File photo of Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh area. (AP)
India-China Border Face-off Latest News Live Update: Corps Commanders of the Indian and Chinese armies met Monday for the first time after the Galwan Valley incident in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed in violent clashes with Chinese troops. XIV Corps Commander Lt General Harinder Singh and South Xinjiang Military District Commander Major General Liu Lin met at Moldo on the Chinese side of the border with Chushul.
Meanwhile, the Army held a detailed operational briefing in Delhi. Army chief General MM Naravane attended the detailed review of the situation on the ground with Army commanders.
Meanwhile, the BJP today responded to senior Congress leader Manmohan Singh’s letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and urged his party to “stop insulting our forces”. “Dr Manmohan Singh belongs to the same party which: Helplessly surrendered over 43,000 km of Indian territory to the Chinese!” BJP president J P Nadda tweeted.
In his letter to Modi, Singh said that the prime minister “must always be mindful of the implications of his words” and must not allow China to “use his words as a vindication of their position” on the present standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Earlier in the day, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh left for Russia for a trilateral meeting with China this morning. Moscow is emerging a key player amid the tension between New Delhi and Beijing. Over the last few weeks, Moscow has been more engaged with New Delhi.
An Indian army officer pays tribute to Colonel B. Santosh Babu during his funeral in Suryapet, about 140 kilometers from Hyderabad. (AP)
A day after his meeting with the military brass on the situation along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh reached Moscow Monday night to start a three-day visit.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, meanwhile, will be participating in a virtual meeting of the foreign ministers of Russia, India and China (RIC) Tuesday.
This will be Jaishankar’s first face-to-face meeting with Chinese counterpart Wangi Yi after the Galwan Valley incident in which 20 Indian Army personnel, including the Commanding Officer of 16 Bihar, were killed in violent clashes with Chinese troops on the night of June 15. Read more
Corps Commanders of the Indian and Chinese armies met Monday for the first time after the Galwan Valley incident in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed in violent clashes with Chinese troops.
XIV Corps Commander Lt General Harinder Singh and South Xinjiang Military District Commander Major General Liu Lin met at Moldo on the Chinese side of the border with Chushul.
The two commanders first met on June 6 to discuss a roadmap for de-escalation on the Line of Actual Control, but the circumstances have changed since the showdown in Galwan Valley. Read more here
Niti Aayog member V K Saraswat has said Indian companies manufacturing bullet-proof jackets for Army personnel should avoid importing raw materials from China because of "inconsistencies in the quality" of the shipments. "Many times raw materials imported from China (to produce bullet-proof jackets) are not of good quality... We should avoid importing from Chinese sources because of inconsistencies of the raw material quality," he told PTI.
In an opinion piece for The Indian Express, former Director-General of Military Training and General Officer Commanding 3 Infantry Division A L Chavan says the brave sacrifice of our soldiers in Galwan Valley and the bloody nose we gave to the Chinese has been drowned in the cacophony of negative comments from the doomsayers.
"This has caused severe distress to the veterans and serving soldiers alike. The India-China boundary dispute and management of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) are complex issues. My personal experience with the Chinese during the 2013 Depsang stand-off as General Officer Commanding of the Ladakh Division, has spurred me to bring some clarity to the whole debate and also to put to rest some very negative and vile comments in the media related to the entire issue," he writes. Read the full article here
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said the country was fighting two wars against China -- one against coronavirus and the other on the border while maintaining that there should be no politics by anyone in fighting these two wars. "Twenty of our brave soldiers did not back down, we will also not retreat and win both wars against China. Today, the country is fighting two wars against China - one against the virus that has come from China and the other on the border," Kejriwal said.
Senior Congress leader Ashwani Kumar on Sunday said while the opposition cannot be faulted for asking the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi “pertinent questions”, it is time for the nation now to show “unity of purpose” and present a “united face” against China. Arguing that the Indian diplomacy is now on test, Kumar said, “We must lend the moral support of the entire nation for them to leverage the goodwill enjoyed by India in the comity of nations.” He said the “Chinese aggression will be resisted by the full might of the Indian state” and asserted that India’s “response to Chinese brutality must factor the need to avenge the martyrdom of our brave soldiers who gave the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty”.
The political row over Congress leader Manmohan Singh's remarks continued on Monday afternoon with party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala urging the saffron party to "stop compromising on ‘National Security’ & India’s ‘Territorial Integrity’." "This would be the biggest disservice to our Armed Forces and our 20 martyrs. Don’t buckle down, have the strength to ‘rise to the occasion’. We’ll give the government every support," he tweeted.
The India-China standoff in Galwan Vallery last week has spurred anti-China sentiment among many Indians. Due to this many want the government to ban the sale of Chinese products in the country and also block apps that have Chinese origin. The Indian Institute of Human Brands (IIHB) conducted a ‘gun-shot’ telephonic survey over June 17 and June 18 to understand consumer sentiment on Chinese brands and Indian celebrities endorsing them and also the usage of China-based applications such as TikTok. IIHB asked a few quick-fire questions to 408 people on whether they will uninstall TikTok because it’s a Chinese app and according to the report 56 per cent know TikTok is a Chinese app. 32 per cent didn’t know about it. The report also stated that only 21 per cent said they will uninstall TikTok because it’s a Chinese app while 62 per cent are doubtful and said ‘maybe’, while 11 per cent said no.
"The nature of the diplomatic engagement and military disengagement in the coming week(s) will decide whether the relationship will slip from low-trust to mutual suspicion. On Tuesday (June 23), the Foreign Ministers of India and China are slated to engage at the Russia-India-China (RIC) forum. And on June 24, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will attend the Victory Day Parade in Moscow to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. Russia has good relations with both India and China," writes Ravish Tiwari.
National president of Swaraj India, Yogendra Yadav writes: "...this is a moment to take a deep breath, think of the long-term strategic, diplomatic and economic options available to recover what we have lost. The country needs a de-escalation of rhetoric. The government needs some room to decide its strategy. Mature nations do not react when provoked, they respond when they choose to. He may not deserve it or even acknowledge it, but this is the time to help the PM retrieve the situation."
In his concluding remark, Nadda said: "Dear Dr. Singh and Congress Party, please stop insulting our forces repeatedly, questioning their valour. You did this post the air strikes and surgical strikes. Please understand the true meaning of national unity, especially in such times. It’s never too late to improve."
"One only wishes that Dr. Singh was as worried about Chinese designs when, as PM, he abjectly surrendered hundreds of square kilometres of India’s land to China. He presided over 600 incursions made by China between 2010 to 2013! Dr Manmohan Singh can certainly share his wisdom on many subjects but the responsibilities of the office of the Prime Minister isn’t one of them. UPA personified systematic institutional erosion of that office, combined with disrespect for our armed forces. NDA has reversed that!" Nadda tweeted.
"Dr. Manmohan Singh, rightly, calls for unity. Again, the strong words on paper fall flat when we see exactly who is vitiating the atmosphere of unity... Hope Dr. Singh is able to prevail on his own party at least," Nadda said. "Dr. Manmohan Singh belongs to the same party which: Helplessly surrendered over 43,000 KM of Indian territory to the Chinese! During the UPA years saw abject strategic and territorial surrender without a fight. Time and again belittles our forces," he added.
Responding to Congress leader Manmohan Singh's letter to the prime minister earlier in the day, BJP President J P Nadda said: "Former PM Dr. Manmohan Singh’s statement is mere wordplay. Sadly, the conduct and actions of top leaders of the Congress party will not make any Indian believe such statements. Remember, this is the same INC that always questions and demoralises our armed forces." He added: "India fully trusts and supports PM Modi. 130 crore Indians have seen his administrative experience in some of the most testing times, particularly how he has always put the well-being of the nation over and above everything else."
On the opposition's questions over PM Modi's remarks at the all-party meet recently, Major General (retired) S P Sinha writes: "Surely, there was a small section of people who did not even read the PM’s statement correctly and were misled. But quite a few of those who went to town with this misinformation also happen to be compulsive, partisan critics of Narendra Modi. These people are also, in some way or the other, beholden to the UPA regime. They sought to take our attention away from some uncomfortable truths by manufacturing controversies."
Senior Congress leader and former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid writes: "Whatever call we take, Doklam mustn’t be repeated. It is for the government of the day to find the way and not for the Opposition to shoulder the burden. Our ability to pull off surgical strikes and air attacks, surely, is a reputation that does not confine itself to our western border. Of course, the target might not be an equally sitting duck. We need to draw the line of honour with care, but draw it we must. If ever India had a mann ki baat to say, it is this." He adds: "The belated all-party meeting exhibited the much-needed support for the government but flagged issues that need to be addressed as part of a larger approach. How are we to live with a neighbour we did not choose, but need to live with in honour and cooperation?"
The Galwan Valley in Ladakh, where Indian and Chinese troops clashed on June 15, once echoed with songs by Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi. Phunchok Tashi, a veteran of the 1962 Indo-China war, recalls a time when the Chinese Army used loudspeakers to play Hindi songs in an attempt to befriend the Indian soldiers and get them to leave their posts. Now 84-years-old and living in Stok village, around 17 km from Leh city, Tashi told The Indian Express that two of the songs the Chinese used to play were Mangeshkar’s Man Dole Mera Tan Dole from the 1954 movie Nagin, and Rafi’s Tumsa Nahi Dekha from the 1957 movie of the same name.
A second round of meeting between Corps Commanders of both the sides will take place shortly. The meeting is taking place at Chushul-Moldo, the same point where the two sides had met on June 6.
Table tennis balls, shuttlecocks, badminton and tennis racquets, wrestling mats, javelins, high jump bars, boxing headguards, mountain climbing accessories, gym equipment, sportswear — the list of sports equipment imported from China goes on and on. But now, amid the rising clamour to boycott Chinese goods, leading players in India’s sports industry find themselves in a tough corner. The reason: More than half of India’s sports equipment imports are from China, according to the Department of Commerce’s data for 2018-2019. “They have more than 50 per cent share in the sports market,” says Lokesh Vats, managing director of domestic manufacturing giant Vats. “We say ‘vocal for local’ but government policies over the decades have led to Chinese products completely invading our markets.”
As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosts the Russia-India-China trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting on June 23, Moscow is emerging a key player amid the tension between New Delhi and Beijing. Over the last few weeks, Moscow has been more engaged with New Delhi. This flows from the understanding that Russia has leverage over Beijing because of recent proximity, while New Delhi has had a history of robust bilateral ties with Moscow. During the Doklam crisis in 2017, Russian diplomats in Beijing were among the few briefed by the Chinese government. In fact, the phone call between Indian Ambassador to Russia, D Bala Venkatesh Varma, and Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov took place just two days after the border clash between Indian and Chinese troops in which 20 Indian soldiers, including a Colonel-rank officer, were killed. “The officials discussed regional security, including developments on the Line of Actual Control on the border between India and China in the Himalayas,” a brief statement by the Russian Foreign ministry said.