INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
NEW DELHI: India will once again press for troop disengagement at the strategically located Depsang Plains as well as Demchok in eastern
Ladakh during the next round of top-level military talks early next week.The 19th round of corps commander-level talks will be held on the
Indian side of the Chushul-Moldo border meeting point on August 14, almost four months after the last round failed to break the deadlock,
defence sources said on Friday.The Indian delegation will be led by 14 Corps commander Lt-General Rashim Bali and include officials from the
ministry of external affairs and ITBP, while the Chinese side will be headed by the South Xinjiang Military District chief.The talks come at
a time when the ongoing summer is witnessing heightened military activity by China all along the 3,488-km long Line of Actual Control (LAC),
stretching from eastern Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh, as was reported by TOI last month.National security advisor Ajit Doval had also clearly
The disengagement will only be the first step towards de-escalation and de-induction along the eastern Ladakh frontier
major disagreement is over the Depsang Bulge, a table-top plateau located at an altitude of 16,000-feet, where the PLA has been actively
blocking Indian soldiers around 18-km inside what India considers its own territory.Over 50,000 troops each from the two armies remain
forward deployed along with heavy weapon systems in eastern Ladakh, where the military confrontation is into its fourth year now.China has
assiduously used the last three years to consolidate its military positions in terms of bunkers, posts, artillery positions, surface-to-air
missile systems, radar sites and ammunition storages.All Chinese air bases facing India like Hotan, Kashgar, Gargunsa, Shigatse, Hoping,
Lingzhi and Lhasa-Gonggar have also been upgraded with new and extended runways, hardened shelters and fuel dumps for additional fighters,
bombers, AWACS, drones and reconnaissance aircraft
Moreover, China is now also building seven to eight new airfields and heliports facing India, as was reported by TOI.China has also been
flexing its muscles along the Sikkim-Arunachal Pradesh frontier, which had resulted in the clash between the rival troops at Yangtse in the
crucial Tawang sector on December 9
