Hoping for some lateral thinking by the policymakers and armed forces top brass

Recently an officer of the Indian Army committed suicide. It is my personal opinion that the matter was given somewhat more than its due share of weightage by the media. But, evidently there was some valid (from the perspective of the media) reason behind it – the officer concerned was not an ordinary military-man but happened to be a lady.
Some insinuation was made towards the conduct of the deceased lady’s mother. Reportedly it was she who had pressurized her daughter to seek employment in the Indian Army, and subsequently when her daughter was not particularly keen on continuing as an army officer, she had kept up the pressure and as a result the unfortunate event happened.
Later on, the media got hold of certain medical records outlining the details of certain psychiatric problems with which that officer had ostensibly been suffering. It is not clear to me whether the leakage of medical details was solely the result of some exceptionally resourceful news-reporter’s perseverance and diligence or the Army brass itself had a role to play in its leakage. Any way things were still very much in control despite the customary noises being made by the Gender Equality Groups and the Women Rights Activists / Groups.
The debate regarding the problems being faced by the women in the armed forces in particular, and in other fields of employment in general, was dragging on at a leisurely pace as is the wont of such debates, but suddenly their was a drastic change. It so happened that an exceptionally high ranking officer of the Army decided to put his foot in his mouth. What the worthy man said was certainly not unknown or absolutely inaccurate but to utter the same was definitely not acceptable. Not acceptable because in the present circumstances (read in the era of social and political awareness and resultant sensibilities real or forced) there as so many things that you or me are not supposed to say aloud as it may be considered politically wrong or socially wrong or plain rude. It is no consolation that the whole world may know that the unutterable is a cardinal truth, as the fact, that no one is supposed to speak those cardinal truths is also a cardinal truth. The worthy man, who happens to be the vice chief of the world’s third largest army did the unthinkable – he verbalized the truth – that the army would be happier if it could do without its female officers. The mayhem was singularly violent in its condemnation of the unutterable truth and it took the damage control at the highest levels and an apology from the worthy man to stem the tide. The media again was at the helms of the affair. It had to milk the whole issue to its full capacity and in the process if the duration of milking could be extended by any means it was definitely welcome. Fortunately or unfortunately the vice chief did not turn out to be as unyielding / adamant / steadfast (depending upon your point of view) as Amir Khan and did a classic tactical retreat by tendering an apology. Off course he must have been trained and indoctrinated about the virtues of tactical retreats so that one may live to fight another day.
I have very little interest in going into the details of the raging debate and as usual I am only concerned with the issues that the media, the debaters as well as the policy makers are just not ready to look at.
No one has thought it prudent to ponder over the fact that traditionally the employment in the armed forces has not been available till the age of 58 or 60 to the majority of the troops and the officers. This is a vital issue as it is an undisputed fact that an unacceptably huge proportion of the budget available to the armed forces goes in paying the salary of the serving manpower and another unacceptably huge portion goes towards servicing the pension liabilities of the people who have retired from the forces. The continued economic growth has resulted in growing life expectancy and this has further accentuated the problem. The result is that very little money is available for equipments and consumables. In fact the Air force, which is the most capital intensive of all the three arms is facing such a crunch that its capabilities, in terms of number of aircrafts, is getting reduced by the day. As of today a substantial part of its highly trained workforce (read the fighter pilots) is employed in desk jobs, and this is not to provide them rest but because there is an acute shortage of aircrafts for them to fly.
My contention is that forget about the debate on giving opportunity to women in the armed forces for the time being. In most of the countries where females are being employed in the armed forces, it is a limited role that they play. And to a large extent in all those countries there is an acute shortage of employable youths owing to reasons ranging from small population pool to changing age profile of the available population. None of these problems plague India at the moment and may not be a real issue for another half a century.
The pertinent point, in my opinion is, why not reduce the strength of the permanent manpower in the forces to, say, ten percent of the present strength and recruit the rest for, say, a three to five or ten year terms. This way the age profile of the forces can be brought down and pension liabilities can also be contained. Moreover, it may, in all probability, result in greater integration of the armed forces’ ethos in civilian society. Another point is that the homogeneity of manpower and training ethos breed a kind of stagnation. Multiple entry and exit points may keep on injecting fresh talent and thought processes at all levels and may actually enrich the venerable institutions. The bottomline regarding discipline and certain other issues where some amount of rigidity is desirable can always be taken care of by the permanent cadre. Another idea would be to allow the reverse operation of the same process. The permanent cadre of staff available with the forces may be allowed, rather encouraged, to opt for deputation for short periods (ranging from a couple of years to five years) out of the forces to earn some extra money as well as fresh perspective. It is just a matter of proper planning and execution. Another vital point - this is not an original idea as several western nations reeling with stagnant population, changing demographic profile or plainly because of a small total population pool have been practicing it in some form or other.
The first impact, that I can foresee is the immediate withdrawal of foreign commercial pilots employed by the fast expanding airlines. This will save a lot of foreign currency as the foreign pilots are sure to remit a substantial portion of their earnings to their native countries. Secondly, it will immediately reduce the burden of paying salary to the Air force pilots who are doing nothing but pushing files. It is not well known but nonetheless it is a fact that the pilots draw a considerably higher pay-package than other staff as they are provided with generous flying allowance. I do no know if they draw the extra allowance irrespective of the fact whether they are actually flying or doing desk jobs (I hope someone will enlighten me). In any case, the reduction in financial burden would, definitely, be a step in the right direction and would augment the funds available for acquisition of new equipment.
Let us hope that our policymakers start doing some lateral thinking and the media starts looking for real issues instead of wasting the precious news space (and expensive news / air time) on the non-issues.