As the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Air Command, Air Marshal Vinod Patney was the man in charge of the air operations during the Kargil war. He was awarded a Sarvottam Yudh Seva medal for his role in the operations. Soon after Kargil, Patney—commissioned in the fighter stream and awarded a Vir Chakra for gallantry during the 1965 war—took over as the vice chief of air staff and was witness to the efforts made to plug the gaping holes in the security establishment post-Kargil.
A week after Outlook published relevant sections of an internal assessment of the Kargil war by the army, Patney spoke to Saikat Datta on various aspects of how the war was fought. He also raises pertinent questions on the command and control failure in the army, the flawed military advice given to the then political leadership and refutes the contention that the Indian air force was in any way responsible for the delay in air operations. Excerpts from the interview: