Defence Minister and PM's role in Army Chief birth year controversy

The UPA government is headed by Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister and he has AK Anthony as one of his senior colleagues holding Defence portfolio. Both are known to be low profile individuals of impeccable integrity and honesty. But, unfortunately, both have a record of laissez faire and being slow in decision-making, often doing much damage to competent governance. The current controversy regarding the birth date of the Army Chief Gen. VK Singh is a classic example of that drift and letting key decisions to drag on excessively, resulting in an unprecedented situation of confrontation between civilian leadership and the army establishment in which the army chief is forced to approach the apex court for justice to protect his honour and integrity in the face of an insensitive and obdurate government. The issue of the birth year of of Gen. VK Singh has been pending for many months but the Defence Minister and the Prime Minister in their strange and inexplicable wisdom clearly let the defence bureaucrats mess up things, instead of looking at the facts as produced by the army chief about his correct birth year(1951 and not 1950) sympathetically and dispassionately. Thus, the issue has been allowed to be debated in the media for a long time making a laughing stock of our official functioning. What could and should have been sorted out quietly appeared as a matter of needless conflict and controversy causing immense heart-burning in the disciplined, dedicated, patriotic defence class.

One wonders what is good of top leaders of the government enjoying a reputation of honesty and incorruptability if they are not prompt, decisive and sensitive to do the right thing at the right time.