'The PLA has continued to do exercises and drills and recently carried out air exercises with fighter jets.'
At a media briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the two sides have maintained smooth communication on border-related issues through diplomatic and military channels.
According to convention, Lieutenant General Praveen Bakshi should be named as General Dalbir Singh Suhag's successor as army chief
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.
Disengagement from the LAC will remain a chimera because China has given enough indications that the PLA will not move back any more. China has even deployed drones to monitor and deny any patrolling by Indian troops even in the buffer zones which are all in Indian Territory, explains Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
National security advisor Ajit Doval on Friday suggested that various central armed police forces of the country should have "jointness" and interoperability among themselves like the ongoing plan for the defence forces.
Major General Sujan Singh Uban, a legendary veteran of the Second World War, was a natural choice to raise, train and command the Special Frontier Force and mould them into a well oiled fighting machine, recalls his son Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd), who led SFF troops during the Kargil War.
'Our brave Indian soldiers don't reply to raining of bricks with mere sticks, they do so with iron rods'
Pakistan may want to undertake a 'false flag' operation in J&K to divert attention from the situation in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but infiltrating one SSG battalion into J&K and having two SSG battalions waiting to follow suit means war, which Pakistan cannot afford in its current economic crisis, notes Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
China does not have to give up what it took in 2020, it will never give up its claim to Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and other areas, and it has all the time now to plan its next surprise, points out Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
Unless each attack drone can be neutralised, India will be literally deploying elephants to stamp out ants -- and the ants may still survive! points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'With continued focus on votes, upcoming by-polls and purchasing politicians, the political hierarchy has little time for national defence.' 'They would do well to heed a veteran scholar, who says, "There will be war with China in the next few years. The next full scale war will have the involvement of Pakistan and terror elements, insurgents and intelligence assets operating inside India",' warns Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
Lt Gen Naravane is currently serving as Vice Chief of the Army. In his 37 years of service, Lt Gen Naravane has served in numerous command and staff appointments in peace, field and highly active counter-insurgency environments in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast.
In an army that favours officers who have spent the bulk of their service years doing counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir, General Anil Chauhan is that rarity: A China specialist who has logged plenty of service years along the Line of Actual Control and the McMahon Line with China.
'We should not allow ourselves to be surprised in any manner in future on the border.'
"The army chief chief reviewed the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir and also operational preparedness of Northern Command at a high-level meeting," officials said.
'Galwan has turned everything.' 'The casualties on both sides alerted the Chinese to the fact that Indians are not going to take it lying down.'
The government is set to begin the process soon to appoint the next Chief of Defence Staff with Army Chief Gen MM Naravane emerging as the front-runner for the top post that fell vacant following the demise of Gen Bipin Rawat in a helicopter crash.
A quintessential military commander, Gen Bipin Rawat possessed an uncanny understanding of geopolitical upheavals, calibrated a tri-services military doctrine to make India face myriad security challenges, and is largely credited with bringing down militancy in the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir.
'India's behaviour violated agreements...It's a serious military provocation'
'Unlike on the western and eastern borders where there is an enemy at the gate, here there is an invisible enemy which is building its own capability and can come into play at a time and place of his choosing.'
Reports (not denied by India) that the USA had 'for the first time provided real-time details to their Indian counterparts on the Chinese positions and force strength in advance of a PLA incursion' into Tawang at the LAC in December 2022, helping India thwart China's expansionist designs, show how operationally effective the USA-India friendship has become on the ground. A engaging excerpt from Sreeram Chaulia's must-read new book, Friends: India's Closest Strategic Partners.
'The PLA is under constant watch.' 'There is an escalation matrix. For every degree of escalation, responses are thought of and trained for.'
'China is mindful of the fact that it is not confronting the Indian Army of 1962. But the sabre rattling will continue.'
Observers say China should re-address its policies towards India or else it will continue to face flare-ups increasing the tensions between the two countries at a time China's increasing tension with the US over Taiwan and the South China Sea besides the downturn in the Chinese economy which is hit hard by the zero-covid policy.
The Indian troops guarding the nearly 3,500-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) maintained an assertive approach in sync with the broader national security doctrine and procured a variety of military platforms and weapons to enhance their combat capabilities.
China routinely objects to Indian leaders' visits to Arunachal Pradesh to buttress its stand.
The ministry's year-end review is silent on the continued occupation by Chinese troops of territory that India has always claimed and patrolled.
"Our patience is a sign of our self-confidence, but no one should make the mistake of testing it," Gen Naravane said.
"The meeting thus did not result in resolution of the remaining areas," the Army said in a statement.
Lt Gen Bakshi announced 'full support' to the new chief and made it clear that he won't resign.
He also participated in the 1947-48 war against Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir. He was a founder Instructor of the National Defence Academy during 1949-51.
Army Spokesperson Colonel Aman Anand said troops from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) 'violated' the consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements on the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh, and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo.
Gen Rawat will be able to serve as CDS for a period of up to three years after the government amended the rules extending the age of retirement to 65 years.
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.
"Whatever we are doing is in close coordination and synergy with the army and the Indian Air Force to produce desired results," he said.
"We value our partnership with India, and we've been increasing it and doing a lot more, over time. They have the same security challenge, primary security challenger that we do, and it's real on their northern border," Admiral John Christopher Aquilino, commander of United States Indo-Pacific Command, told members of the House Armed Services Committee during a hearing on Indo-Pacific National Security Challenges.
Air Commodore Nitin Sathe discovers how the IAF trained Pakistani air force pilots, during the 1971 War, which led to the birth of the Bangladesh air force.
'When armies start attacking with clubs and batons, then at some point this can take an escalatory spiral and spin out of control.'
The military standoff with China has been going on for over two years now when the Chinese side attempted to change the status quo unilaterally by moving troops in large numbers against Indian positions.
