This sounds equally crazy, jaan pehechan my foot !, we have on numerous
occassions seen these exercises on many islands where jawans and paraphernalia,
including tanks, BMP,s, jeeps etc have been off loaded during landing exercises
and with serious ecological consequences, plastic, beer bottles, silver foil
eating plates, and poached turtle nests, turtle nests compacted by heavy vehicle
movement, young tree,s uprooted and or damaged due to such vehicular movement on
the beach, jawans scribbling their graphiti on trees with the name of the naval
ship as a momentous landing on a beach after serving time in kashmir or
kasshipur or wherever, and of course fraternising with local islanders in the
nicobars and bartering booze for all kind of favours, and then discovering that
soem islands are good to take mem sahibs out for an evening out on a ,pristine,
beach, and then others to launch missiles at or from, and then for firing
practice, landing exercises on
easily beachable coasts etc etc etc-
- every new posting will have the need for jaan pehechan and kachua ki anda khao
aur jaán bachao behaviour! The defence is also know for its penchant for curios
and momentos of giant clam, turtle carapaces, pieces of burr wood, dried out
wood from beaches to serve as drift wood decos in their houses and elsewhere. if
after more than 50 years of independence, the defence still does not know the
land as good as indian fishermen, burmese or indonesians and thais, it goes to
show what jaan pehechan actually happens.
Im sure the defence forces can be a lot more innovative- the maritime patrols
they do are good - and they have the capability of doing better with existing
infrastructure- my worry is of the ensuing damage we are going to witness just
for the sake of jaan pehechaan, andaman dekho, tribal dekho and samundar dekho
type of exercises

Manish



--- On Wed, 2/4/09, Sanjib Kumar Roy <sanjuonroad@...> wrote:

> From: Sanjib Kumar Roy <sanjuonroad@...>
> Subject: [andamanicobar] Andaman Nicobar Command launches ‘Operation Jaan
Pehechan’ in Andamans
> To: andamanicobar@...
> Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 3:35 PM
> Andaman Nicobar Command launches `Operation Jaan
> Pehechan' in Andamans
>
> Source: www.andamansheekha.com / Sanjib Kumar Roy
>
> Port Blair, Feb 04: Once bitten twice shy. After being
> criticized by
> media for failing to check various intrusion attempts of
> poachers and
> migrants in Andaman Sea recently, defence forces in Andaman
> and
> Nicobar Islands has launched `Operation Jaan Pehechan',
> to know all
> the un-inhabitant islands of these far flung islands.
> Andaman and
> Nicobar Islands have altogether 572 small and big islands,
> out of
> which only 36 are inhabited while others are vulnerable for
> all kind
> of terrorist activities and largely remain unnoticed.
>
> "Recently we have launched Operation Jaan Pehechan, in
> which we take
> our men and leave them in any of the uninhabited islands
> for some
> days, so that they get themselves familiar with the
> geographical
> conditions of the lonely Islands," Commander Abhinav
> Barve, the
> Public Relations Officer of Andaman and Nicobar Command
> told `Media'
> yesterday, during an informal interaction.
>
> This special operation is being carried out to ensure quick
> response
> by defence forces in case of any terrorist group try to
> capture any
> uninhabited island of this remote Union Territory.
>
> "The point is our men should have a clear idea of each
> and every
> uninhabited Island so that quick action could be taken. We
> are
> carrying out couple of such exercises under `Operation Jaan
> Pehechan'
> every week," the PRO added.
>
> Recently several batches of Rohingya migrants had entered
> Andaman Sea
> in non-mechanized boat and were reportedly drifting for
> weeks in
> Andaman region without being detected by Coast Guard or
> Indian Navy.
> A few batches had landed in lonely islands and were later
> rescued.
>
> A recent letter issued by Home Ministry for Andaman and
> Nicobar
> Administration had also warned possible intrusion attempt
> of LeT to
> capture some lonely islands of Andaman to set up terrorist
> base.
>
> "The soldiers of ANC have already covered several
> isolated islands in
> the region since the operation was launched" Commander
> Barve said
> adding that `Operation Jaan Pehechan' is a continuous
> operation",
> Barve added.