Meddling With Arms Despite a government ban, arms middlemen thrive in India Deepak Parvatiyar ( An edited version was published in 12th May 2005 issue of Sahara Time, New Delhi ) Even as the government is preparing the ground for investigating the arms procurement deals during the tenure of George Fernandes as defence minister, it is becoming increasingly clear that most of the arms procurement still occur through arms dealers. Even Fernandes has gone on record stating that middlemen are involved in defence deals. This despite a ban on taking commissions to push across arms sales and a structured defence procurement procedure. The country has no effective mechanism to deal with arms brokering and even though authorities pretend to be oblivious to middlemen playing important roles in any major arms deal. The issue of arms procurement has come into focus once again following revelation in the South African d
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