"Tensions along the Line of Actual Control don't give leverage unless you stay there," said a senior diplomat with long experience of China. And China didn't stay on at Raki Nulla in eastern Ladakh during the face off last month, raising the question as to why it happened in the first place.
"I don't buy the theory of discord between the civil and military establishment. That's a Western argument," said the diplomat. He had no doubt the face off was planned but it could well be that someone somewhere overstepped his brief. The Chinese can be expected to deal harshly with the person or persons found responsible. "At some point it will come out, a report here or a communication there," the diplomat said. "But the incursions and constant probing along the LAC will continue."
Points to ponder as India rolls out the red carpet for Premier Li Keqiang. There's no doubt the face off has deepened the trust deficit, which is probably one of the reasons why the premier is here. Otherwise, he could have done better to wait this government out (with elections due in some months) and dealt with the new political dispensation on a fresh slate.
But the Chinese, in the diplomat's view, have other reasons to reach out. "Just as we talk of China's string of pearls strategy to isolate and contain India, the Chinese have similar fears. "Keeping in mind that China is critically dependent on the Indian Ocean for the
11:50 AM, May 20, 2013
Burdwan: West Bengal Agriculture Minister Malay Ghatak on Saturday said he has received a letter threatening to kill him and his family unless he resigned from the Cabinet and quit Trinamool Congress. "I saw the letter this evening. It was sent by post from Kharagpur in West Midnapore district on May 13 by N Rama Rao of Indian People's Liberation Army," Ghatak told reporters. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the...
07:59 AM, May 19, 2013
Lahore: Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Saturday met Prime Minister-designate Nawaz Sharif for over three hours, exchanging views on regional situation and the war on terror. The meeting, sought by Kayani, was the first between the two since Sharif's PML-N emerged victorious in the May 11 general election and is all set to form the government. During the meeting, which lasted over three hours, the army chief...
08:09 PM, May 18, 2013
London: The website and Twitter feed of British newspaper the Financial Times were hacked on Friday, apparently by the "Syrian Electronic Army", a group of online activists who say they support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The group posted links on the newspaper's Twitter feed to a YouTube video, uploaded on Wednesday, which purports to show members of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front Syrian rebel group executing blindfolded and kneeling members...
08:29 PM, May 17, 2013
Jaipur: An employee of the Army Supply Corp, posted in the South Western Command in Jaipur, was arrested for allegedly passing confidential information to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, police said on Friday. "The accused Upper Division Clerk BK Sinha (43) was spying for ISI and sharing classified information and documents regarding Army's transport related movements to Nepal based ISI agent," said Additional DG (Intelligence) Dalpat Singh Dinkar. Sinha was arrested by...
04:56 PM, May 17, 2013
Kolkata: Indian Army's first woman jawan (personnel) Shanti Tigga was found hanging in a railway hospital in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district on Tuesday, police said. A senior police officer said prima facie it appeared to be a case of suicide. The 37-year-old Tigga's body was found in the toilet of a cabin at the Alipurduar Railway Hospital. Tigga, attached to the 969 Railway Engineer Regiment of the Territorial Army and...
11:55 PM, May 14, 2013
Srinagar: The Indian Army has launched a massive offensive along the Line of Control in Handwara and Kupwara after reports that six terrorists having been sighted in the area. The Army has intensified patrolling over the past few days. Helicopter patrolling is on and security personnel are on alert along the border. In fact, a major tragedy was averted on Sunday when the Army detected and destroyed an improvised explosive...
10:57 AM, May 14, 2013
Jaipur: Soaring petrol prices have forced the Army to look for other options in the SUV variant and it started summer trials of Mahindra Scorpio and Tata Safari in Thar desert in Rajasthan on Monday. The vehicles are being driven by Army drivers to test their endurance, fuel consumption, temperature, cross country drive performance with and without load, power-to-wheel ratio among other factors, Army sources said. Two variants of Mahindra...
10:50 PM, May 13, 2013
New Delhi: The Assam government on Monday stepped up security on the North East Frontier Railway (NEFR) after a threat issued by a tribal group to disrupt traffic. The group, called the Adivasi People's Army, issued a threat to disrupt rail traffic at Srirampur and Kokrajhar in Assam. Kokrajhar in Assam is a sensitive area that witnessed violent clashes between different groups in 2012. Four Bodoland Territorial Administered Districts (BTAD)...
05:33 PM, May 13, 2013
New Delhi: An Army helicopter, on air maintenance operations, crashed on Monday morning in the icy heights of Siachen glacier but both the pilots survived the accident and were being evacuated for treatment, army sources said. The advanced light helicopter (ALH) 'Dhruv', flown by two pilots of the Army Aviation Squadron, crashed in the northern glacier at around 8:00 am, the sources said. They said of the two pilots, one...
02:22 PM, May 13, 2013
New Delhi: An Army helicopter, on air maintenance operations, crashed on Monday morning in the icy heights of Siachen glacier but both the pilots survived the accident and were being evacuated for treatment, army sources said. The advanced light helicopter (ALH) Dhruv, flown by two pilots of the Army Aviation Squadron, crashed in the northern glacier at around 8:00 AM, the sources said. They said of the two pilots, one...
01:49 PM, May 13, 2013
Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir state police and army troops in a joint operation unearthed a large cache of arms and ammunition from a location close to the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan in Poonch district on Saturday evening. A defence spokesman in Jammu said the cache was a "war-like store". "Based on specific intelligence inputs about cache, a joint search operation was launched by the army and Jammu...
05:48 AM, May 13, 2013
New Delhi: The Indian Army has decided to phase-out Maruti Gypsy from its inventory with Mahindra Scorpio and Tata Safari in the race to replace the vehicle under a project expected to cost the force more than Rs 3,000 crore. The Indian Army is the biggest customer of the Maruti Gypsy utility vehicles with more than 25,000 such vehicles in service and uses them in all light vehicle operations including...
12:08 PM, May 11, 2013
New Delhi: Four days after the face off with Chinese troops ended at Raki Nulla in eastern Ladakh, there's no clarity in Delhi on just why it happened. Indian diplomats expect some of the fog will clear when External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid returns from Beijing. "It could have been a signal to India, that they wanted movement on the draft of the defence cooperation agreement they had handed over...
03:35 PM, May 10, 2013
Beijing: External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid arrived in Beijing on Thursday on a two-day visit for the talks with Chinese leaders, just days after the resolution of a row over Depsang Valley in Ladakh where the troops of People's Liberation Army intruded recently. Besides talks with his counterpart Wang Yi, Khurshid is expected to meet new Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who is planning to visit India later this month, making...
11:40 AM, May 09, 2013
Beijing: China on Wednesday accused the United States of sowing discord between China and its neighbours after the Pentagon said Beijing is using espionage to fuel its military modernisation, branding Washington the "real hacking empire". The latest salvo came a day after China's foreign ministry dismissed as groundless a Pentagon report which accused China for the first time of trying to break into US defence computer networks. The Pentagon also...
11:32 AM, May 08, 2013
New Delhi: China on Tuesday rejected talks that India had made concessions in the Chumar region in southern Ladakh to end its standoff across the Line of Actual Control (LAC), triggered by the recent incursion by Chinese troops in Ladakh's Daulat Oldi Begi sector. After the three-week long standoff ended on Monday, speculation was rife that India had agreed to demolish a border observation bunker in the Chumar region in...
06:54 PM, May 07, 2013
New Delhi: Compulsory military training to all youths is against democratic ethos of the country and is highly undesirable as some of the trained men could join the ranks of radical forces, Defence Minister AK Antony told the Lok Sabha on Monday. In a written reply to the House, he also said the government is not in favour of making military training compulsory as under the democratic set up of...
12:03 PM, May 07, 2013
Islamabad: Pakistan Punjab's caretaker Chief Minister Najam Sethi has said that Pakistan no longer considers India to be an existential threat. Speaking to CNN-IBN's Karan Thapar, Sethi said that India needs to realise that. Following is an excerpt from the interview: Karan Thapar: The second aspect of the electoral campaign that is underway in Pakistan that is being picked up by India is the fact that Kashmir as an issue...
09:57 AM, May 07, 2013
New Delhi: With China-India standoff in Ladakh sector coming to an end, sources said on Monday that Delhi has not given in to any of the demands made by Beijing. "The governments of India and China have agreed to restore status quo along Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Western Sector as it existed prior to April 15. Flag meetings have been held to work out modalities and to confirm...
02:07 PM, May 06, 2013
