The visit is also aimed at boosting morale of the army personnel engaged in the seven-week bitter border faceoff with the Chinese troops in the region, sources added.
Sources said the process of disengagement along the Line of Actual Control is "complex", and in such a context, speculative and unsubstantiated reports need to be avoided.
Answering questions on the clashes near Naku La Pass in the Sikkim sector which resulted in injuries to both sides, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that the most pressing issue for the world at present is the fight against the coronavirus.
Chinese military has also deployed a sizeable number of its troops in Galwan Valley, the site of the violent clashes on June 15 that left 20 Indian soldiers dead.
India has already mobilised fighter jets and sent thousands of additional army troops to forward locations along the border with China after 20 Indian Army personnel were killed in a brutal attack by Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh's Galwan Valley on June 15.
'In South Asia, unlike Southeast, East, or Central Asia, there is a natural hegemon: India. China cannot cast it aside easily'
After making incursion bids in Ladakh through land route, Chinese troops have made several attempts to enter Indian waters at Pangong lake nestled in the higher reaches of Ladakh with the latest incident reported on Friday.
Singh addresses a first-ever meeting of chief ministers of five Himalayan states.
Iivo Niskanen put on a brilliant display of cross-country skiing to win gold for Finland at the Beijing Games
The Indian Army will continue to maintain its aggressive posturing in all disputed areas in eastern Ladakh and will not back off till status quo is maintained, sources said.
It is learnt that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has conveyed to top military brass that there was no need for reviewing the implementation of any of the key projects along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand or in Arunachal Pradesh in view of the aggressive behaviour by Chinese troops in several sensitive areas.
Indian and Chinese troops remained engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation in several disputed areas.
Addressing the Congress Working Committee, the president of the party said, ""Misfortunes do not come singly. India has been hit by a terrible economic crisis, a pandemic of huge proportions and, now, by a full-blown crisis on the borders with China. Much of each crisis is attributable to the mismanagement of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government and the wrong policies pursued by it."
Two top Army commanders on Saturday said the fresh ceasefire between India and Pakistan will have no bearing on the counter-terrorism operations in Jammu and Kashmir and that the force will exercise 'maximum restraint' in the event of any violation by the neighbouring country.
Army Chief General Bikram Singh, who is in China on a four-day official visit, on Thursday held talks with People's Liberation Army Chief of General Staff Fang Fenghui in Beijing.
The ministry of external affairs said India has conveyed its "consistent position" on the issue to China on several occasions.
The fighter plane has been untraceable since Tuesday.
Unfazed by the 'sit-in' by the Chinese border guards at Demchok in Ladakh that led to a face-off with Indian troops earlier this week, Army engineers have finished the work for laying a water pipeline for irrigation purpose for local villagers in Ladakh division.
'India's challenge is status quo ante. China's challenge is a face-saving exit'
'It is nobody's contention that uncomfortable questions regarding national security should not be raised. But that is a topic for another day and another time when the immediate threat has faded,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
India has over 4,000 medium tanks, but not a single light tank. It remains to be seen whether the Ladakh face-off with China galvanises a change, observes Ajai Shukla.
'The Chinese are only about 160-170 km behind.' 'It will not take much time for them to bring their troops back, considering that they have better infrastructure -- and the weather is now favourable.' 'They can move in much faster as the terrain favours them.'
Amid a spate of incursions by China in Ladakh, its troops are also resorting to tactics like preventing the Indian army from patrolling posts in this sector along the border, which is well within India's territory.
The US hopes that the differences will be resolved peacefully, officials said in Washington.
Close on the heels of over a dozen incursions since the face-off in Ladakh in April from across the Line of Actual Control, Chinese troops made a fresh attempt to violate the International Border at Chumar area in north-east of Leh on July 20, but were forced back by Indian troops.
Situated at a height of 15,200 feet above sea level, the pass sits on the top of a craggily formed Himalayan range that separates the Tibetan plateau from the Indian sub-continent.
Trump on Wednesday said in a tweet that he was "ready, willing and able to mediate" between the two countries.
He called for delineation of the 3,488-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) which China has refused earlier.
During the course of the intense and complex negotiations between senior commanders of the two armies that ended at 2 am on Wednesday, the Indian delegation also apprised the Chinese PLA about the "red lines" and conveyed that the onus was largely on China to improve the overall situation in the region, the sources said.
Apart from battle tanks, Pakistan Army is also procuring 245 150mm SP Mike-10 guns from Italy out of which it has already received 120 guns.
The army has long been deficient in artillery, the modern battlefield's most lethal killer, says Ajai Shukla.
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 DG of the ITBP said his troops have been provided with special winter clothing and nutritious food as they brave the severe chill in eastern Ladakh where the armies of India and China are locked in a tense standoff for over six months. He said 'strains in bilateral relations are already evident but we are confident these will be sorted out peacefully very shortly'.
For both India and China, the most likely option -- and the most challenging -- appears to be a freezing of the status quo.
The government is set to clear a proposal to raise a dozen battalions and induct close to 12,000 fresh personnel in the Indo-China border guarding force ITBP to bolster the force's presence along this strategic frontier.
Dai Bingguo, who served as the China's boundary negotiator with India from 2003 to 2013, told Chinese media, "If the Indian side takes care of China's concerns in the eastern sector of their border, the Chinese side will respond accordingly and address India's concerns elsewhere."
Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria was at the Leh IAF base on Wednesday where he reviewed operational preparedness of the force in effectively guarding the sensitive border areas in eastern Ladakh where Indian and Chinese armies have been on a nearly six-week standoff.
The enhancement of combat capability by the two armies in the region came even as both the countries continued their efforts to resolve the dispute through talks at military and diplomatic levels.
Wang said the two sides should follow the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries and strengthen the communication and coordination on the proper handling of the border situation through the existing channels so as to jointly maintain peace and tranquility in the border area, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement.
Hours after withdrawing from the Chumar region in Ladakh, Chinese People's Liberation Army soldiers were on Friday reported to have crossed into Indian territory again and stationed themselves on a hillock.
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