In the confrontation in Doklam, where Indian and Chinese soldiers were lined up eyeball-to-eyeball, senior Indian commanders recount they could sense the uncertainty in the Chinese. While Indian soldiers had to be restrained from pushing the Chinese troops back, our chief interpreter heard the Chinese officers threatening to open fire on PLA soldiers who wavered or withdrew, reveals Ajai Shukla.
'The Chinese media was beside itself with rage that how can a country with one-fifth of its economic power and maybe one-third of its military power stand up to them.'
'The 2017 Doklam stand-off in Bhutan, the 2018 Maldives crisis, and the 2020 Nepal Kalapani border dispute shows how Beijing has shot off these countries' shoulders to target India.'
He also said in the Rajya Sabha that the people of the country have a predominant wish of retrieving the parts of Jammu and Kashmir occupied by Pakistan since 1948.
We should reassess what India's role in the world is and whether we are doing the right thing for ourselves, notes Aakar Patel.
His attack on the government came days after Indian Army personnel clashed with Chinese soldiers in the Tawang sector in Arunachal Pradesh.
Bhutan on Thursday announced that it firmed up a "three-step roadmap" for expediting the negotiations with China to resolve the long-pending boundary dispute between the two countries, a development that India said it has taken note of.
'Its aim is to force the Bhutanese government to cede territory that China wants elsewhere in Bhutan to give Beijing a military advantage in its struggle with New Delhi.'
China's Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui said "the ball is in India's court" and it was for the Indian government to decide what options could be on the table to resolve the standoff.
"This is Modi's India, this is new India. Now if anyone raises an eye against the country he gets a befitting reply," BJP spokesperson Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore asserted.
The Congress MPs have given adjournment notices in both houses of Parliament to discuss the border situation with China.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra claimed that the home ministry's decision to cancel the FCRA licences of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust for alleged violation of laws has "exposed" their corruption.
General Rawat said Indian forces will face the PLA troops if they come again in Doklam.
He alleged that India "lost access to 26 out of 65 Patrolling Points" which was not the case before May 2020, and questioned the Modi government's "silence" on the issue.
The visit by Gen Rawat, Ajit Doval and Vijay Gokhale was the first such high-level trip from India to Bhutan after the Doklam standoff.
A political counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in India said in a video.
The operational alert allows troops to get acclimatised to high altitudes, renovate the bunkers and trenches from which they would fight, break out ammunition, and carry out the coordination needed to fight an integrated defensive battle.
A second road linking Tsomgo lake and Nathula border pass with Gangtok -- christened as 'Narendra Modi Marg' -- was officially inaugurated by Sikkim Governor Ganga Prasad.
Rawat, an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of the 1990 batch and regarded as a China expert, will succeed Vikram Misri.
China's Navy wants to join hands with India to maintain security of the Indian Ocean
'Which will not happen.' 'Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has expressly refuted Beijing's statement that normalcy was returning to Sino-Indian relations.'
The armed IRB jawans have been deployed since the past week on the direction of the state government, Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Range, Prawin Gurung told reporters.
The "caution level" among the troops has also been raised.
The comments came a day after sources said China maintained a sizeable presence of troops near the site of the Doklam standoff with India and had started widening a road, around 12 km from the area of conflict.
China reiterated that no meaningful dialogue can be held with India until it "unconditionally" withdraws troops from the disputed Doklam area and said Foreign Minister Wang Yi has authoritatively made Beijing's position clear on the issue.
The CAG had taken a strong objection to the long delays by the BRO in constructing 61 strategically important roads.
Many people believe that India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru made a blunder when he recognised China's sovereignty over Tibet but he did what he thought was best for his country, said the president of the Tibetan government in exile.
Sushma said the issue is due to the "tri-junction point that is between India, China and Bhutan" and that if Beijing unilaterally tries to change the status quo at the tri-junction, then it will pose a threat to New Delhi's security.
The Indian delegation, comprising several officers and soldiers of the army, attended the celebration following an invitation by the PLA.
According to official sources, the primary objective of Wei's visit is to deliberate with Indian defence establishment on implementation of decisions taken by Modi and Xi in their informal summit in Wuhan in April.
Military officials said India is also strengthening its surveillance mechanism to keep an eye on Chinese activities along the borders in the strategically sensitive Tibetan region and has even been regularly deploying choppers to carry out recce.
'India's military posture has become significantly stronger than China's on the 3,500-kilometre Line of Actual Control.' 'This is enhancing confrontation between the two sides,' points out Ajai Shukla.
The two sides have already held at least 12 rounds of talks between local commanders and three rounds of talks between major general-rank officials but no positive outcome came out from the discussions, they said.
China plans to build a new highway along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India as part of Beijing's efforts to strengthen its strategic position and project its power, a media report said on Wednesday.
Many of them sustained minor injuries in the clash near Naku La in the Sikkim sector along the Sino-Indo border on Saturday
Indian Armed forces will leave no stone unturned to safeguard the country's frontiers, he insisted.
An MoU on sharing hydrological information of the Brahmaputra River by China to India and another pact on amendment of the protocol on phytosanitary requirements for exporting rice from India to China to include non-Basmati rice were signed after the Modi-Xi talks in the eastern Chinese port city.
The Global Times, in an editorial, titled 'Sitharaman greeting sends warm signal', said that the Indian defence minister's traditional 'namaste' greetings to the Chinese soldiers conveyed her hope for peace along the border and "unwillingness to see a new stand-off," adding that this was an attitude of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government at the Centre.
Watch Opposition vs government duel in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha LIVE.
However, the government rejected the army's demand to implement the scheme with retrospective effect from June last year, when the Doklam face-off between Indian and Chinese armies had begun, official sources said.
