On the first day of his two-day visit to Ladakh, Gen Naravane held a series of meetings with top commanders about the evolving situation in the region as well as on India's overall combat readiness to deal with any eventualities, military sources said.
If you want to watch 1962: War On The Hills, skip the first episodes and start from the eighth. You will be less disappointed, notes Moumita Bhattacharjee.
It will be interesting to see whether India-China border tensions figure during the deliberations of PLA deputies to the NPC and CPPCC, notes Jayadeva Ranade, the distinguished China expert and retired RA&W officer.
Addressing a meeting of the Congress Working Committee, he said there has been a 'complete and total failure' of foreign policy under the Modi government.
To escape backlash, handset makers of all major Chinese brands who have their own manufacturing lines in India or outsource from third party vendors here have decided to highlight Made-in-India in their packaging more prominently from now.
Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of US forces in the Pacific, told the Shangri-La Dialogue, a high-level defence forum in Singapore, that PLA navy had started "reciprocating" US navy's tactics of sending ships and aircraft into the 200-nautical-mile zone off China's coast.
Amid the South China Sea tensions, Chinese military on Saturday kicked off large scale military exercises pressing troops from the five theatre commands of the People's Liberation Army simulating real battle conditions.
The standoff in Chumar region in Ladakh worsened on Saturday after a second intrusion by Chinese army personnel in two days was reported at another point after they had withdrawn from the same area.
Xi ordered the military to think about worst-case scenarios, scale up training and battle preparedness, promptly and effectively deal with all sorts of complex situations and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, without mentioning any specific issues that posed a threat to the country.
Rajnath Singh believes it would be naive to see disengagement of the armies from the LAC as the end of the trouble. The defence minister has urged the defence forces to be ready for a long haul
The names of 20 Indian Army personnel, who were killed while valiantly fighting Chinese troops in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh in June last year, were inscribed on the National War Memorial ahead of the Republic Day, official sources said.
Any Indian government at this juncture would have voted and spoken exactly this way. It isn't just about the vast Indian dependence on Russian-origin military equipment. It is also about trust, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'If the Chinese intent is to be gauged based on its aggression in the South China Sea, greater forays in the Indian Ocean, a hawk's attitude towards Taiwan, flying its fighters repeatedly over the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea and creating strategic assets globally, there would be a requirement for strategic partnerships for India,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
The aircraft carrier is China first domestically-built ship. Shandong is bigger than China's first aircraft carrier Liaoning and could house 36 fighter jets.
'We have not had one discussion on the border incursions or the subsequent report of the building of Chinese villages on Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh.'
'The adversary will always exploit India's anti-national elements.'
Senior Colonel Liu Degang said the Arjun tank is "very good" and suits Indian conditions.
'India is not the India of 1962. We are not carrying that baggage of history anymore.'
India must break out of this strategic triangulation between China and Pakistan. We need to settle our issues with one of the two, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Building relations in the Indian Ocean, New Delhi has gifted naval vessels to Mauritius, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, even as China eyes the same locales.
'We are also capable of giving a befitting response to any attempt of aggression,' Kovind said.
'It could have moved from the use of small arms to artillery fire.' 'Anything could have happened like what happens on the LoC.'
Lt Gen PGK Menon, the commander of the Leh-based 14 Corps, popularly known as 'Fire and Fury' Corps, briefed the army chief on various aspects of the situation in eastern Ladakh.
'We are facing the most critical military situation with China in the last 50 years.'
'The Chinese can't be trusted hence the need to verify and re-verify.'
On the first anniversary of the deadly clashes, the army said the supreme sacrifice of the soldiers while fighting the adversary in the "most difficult" high altitude terrain will be "eternally etched" in the memory of the nation.
Even though troops of India and China have disengaged at three locations in Eastern Ladakh, the Indian side is clear that the tensions on the borders would be done away completely only when the People's Liberation Army de-inducts more than 10,000 troops along with artillery and tank regiments deployed on its side of the Line of Actual Control near the Indian territory.
The Chinese military has opened its first cyber base headquarters but has assured that the facility was not aimed at launching cyber war.
Samdong Rimpoche's visit to China materialised against the backdrop of strained India-China relations consequent to the face-off between Indian and Chinese troops at Doklam, says former RAW officer Jayadeva Ranade.
Defence and strategic experts on Monday said that China's posturing in the Indian Ocean will disturb stability and peace in the region.
Indian Armed forces will leave no stone unturned to safeguard the country's frontiers, he insisted.
'The Chinese being focussed more seawards is definitely better for India with China being the looming threat along our land borders,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
The sources said the focus of the talks was to take forward the disengagement process in friction points like Hot Springs, Gogra and Depsang in eastern Ladakh.
The decisions were mentioned in a joint statement issued by the two armies late Tuesday, a day after the sixth round of Sino-India Corps commander-level talks that lasted for 14-hours.
Chinese military has identified a host of problems after conducting massive military exercises for the first time to sharpen the troops' fighting capability which if not rectified will hinder its ability to win wars.
The PLA choppers violated Indian airspace in the Chumar sector on July 11 around 0800 hours and returned after flying for some time there, sources said.
The Tibetan nation still lives under the yoke of the Chinese Communist Party, and Beijing today has a guilty conscience; this creates a great uneasiness for Xi Jinping and his colleagues observes Claude Arpi.
Even as the gaming industry battles multiple regulations in different Indian states, it has received more than double the amount of investment this year compared to 2020. Industry watchers attribute this to the growing popularity of gaming, spurred by the pandemic, and the innovative business models gaming firms have built. According to data from industry tracker Venture Intelligence, investment in India's gaming sector in 2021 has more than doubled to $794 million, as against a total investment of $339 million last year. In 2019, this number was $176 million. Marquee investors such as Tiger Global (Dream11), Sequoia Capital India (Mobile Premier League), WinZO (Griffin Capital Partners), Tencent (Dream11) and Matrix Partners (Zupee) have pumped money into the sector.
'The Chinese -- up to the highest leadership -- will avoid a conflict because they know they will be badly licked.' 'The reputation they have painstakingly built over the last two-three decades of being a global power will be destroyed.'
In the early part of the Kargil operations, the army opted to more or less go it alone, sacrificing large numbers of men and officers in almost superhuman struggles against an enemy on higher ground. Some generals seem to think their predecessors would have succeeded better if they had had air resources at their disposal, points out David Devadas.
