Both the Indian and Chinese armies have brought in more troops in sensitive locations like Demchok, Daulat Beg Oldie and areas around Galwan river as well as Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh, the sources said. The area around Galwan has been a point of friction between the two sides for over six decades.
Army chief General Naravane said the ongoing dialogue will sort out all the perceived differences between the two countries.
It is learnt that the India's top military brass is constantly monitoring the evolving situation even as the United States said the aggressive behaviour by Chinese troops was a reminder of the threat posed by China.
This is the first such incident along the border with China that Indian armed forces personnel have been killed after a gap of nearly 45 years.
'Which will not happen.' 'Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has expressly refuted Beijing's statement that normalcy was returning to Sino-Indian relations.'
Lieutenant General Harinder Singh, who commands the 'Fire and Fury' 14 Corps, has the experience and talent to face down the Chinese challenge. The general is a rare combination of thinker and tough-minded doer, observes David Devadas.
'We will not accept these misadventures by the Chinese.'
India is set to press for early disengagement of troops from the remaining friction points in eastern Ladakh at a fresh round of high-level military talks with China on August 14, people familiar with the matter said on Saturday.
The puja is performed on the banks of river Sindhu (Indus).
Out of 18, four personnel were critically injured but they are responding to treatment and are stable now, people familiar with the matter said.
It is on the exact spot where the Guru is said to have created 108 waterfalls, that the Yangtse clash took place between the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA on the night of December 9, 2022. As it had done in Ladakh in May 2020, the PLA tried to change the unmarked LAC in the Yangtse sector in Arunachal Pradesh. It was the most serious border incident since the Galwan Valley clash in June 2020, notes Claude Arpi.
India and China made progress in five-six friction points along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh through talks in the last three years and efforts are underway to resolve the remaining issues, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Monday.
RInstead of disengagement, the Indian and Chinese armies have deployed an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 soldiers each along the LAC. The PLA has deployed S-400 air defence missiles to neutralise the IAF's advantage in air power
The MEA said it was the Chinese side that recently undertakook activities hindering India's normal patrols in the areas.
'China has forcibly occupied territory it had never occupied before, blocked Indian patrols' access to areas they had patrolled for decades and, most provocatively, killed 20 Indian soldiers.' 'Most countries would regard these as acts of war.' 'New Delhi has apparently taken off the table the option of evicting the PLA with force,' observes Ajai Shukla.
Lauding the bravery displayed by the soldiers, the prime minister said: "The bravery that you and your compatriots showed, a message has gone to the world about India's strength."
The Indian Army has shown it can face down the PLA, but is too often held back by a political leadership that lacks boldness, asserts Ajai Shukla.
The capital cost of the entire project, including a 5.6-km-long bridge, other minor bridges, underpasses and a rail overbridge, was estimated at over Rs 2,900 crore. The decision to cancel the project came in the backdrop of the killing of 20 Indian soldiers in a clash with Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh's Galwan Valley on June 15.
"As regards reports about a bridge being made by the Chinese side on Pangong Lake, the government has been monitoring this activity closely," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said.
'The Indian Army's surveillance had noticed the Chinese movements.' 'There was no intelligence failure.'
Did Xi deliver a message to Modi at Mamallapuram, which though couched in a velvet glove was time-bound? What was that message? It is clear Indian/Israeli/US spy satellites would not have missed detecting Chinese troop movements towards the Ladakh-Tibet frontier. Then why did some important functionaries in the Government of India choose to only ask the Russians about this in April 2020? Was Russian reassurance of Chinese troop movements being part of a routine exercise the reason that the Leh-based XIV Corps did not mobilise itself for its annual summer exercises near the LAC? A fascinating excerpt from Iqbal Chand Malhotra's new book Red Fear: The China Threat.
Most of India's reserves for war in the mountains have been sucked in by the standoff with China. A large part of India's airpower has also similarly been committed on the eastern border. By moving these reserves to the China border, India has been weakened vis-a-vis Pakistan. All in all, the nightmare scenario for India of a two-front war may well come true, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'We should not minimise the seriousness of Chinese encroachments because their perception is different.' 'Nor should we fall into the trap of accepting so-called 'buffer zones' in areas of overlapping claims. We cannot have buffer zones in our own territory,' asserts Ambassador Shyam Saran, a former foreign secretary.
The prime minister is presently at one of the forward locations in Nimu and is interacting with personnel of the Army, Air Force and Indo-Tibetan Border Police, official sources said.
'I am ashamed we are dealing with such adversaries.'
Chances are any such disruption will not occur on the major shipping lanes but on some edge of the ocean between India and China. Even if there is no actual disruption, the costs of averting one can be punitive. The setting for this is provided by the energy shortage both countries face, says Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
'If you behave like a nail, the adversary will behave like a hammer.'
'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.'
'All the government needs to do is to identify clear political and strategic objectives and to give the military planners a free hand,' asserts Ajai Shukla.
'Nanda Devi is not an easy mountain to climb.'
Experts said the tensions have added to a sense of apprehension in the United States, Europe and parts of Asia that China will engage in more aggressive behaviour in pursuit of its territorial interests, which in turn has raised the possibility of a serious and coordinated pushback by leading global players.
The government must figure out what the Chinese game plan is and thwart the endgame before it is upon us, possibly in early winter, advises David Devadas.
'The logical step is to challenge the very legitimacy of the Chinese claim over Tibet,' recommends Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd).
'The missile mounted near Kailash-Mansarovar is called DF-21. It is a medium-range, 2,200 kilometres ballistic missile. Its advantage is that it can cover all cities of north India, including New Delhi'
We present our alphabet of 2020, pulling in everything you'll remember about this year we'd rather forget.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.