Why India must reform the BSF for a changing border battlefield
Border Security Force soldiers firing a mortar somewhere in the western front. (Photo for representation via X/@BSF_Rajasthan)The Border Security Force guards half of Ind…
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Rattan Chand Sharma, Commandant (Retd) BSF
The author retired as a commandant in the Border Security Force. Before joining the BSF, he served in the Indian Army as a short service commissioned officer. After retirement, he had a brief stint in the academia. Currently, he is a commentator on security and strategic issues and regularly contributes to various well-known journals.
Articles by Rattan Chand Sharma, Commandant (Retd) BSF
Supreme Court Nudge: Implement judgment on CAPF cadre officers
The Supreme Court of India. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)Officers of the central armed police forces (CAPFs) are trained and conditioned for combat, unlike Indian Police Ser…
CAPFs need government empathy, not institutional apathy
India Sentinels illustration for representation. (© India Sentinels 2026–27)India asks its central armed police forces (CAPFs) to hold difficult borders, confront interna…
Who Should Lead CAPFs? A national security debate beyond cadre politics
Illustration for representation. (© India Sentinels 2026–27)Few would imagine an air force commanded by commercial airline pilots, a navy led by merchant seafarers, or an…
Illegal Immigration: India’s unfenced fault line on the eastern border
Illustration for representation. (© India Sentinels 2026–27)I joined the Border Security Force in 1991 as a company commander on the India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya’…
Tadmetla Operation 2010: Supreme sacrifice that demands answers
Illustration for representation. (© India Sentinels 2026–27)In March 2026, the Ministry of Home Affairs (Union home ministry) declared what few had once thought possible:…
Op Sindoor: Testimony to BSF’s grit and fighting spirit
Border Security Force soldiers firing a mortar somewhere in the western front. (Photo for representation via X/@BSF_Rajasthan)When the-then prime minister, Indira Gandhi,…
CAPFs Act undermines the very forces it claims to strengthen
Illustration for representation. (© India Sentinels 2026–27)On April 9, the Central Armed Police Forces (General Administration) Act, 2026 – notified as Act No. 9 of 2026…
Trampling of Trust: The nightmare of a ‘deshbhakt’
Illustration for representation. (© India Sentinels 2026–27)The veterans of the central armed police forces (CAPFs) have served this nation in uniform with uncommon elan,…
Address the deformities in CAPF structure
Fresh officers during a pass-out ceremony at the CRPF Academy at Kedarpur, Gurugram, Haryana. (File photo for representation.) When Parliament passed the Central Armed Po…
Are elections compromising our border and national security?
Illustration for representation. (© India Sentinels 2026–27)India’s elections are celebrated as the great festival of democracy – a spectacle unmatched in scale and spiri…
Commanded into Crisis: Systematic wrecking of CAPFs’ moral fabric
Illustration for representation. (© India Sentinels 2026–27)The central armed police forces – BSF, CRPF, CISF, ITBP, and SSB – are, in a very real sense, miniature Indias…