why do the Indian armed forces slavishly use the same uniforms and titles (brigadier or major general, admiral etc) and row of medals on the chest as the Europeans? Can’t they be a bit original and opt for something uniquely Indian?

TO be frank, I have no idea why, when we can adopt the British system of education, parliament, railways ..why not army titles? Morover, the Indian touch to it comes in the form of Param Vir Chakra, Mahavir Chakra, Keerti Chakra and others. Along with Brigadier, Colonel and major – there are havildar, naik, lance naik, subedar and Sepoy.

ANd finally SIkh regiment, Jat regiment, Bihar regiment, Gorkha Rifles, Rajputana rifles, Rajput regiment and so on…..
What’s so slavish about it?

Pity you dismiss the Pentagon’s assessment of Kargil. The Pentagon is the world’s ultimate fighting machine and surely their opinion matters – not that of the two squabbling Asian neighbours fighting each other with European weapons.

Really, your arguments seem very educated till one reads through them a second time.

Until 1990, the United States provided military aid to Pakistan to modernize its conventional defensive capability. The United States allocated about 40% of its assistance package to non-reimbursable credits for military purchases, the third-largest program behind Israel and Egypt. The remainder of the aid program was devoted to economic assistance. Sanctions put in place in 1990 denied Pakistan further military assistance due to the discovery of its program to develop nuclear weapons.

And that extract was from here.

It is a truth universally known that India and Pakistan were fighting the Cold War by proxy. While Pakistan got the Yankee money, India hobnobbed with the Bolsheviks. While Pakistani kids got Coca Cola, Indian kids got Misha and Soviet Union.

While this is not intended to start a Indo Pak gun battle on UD space, I just wanted to clear your misplaced view of world history.

Besides, your quip about Pentagon being the world’s ultimate fighting machine has had me shaking in mirth.

Calling them terrorist is hardly fair – terrorist to whom? Have they got an objective?

I really have no dog in this argument but did you seriously, with a straight face, say that it’s “unfair” to call the LTTE a terrorist group?

And oh, thank you for your comments.