Unwitting saviour Managing a battlefield

With reference to “How red tape over a dengue vaccine avoided a health crisis” by Abhineet Kumar & Veena Mani (December 5), to think that the World Health Organisation (WHO) — that “final arbiter in matters concerning global health” — goofed up would send shivers up anyone’s spine! The whole world, especially the developing countries, looks up to WHO for endorsement of new medicines, vaccines, national health care practices and disease eradication campaigns. Everyone considers its opinion and comments as the last word in matters concerning universal health. For WHO to have approved a mass vaccine, obviously without adequate testing, is nothing short of sacrilege; something that raises doubts, both about its impartiality as well as ability to pronounce decisions in matters of life and death.

Of course, all this does not in any way absolve Sanofi Pasteur, one of the largest and best known manufacturers of pharmaceutical products, from responsibility and the crisis caused in the Philippines. Its negligence has caused untold misery to 730,000 people, mostly children, who were administered the suspect vaccine. They are likely to suffer for no fault on their part, or even any that of their government. That country launched a huge immunisation campaign that hinged on a vaccine from a top manufacturer and carried the stamp of WHO approval. Many children would die. No amount of compensation from Sanofi can make up for the grievous harm done to the unsuspecting people.

Only a total ban on Sanofi and summary dismissal of all those concerned with the matter at WHO might meet the demands of social justice. India can only take sadistic and morbid pleasure in having avoided an even bigger disaster because our people sat on the case and the “red tape” kept the files tied shut!

Krishan Kalra Gurugram for once IT bellwether Infosys. The path ahead of him and Nandan Nilekani is anything but rosy, hence they will have to hit the ground running from the word go. And since Parekh comes with the solid experience of turning business around in Capegemini, such qualities will come more than handy in his new role. The board and founders need to give him not only a free hand but also a long rope so that he can do justice to his assignment. Infosys founder Narayana Murthy must put all the issues on Panaya acquisition, Vishal Sikka’s exit and the former CFO’s severance package behind. Parekh needs to maintain a good rapport with all stakeholders. Has he to steer the ship out of troubled waters and also ensure that with growing competition from the likes of Accenture or Google, besides oldies such as TCS, Infosys emerge winner.

Bal Govind Noida With reference to “A test for the defence minister” by Ajai Shukla (December 5), an effective Land Battlefield Management System (BMS) is a must today to win wars. It helps to create situational awareness real-time, throughout the corps battle zone. This helps to remove the “fog of war” and discern the enemy’s intentions correctly through dispersed analysis of the battlefield inputs. Successful battle operations have to be “intelligence analysis” driven using all our diverse sourcing of battlefield indications in order not to be misled, or to be the victim of too much caution delaying decision-making. The US Army has BMS terminals right down to the infantry company and armour squadron level to create networked synergy and flexible re-grouping and employment of forces swiftly, to meet battlefield requirements. This may not be required in our case, but having full-fledged two-way BMS terminals down to the infantry battalion, armour combat group and artillery fire direction centre levels, which feed inputs from the entire corps battle zone, is a must to achieve supremacy. One has only to study the conduct of the land battle in Chhamb sector in the 1971 and 1965 wars to understand how the battle was lost due to delays in decision-making at the division HQ and corps HQ levels. Rumours carried the day, which resulted in the permanent loss of territory west of the Munawar Tawi. The same type of errors occurred repeatedly in the battles of Tawang, Se-la, Bomdi-la and Walong that we lost during the 1962 SinoIndian War due to lack of a rustic BMS.

J K Achuthan Thiruvananthapuram