The Jantar Mantar, Jaipur is a collection of 19 astronomical instruments built by the Rajput king Sawai Jai Singh, the founder of Jaipur, Rajasthan. The monument was completed in 1734. It features the world's largest stone sundial, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is near City Palace and Hawa Mahal. The instruments allow the observation of astronomical positions with the naked eye. The observatory is an example of the Ptolemaic positional astronomy which was shared by many civilizations.
Jantar Mantar is located in the modern city of New Delhi. "Jantar Mantar" means "instruments for measuring the harmony of the heavens". It consists of 13 architectural astronomy instruments. The site is one of five built by Maharaja Jai Singh II of Jaipur, from 1723 onwards, revising the calendar and astronomical tables. Jai Singh, born in 1688 into a royal Rajput family that ruled the regional kingdom, was born into an era of education that maintained a keen interest in astronomy. There is a plaque fixed on one of the structures in the Jantar Mantar observatory in New Delhi that was placed there in 1910 mistakenly dating the construction of the complex to the year 1710. Later research, though, suggests 1724 as the actual year of construction. Its height is 723 feet (220 m).
Shabeg Singh, PVSM, AVSM, was a Major General who had previously served in the Indian Army but later joined the revolution movement of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
Pay Commission is set up by Government of India, and gives its recommendations regarding changes in salary structure of its employees set up in 1947, Since India's Independence, seven pay commissions have been set up on a regular basis to review and make recommendations on the work and pay structure of all civil and military divisions of the Government of India. Headquartered in Delhi (India), the commission is given 18 months from date of its constitution to make its recommendations.
Raja Rao Inderjit Singh Yadav is an Indian politician and a Minister of State in the Government of India. He is also a member of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament. He represents the Gurgaon constituency in Haryana and is a member of Bharatiya Janata Party. He is also a descendant of Rao Tula Ram, a freedom fighter and a ruler of the historical state of Rewari.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government relating directly to national security and the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the ceremonial commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the country. The Ministry of Defence provides policy framework and resources to the armed forces to discharge their responsibility in the context of the defence of the country. The Indian Armed Forces and Indian Coast Guard under the Ministry of Defence are primarily responsible for ensuring the territorial integrity of India.
The Sixth Central Pay Commission was convened by the Union Cabinet of India on 5 October 2006. The Pay Commission was headed by B. N. Srikrishna. The other members of the Commission were Ravindra Dholakia, J. S. Mathur, and Member-Secretary Sushama Nath.
General Vijay Kumar Singh, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, ADC is an Indian politician and a former four-star General in the Indian Army. He is the current Minister of State in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and Ministry of Civil Aviation in the Second Modi ministry. He previously served as Minister of State for External Affairs, Minister of State for Development of the North-Eastern Region and Minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation in the First Modi ministry.
Western Command is a Command-level formation of the Indian Army. It was formed in 1920. It was disbanded following its demotion to an independent district and eventual merge with Northern Command to form the North-western Army. It was re-raised in 1947 following the transfer of Northern Command HQ to Pakistan. Until 1972, it was responsible for India's border with Pakistan in the North and West and the Chinese border in the North. The Command HQ is in Chandimandir, Haryana, about 5 km east of Chandigarh.
United Service Institution of India (USI) is a national security and defence services think tank based in New Delhi, India. It describes its aim as the "furtherance of interest and knowledge in the art, science and literature of the defence services".
Rajesh Gangwar is a socialist, who believes in nonviolence. Born and raised in a small village of Bareilly,(Uttar Pradesh) he became an engineer, but left his career after becoming interested in social movements. He has been on several hunger strikes to protest against the harassment of women.
The Adjutant-General of the Indian Army is the senior administration officer who reports to the Chief of Army Staff and is also the Colonel of the Corps of Military Police and Judge Advocate General.
Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare is a department in the Ministry of Defence, India. It was set up in 2004. The head of Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare since its inception has been a bureaucrat from the IAS. Veteran have for long demanded that DEWS be headed by a serving officers or a retired officer, like in other countries, including the United States, in which the Department of Veterans, is invariably headed by veteran with active duty military experience, with a cabinet rank. For instance the current head of the department is graduate of West Point, and has served in the army.
One Rank One Pension (OROP), or "same pension, for same rank, for same length of service, irrespective of the date of retirement", is a longstanding demand of the Indian armed forces and veterans. The demand for pay-pension equity, which underlies the OROP concept, was provoked by the exparte decision by the Indira Gandhi-led Indian National Congress (INC) government, in 1973, two years after the historic victory in the 1971 Bangladesh war.
Gurbaksh Singh Khalsa was an Indian Sikh civil rights activist, demanding the release of Sikh prisoners from various jails in India.
Rank Pay is a scheme implemented by the Rajiv Gandhi led Indian National Congress (I) Government in 1986, in the wake of 4th Central Pay Commission (4CPC), that reduced the basic-pay, or grade pay, of seven armed officers ranks of 2nd Lieutenant, Lieutenant, captain, majors, lt-colonel, colonels, and brigadiers, and their equivalent in the Air Force and the Navy by fixed amounts designated as 'rank-pay'. The reduction in the basic-pay, the established basis of determining rank equivalences between armed forces officers and civilian and police counterparts, altered long established historical grade-pay equivalences or parities between armed forces officers and police officer, which was an accepted principle since 1947 for determination of armed forces grade pay, and which was 'further cemented' in 1973, by the 3 Central Pay Commission (3CPC). The reduction in grade-pay apart from causing asymmetries in rank equivalence between the officers from the Indian Police Service and armed forces affected the basic pay, allowances, entitlements, promotion prospects, status, and pension of thousands of officers in the service in January 1986, and the decades after that. In 2012, reduction in armed forces grade-pay, which was a subject of litigation since 1994, was declared illegal by the Supreme Court of India, which in a landmark judgement ordered the government to pay arrears to the more than 20,000 affected officers of the armed forces.
Defence pensions are pensions paid from the Defence Services Estimates. Approximately 36 percent of amount budgeted for defence pensions is on account of defence civilians. The Defence pension bill for 2015–2016 was ₹ 54,500 crores, including pension outlay for about 400,000 defence civilians, and about Rs1000 Crores on account of allowances and establishment of Ministry of Finance personnel attached to MOD. On an average a defence civilian pensioners cost five times lesser than military pensioner. The per capita expenditure on defence civilians is approximately Rs. 5.38 Lakhs annually, in comparison with ₹ 1.38 Lakhs a year for defence pensioners paid from the defence services estimates. The per capita bill on account of defence civilian pensioners is higher mainly because they serve longer, reach the highest grades in the pay scales, are eligible for One Rank, One Pension (OROP) pensions, and are and host of allowance]. As of August 2021, SPARSH(Raksha) Pension Administration has been established under DBT(Direct Benefit Transfer) to reduce the Grievances of the Pensioners & to increase transparency Payment to Pensioners.
The 7th Central Pay Commission (7CPC), constituted in February 2014 the principles and structure of emoluments of all central government civilian employees including defence forces in India, submitted its report on 19 November 2015. 7CPC's recommendations affects the organization, rank structure, pay, allowances and pension, of 13,86,171 armed forces personnel. This helps A salary monitoring system is designed to determine and suggest needed changes to the salaries of government employees.page 105, para 6.2.2[3]
Agnipath Scheme is a tour of duty style scheme approved by the Government of India on 14 June 2022, for recruitment of soldiers below the rank of commissioned officers into the three services of the armed forces. All recruits will be hired only for a four year period. Personnel recruited under this system are to be called Agniveers (transl. Fire-Warriors), which will be a new military rank. The introduction of the scheme has been criticised for lack of consultation and public debate. The scheme was implemented in September 2022.
In January 2023, Indian wrestlers began protesting for investigation into the allegations of sexual harassment of female wrestlers by BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh during his tenure as the president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI). The female wrestler complainants accuse Bhushan of groping, touching breasts and navels without consent, stalking, intimidation, and demanding "sexual favours" in exchange for professional help, all of which has led to a "shared sense of fear and trauma" among the women wrestlers. Bhushan has denied all allegations in front of a government appointed committee.
