The strengthening of the Mountain Strike Corps is part of the steps taken by the force to rebalance its focus more towards the Chinese border from the western front with Pakistan.
'The necessity of a Mountain Strike Corps is well understood. The problem is in implementing the intention.'
However, flow of funds, would naturally rest on economic growth, reports Ajai Shukla.
'China will do everything to hamper our ability to be a competitor.' 'China wants every country in the region to be subservient and we are the biggest stumbling block.'
In the book 10 Flashpoints: 20 years that is set to be released on December 2, the former union minister has looked back at the security situations that have impacted India in the last two decades.
The new mountain strike corps, created to deter Chinese adventurism and launch offensives, will financially damage India's military. Ajai Shukla reports
His attack on the government came days after Indian Army personnel clashed with Chinese soldiers in the Tawang sector in Arunachal Pradesh.
The military standoff with China has been going on for over two years now when the Chinese side attempted to change the status quo unilaterally by moving troops in large numbers against Indian positions.
In all likelihood, the next conventional Chinese attack on India would be preceded by a massive cyber attack designed to cripple Indian networks and interfere with our disaster-relief programmes.
Until last month more than two-thirds of the Indian Army was deployed against Pakistan. Of 14 army corps, just four-and-a-half faced China, while more than twice that number was ranged against Pakistan.
'Dear Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury dada, the screenshots of the tweets addressed to Defense Minister Rajnath Singh below hope address your concern and criticism also'
The China-focused mountain corps will include three mountain divisions (20,000 soldiers each), complete with tactical airlift capability, armed with necessary armoured regiments and artillery components, and deployment of C-130J Hercules aircraft, reveals R S Chauhan.
The China-focused mountain corps will include three mountain divisions (20,000 soldiers each), complete with tactical airlift capability, armed with necessary armoured regiments and artillery components, and deployment of C-130J Hercules aircraft, reveals R S Chauhan.
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.
16 Indian Army divisions face China, 20 face Pakistan and two divisions are reserves. This powerful signal can hardly be missed in China or Pakistan, notes Ajai Shukla.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has asked the Indian Air Force to focus on safety and conservation of available resources as he interacted with top commanders in New Delhi just days after India decided to buy 36 Rafale jets.
In her introductory remarks at an all-party meeting convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the situation along the Line of Actual Control, Gandhi posed a set of questions to the government, asking specifics about when Chinese troops intruded into the Indian territory in Ladakh and whether the country's external intelligence agencies did not report any unusual activity there.
The new 17 Strike Corps with 80,000 troops and a budget of Rs 64,000 crore will provided the much-needed offensive capacity against China. R S Chauhan reports.
Complaints of alleged irregularities have been received in connection with Army's plan to procure ultra light howitzers worth over Rs 3,000 crore and a committee has been formed to probe these charges, the government has told Lok Sabha.
Sources said the indicted personnel are in the process of facing disciplinary action on various counts in the incident which happened around a couple of years ago.
Army sources indicate the first Integrated Battle Groups would come up in the plains of Jammu, Punjab, and Rajasthan, providing New Delhi instruments of retaliation in the event of grave provocation by Pakistan, such as a 26/11-style terrorist attack.
'While China has been hiking its defence spending, India has done precious little in implementing the Manmohan Singh government's decision of raising a 90,000-strong China-centric Mountain Strike Corps,' says Rajeev Sharma.
DRDO plans to build a tank for use in the mountains and in the jungles.
The terror infrastructure across the Line of Control has the potential to vitiate the security environment in Jammu and Kashmir and Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act should not be withdrawn as it is a "strategic imperative" until the US' pullout from Afghanistan in 2014, Army Chief, Gen Bikram Singh, has said.
China has reacted cautiously to India's proposal for the establishment of mountain strike corps along the Sino-Indian border, while the official media in Beijing ignored the development.
'Does the Indian army's new assertiveness risk a clash escalating into shooting and possibly skirmishes?' asks Ajai Shukla.
Former Defence Minister A K Antony tells Amit Agnihotri that Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's statement is an insult not only to the Indian Army but also the previous National Democratic Alliance government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee
'All the government needs to do is to identify clear political and strategic objectives and to give the military planners a free hand,' asserts Ajai Shukla.
The army chief said that radicalisation in Kashmir was being addressed with a "lot of seriousness"
Outgoing Army Chief Gen Bikram Singh on Thursday said that India had given a befitting reply to Pakistan after the beheading of an Indian soldier by Pakistani troops in 2013 along the Line of Control even as he did not rule out the possibility of skirmishes on the western front in future.
Ordnance Factory Board officials say upgrading the 39-calibre FH-77 into the 45-calibre Dhanush has increased the gun's range from 27 to 38 kilometres, using enhanced range ammunition.
"Our worry is that a small mistake, an accidental exchange of fire at night, might lead to an unintended escalation," a senior officer confessed
Flexible, maneuverable, mobile and swift, the M-777A2 Ultra-Light Howitzers are just what India needed to replace its aging battle-tested Bofors guns, says Debalina Ghoshal.
'Landmark developments herald the end of two decades of stagnation in the army's modernisation plans,' notes Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'New Delhi showed itself willing -- at least for a period -- to tolerate the risk of conflict and to withstand Beijing's implicit and explicit threats.' 'But it also continued to try to cut some kind of deal with China to reduce tensions.'
Last week, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said buying 90 less Rafale fighter jets than the 126 planned earlier would save him money to buy more Tejas Light Combat Aircraft for the India Air Force.
It would perhaps have been better for Lieutenant General Dalbir Singh to have been elevated to the top post by the new government, notes R S Chauhan.
The key airbase at Panagarh in West Bengal has been renamed as 'Air Force Station Arjan Singh' in honour of the Marshal of the Air Force, who turned 97 on Friday.
The PM's vision of a lean, agile, mobile and technology driven force requires more than 1.7 percent of GDP that it now gets.
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