Prime Minister Narendra Modi's August 15 Independence Day announcement of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) has set the cat among the pigeons

The defence ministry is mystified as to how and why the PM shot down its recommendation for a permanent Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee.

In 2018, the armed forces and the bureaucracy had agreed upon creating a new post of permanent CoSC (the senior-most service chief presently serves as the Committee Chairman). This recommendation was forwarded to the PMO for approval.

The CDS, first recommended by the task force appointed by a Group of Ministers in 2001, is a hot potato within South Block. The smaller services, the Air Force and the Navy, fear being swallowed by the larger Indian Army. The bureaucracy fears being upstaged by a super chief.

A senior Army official feels this could merely be a case of the PM choosing a better-sounding designation-"after all Chief of Defence Staff has a better ring to it than Permanent Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee" he says. We will of course know only when the committee headed by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval submits its report to the government next month. The Doval committee is to frame the terms of reference for the post and define his powers - whether he will have power over budgets and command troops on the ground.

Given inter-service seniority issues, one of the present chiefs is likely to be made the first CDS. Army Chief General Bipin Rawat who becomes Chairman CoSC on September 30, when Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa retires, is seen as a frontrunner for the post.

General Rawat has privately ruled himself out of the race citing his age - he retires on December 30 this year after a three-year stint as Army Chief. But there's a catch - General Rawat turns 62, the upper limit for a general's tenure, only on March 16. Here again, how the committee frames the age and tenure for the post of the CDS could prove crucial. If the CDS is given an upper age limit of 64 years, then General Rawat automatically becomes eligible for the post.