28^th June: India, which modified its position in China for the first time in 70 years, now catering for military options to strike back and has reoriented its military appropriately, contrary to its prior defensive stance that put a focus on fighting Chinese aggression. In a historic move to an offensive militant posture against the world’s second-largest economy, India moved at least 50,000 extra troops to its frontier with China. Furthermore, deployment has been boosted with at least division-level troops in the Central Sector – the least contentious stretch of the border running along with Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Nepal. The Indian Army has at least 10,000 men in a division.

This reorientation of forces will reduce the number of soldiers dedicated only to Pakistan, but it will also provide Indian military planners with more acclimatized troops who can relocate from the northern border to the western border with Pakistan. This affords India’s defense establishment more mobility and flexibility in comparison to its neighbors.

In recent months, India, according to four people who know the issue, relocated its troops and fighter jet squadrons into 3 different zones near the China border. Altogether, India now has over 200.000 border troops, two of which stated, a rise of almost 40 percent compared to the previous year.

There have been 11 rounds of diplomatic and military discussions to resolve the border conflict so far. Apart from the de-escalation at Pangong Tso, a 14000-foot glacier, other places of tension, such as the disputed territories at Gogra, Hot Springs, Demchok, and Depsang at the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh, remain tense.

The manoeuvre follows a period of relative calm following a summer of warfare last year that saw India lose control over around 300 square kilometres (115 square miles) of land along the disputed Himalayan area, Bloomberg reported.

Image Source: bloombergquint

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