The military brass is learnt to have apprised Modi about the evolving situation in eastern Ladakh, though officials maintained that the agenda of the pre-scheduled meeting was to discuss the ambitious military reforms and ways to boost India's combat prowess.
'I want to assure this House that in these talks we have not conceded anything.' Full text of what Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told Parliament on the Chinese pullback in eastern Ladakh.
More than 300 coastal security exercises have been conducted with state authorities post the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack to beef up the country's security, Indian Coast Guard Director General K Natarajan said on Thursday.
'We have to up our vigil everywhere, all along the LAC -- winter, summer or spring.'
'For the moment in Eastern Ladakh, it is unlikely there will be any more escalation of this conflict,' observes Colonel S Dinny (retd) who served as Commanding Officer of an infantry battalion deployed in the Pangong Tso area.
Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong said India and China are able to properly manage their differences, and called upon New Delhi to avoid taking actions that may 'complicate' the situation in eastern Ladakh.
'The military advantage the Indian Army had gained by the Special Frontier Force occupying the heights of the Rezang La-Rechin La ridge on the Kailash Range is lost without the PLA withdrawing to east of the Khurnak Fort line.'
Naga splinter groups impatient with stalled talks as well as rebel Manipuri groups who have a stake in disrupting upcoming elections to the state assembly, are believed to be regrouping in the borderlands of China's Yunnan province and Myanmar, taking advantage of the turmoil in the latter by using it as a transit corridor.
Many non-NDA parties have extended support to the nationwide 10-hour strike on Monday called by farmers protesting against the three agri laws under the aegis of Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM).
'It is because of the bravery of Colonel Santosh Babu and his men that we have not seen a violent escalation anywhere else along the LAC.'
The terrorists made an abortive bid during the night to infiltrate into the Indian side of the LoC in Machil sector in north Kashmir's Kupwara district, they added. The infiltrators were challenged and three of them were killed, the officials said.
The talks between the two armies are going to be held this week at multiple locations including Patroling point 14 (Galwan area), Patrolling point 15, and Hot Springs area, top government sources said.
AFSPA can be safely lifted from almost 90 per cent of Nagaland, argues Shekhar Gupta.
Giving an account of India's overall military modernisation, Lt Gen Pande also said that an in-principle approval has been given to new combat formations called the Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs) which can mobilise fast with a more effective approach.
In 2020 India was compelled by China to change its national security strategy. From counter-insurgency, which the army has been focussed on for years, we shifted to conventional war, observes Aakar Patel.
The Border Security Force troops opened fire when they noticed some persons moving suspiciously along the Indo-Pak border in Ramgarh of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.
China on Thursday said Chinese and Indian troops have taken "effective measures" to disengage at the Galwan Valley and other areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh and the situation is "stable and improving," days after the two sides agreed on an expeditious withdrawal of soldiers from all the standoff points.
The US president previously offered to mediate between India and Pakistan, a proposal rejected by New Delhi which maintains that there is no role for any third party in bilateral issues.
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre to apprise an 83-year-old mother quarterly about the steps taken to trace her son, Captain Sanjit Bhattacharjee, who has been missing in action and is said to be lodged in a jail in Pakistan for over 25 years.
Within the army, there is growing concern that New Delhi will allow the Chinese to retain the territory they have occupied in the last month.
In yet another ceasefire violation, Pakistani forces on Tuesday opened fire on a Border Security Force patrol killing a sub-inspector and injuring a civilian along the Line of Control in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir.
The personnel belonging to the CRPF's elite Commando Battalion for Resolute Action unit, the District Reserve Guard and the Special Task Force were involved in the operation.
Security forces continued a massive search operation on Tuesday in a forest area connecting the twin border districts of Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir, where five soldiers including a junior commissioned officer were killed in a gunfight the previous day, officials said.
India displayed its military might and vibrant cultural heritage on Rajpath on Wednesday with the grandest flypast with 75 aircraft to mark the 'Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav' celebrations being the highlight of the 73rd Republic Day Parade, which was drastically scaled down in view of the Covid pandemic.
"We are capable of properly resolving the issues between us through dialogue and consultation. We do not need the intervention of the third party", he said.
Driven by hardship, adventurous souls mortgage their homesteads in Punjab or Haryana, pawn the family jewellery and borrow heavily to satisfy the greed of the criminal traffickers who organise their trips, points out Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
In the review meeting, Singh told the top military brass to continue to deal with the situation in eastern Ladakh and other areas with "firmness".
Indian Army officers are convinced China is maintaining the pretence of dialogue and negotiations in order to create the opportunity to occupy more Indian territory. Senior Indian planners apprehend this might be a Chinese ploy to divert attention from Depsang, in Northern Ladakh, which might be China's actual target.
The navies of India, the US, Japan and Australia on Tuesday held a series of complex manoeuvres in the Bay of Bengal, kick-starting the four-day-long first phase of the Malabar naval exercise, seen as a prelude to future military cooperation among the member nations of the Quad or Quadrilateral Coalition.
The incident occurred on March 8 when a platoon of at least 11 PLA men led by a colonel-rank officer crossed over the imaginary LAC.
In the fourth such incursion since March, two helicopters of the People's Liberation Army of China hovered for about five minutes in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district and "could have carried out aerial photography of Indian ground troops," according to official sources in the government.
"All temporary structures and other allied infrastructure created in the area by both sides have been dismantled and mutually verified. The landform in the area has been restored by both sides to the pre-standoff period," the Army said in a statement.
Top commanders of the Indian Army on Monday carried out a comprehensive review of the country's security challenges, including in eastern Ladakh and other sensitive areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, on the opening day of a four-day conference, people familiar with the developments said.
The main focus will be on the situation in eastern Ladakh where Indian and Chinese troops are locked in an eyeball-to-eyeball face-off in sensitive areas like Pangong Tso, Galwan Valley, Demchok and Daulat Beg Oldie
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.
The five youths had gone missing on Friday from the Sino-Indian border in the Upper Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh.
1 jawan was injured in a gunbattle with Naxals in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district.
At least 12 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) reached West Bengal on Saturday morning as the state prepares to go to elections, officials said.
The incident occurred in Churachandpur district close to the Myanmar border.
In a surprise move, Pakistan's powerful intelligence chief Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed on Saturday dashed to Kabul, amidst the Taliban struggling to finalise and install an inclusive government in Afghanistan that would be acceptable to the international community.