Part of: GS Prelims and GS -II – Policies and interventions and GS-III – Defence and security
In news
The Union Defence Minister has approved a policy on archiving, declassification, compilation and publication of war and operations histories by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
A policy on declassification of war histories was recommended by the Kargil Review Committee headed by K Subrahmanyam as well as the N.N. Vohra Committee.
Timely publication of war histories would give people accurate account of the events, help in academic research and counter the baseless rumours.
Key takeaways
A committee shall be formed for compilation of war and operations histories headed by Joint Secretary, MoD.
According to the policy, records should ordinarily be declassified in 25 years.
Records older than 25 years should be appraised by archival experts and transferred to the National Archives of India after compilation.
The compiled history on wars and operations, within five years, will be for internal consumption first.
Later the committee may decide to publicly release considering the sensitivity of the subject,
Declassification of older wars like the 1962 war will be taken up on case by case basis by a committee to be constituted under the new policy.
