Antony to visit Ladakh, Siachen Glacier

Inspecting an IAF advanced landing ground on the Sino-Indian border will be high on the agenda of Defence Minister A K Antony during his two-day visit to Ladakh next week.

Inspecting an IAF advanced landing ground on the Sino-Indian border will be high on the agenda of Defence Minister A K Antony during his two-day visit to Ladakh next week.

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This will be Antony's first visit to the Nyoma Advanced Landing Ground, just 23 km from the borders with China, that was activated last year.

At Nyoma, in south-eastern Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, Antony would first do an aerial survey of the ALG and later land there to see first hand the infrastructure that has come up, a defence ministry official said.

He will also visit Siachen during the trip on June 21 and 22.

"One of the thrust areas of the minister's visit is to raise the living standards of troops including quality of food in such remote places as Siachen. He will interact with the army personnel to know and understand their conditions," the official said.

Since he took over as defence minister three years ago, Antony has been visiting Siachen at least once annually to meet the army personnel posted in the extreme conditions.