The disengagement between the armies of India and China at the Patrolling Point 15 in eastern Ladakh is "one problem less" on the border, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday. At a media briefing after his talks with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, Jaishankar also took an indirect pot shot at China while replying to a question about ''one country'' blocking proposals at the UN Security Council to designate proscribed terrorists. "I do not think I will say anything new today except I would recognise that we have had disengagement at PP-15 (Patrolling Point 15). The disengagement as I understand was completed. That is one problem less on the border," Jaishankar said, in response to a question. Indian and Chinese armies carried out a joint verification of the disengagement process at PP-15 in the Gogra-Hotsprings area in eastern Ladakh after withdrawing their troops and dismantling temporary infrastructure from the friction point on Monday. The ...
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said that the AAP government in Punjab will "fully support" the Agnipath Scheme during the recruitment drives of Agniveers. Kejriwal's clarification came after reports that the Punjab government was not supportive of the recruitment drive. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had earlier criticised the Agnipath Scheme and appealed to the central government to give defence job aspirants the chance to serve the country throughout their life, not just four years. "We had differences with the Centre on Agnipath Scheme but since the Centre has implemented it we will support it fully. We will completely cooperate with the scheme and the army," Kejriwal said while replying to a question in his first offline press conference since the formation of the AAP government in Delhi in February 2020. Later, his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann clarified that directions have been given for "complete support" on the Agnipath scheme. "All deputy commissioners w
India is rapidly moving towards jointness of the three services of the armed forces and effort is to have common logistic nodes so that resources of one service can be seamlessly made available to the other, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday. Addressing a seminar on Army logistics here, the Union minister also said that India has made rapid progress in the rail sector, and over 9,000 km lines have been doubled in the last seven years. The corresponding figure was only 1,900 km in the five years preceding 2014, he said. The opening ceremony of the seminar was attended by Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande, IAF chief Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhari and Navy chief Admirk R Hari Kumar and NITI Aayog member V K Saraswat, among others. The defence minister, in his address, spoke of the synergy and fusion needed between the civil and military stakeholders, and asserted that presence of representatives from different sectors of the two sides showed the "commitment" to achieve the goal a
Army chief General Manoj Pande on Sunday flew a sortie in the Indian Air Force (IAF) Apache attack helicopter in Ladakh, officials said
Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande on Saturday carried out a comprehensive review of the overall security situation in eastern Ladakh, two days after Indian and Chinese militaries began disengaging from Patrolling Point 15 in the Gogra-Hotsprings area in the region. The Army said Gen Pande witnessed Exercise Pravat Prahar besides interacting with officers and troops deployed in the region. The exercise featured a display of operational capabilities by artillery guns and other key weapon systems. "Gen Manoj Pande #COAS visited #LadakhSector and witnessed Exercise PARVAT PRAHAR. #COAS was briefed on operational preparedness by commanders on ground. He interacted with the officers & troops & complimented them for their steadfastness and professional standards," it tweeted. People familiar with Gen Pande's visit said he has been briefed about the fresh disengagement process besides the overall combat readiness of the Indian Army in the region. Commander of the Leh-based Fire and Fury ...
Almost all forward posts along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh will have one large helipad each for swift mobilisation of troops and military equipment as part of a mega push for infrastructure development, senior military officials said on Friday. Each of the forward posts and Army units are also being linked with optical fibre network and all of them will have separate satellite terminals for bolstering overall surveillance and communication, they said. The Army has already deployed a large number of indigenously-built remotely piloted aircraft, Switch, in the forward posts to monitor Chinese activities across the LAC. "We are now giving a big push to the infrastructure development in the forward areas in the eastern sector," Brigadier TM Sinha, commander of a Mountain Brigade in eastern Arunachal Pradesh, told a group of visiting journalists. As part of the capability development initiative, the Army has powered its units in Arunachal Pradesh with a sizeabl
India and China will complete the disengagement process in the Gogra-Hotsprings area in eastern Ladakh by September 12, the External Affairs Ministry said on Friday. The ministry's comment came a day after the Indian and Chinese armies announced that they have begun to disengage from the Gogra-Hotsprings Patrolling Point 15, where the two sides have been locked in a standoff for over two years. The two sides have also agreed to take the talks forward and resolve remaining issues and restore peace and tranquility along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in India-China border areas, the MEA said. "It has been agreed that all temporary structures and other allied infrastructure created in the area by both sides will be dismantled and mutually verified. The landforms in the area will be restored to the pre-standoff period by both sides," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in response to queries on the issue. Bagchi said the 16th round of talks between the Corps ...
Army's Kharga Corps and the Air Force conducted joint exercise 'Gagan strike' in Punjab, a defence release said on Friday. The exercise comprised the deployment of attack helicopters as the aerial arm in support of ground forces carrying out drills, practising annihilation of enemy defences and deep penetration, it said. The exercise also showcased precision firepower of the attack helicopters in coordination with ground forces' mechanised columns. It validated the Apache 64E and Advanced Light Helicopter WSI as potent weapons delivery platforms. The force multiplier effect of combining these machines with ground operations has enhanced the forces' combat superiority, the release said. The joint exercise, spearheaded by General Officer Commanding, Khagra Corps, Lt Gen Pratik Sharma, was conducted over four days. Lt Gen Nav K Khanduri, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, witnessed the exercise. He exhorted the combat forces to continue to evolve such concepts and
The Chinese military on Friday confirmed that the troops of China and India have begun the process of disengagement from the Patrolling Point 15 in the Gogra-Hotsprings area of eastern Ladakh in a "coordinated and planned way." Marking a significant forward movement to end the standoff in eastern Ladakh that has lasted for over two years, the Indian and Chinese armies on Thursday announced that they have begun to disengage from the Patrolling Point 15 in the Gogra-Hotsprings area. India has been consistently maintaining that peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) were important for the overall development of bilateral ties. The two militaries held 16 rounds of Corps Commander-level talks to resolve the standoff. "On 8th September, 2022, according to the consensus reached in the 16th Round of China-India Corps Commander Level Meeting, the Chinese and Indian troops in the area of Jianan Daban have begun to disengage in a coordinated and planned way, which is ...
The QRSAM system is unique in its ability to operate on the move, searching for and tracking enemy targets; and then fire on a short halt
India has successfully completed six flight-tests of the Quick Reaction Surface to Air Missile (QRSAM) system from the Integrated Test Range in Chandipur off the Odisha coast, as part of evaluation trials by the Army, the DRDO said on Thursday. The flight-tests were carried out against high-speed aerial targets mimicking various types of threats to evaluate the capability of the weapon systems under different scenarios, it said. During these tests, all the mission objectives were met establishing pin-point accuracy of the weapon system with state-of-the-art guidance and control algorithms, including warhead chain, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said in a statement. The performance of the system has been confirmed from the data captured by a number of range instruments like telemetry and Radar and Electro Optical Tracking Systems (EOTS) deployed by ITR, it said. The tests were conducted in the final deployment configuration consisting of all ...
India's air force, army, and navy can no longer import some critical weapons systems to replace aging ones, the officials said
India's Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Manoj Pande on Monday handed over non-lethal equipment to the Nepali Army
The Indian Army is in Nepal to enhance existing bilateral defence ties and strengthen cooperation in areas of mutual interest
The Supreme Court has termed as "wholly unwarranted" the manner in which the Rajasthan High Court dealt with a matter relating to possession of land to the widow of an ex-Sepoy of the Indian Army whose foot was amputated due to a mine blast in the 1965 India-Pakistan war. The apex court observed that the high court had gone "out of the way" to order possession of land which was never proceeded with a letter of allotment in favour of the wife of the ex-serviceman, who died in July 1998. A bench of Justice Hemant Gupta and Vikram Nath set aside the order passed by the high court in the matter. "The manner in which the matter has been dealt with by the high court under the guise of help to a disabled ex-serviceman is wholly unwarranted," the bench said in its verdict delivered on Tuesday. The man, while serving as a Sepoy in the Army, had suffered an injury on the right leg due to the mine blast which led to amputation of his foot and he was thereafter invalidated out of service. The
Shifting toward buying more Western weapons systems and lessening its dependence on Russia, for instance, would bolster India's autonomy
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday inaugurated the city's first school which will prepare students for the armed forces. The Shaheed Bhagat Singh Armed Forces Preparatory School at Jharoda Kalan in Najafgarh currently has 175 students. Kejriwal asked the students to imbibe the feeling of living and dying for the nation. The state-of-the-art school has an exclusive services preparatory wing to inculcate officer-like qualities (OLQs) in students through individual and group tasks, mock interviews, psychometric tests and personality development workshops. It has a free hostel facility with cadet mess for boys and girls and is part of the Delhi government's School of Specialised Excellence and affiliated to the Delhi Board of School Education. It is open to all Delhi residents and students can take admission in Classes 9 and Class 11, officials said. "Delhi Government's Armed Forces Preparatory School starts today besides special education, students will get four-year
The Indian Army has started the construction of 90-feet-long Bailey Bridge over Sukhtawa river, which collapsed in April due to heavy vehicular traffic, an official said on Saturday. As per an official release, the engineers of Sudarshan Chakra Corps of the Southern Command, who were mobilised from Bhopal, commenced the construction of the bridge on Bhopal-Nagpur National Highway 46 near Narmadapuram. The 145-year-old bridge had collapsed in April due to heavy vehicle traffic, and the state administration had requisitioned the Army to construct bridge and restore traffic, it was stated. Meanwhile, a diversion built to sustain heavy traffic on Sukhtawa river also got submerged multiple times amid heavy rains, thus cutting off the crucial lifeline. Over the last three months, the Engineer Regiment from Sabse Behtar Brigade along with Madhya Pradesh authorities and the NHAI worked on war footing for early construction of the bridge, the release said. A heavy load class 90-feet-long .
Three terrorists were killed as security forces foiled an infiltration bid along the Line of Control (LoC) in Uri sector of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said on Thursday. The terrorists tried to sneak into this side of the LoC near near Madiyan Nanak post in the Kamalkote area of Uri sector in north Kashmir's Baramulla district, they said Srinagar-based PRO, Defence, Col Emron Musavi said an operation was launched following an input from the Army's intelligence agencies about a possible infiltration bid along the LoC. "On the afternoon of August 24, multiple ambushes were laid to trap the infiltrators. Intensive electronic surveillance of the suspected area led to the detection of the (infiltration) attempt at 7 am on August 25, he said. Col Musavi said terrorists were hoping to use the cover of thick undergrowth, foliage and rainfall and low clouds to infiltrate. "The contact with the terrorists was established at about 8.45 am on August 25 in the forward areas of the Indian side
The Indian Army on Wednesday foiled the third infiltration bid by militants on the Line of Control (LoC) in the Pallanwala area of Jammu and Kashmir's Akhnoor sector on Tuesday night