
A grand plan to double the number of troops guarding the India-China frontier in Arunachal Pradesh has not taken off, despite a clearance given by the previous UPA government in April this year.

Keeping in mind increasing Chinese incursions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), authorities had decided that the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) would get greater manpower to secure the border in the north-eastern state.

Approval was given for building 54 new border outposts in Arunachal Pradesh to facilitate better patrolling and to keep a check on Chinese forces.

Indian Army personnel keep vigil at the India-China border in Arunachal Pradesh.

The new structures would more than double the number of posts along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh, which is claimed by China.

There are currently 40 posts along the 1,030-km border in the state. The number of troops, too, will have to increase significantly.

Currently, there are nearly 15,000 personnel guarding sensitive zones along the LAC, where several confrontations between Indian and Chinese forces had occurred in the past.

Sources said with the increase in outposts, the number of troops on the ground could be more than 30,000. There will also be a need for more logistics.

Still stuck

Government sources said the matter has not moved forward even an inch, and the situation is still the same.

“As of now, the construction of new border outposts is still in the pipeline. Nothing has been done to ensure that the new outposts are constructed at the earliest so that we can have more boots on the ground,” said a government official.

The NDA government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was expected to implement the plan by expediting the process. Officials in the security establishment are hoping the recent stand-off between Indian and Chinese forces in Ladakh will prompt the home ministry to push the plan.

“It needs a lot of planning and the entire budget needs to be cleared by the finance ministry,” the official added.

After getting approval for the new outposts, the ITBP prepared a detailed report on the deployment of troops in critical zones. A roadmap for intensifying vigil on the LAC was submitted to the home ministry.

“There are critical gaps in the security on the border with China that need to be filled,” said a senior home ministry official.

The Centre also plans to pump in more money to develop areas near the border to ensure there are more habitations. The home ministry has pushed for an additional outlay of Rs 5,000 crore for resettling people in the border areas.

Sources said that since there is no infrastructure, local residents have been pushed as far as 50km from the border, making the region vulnerable to Chinese forces.

Sources said that some years ago, there were villages with sizeable populations up to 5km from the border. They have been pushed back because of the lack of development, making the places vulnerable to intrusion. If people are resettled with better infrastructure, it will prevent Chinese forces from coming in.

With no roads in high-altitude border areas, patrolling is difficult. A road construction project began in 2004, but only about 40 per cent of the work has been done, sources said.

The environment ministry was reluctant to give green clearances for roads and the home ministry was unable to get contractors. The Centre has now shown some urgency in building roads along the LAC by speeding up environmental clearances.

Urgent upgrade

There is also an urgent need to upgrade the ITBP, which has to take on Chinese forces with modern weaponry. As part of a mega police modernisation plan, the ITBP was sanctioned Rs 265 crore for the period between 2012 and 2017. Alarmingly, the force did not get a single penny under this plan.

According to the plan, the force should have got Rs 150 crore till March 2014, but the home ministry did not release any money.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said funds for police modernisation need to be doubled.

PLA seeks flag meeting with the Army

By Mail Today Bureau in New Delhi

With the stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops at Chumar along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) set to enter its third week, the Chinese Army on Tuesday sought a flag meeting of local commanders, but the Indian side is yet to respond.

This is the first time that Chinese commanders have asked for a flag meeting. Two earlier initiatives by India last week had yielded no results.

The Chinese side is adamant on remaining in the disputed territory and India, too, has refused to pull back from its positions, sources said.

Armymen in Chumar on September 23. India has prevented Chinese troops from building a road right up to the LAC. The Chinese troops, in turn, have asked India to remove its bunkers.

New Delhi is firm that if anyone has to move back troops from the current location, it is China. India claims its troops have not advanced. The Indian troops continue to hold traditional positions, and it is China that has brought its troops right up to the perceived border, an official said.

India has prevented Chinese troops from building a road right up to the LAC. The Chinese troops, in turn, asked India to remove its bunkers. New Delhi wants Beijing to move troops back to pre-September 10 positions to end the deadlock.

Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju has said India will continue to hold its positions in eastern Ladakh. India is not reading much into the Chinese call for a flag meeting, though it is being seen as a positive development.

India had also raised the bar when PM Narendra Modi discussed the border issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his recent visit to the country. The moment the top leadership got involved, the issue was out of the realm of the commanders at the tactical level, sources said.

The local commanders are awaiting orders from the political establishment to firm up a stand on the flag meeting sought by the Chinese side.

Reports on Xi army briefing 'a wild guess'

By Ananth Krishnan in Beijing

Hua Chunying, China's foreign ministry spokesperson, said the border issue would not be allowed to influence Sino-Indian relations.

China on Tuesday rubbished reports suggesting that a recent address by President Xi Jinping to military officers in Beijing calling for “combat readiness” was linked to India, saying that the Indian media reports were “a wild guess”. It added that such reports contradicted the consensus reached by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chinese Premier to resolve issues peacefully.

Xi had called on PLA forces to “improve their combat readiness” and “sharpen their ability to win a regional war in the age of information technology”. This was not Xi’s first such call; shortly after taking over, Xi urged troops in Guangzhou in December 2012 using the same language.

According to military analysts, the reference to “winning regional wars” in the “age of informationisation” has become the PLA’s standard doctrine since the early 1990s, finding regular mention in defence meetings and White Papers and is not country-specific.

“Xi’s language was standard boilerplate…[which] has been used to describe the goals of China’s military strategy,” M. Taylor Fravel, a leading expert on the Chinese military at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told Mail Today.

“Within the PLA’s approach to military strategy, the concept of a local war does not refer to any one country. Instead, it refers to a kind of war, one that will be fought for a limited time over a discrete objective,” he said. He added that the Army-wide meeting address by Xi “was likely planned well before Xi’s visit to India”.

“This is a routine statement that every Central Military Commission chairman makes when he meets a PLA delegation,” added Srikanth Kondapalli, an expert on the Chinese military and Professor in Chinese Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said reports linking Xi’s meeting to the Indian border were “a wild guess”.

“I believe this may be a wild guess,” Hua said. “President Xi just concluded a very successful visit to India and was warmly welcomed by the Indian government.”

She said Modi and Xi had “reached a consensus” that although there may be some problems at the border, they would “solve disputes through friendly coordination”.

“We will never allow the border area to influence Sino-Indian relations,” she said.

China’s military, has, at the same time, stuck to the line that its troops had not violated any agreements between India and China and were on “China’s side” of the LAC.

With differing perceptions of the LAC in the areas in question, the PLA move has been seen as a bid by China to reinforce its control in territory where both sides have in the past been patrolling.

India to promote PM's 'Make in India' pitch in China

In order to promote Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make-in-India pitch’ among large investors in China, India will be organising grand events in various Chinese cities coinciding with his special global address on September 25.

Charge d’Affaires of the Indian embassy in China, Bala B. Bhaskar, told Indian and Chinese journalists that the embassy is organising the investment promotion events with members of various Chinese chambers and trade bodies on September 25, which would be held after the prime minister’s global address.

“Besides Chinese investors, the Chinese media, too, is invited to take part in the event,” he said.

Modi’s ‘Make in India’ address will be screened to the Chinese audience.

“It will be followed by presentations by Indian officials on various steps initiated by the new government to remove various bottlenecks for investment promotion in India,” Bhaskar said.