Doval, Rajnath to attend terror seminar
NEW DELHI: National Security Advisor Ajit K Doval, Union home minister Rajnath Singh, defence minister Manohar Parikkar, railway minister Suresh Prabhu, Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje Scindia, former army chiefs of Sri Lanka and Nepal, official representatives from US government and top global think tanks - with a power packed star cast, the first Counter Terrorism Conference in Jaipur, which kicks off from Thursday, is all set to be a big foreign policy and security event.
And one of the reasons behind the weight of the event is that it is being organised by the India Foundation, with Prabhu, BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav, and chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee RN Ravi on the organising committee among others. The IF, along with the Vivekananda International Foundation, is a think-tank closely associated with the ruling BJP and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and has come to increasingly have a policy impact.
Officially, the event is being organised in concert with the Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice, Jodhpur, which is a set up of the Rajasthan government. IF officebearers told HT that there is no other ‘direct involvement of either the central or Rajasthan government’. But the close interface with the ruling dispensation is hard to miss. Besides the ministers who serve on the IF board, the NSA’s son Shaurya Doval serves as a key figure in the thinktank.
On Thursday, ex-Sri Lankan army chief Sarath Fonseka will deliver a special lecture; so will Amrullah Saleh, former director of the National Directorate of Security in Afghanistan.