AFVOA Newletters of Year 2004

Page 12 of 153 up. He snatched the rifle from the insurgent, shot him and the other two dead. Despite his fatal wound, he coaxed and inspired his men and successfully cleared the ambush. 37. The officer thus displayed outstanding courage and exemplary leadership with utter disregard to his personal safety. His supreme sacrifice led to the capture of many insurgents and substantial quantity of arms and ammunition. His daring conduct was an example to his men. For this gallant act extending beyond the call of duty, Maj Ramaswamy Parameswaran was awarded Param Vir Chakra posthumously on the Republic Day in 1988. He has been the first recipient of PVC in independent India and the only recipient of this gallantry award for the regiment http://mod.nic.in/samachar/html/ch4.htm 38. Lt-Gen. V. R. Raghavan (retd) has written a book titled “Siachen — Conflict Without End”. The book has been published by Viking Penguin Books. A review of the same by Shri J.N. Dixit, a former Foreign Secretary is appended below for your reading pleasure. 39. THE Indo-Pakistan conflict in the Siachen area on the northern edge of Jammu and Kashmir has been a point of attention since 1983. The confrontation has also been the subject matter of negotiations between Pakistan and India between 1986 and 1992. The negotiations were for mutual re-deployment of forces from their present adversarial locations. The military standoff at Siachen has also been the subject matter of comment and analysis over the years. It constituted one of the important and separate items on the agenda of Foreign Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan, particularly between 1988 and 1997. Despite the official and non-official attention the analyses and writings on the subject have been episodic and fragmented. 40. Lieut-General Raghavan has at last remedied this shortcoming by writing this book on all facets of the Siachen conflict since its inception. General Raghavan has unquestionable credentials to write on the subject. He has served as the commander of the Indian armed forces in the Siachen sector and has dealt with high-level strategic and military negotiations on the Siachen issue in the early 1990s as Director-General, Military Operations. 41. The book, which has been divided into three parts, fills a much-regretted gap in India’s recent military history in the study of Indo-Pakistan relations in recent years and Indian security studies. While the first part dealing with the history and genesis of the conflict contains four chapters, the second part dealing with military conflict consists of seven chapters. The third part contains six chapters, which deal with attempts at the resolution of this conflict. 42. The first 44 pages of the book contain a succinct description of the geography of the region and historical explorations therein, beginning from the early 19th century. More