New Delhi must clearly demonstrate to Beijing that China will pay a price for its relentless strategic undermining of India, says Ajai Shukla.
The top military brass reviewed the situation in eastern Ladakh and deliberated on key issues to be flagged at the talks on Monday, the sources said. Army Chief General M M Naravane and several top military officials were present in the meeting.
In an interactive session at a think-tank in Paris, Jaishankar said he was optimistic about resolving the issue through dialogue and that significant headway has been made in many of the friction points.
Calling the 'events' along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) very disturbing, the external affairs minister said they have raised some very 'basic concerns'. When asked whether it will be a long-haul or a breakthrough is expected soon, Jaishankar said: "I would not go into prediction zone at all whether it is going to be easy or not, and what will be the timelines and so on."
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will review the performance of regional rural banks (RRBs) after the Budget session of Parliament, according to two people familiar with the matter. The finance minister will review the performance of RRBs after August 13. The review will include discussions on enhancing the digital capabilities of RRBs, said a senior government official.
The action against Zakir Hussain, a councillor from Shakar constituency in Kargil district, followed registration of a first information report against him by police on Friday even as the councillor submitted a public apology over his remarks, the officials said.
'If our troops on the frontlines were sleeping for two hours, they can perhaps now sleep for 2.5 hours because when the adversary is right in front, then you can't even blink your eyes, you have to be absolutely alert.'
On the shopping list: Light tanks, anti-tank guided missiles, UAVs, assault rifles, fighter aircraft.
The country will not allow any "unilateral action" on its border and will pay any cost to thwart such attempts, he told the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha's state conference.
The Heron unmanned aerial vehicles are already in the Air Force, Navy, and the Army and are being used extensively at the moment by both Army surveillance and Target acquisition batteries and Air Force in the Ladakh sector.
Pakistan may want to undertake a 'false flag' operation in J&K to divert attention from the situation in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but infiltrating one SSG battalion into J&K and having two SSG battalions waiting to follow suit means war, which Pakistan cannot afford in its current economic crisis, notes Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
The athlete from Nagaland became the first Paralympics medallist from northeast India. He had also won a bronze medal at the Hangzhou Para Asian Games last year.
The IMD said that rainfall over India in August and September would be around 106 percent of the long-period average of 422.8 mm.
The meeting comes against the backdrop of demands by the opposition seeking details of the violent face-off between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh which left 20 Indian Army personnel dead.
Four students, who were arrested from Ladakh in connection with a blast near the Israel Embassy here in January, were sent to 10-day police remand by a magistrate court, officials said.
"We have seen movements in training areas. It is an annual exercise. They come for training. We also go to training areas. We have been keeping a constant eye on it. We have forces along the LAC and they are adequate to deal with any action or activity," Gen Naravane told India Today channel.
Year after year, the number of yoga practitioners participating in the official and unofficial events on International Yoga Day in different cities is growing, especially the young people, officials say.
DRDO's latest tank will face trial in Rajasthan's summer which will be followed by 'user trials' ahead of facing battle in high-altitude deserts of eastern Ladakh and Sikkim, reports Ajai Shukla.
Asked about the reports of the troops on both sides disengaging and moving back to their previous positions, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing in Beijing that both sides are taking steps to ease the situation along the borders.
Lt Gen Baggavalli Somashekar Raju will take over as the next vice chief of the Army Staff on May 1, the defence ministry said on Friday.
'Even Yashwantrao Chavan, who was defence minister, too had gone to the China border and boosted the morale of the forces'
DRDO is offering a 30-35-tonne light tank that it says will be a match for what the army faces -- China's new Type-15 light tank.
'Why did your generals try to grab a few square kilometres of Indian territory in Ladakh?' 'And what happened to the hard work that you and Prime Minister Modi put into the Wuhan and Mamallapuram meets?' Claude Arpi writes a letter to Xi Jinping, China's self-styled supreme leader, who turns 68 today, June 15.
The last conversation between the two leaders was on April 4 on the issue of hydroxychloroquine.
Singh said the Modi government has changed the approach adopted by previous governments that the border areas are buffer zones between the plains and the potential adversary.
'With all outlets of public expression virtually choked for the last five years, suppressed anger and frustration is looking for an opening via the ballot box.' 'There is no escape from the inevitability of the 'Engineer Rashid' factor surfacing in a big enough way to upset everyone's applecart,' alerts Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
But there is a bigger issue that both of us have brought forces close up and in that sense there is a militarisation of the border, he said.
Replying to clarifications sought by MPs in Rajya Sabha on his statement on the border row, the minister said skirmishes and face-off with China in the last few months have been primarily over the issue of patrolling the Ladakh border.
The Indian Army on Friday strongly insisted on early disengagement of troops by China from all the friction points in eastern Ladakh at the eighth round of corps commander-level talks between the two sides that primarily focused on a roadmap for restoration of peace and tranquillity in the region, according to people familiar with the developments.
'Russia is the only country that can act as facilitator for any eventual Chinese-Indian rapprochement,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The virtual talks took place under the framework of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs.
The world has seen India's strength and commitment to protecting its borders and sovereignty, he said and paid rich tributes to the 20 soldiers who were killed during a violent clash with Chinese troops.
The IAF chief also said Pakistan has become a pawn of Chinese policy and its dependence on China would increase further in future. He said India needs to understand the interplay of some major events in its vicinity that would impact the security scenario of the region.
Chushul and Depsang are not vital in this game of Chinese checkers, the Indian Ocean Region is. Keeping our maritime prowess restricted has to be a key Chinese strategic interest and it would appear that the LAC affair has helped China achieve its aim, points out Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
In its first official account of the standoff between the two militaries, the ITBP revealed how its troops "not only effectively used shield to protect themselves but also responded fiercely to advancing PLA (Chinese People's Liberation Army) troops and brought the situation under control". "The ITBP has recommended the names of 21 men who faced the Chinese during the face-offs and skirmishes in May-June this year for gallantry," it said.
'Once RM is done commenting on the hand symbol, can he answer: Have the Chinese occupied Indian territory in Ladakh,' he asked on Twitter. Singh had on Monday hit out at Gandhi with a couplet of noted Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib, saying when there is pain in the hand, one takes medicine, but what does one do when the hand itself is a pain.
The sources said the situation in eastern Ladakh remained 'tense' and that around 30-40 soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) are holding up at a position close to an Indian post in the Rezang-La ridgeline in eastern Ladakh.
Indian intercepts have revealed that the Chinese side suffered 43 casualties including the dead and seriously injured.
If it were moments of shock and anxiety on the day when the news about the clash in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh was flashed by TV channels, a call from the Army confirming he was safe and then followed by Vishnu's own calls and the video chat overjoyed his family.
Top military officers, including Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, had been summoned to make presentations on military uniforms.
