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CDS General Bipin Rawat visits air bases in eastern sector, meets frontline soldiers
Complimenting the soldiers for their operational readiness, Rawat said that only Indian soldiers could remain vigilant under the challenging conditions and they were willing to go beyond the call of duty to safeguard the country’s farthest frontiers.
In his first official engagement outside the Capital in the New Year, chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat on Saturday visited India’s forward air bases in the eastern sector and interacted with frontline soldiers in Arunachal Pradesh amid a border row with China in eastern Ladakh, officials said.
“Nothing can deter the Indian armed forces from remaining steadfast in their call of duty,” an official statement quoted Rawat as saying. While the current border row is confined to the Ladakh theatre, the Indian military is on high alert to deal with any misadventure by the Chinese forces all along the border --- stretching from Ladakh in the north to Arunachal Pradesh in the east.
Rawat completed one year as India’s first CDS on December 31. As CDS, Rawat is the permanent chairman of the chiefs of staff committee (COSC), heads the department of military affairs, and is the single point military adviser to the defence minister.
The CDS interacted with personnel from the army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Special Frontier Force in Dibang Valley and Lohit Sector of Arunachal Pradesh, the statement said.
Complimenting the soldiers for their operational readiness, Rawat said that only Indian soldiers could remain vigilant under the challenging conditions and they were willing to go beyond the call of duty to safeguard the country’s farthest frontiers.
Rawat’s visit to the eastern sector comes at a time of deadlocked military and diplomatic talks between India and China to ease tensions in the Ladakh theatre.
Earlier this week, defence minister Rajnath Singh said that talks with China on disengagement and de-escalation in the Ladakh sector --- where the two countries have been locked in a border row for eight months --- had not yielded any meaningful solution.
Both India and China are prepared for a long haul in the Ladakh sector and are firm about holding forward positions along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) through the harsh winter months.
Both sides are expected to hold the ninth round of military talks to reduce border tension but there is no indication of when India and China will hold the dialogue. Both countries had agreed to hold the corps commander-level dialogue at an early date during diplomatic talks on the dispute on December 18.
While India has consistently pushed for comprehensive disengagement at all flashpoints and restoration of status quo ante of early April during the military talks, the Chinese side wants the Indian Army to first pull back troops deployed on strategic heights on the southern bank of Pangong Tso.
