very clearly understand that we have achieved our objectives. Some similar damage was done all the other seven targets of the Army. We had the pictures very clear. We had the videos from here and there. We had our old intelligence reports. So when we were confident that we have been able to address what we wanted to address, A message was sent to their DGMO, through our DGMO, Director General Military Operations, that we don't mean to have anything to do with the military, in the sense our objective was only to strike the terrorist targets, to take the revenge of this, what they have done to us. And we have no military aspirations, no intent to attack any military targets. So we can call it off here.

But they unfortunately did not agree. They said no, we will take a call, you have hit us, now we will kill and then we will see and talk about it. These are the kind of words they spoke. So we continued to be cautious. We knew they will do something.

So that seventh night, seventh, eighth night, if I can call it, eighth night night, those two nights we had a lot of loiter munitions, drones, small scale weapons, some drones which were basically to saturate our systems at many of our airfields and many of the army installations that were spotted. Of course, that created a little bit of panic in the public around. The public around started spotting even low Earth orbit satellites and reporting them as drones. So the number of drones multiplied. Just imagine if there is a LEO satellite, let's say four or five of them, which are being spotted in one part of the city. For them, it will appear it is towards the east. and that chap reports, "I see four towards my east or very close to me towards this direction or right over me" or something like that. And same thing is reported by five more people in the same city from different corners because they all – it's like everybody reporting, "I've got one sun in my area," and we keep adding and say, "Oh, there are so many suns over there today." So that is what happened that night, those two nights.

So a lot of reports that we got were even these reports, and it was becoming very difficult to filter out. But our local commanders did exceptionally well. They were able to take charge of the situation and many of the actual ones were neutralized using our own anti-drone systems, using our own even anti-aircraft guns were used to neutralize some of those drones which came over us. And what happened was none of them, Many of them were not weaponized because when we realized that they were actually either they were doing some kind of survey or they wanted to saturate our system so that we can open our air defenses, open up our radars and they can get some **** from us. There were few of them which were weaponized and our anti-drone systems really worked very well and we were able to survive those attacks without a single damage to any of the installations.

And in response, we also sent our loiter munitions to some of their radar targets or SAGW targets which were close to our border. And we did achieve some success in that. Some of them of course, were sending videos back to us so we could get that, I mean, to the result immediately. Some of them, of course, we had to wait for our satellite imagery to come in. So we did achieve some success in that and we kept ourselves very calibrated. We did not want to escalate unnecessarily because for us, the immediate, the operation Sindoor, the objectives were to take care of terrorist camps and terrorist infrastructure, and that was taken care of.

So here is one of the videos that we have of a radar being attacked by one of our loiter munitions. This is the control cabin which has been attacked. I have cut it short a bit because after this it goes into where the system can be seen, which system we are operating, I want to not give out in open.

Some of the pictures of other radars, Arifwala, here after the radar attack, you can see there are suit marks here. Again, not very clear to a layman, but the specialists, when they analyze these pictures, they tell us what exactly the damage has been and it can be blown up in our own system. Similarly, Chunya radar, this is another the radar head which has been burned.

So once this was over, we got intelligence report on the night, night, that night evening I will say, that they are planning something big. And next 48 hours are very critical. And also, we also decided that if they attack any of our installations, military installations, we are going to reply with military attacking their military installations which matter to them. So since we already had our plans ready, this point was debated and both the CNC's involved, the air headquarter and other services, we had taken a call that since they are mostly attacking us by Air Force assets and my Air Force bases are under threat. We should respond without waiting in case this continues tonight also.

And sure enough, this time we had their attack on our airfields with not only just loiter munitions, some of long-range weapons. Their aircraft tried to penetrate our defenses. Our air defense systems have done a wonderful job. The S-400 system which we had recently bought has been a game changer. The range of that system has really kept their aircraft away from their weapons like long-range glide bombs that they have. They have not been able to use any one of those because they have not been able to penetrate the system. And during our first night, first sixth, seventh night, also, air defense system had ensured that when they did their repost, their fighter aircraft was threatened. At that time, they had come with some of those long-range weapons which they were able to penetrate into our defenses in Balakot time, if you remember, some of the bombs had fallen very close to the Army area. But this time, since we were ready to use our long-range weapons of surface-to-air guided weapons, they were deterred.

I think initially we found the buildup taking place, very massive buildup taking place, but once the first missile was fired from our side from the ground, we suddenly found that dissipation of that buildup. Also, we have some kills that we have got from our SAGW systems because every time you fire a weapon on a track, you do get a feedback as to whether it is to be treated as a kill or not because till when is that blip remaining and where is your missile going. So that I will talk about a little later.

So 9th and 10th night again, a large number of their attacks on most of our airfields. Airfields like Adampur, Srinagar, Avantapur, they took the brunt of it actually. And many other airfields, from North to South, they tried to penetrate various classes of drones including weaponized. We were able to neutralize most of their weapons by either countermeasures, some of them by using our air to air guns as well as the SGWs. Systems like Akash and all have taken down many of their loiter munitions which have come in, the weaponized ones. None of their aircraft could come anywhere near the boundaries of Akash and even MRSAM. All their aircraft were taken on by LRSAM because they were trying to stay away, but still they were within our ranges at times and that is the opportunity targets that we got.

As far as our offensive was concerned, so that night we held no holds bar, we didn't have any holds bar and we decided that we will go attack at pan front, we will stretch his resources and the idea was once again not to attack one particular A field and decimate that A field, the idea was to to give him that feeling or give him that indication that look, we can attack you deep inside at will wherever we want to.

So some of the places that were attacked, like this is a command and control center at their Noor Khan base. This is the after attack and this is before attack. Rahim Yar Khan base, this is based on specific intelligence, we had taken a call that here we have to attack the airfield. So the airfield was attacked and their building, the main building where their planning goes on which is also used as a civil terminal building also at times.

As far as Sukur Air Force is concerned, we attack their UAV hangar and the radar site. You have the visuals available here. This is the hangar which has been flattened and this is the radar site which is before and after. Bolari, again an AEWC hangar was attacked and here we have very clear hint that there was an aircraft in sight when this attack took place.

Sargodha, we have grown up in our Air Force, dreaming about days like this, someday we will chance to go there. So it just so happens that I got my chance just before I retired. So we attacked the airfield there because we had very hard info on F-16s taking off from there and the ones who were attacking us in Srinagar as well as in Adampur. So we took on the airfield there. Again, intentionally not taken on certain other installations in this airfield because of some kind of calculation by us that that may lead to unnecessary escalation.

And this is the last slide I have on this, that is the Shahbaz, the Jacobabad airfield, one of them again major airfield that was attacked and here there is an F-16 hangar which you can see here and here this is the photograph again from open source from one of their earlier picture of the same hangar and here that hangar which is one half of the hangar is gone and I am sure there were some aircraft inside which have got damaged there.

So if I can just sum it up, we were able to get there at least two command and control centers like Muridke and Chaklala that I have shown you one of the pictures, at least six radars, some of them big, some of them Bholari hangar of AEWNC and Jacobabad, the F-16 hangar. And we have indication of at least one AEWNC in that AEWC hangar and a few F-16s which were under maintenance there. Apart from these, the SAGW systems, mostly from, I am talking about fighter aircraft or from S-400, we have at least five fighters confirmed kills and one large aircraft which which could be either an ELINT aircraft or an AWMC aircraft, which was taken on at a distance of about 300 kilometers. This is actually the largest ever recorded surface-to-air kill that we can talk about. And apart from, of course, this, there are a large number of UAVs, drones, some of their missiles which have fallen in our territory. We have recovered a lot of wreckage from this which now is being studied so that we can make out what did they do, where were they launched from, who did they follow, what kind of system do they have, whether they have – I mean to say what generation those systems belong to, what all features do they have. So that study is going on and it is going on even in coordination with DRDO. If required, we will also take some other industries' help for that.

So I can say that it was more of a high-tech war which was fought. In about 88, 90 hours of war, we were able to achieve so much of damage to the system that it was very clear in their mind that in this current situation, if they continue, they are going to continue paying for it more and more. So they have come forward and sent a message again through DGMO that we want to talk about it, which was accepted from our side. And when I say our side is not just the Air Force, it's the joint decision that was taken and it was taken even at the highest level. Why was that accepted? There have been a lot of debates which are going on. I will touch about it a little during the continuing my talk.

So that actually brings me to the end of my slides. Now I want to talk about something like if I can say what were the reasons for success. One which I can think of is that there was political will. I am being very, very candid here, very open here because I hear various versions of it. I think if I tell you something, people will have to believe because I was there listening to everybody, attending every meeting. There was very clear political will, very clear directions which were given to us and there were no kind of restrictions which were put on it. Many people have spoken somewhere. Unfortunately, you know, everybody speaking about it. So there have been talks about was there any restriction, were you kept constrained. If there were any constraints, they were self-made. The forces decided what will be our rules of engagement. The forces decided what will be the escalation ladder that we want to ride on. We decided how we want to control the escalation. So I want to make it very clear. There were no, I repeat, no restrictions on us. Full freedom was given to us to plan and execute. I must say that our attacks have been calibrated because we wanted to be mature about it. A little bit on that I'll come to later.

There was synchronization between forces, all four of us, CDS, the three chiefs. I must say here that the post of CDS has made a difference there. He was there always to get us together, discuss things out, iron things out, wherever required. We all used to go to the senior leadership and discuss things out. NSA paid a very big role in getting all the other agencies and forces together. So there were so many meetings conducted, and whenever there was any doubt as to what next step. And most of the things that we did was before this event started, the Ops Indoor started, because we wanted to threadbare discuss what are the eventualities, what are the possible outcomes, what should be our reaction, how we should react. So when the operations were going on, it was just on telephone some calls telling them what we are doing. There was not much of discussion going on, should we do this now, what do we do now, what do I do? No, I had the full freedom.

And like I said, the way air headquarter team and the command headquarters, the way we work together, it was actually a dream come true. So when that, you know, these things were going on, the routine generally is very disturbed during that time because you don't know when the meeting will come up. So I used to come home once a day, just quick change and go back and sit there. I had made some arrangement to even sleep in my own office. So that evening, one day when I had – that was – we had gone for a night meeting. I had gone in overall. And I continued to be in that overall for next 48 hours. I never had time to come back home because there was something or the other happening. So I didn't want to leave my office or the company for even one minute. When I came back after those 48 hours, after having gone through that where we had taken a call that, okay, now we stop hostilities, there was so much sense of satisfaction. And most of it was actually from the way my Air Force had stood up together. That is what gave me more satisfaction than what we had achieved. The way we achieved gave me satisfaction.

Like Dr. Sunil has brought out, we keep talking about indigenization. Why do we talk about so much of having indigenous sources, having things within India? The kind of support that we got from all DPSUs and of course HAL becomes a very big part of that because maximum support comes from them. I must compliment them. My people came and told me that at one call things were moved. Wherever we needed anything, the teams were there. And they had pre-positioned some teams in anticipation. They had brought up some serviceability in anticipation. So this is how the nation has to come together if we have to fight a war. So these are the reasons that I thought were for our success.

Now, what are the takeaways? I think the biggest takeaway of this operation has been that the primacy of air power has come to forefront once again. People have come to realize that air power is the first responder that any country has, and air power is one which can actually react in a quick time, attack deep inside and attack with precision to just achieve your objective without any collateral. And that is one thing which is good that everybody has realized that. I can see the change when we meet amongst the three services, the way we discuss things now. Because when you – obviously, if I am in blue, I will always talk about air power and air power and air power. But when it comes from a person in green uniform or a white uniform, you feel so nice that there is understanding that it is intrinsic to all three services actually. Everybody needs this capability to be the first one. And I don't know when will we have a war where we will be requiring to straightaway go in for a land attack or a naval attack. I think there will always be requirement to first soften them with air power and that is what has been realized.

And there was a worry in our mind that air power means you are going way above in the escalation ladder. Actually, it is wrong. This time we used only air power and we have been able to start to stop the conflict in less than four days. So that is something which people have come to realize.

I was in the Global Chiefs Conference. There is some conference which takes place before this air show in UK. So just about two weeks back I was there and they had this conference where most of the Western chiefs and their representatives were speaking. They had some topics basically based on this current situation in the world and the conflicts that are going on, not even a word was spoken about our conflict. They just discussed Russia-Ukraine war or the Israeli, you know, Iran war or Hamas-Israel war. They talked a lot about how to deter war, how to avoid war. Not even one talked about how to terminate a war. So I feel this part is being forgotten there. The conflict termination is a very, very important part of any conflict. We can't afford to be continuously at war. We are meant to deter, I agree. If we can deter, it's nothing better than that. But if we are forced, if the war starts, whether it is whose initiative, it doesn't matter, we should be very clear that we have to reach a stage where we can terminate that so that we can get on with our routine, get on with the progress of the nation. So that conflict termination criteria has been forgotten by people.

I think when I was young, first thing that was taught to me, principles of war, selection and maintenance of aim. And people have just kept shifting their objectives and aims every now and then. People have got down to their egos in this world. And that is what is continuing, you know, continuously driving the conflict which is going on. I think we set a very good example. Our objective was very clear. Our objective was to teach the terrorists a lesson that they will think twice before doing something. Or they know what kind of price they can pay. And once we have achieved those objectives, we should look for all windows of opportunity to stop that. rather than just continuing. We were actually on a song that night. I hear from so many people. I don't want to say that, but some people very close to me have said, Aar maarna tha. I'm telling you that. But can we continue to be at war? No. Why should we be at war when we can avoid it or we can stop it? That is my way of looking. I think the nation has taken a very, very good decision. And we were a part of that decision, but it cannot be taken at our level. It has been taken at much higher level, but it was a good decision.

Now we have to make sure that we remain steadfast that should we need to again do something, we are not found wanting. But what to do, that call will be taken at much higher level.

Another takeaway that I see from here is we have been talking a lot about drones. drones, all the recent conflicts, drones have come into forefront and somehow I think we should not be drawing a wrong lesson. I'm worried about that part. Drones have very good means for many things, but I don't think just drones can win you war. You will require the bigger weapons, you will require long-range weapons, you will require the precision strike capability because drones are more of a nuisance or for very short range, small targets, you can use those. Even there is a lot of talk about manned unmanned. No, no, very soon manned flights will be a thing of the past and all that. I don't see anything happening in foreseeable future. Man will remain in the loop. You may have a lot of AI coming in, machine learning coming in, in helping the man take a decision. You may have a lot of things automated. But as a decision maker, man has to remain in the loop. And ethically so also. Tomorrow you can't blame the machine for taking a wrong decision. I don't know which machine will march in the court martial.

So I think we need to put in effort towards in all directions, not just in one. See, drone, because of smaller systems, because of easy to, I think, get things together, people are grabbing onto it, including some industry also. Of course, this is a good way, good platform for our startups to start from, but they should only use it as a stepping stone. They can't expect that just drones and everything else will just disappear or fade away.

Indigenization, I have already touched upon. I think indigenization is mandatory. We can't wish away. We have to make sure that we have in-house capability and capacity. I think capacity is very much important. We can't be storing things for – we can't predict how long the war is going to last. If we store items, they don't – they have life. We can't be just storing and then throwing them away. So we have to have a very healthy mix of keeping certain items available for immediate response and manufacturing capability, building up, ramping up within that period to a stage where they can support our effort. So that is something which has to happen for which everybody, all of us have to come together. I think I have spoken enough about it. So I will not delve more into this topic.

I thought since I have some 10 minutes more, so I have a mix of crowd here, a lot of people in uniform, a lot of people who are veterans, and of course there are some people from HAL and other people. So I'll cover certain points.

One point which is meant for actually veterans, it's come to my – I've realized that whenever somebody writes something about another service, that other service gets senti about it. And same thing is my own seniors message me, "Dekh kya bol rahai yeh?" "Look, what has he written?" I told you they will say like this. You know, that kind of thing starts. So I personally feel, we have always been talking about domain specialization. Air Force has been the, you know, it's been always been our call. Even when we talked about theater commands, we said domain domain specialization should remain. So I feel as veterans also let's write about our own domain more than others domain so that others don't feel hurt. And especially if somebody else has written and then the comments start back and forth, it becomes very awkward. People think as - aapas mein ladte rahte hain - It's actually not learned. It is discussion. But at times it crosses that healthy limit and that goes into an awkward situation. So this is the request I wanted to make to everybody who is writing, who is expressing opinion.

You express opinion about people in blue or what is happening, what should be done. I think it will be always taken with good spirit. We are always looking for that opinion from you all. And it has been guiding us on many occasions. Sometimes maybe that opinion of yours has been taken, but we have not reacted to it. I am sure there are cases like that. But then you have to give me this thing that now that I am in that chair, I know what is happening around me. I have to take some decisions there. I have to live with people around. So it's like, you know, I sometimes I've also heard, again I'm getting carried away, there is media here. No, no, I'll tell you, people have said about some other officer. No, no, look what he said here. Can't you tell him this? You should. I say, yes, sir, I will. And after two days, I meet the same person. He says, did you tell him in clear words or no? So once I had to give him an example. I said, sir, how many times have you been able to tell something in clear words to your wife? So in our case also, it is like marriage. We have to manage that relationship. So I have to send some subtle hints. I have to give some diplomatic kind of statement here and there in front of that person to tell him that, look, you are stepping up a little beyond, you should not be saying this. But when it comes to my own people, my own mentors, I think I can be very open about it. That is what I am doing today. I am requesting that all of us in blue, let us write more about our own system than the others, and let's get our own house in order. I think that is the best way to move forward.

And also I have said it in one of the previous veterans conference or something that you are the ones who have chosen me so please have confidence that's all I can say and I can promise you from my team people who are in uniform as of now, we will not let you down. We will try our best, do our best. Okay. So please have confidence that we will do our job.

I have a few points that I am covering now are actually meant for people in uniform, but I actually thought there will be more veterans here. So I'll just inform you all what we've been focusing on. But since there are people in blue and many of them, Some of them may have heard me saying this earlier, but many of them may not have.

You know, very important to keep the synergy and harmony within any force. We need to be together in one group, as one team. We can't be divided into various branches, sections, trades. We can't be doing that. We all have to go as one team. Whether it's an AC somewhere doing some technical job or a chief of airstaff doing some other job. Everybody has a role to play. And we all are a part of a big chain, you can say. So we are all links of that chain. And when we are under stress that chain is loaded, it will break from the weakest link. So we need to make sure that all links are strong. Firstly, I should not be that weaklink. I won't let the chain break. And secondly, I will not let anybody else become weak whom I can support. And that is how we should live and operate. Keep watching each other's back. Keep supporting each other. No loose talk about somebody else.

There can be bad apples in any kind of basket. They can be black sheep in any family. They can be a wrong person in any group. It is not that you know, "Chiddiya wala hai toh yu aise hoga, ya nahi wala hai toh yase hoga, AEL wala hai toh aise hoga, M wala aise hoga." Nothing like that. We all come from the same society. Yes, little bit of grooming changes us, the way we operate, but that is also required sometimes. But if you have a person who is not performing, if you have a person with whom you've had a not so good experience, you challenge that person, you counsel that person, identify him, talk to him, her, him or her. But don't make a loose statement about a group that really brings down the morale. If I am, let's say I am a youngster in a squadron and I am putting in my hundred percent to do my job and somebody makes a loose statement … I will not like it so whenever you get a feeling that somebody else you know we think at work also the whole labor force is only standing on my I am the only one working, everybody else is having a ball when we look around. But it is not. They will be. Somebody is working at 80% efficiency, somebody is 85, somebody is gifted, somebody is not gifted. But is there a commitment there or not? If there is lack of commitment, lack of motivation, that is what we should build. Talent will build over a period of time. But support each other.

There is a need to get into each other's shoes to know how much they pinch. We started with our cohesion day for that reason, that know about each other's job, know about each other's domains, know about each other's working environment, what pressures are they working in. Once we do that, we will be better force. And like I said, what is being achieved is important, But how it is being achieved is more important. If you achieve something by, you know, by lagoing dunda here and then and just passing your one year or two years of tenure, yes you have achieved but you have broken down that system. But if you achieve something, maybe 80% of what you could have achieved by the other method. But getting from within, people motivated work, people doing their job on their own, willingly contributing, then that system will last forever. And maybe from 80 percent it will go up to 90, 100 percent someday. That is more important, I feel. And that is what I have been telling this young sir.

So I think my time is over. All I want to say is let us all be good human beings first, a good citizen, a good member of the society. That is first requirement. Let's all contribute towards the society where we come from. Let's all pay back something. Then let's be good warriors, good soldiers, and then let's be good professionals. There is no point having good professionals who are not good soldiers or not good human beings or citizens. Thank you for your patient listening. Thank you sir for inviting me here. Jai Hind