India to boost troop strength along border with China #NEWDELHI - #India will create a new army corps with mountain warfare capability and deploy up to 50,000 additional troops to better defend its disputed border with #China, local media reported Thursday. The Cabinet committee on security headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cleared the proposal, which would cost some $10 billion over seven years, in a meeting Wednesday, Press Trust of India and other media said. The new Mountain Strike Corps, to be headquartered in Panagarh in West Bengal state, will have two divisions in Bihar and Assam states and will deploy units with mountain warfare capability to areas along the Line of Actual Control in Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state claimed by China. #NDTV television news said the corps, which is specifically aimed at launching offensive operations against China if the need arises, will have an independent armored brigade and artillery brigade. India already has three strike corps, but all of them are based near the border with Pakistan and are mainly equipped for desert and plains warfare. Earlier this year, Sino-Indian ties soured after India accused Chinese troops of intruding 19 kilometers into Indian territory. The row ended after many rounds of negotiations. India and China became neighbors only after 1950 when Chinese communist forces annexed Tibet, a year after defeating the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) forces. China currently claims some 90,000 square kilometers of Indian-held territory in what is the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing calls Southern Tibet, while India claims about 38,000 square km of China-held territory in Aksai Chin to the west, as well as over 5,000 square km of land in Kashmir that was transferred to China by Pakistan under a 1963 boundary agreement. In October 1962, the Chinese and Indian militaries engaged in a short border war, followed by some skirmishes in later years. In recent years, however, special representatives appointed by the two governments have been exploring a framework for a boundary settlement. So far, they have held 16 rounds of talks, their latest one in Beijing on June 28-29. Chinese leaders had suggested in the past that India could cede its claims to Aksai Chin in the west in return for China giving up its claim on Arunachal Pradesh in the east. #ChinaThreat abs-cbnnews/global-filipino/world/07/18/13/india-boost-troop-strength-along-border-china via #AseanMilitaryDefenseReview
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 07:09:45 +0000
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