The Hindu : Raman Puri takes over as CIDS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003

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National

Raman Puri takes over as CIDS

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI OCT. 20. A naval officer, Raman Puri, today took over as Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff (CIDS).

The CIDS is half-a-step towards a unified military command at the top level. The original intention was to appoint a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), a five-star general who being superior to all the three service chiefs (four-star generals) was to serve as the single point adviser to the Government on all military matters and thereby iron out the ``disjointedness'' and hints of inter-services rivalry observed during the Kargil conflict.

However, the Government put off the appointment of a CDS and restricted itself to creating the post of his deputy or the Vice-Chief of Defence Staff (VCDS). The first VCDS was Pankaj Joshi, an Army officer, and the post was renamed as CIDS.

Vice-Admiral Puri becomes the second CIDS after Lt. Gen Joshi. The appointment of a naval officer now is intended to symbolise the integrated tri-service character of the office of Integrated Defence Staff (IDS).

Other major posts in the IDS are distributed among all the three services. The logo integrating the respective logos of the Army, Air Force and the Navy is also symbolic of the move towards integration at the higher defence level. The two-year-old IDS now handles perspective planning and has prepared long and medium term modernisation plans for all the three services.

As a first step towards bringing down the barriers amomg the services, the IDS also prepared a report suggesting integration and better utilisation of all training institutes now in the domain of different services.

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