Taking all these things into consideration, we have also to take note of the Pakistan problem, because, naturally, the friendship of Pakistan with China certainly means that the entire northern border, including the international border with West Pakistan, the border with East Pakistan and the entire northern border, become a live problem for us. That means, we get our army and our defence preparedness committed everywhere. But we had taken risks, we had taken note of the threat of China, and we were, really speaking, taking steps towards that direction for the last year or so. But, Pakistan, in the last few months, has tried to make the cease-fire line and the international border more hot and more alive by undertaking more acts of encroachment, more acts of firing and more raids both in the Western sector and the Eastern sector. I am only mentioning this position because when we are planning, we have to take all these factors into consideration. And when this problem becomes a long-term problem, we will have to prepare ourselves for continuous progress, progress and preparedness in phases. If anybody just gets up and asks me solutions for all the problems for all time to come, possibly I may not be able to give all the answers, but that does not mean that we are not making any preparations. When we say that we are trying to plan for a certain thing, the very concept of planning is a process of fixing up priorities: Naturally, we have to have certain priorities.

I must admit here, before I go to the other aspects of the problem that in the present preparations for this year or a year or two, naturally the Navy has to take lower place. I am trying to invite the attention of Shri Raghunath Singh, who is some sort of specialist on the problems of the Navy. Naturally, the Navy has its own importance, and its own role in the defence of the country, taking into consideration the long coast line of the country and also the development of other navies around us. We will no doubt have to take note of that, and see in course of time that we develop our Navy as a balanced force. We will do that. Certainly we are trying to replace our ageing ships, and to reach some sort of agreement with a foreign company to build frigates in our own country. Also, we arc trying to secure a submarine for our training purposes. But, at the same time, we must reconcile ourselves to the situation that in the development of the three services, the Navy will have to take a lower place.

That is obvious. Sometimes it is necessary to emphasize the obvious to make the whole position clear. In the case of the Army, as mentioned in my speech last year, our commitment was for its expansion and for its modernisation.

I then gave the information to the House that we wanted to raise six more mountain divisions. That is the reorientation of strategy when we said that we not merely wanted to expand the Army, but we wanted to introduce certain new methods of tactics; when we said that we wanted to raise mountain divisions, it meant that we wanted to introduce an element of mobility in the divisions and at the same time introduce training so that our troops would be able to fight at high altitudes and in mountainous terrain more effectively. At the same time we wanted to provide higher or more fire power to the troops. This could be done only by introducing new weapons. By modernisation of the army, I meant providing them with new types of vehicles, weapons with higher fire power, and better communications system.