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Close on the heels of the Joshimath crisis, the Centre has issued a standard operating procedure asking agencies to mandatorily implement environmental safeguards in all roads and highway projects falling within 100 kilometres of the International Border or the Line of Control. The standard operating procedure (SOP) issued by the Union Environment ministry on February 6 stresses on mandatory disaster management plans, risk assessment and eco-fragility studies and precautions during tunnelling. The guidelines come seven months after the ministry waived the requirement for environmental clearance for highway projects up to 100 kilometres of the International Border (IB) or the Line of Control (LoC). "The guidelines are to be followed for all roads/highway projects falling within 100 km from the International Border/Line of Control for sustainable environmental safeguards. "Further, the exemption of prior EC (environmental clearance) for all highway projects up to 100 km from the LoC
The Indian army is maintaining a strong defence posture along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and is ready to deal with any contingency, Chief of Army Staff, General Manoj Pande said on Sunday. In his address at the Army Day celebrations here, he said the northern border region has been peaceful and steps have been taken to maintain peace through established protocol and existing mechanism. Referring to the situation along the western border, the Army Chief said the ceasefire continues at LOC and there has been a substantial reduction in violations. However, the terror infrastructure still remains on other side of border. Our counter insurgency mechanism is effectively foiling the infiltration bid from Pakistan, he added. Pointing to the attempts to smuggle arms and drugs into Jammu and Punjab border regions using drones, General Pande said counter drone jammers were being used against such activities.
The BSF has procured two SUV-mounted jammers, more than 1,400 hand-held thermal imagers and about 100 drones for surveillance and security activities along important Indian frontiers with Pakistan and Bangladesh, a senior officer said Wednesday. The Border Security Force (BSF) has also identified a total of 635 "vulnerable patches" all along the 2,289-km-long international border with Pakistan and along West Bengal and Assam (as part of the India-Bangladesh border) for installing surveillance systems developed in-house by the force. The force has procured two vehicle-mounted jammers, onboard Mahindra Scorpio vehicles, for protecting troops against remotely triggered IEDs during their movement in Jammu and Kashmir (from Jammu to Srinagar in convoys), the officer said. A CRPF bus carrying 39 personnel, apart from one official on road opening duty, were killed when a terrorist rammed an explosive-laden vehicle in their convoy on February 14, 2019 while they were moving on the ...
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday said that the politics of the day must not make the country's borders vulnerable or harm the larger interest of the nation. The union minister, while interacting with the students at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta, said that the temporary provision given under Article 370 to Jammu and Kashmir continued for more than 70 years due to the "politics of the day". "It is important to put the national interest first. Politics of the day should not hamper the larger interest of the nation. All politicians should have that approach in the first place. But it is easy to say. But politics of the day should not lead our borders to be vulnerable," he said. On the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, Jaishankar asked what was the reason for a temporary provision to continue so long other than the politics of the day. "The fact that we had such a messy issue there... the whole world used it," he said. Jaishankar said there is a