AFVOA Newsletter 03 of 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 03 / 2020 Page 117 of 167 Brig KK Mehta who was the Director duly interviewed me. His deputy was Col S Mishra, who was an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur. I was directed to report to Lt Col PS Venkateswaran who was the Assistant Director (Planning) {AD (P)}, with whom I had to work. Only then did I realize, that all these officers were from EME. I was to discover that there was one more officer from Signals, besides an officer from the Air Force, all others were from EME, and we had a couple of civilian officers also. There were four laboratories or establishments whose work we were coordinating. They were, Electronics Research and Development Establishment (LRDE), Bangalore, Defence Electronics and Research Laboratory (DLRL), Hyderabad, Himalayan Research Project Unit (HRPU), Dehra Dun and the Solid-State Physics Laboratory (SSPL) at Delhi. The HRPU was later upgraded and was renamed Defence Electronics Applications Laboratory (DEAL). There were ten sections in the Directorate, and a major or equivalent officer headed each section. I was designated as Deputy Assistant Director (DAD) and was to oversee the section RD 1. We were to co-ordinate all the administrative matters of all the establishments within the Directorate. Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. ~ Henry Ford Babu Jagjivan Ram who was the Defence or Raksha Minister, and more commonly referred to as RM, used to chair a weekly high-level meeting. This was known as the RM’s Monday morning meeting. The officials who attended the Meet were, the three chiefs – Army, Navy and Air Force, the three secretaries – Defence, Defence Production and Defence Supplies, the Scientific Adviser to the Raksha Mantri (SA to RM), and the Financial Adviser (FA) to the Ministry. Babuji himself, and the other two ministers – The Minister for State (MoS) also referred to Raksha Rajya Mantri or RRM and the Minister for Defence Production (MDP) also known as Raksha Utpadan Mantri (RUM) formed part of the meeting. The minutes were classified and distribution of the same was restricted to only the above persons.