The Chief of Air Staff said India is fully ready to deal with a "two-front" war scenario involving China and Pakistan and that the focus has been to enhance the IAF's overall combat capabilities.
Rahul Gandhi accuses PM Modi of prioritizing his image over national security after the Pahalgam attack, challenging him to refute Trump's claims of brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
'Our air force can strike them with impunity.'
The Chinese air force is now a 400,000-person force that flies some 2,000 combat aircraft -- more than thrice the size of the Indian Air Force.
The China threat continues to resonate in the strategic partnership between India and the USA, points out Rup Narayan Das.
The structure and the level at which the hotline would be set up is likely to come up for discussion in future meetings between the two countries at the military level, they said.
The gap between the existing air bases in China close to the LAC for fighter aircraft operations was around 400 kms but this would be bridged with the operationalisation of the Shakche airfield.
The drills kickstarted on Saturday (April 8) right after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen returned from the US where she met House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a meeting to which China strictly showed opposition to.
Since Tibet's occupation, China has disrupted the natural flow of rivers by pursuing a series of ill-conceived environmental and developmental policies such as the Great Leap Forward, the South-North Water Diversion Project, etc, the report said, adding that, this has led to a dam-building spree on the Tibetan plateau with disastrous impacts on Asia's major rivers.
The incursions, according to Taiwan, were made by aircraft, including 12 J-11, 6 J-10, 18 J-16, six SU-30, CH-4, WZ-7, Y-8 EW, Y-8 ESW and KJ-500.
Amid tensions over build-up by the Chinese across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh and reluctance to resolve remaining issues between the two countries, Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari is visiting forward areas in Ladakh to review the operational preparedness of troops deployed there.
Shanghai on Monday reported 425 confirmed and 8,581 asymptomatic domestically transmitted cases, the highest daily increases since the latest outbreak, bringing the total number of COVID-19 infections in the city to over 60,000.
The Chinese fighter aircraft activities took place from its bases including the Hotan, Gar Gunsa and Kashgar airfields which have been upgraded recently to enable operations by all types of fighters along with concrete structures to hide away the presence of the number of fighters present at its different airbases, the sources said.
Taking advantage of the Russia-Ukraine war, China has been conducting military drills on its far north-eastern border, raising expert concerns that Beijing could be considering a push into Russian territory.
A Chinese Air Force aircraft flew very close to a friction point in the eastern Ladakh sector on the Line of Actual Control in the last week of June, after which the Indian Air Force responded swiftly as per standard operating procedures.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plane landed in Taiwan amid a heightened security threat from China, media reports said on Tuesday.
Will never let the sacrifice of our braves of Galwan go in vain, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria said.
China, which considers the estranged island of Taiwan as part of its mainland, vociferously objects to any high-level foreign dignitaries meeting Taiwanese leaders.
The deployment of strategic bomber aircraft is also still on by the Chinese
In the last couple of weeks, the Chinese forces have brought in heavy air superiority aircraft like the Sukhoi-30 and its strategic bombers to the rear locations which have been detected flying near the Indian territory maintaining the 10 km plus distance from the boundary.
These missiles have a range of two to five km and they are capable of bringing down low flying helicopters and aircraft, they added.
It is learnt that Chinese Air Force planes had refuelled in Pakistan and Iran last month while on their way to Turkey to participate in a joint air exercise with the Turkish Air Force. On the way back, they refueled only in Iran. The air exercise preceded the recent visit of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to Turkey.
'The border disputes have a genuine problem because whatever Chinese are claiming and whatever they are ready to give both belong to India,' says China expert Srikant Kondapalli.
"Speaking of Pakistan, the first word that comes to my mind is 'Iron Pak'," Col Wu Qian told a media briefing
Indian military sources said no firearms were used in the clashes and that most of the injuries were sustained following stone-pelting and use of rods by the Chinese side.
Kicking off his four-day visit, General Suhag met General Li Zuocheng, the head of China's ground forces which have undergone major restructuring in the last three years.
'If we had sent a few airplanes (into Tibet), we could have wiped the Chinese out.' 'And everything could have been different in the 1962 War.' 'They did not believe me there was no Chinese air force.' 'Can you imagine what would have happened if we had used the IAF at that time?' 'The Chinese would have never dared do anything down the line.'
'India in 2020 is a lot better prepared than in 1962.' 'It is no longer a pushover; and anything other than a crushing Chinese military victory will be a major loss of face for China,' observes Rajeev Srinivasan in the first of a three part column.
A Chinese patrol ship searching the crashed Malaysian airliner on Saturday picked up a pulse signal from its black box detector in the southern Indian Ocean, China's official media reported, in a possible breakthrough in the nearly month-long multinational hunt for the jet.
The Rafale will surely be flying in Indian skies next year. But the way the BJP government has botched this will cast a shadow on defence acquisitions in the years to come.
India and China met and spoke a lot this year, but failed to produce any meaningful results.
A number of "encouraging leads" of electronic pulse detected in the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday prompted multinational search teams to rush their hi-tech ships to the area to determine if these signals came from the black box of the crashed Malaysian plane.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances