Information from NPS Members

Dear Bloggers,
The third NPS Life member to send in information on maritime news is Cmde (Retd) Anil K Dhir (LFM 009), residing in Gurgoan, near New Delhi. A founder member of the NPS, he was instrumental in providing all philatelic material for NAVPHILEX 79, entirely his and Cmde (Retd) S Shekar’s (LFM 016) , Founder Member and Chairman NPS from 1985 TO 1990) show. Anil Dhir was also instrumental in providing assistance to Sudarshan Dhir, the artist who designed the 1984 “President’s Review of the Fleet” four stamp se-tenant. Whilst I am in agreement with him that he had a great part to play in the design and the ultimate release of the se-tenant, which was adjudged the “Most Appropriately Designed” stamp, by an all India popularity poll conducted by the Philatelic Congress of India, I beg to disagree with him that he was the sole individual who conceptualised the se-tenant. In actual fact, three of us from the NPS, then Cdr Shekhar, Capt A.K Dhir and my self, a Cdr met Mr. Sudarshan Dhir in Mumbai, then Bombay, to design a stamp for the “President’s Review of the Indian Fleet. Mr. Sudarshan Dhir, the architect of the Hindustan Petroleum Logo, put forward a design of a stamp, quite similar to the bottom right stamp in the released se-tenant. It was I who, upon seeing the individual stamp, suggested that the oval be completed and four instead of one stamp be utilised to portray the three arms of the Navy (Surface, Air and Submarine) and an Indian Navy Air arm aircraft to make a four stamp se-tenant. This was accepted unanimously and I , being from the Visakhapatnam , on temporary duty, had to return with the job of finalising the design under the responsibility of Cdr Shekhar and Capt A.K Dhir, who wee stationed in Mumbai. So much for publicity stealing, as, since 1984, this misinformation has been published in many publications of the Navy as well as those outside. The latest e-mail from Cmde (Retd) A.K Dhir, further, emphasises the point I have just made. Anil Dhir, however, has been singularly instrumental in the design/release of the Naval Dockyard stamp in 1986 and the Maritime Heritage stamps in 1998.
I have reproduced two photographs taken by him. His e-mails give a detailed account of the significance of the photographs and the sentiments that Anil Dhir attaches to the submarines depicted there in. A Naval air- electrical engineer and a submariner, Anil Dhir is an ardent Maritime Historian and philatelist.