'When the Indian Army carries out anti-infiltration ops, the Pakistan army willy-nilly will get involved in some way. So, it is imperative for the Pakistan army to act against militant groups.'
Lt Gen Anil Chauhan (retired) will assume charge as India's new Chief of Defence Staff on Friday, an appointment that is expected to bring the focus back on the implementation of the ambitious theaterisation drive to bring synergy among the three services.
Claiming that its troops had 'never crossed' the Line of Actual Control with India, China on Tuesday said it always respected bilateral agreements on maintaining peace and tranquillity in border areas. "China's border personnel have been respecting the two agreements made between the two countries to maintain peace and tranquillity in border areas and have never crossed the LAC," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a media briefing in Beijing.
The conclave will be held at the national capital from April 18-22 and will be chaired by Army Chief Gen MM Naravane.
The Army has significantly bolstered its fire power along the frontier with China by deploying a range of rockets and artillery weapons and plans to procure an array of additional systems, including 100 K9 Vajra howitzers and UAVs, to augment combat prowess.
Indian and Chinese troops had come face to face in Chumar area of Ladakh in July when the latter transgressed into Indian territory along the Line of Actual Control. Army sources said after the two sides came face to face in Chumar -- which is northeast of Leh in Jammu and Kashmir -- they both showed banners as per the agreed drills and returned to their respective positions peacefully.
Singh said a meeting between senior Indian and Chinese military leaders has been scheduled for June 6 even as he asserted that India is not going to back off from its position. Asked about the current situation in sensitive areas in eastern Ladakh, he said Chinese have come up to what they claim is their territory while Indians believed it is theirs.
It took India and the Indian Army to show to the world that enough is enough and to challenge the neighbourhood bully, he said.
Qin's first in-person meeting with Jaishankar on Thursday came on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers conclave in New Delhi amid the over 34-month-long border row in eastern Ladakh.
The discussions took place on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting.
The Army is looking at procuring the LUHs and LCHs to replace its ageing fleets of Cheetah and Chetak helicopters.
Zhao said some US officials are trying to add fuel to the fire and pointing fingers.
'When we want to, we will be able to breach it, go across and strike when we need. This was the message we wanted to convey and we did'
Asked about the continued tensions along the border and whether the PLA troops action was anyway related to the disagreements with the Indian government's plan to lure business out of China, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said both the countries were in diplomatic contact over the face-off between their troops.
'I think our training wickets have been really difficult as well. So it's been nice to actually stand in a training wicket and keep to our bowlers.'
Indian Army has deployed Pinaka and Smerch Multiple Rocket Launcher Systems (MRLS) at forward position near the China border to counter any threat arising across on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
The army said senior commanders of the Indian and Chinese military reviewed the progress on implementation of the first phase of disengagement and discussed further steps to ensure complete withdrawal of troops in the region.
India will establish a joint mechanism with China in the next few months to resolve border issues while taking steps to modernise its military infrastructure in the face of Beijing "aggressively" shoring up its defence set up along the Line of Actual Control, Defence Minister A K Antony said on Tuesday.
'We can expect heightened belligerence from China.'
Throughout its standoff with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), Chinese officials sought to downplay the severity of the crisis, emphasising Beijing's intent to preserve border stability and prevent the standoff from harming other areas of its bilateral relationship with India, the Pentagon said in a report on Tuesday.
The disengagement process from both the north and south banks of Pangong Lake was completed by the two nations and further disengagement is underway at other friction points.
The report said that Indian officials believe China is trying to contain India by forcing it to divert more resources into defending simultaneously both its western border with Pakistan and eastern flank with China and by weakening its willingness and ability to challenge Chinese ambitions to dominate the region.
After remaining peaceful for most of the year, Chinese troops entered Indian territory in the fag end of 2010 along the Line of Actual Control in south-eastern Ladakh region and threatened a contractor and his team to halt work on constructing a 'passenger shed'.
"Government is aware that China is developing infrastructure in border regions opposite India in the Tibet and Xinjiang autonomous regions," Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur told Rajya Sabha.
It has been argued that India should have held back on disengagement from the Kailash Range, using that as a trump card to force Chinese concessions in areas such as Depsang, where they hold the advantage.
The officials said the focus of the talks was on 'full and enduring restoration of peace and tranquillity' along the border and also better coordination to ensure avoidance of such incidents in future.
Raking up the border issue, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said every individual in Ladakh knows that China has "taken away our land" and claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assertion that not an inch of land was taken away was "absolutely false".
'Unless India ups the ante, Beijing will continue to believe its transgressions are cost free and will feel encouraged to do more of the same.'
There was no official word on the outcome of the talks.
In a boost for the country's surveillance capabilities to monitor activities of both military warships and merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), the 'Sindhu Netra' satellite developed by a team of young scientists from Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was successfully deployed in space on Sunday.
Last year, China held a meeting with some South Asian countries on COVID-19 vaccine cooperation without the participation of India.
"Against such background, the words and deeds of relevant important military and government officials and military deployments should be conducive to deescalating and cooling down the situation, and to enhancing mutual trust, rather than the opposite", the spokesman said.
Chinese intrusions have been noticed in the past "two years" along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
Both countries have reached a mutual agreement for disengagement of troops from the most contentious area of North and South Pangong Lake.
India and Pakistan have agreed to strictly observe all agreements on ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) and other sectors, according to a joint statement on Thursday.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury aid that India must tackle Chinese aggression using all necessary means.
India on Thursday strongly rejected China renaming 15 places in Arunachal Pradesh and asserted that the state has 'always been' and will 'always be' an integral part of India and that assigning 'invented' names does not alter this fact.
'Chinese soldiers don't have much experience of fighting in these kinds of areas and operating in this kind of terrain'
India and China are likely to hold another round of diplomatic talks this week on eastern Ladakh with a focus on moving forward in disengagement of troops in the remaining friction points, people familiar with the development said on Tuesday.
