Confident that army can tackle any contingency in Ladakh: Rajnath Singh
Addressing the army commanders’ conference from Sukna military station in West Bengal, Singh said India was “cautiously optimistic” about a resolution of the row, officials aware of the matter said
Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Friday hailed the army’s readiness to tackle any contingency in the Ladakh theatre, where it is locked in a dragging border standoff with the Chinese People’s Republic Army (PLA), even as he pinned hopes on the ongoing negotiations for a peaceful resolution.
Addressing the army commanders’ conference from Sukna military station in West Bengal, Singh said India was “cautiously optimistic” about a resolution of the row, officials aware of the matter said, asking not to be named.
He also touched upon the “complex and ambiguous” situation in many parts of the world, stressing that it affected everyone.
“Unconventional and asymmetric warfare, including hybrid warfare, will be part of future wars as is evident in the recent conflicts in various parts of world. The armed forces should take all these facets into consideration while planning and formulating strategies. We must keep learning from these incidents...Be alert, regularly modernise and prepare continuously for various contingencies,” he said.
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His comments come at a time when the military standoff between India and China in eastern Ladakh has entered its fifth year, with no indication of a resolution to the outstanding problems along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC). To be sure, India is hoping that ongoing negotiations with China will help restore the status quo ante of April 2020.
The conference was held in Gangtok, and it was the first time that the top meeting was held near the China border. Singh was to travel to Gangtok to address the army brass but could not do so because of bad weather and had to deliver his address virtually from Sukna, where a corps is headquartered.
“Defence diplomacy, indigenisation, information warfare, defence infrastructure and force modernisation should always be contemplated in such a forum. War preparedness should be a continuous phenomenon, and we should always be ready for unpredictables that may crop up any time,” he said.
Singh complimented the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) for its efforts that have led to a significant improvement in forward infrastructure along the northern and western borders.
In India’s latest infrastructure push along the China border and other remote areas, he will on Saturday dedicate 75 projects worth ₹2,236 crore to the country, including roads and bridges that will significantly boost military mobility and logistics support for deployed forces in forward areas in Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, as first reported by Hindustan Times.