Major Leetul Gogoi made the "right call" in the Budgam incident, Army Chief Bipin Rawat has said. In an exclusive interview to ET Defence, the General said that the Major was given a commendation to retain the confidence level of troops working in a tense environment. Excerpts:The message is to the rank and file of the Army operating in a difficult environment in the Valley. The Army has a responsibility to ensure violence comes down and peace prevails. This officer acted in a particular manner, where only someone on site could have taken a call. Under the circumstances, he took the right call. To ensure the confidence level of the officer and others operating in similar environment, he was, therefore, conferred with the award. The message is not for the people. I am concerned with my rank and file. When they are motivated they will take action and will not let the situation spiral out of control.A gallantry award is normally given on August 15 or January 26, after a process. Such incidents should get immediate recognition. Armed forces personnel go through such incidents every day. A gallantry award is given during a firefight. Normally, this incident won’t come under gallantry. But the commendation card has been given for his recognition keeping in mind the requirement of an earlier timeframe. And a lot of people operate in a similar environment who need to be encouraged.A court of inquiry is for fact finding. It finds a person guilty/not guilty. The present court of inquiry will come to its conclusion but what I have learnt is that he has not committed an offence that will necessitate disciplinary action. On the face of it, even if he is found guilty of some lapse, no major action will be taken against him. I find no reason for major action to be taken against him.There is no permanent solution because we are guarding a Line of Control that is not demarcated. We have unsettled borders. The only way to prevent infiltration is to remain alert, use technology and rehearse drills to counter such action. Never can you allow your guard down. We need to remain prepared and alert. A video (released by the Army of the fire assault it conducted on Pakistan army posts) is our counter to Pakistan’s Border Action Teams. It is to put the fear for life on the other side.I won’t reveal the strategy because we don’t want the other side to know what we are doing. But basically we will carry out strong measures along the LoC to curb infiltration. That is our main charter.As I said in the past, stone pelters will be treated as anti-national. Their parents must tell them to shun violence, which is creating turmoil, affecting peace, jobs and the economy. If they don’t shun violence, then they should not interfere in our operations, because we will take action.The Cyber Command is too big a thing. While cyber security mechanism exist in the three services, we are trying to work with the civilian government, which has agencies dealing with cyber security. It is like raising units before raising a command and also getting your act together to stop cyber attacks. Cyber Command and the other triservice commands will come up later. First we need to integrate the respective agencies at our own level and do the groundwork, before looking at all of this.In regard to the broad contours, we are looking at homegrown solutions to some of our equipment, but we have to get technology from wherever it is available. Strategic Partnership means foreign firms will tie up with the Indian industry to manufacture equipment. This is the broad contours.In the next step, the model will be fine tuned. Its implementation depends on how forthcoming the foreign nations and firms are. But they will have questions and would want to know the nitty gritty of the policy. Some questions could be on duty evasions, taxes, percentage of the product that should be indigenised and percentage imported, and whether the product can be made in India or abroad.We already have joint ventures; the BRAHMOS missile is being made with Russia. So Strategic Partnership and Joint Ventures are similar.Furthermore, a strategic partner will come only for big ticket buys and not for small things. They would need to look at factory for land and also if the market is there for it. So it should not be that I am looking for 10 tanks. Who is going to come for that demand! The big ticket buys will be for the air force and navy. On the other hand, the army has comparatively smaller equipment.The thrust of the Strategic Partnership is for getting technology and Transfer of Technology (ToT). The basic issue is getting technology, imbibing technology and ToT. Finally what we are looking at is self-Reliance through indigenisation.We have not opened the industry to the private sector. The private sector on its own cannot sustain, therefore we are developing a Strategic Partnership with the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers for helping us in manufacturing defence equipment.The Strategic Partnership is not for urgent requirements, but meeting long term requirements and homegrown equipment. Such as setting up a defence manufacturing factory is long term. If we are looking at urgent requirements, then we will have to import the equipment.The question should not be on a matter of preparedness. A two front war is a directive. We are told be prepared for it, as anything can happen.The modernisation plans are on track. In regard to the grey areas, we cannot suddenly say that I want to change my inventory. Currently, our inventory consists of 30 per cent of imbibing future technology, 30 per cent of obsolescence and 40 per cent of current technology.When you imbibe future technology, the obsolescence goes out. It is a phased modernisation and not like everything can change in one go. When you are phasing out 30 per cent of your equipment, some percentage from the future technology becomes current and some percentage from the current equipment with you becomes obsolete. Summing it up, modernisation is the process of obsolescence to imbibing new technology.For example, currently we are transforming from 4th to 5th generation missiles, so we have to phase out the 2nd and 3rd generation missiles.What I meant to say is to get weapons into production. If I ask for a particular type of tank, it won’t be available tomorrow. I will have to tell agency such as DRDO or the industry to manufacture the tank. They will take 10 to 15 years to make it.For this I would need to look into the future, what are the future technologies being developed and how to counter them. So we need to look five to 10 years ahead.But in our subcontinent, in the Indian context, we have to first take care of the proxy war. We must remain prepared for fighting it. We must equip our soldiers to fight this by giving them equipment to combat terrorism and insurgency.