Monday, April 4 2005 16:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Maintaining that the "most potent threats" to the country were not from conventional wars but from terrorism, insurgency and nuclear and missile threats, the Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee today (Apr 4, 2005) asked the armed forces to prepare for better border, airspace and maritime management.

While asserting that India was moving towards solution of all outstanding issues with both its neighbours Pakistan and China by promoting Confidence Building Measures, he cautioned that there was a need to guard against the use of softer borders to promote subversion and terrorism.

Addressing bi-annual Army commanders conference in New Delhi, for the first time the Defence Minister made an open call for manpower reduction in the armed forces expressing concern that large part of defence budget allocation was taken up by manpower expenditure.

Mukherjee said that there should be a move for a smaller "tail" in the Army, whereby, meaning that action should be initiated to prune support elements in the armed forces.

Elaborating on the unconventional threats, the Minister said that at the low end such threats were coming from terrorism, insurgency, religious fundamentalism, arms smuggling and at higher end of the spectrum from nuclear and missiles threats and weapons of mass destruction.

While saying that situation in Jammu and Kashmir had shown perceptible change towards the better with the cease-fire long the Line of Control (LoC) holding, except for few violations, Mukherjee said that security forces needed to be alert, as the terrorist infrastructure along the LoC remained still intact.