Ten years ago the cold and serene mountains reverberated with sound of guns and mortar. In hindsight, we might see the Kargil war as a flashpoint which brought about a change in the Indian politico mindset towards not just our envied neighbour but also in the way we percieved our borders to be guarded.

10 years henceforth, the army has been instrumental in picking up the ravaged pieces of the mass destruction caused by the episode and getting the beautiful towns such as Drass,Leh etc back to normalcy. The mountain belt is still abuzz with stories of valour and courage displayed by our heroes and the supreme sacrifice they all made in the service of the nation.

Having said that, the sacrifices made by our armymen has faded into oblivion in the public memory and sadly enough in the minds of churlish bureaucrats. This becomes more glaring when we read and hear stories about the compensation still not being sanctioned to the families of the martyr even after 10 years of that episode and more importantly post 61 years of India's independence. Media channels such as NDTV have been more than vocal in their effort to set things right and give our martyrs the credit they truly deserve. However, a lot more needs to be done.

We reclaimed Kargil at great cost;1896 casualties. This might be a mere statistic for the government which has done little in getting the things back on track for the bereaved families but then I read this line somewhere and found it be so true "Soldiers are venerated during war and tolerated in peace".

The nation cannot repay the cost of the sacrifices made during the Kargil war but the least we can do is to salute our armymen for fighting to save our territorial integrity which post Kargil comes at a great cost.

Jai Jawan!!