Army chief, V K Singh said in an interview with The Hindu that the Army was no longer keeping up with the high standards that gave it a place of pride. He claimed that he was offered a Rs 14 crore bribe by a lobbyist and rued that the Army had allowed the latter to conceive approaching him with the offer.

The Army has always been seen as an institution that was above graft and unsullied by petty polticking. But the recent Sukna land scam convictions, the Adarsh scam, the Army chief age controversy, and theallegations of human rights violations in Kashmir and the northeast seem to lend weight to Singh's claim.

At the same time, unlike the armies of our neighbours, ours doesn't interfere politically. Singh, himself, was aparagon of the high standards when he gave the age issue a dignified fight and retreated with dignity without a threat to the democratically elected government (something that critics of Singh cried themselves hoarse over saying that a Army chief standing up to the defence ministry was a challenge to a democratically elected government by the defence force).

So, have the Army's moral standards really taken a fall? Or are these stray instances while the larger Army retains the halo it always had?