Faced with the Chinese army’s infrastructure and galloping capability-building on its side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) across Ladakh, security considerations have compelled New Delhi not to activate its advanced landing grounds (ALGs) at Fukche and Chushul in the eastern part of the region.
Updated on: Nov 8, 2011, 23:51:07 IST
Hindustan Times | By Shishir Gupta, Chushul (Ladakh)
Faced with the Chinese army’s infrastructure and galloping capability-building on its side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) across Ladakh, security considerations have compelled New Delhi not to activate its advanced landing grounds (ALGs) at Fukche and Chushul in the eastern part of the region.
Instead, the Indian Army will be inducting an armoured brigade, including 18 T-72 tanks in the area to deter any muscle flexing by Beijing.
And in the wake of China enhancing its air capability in the region, India will rely only on the newly-built Nyoma airstrip on the banks of the Indus in eastern Ladakh to tackle any hostile moves by China. Top government sources pointed out that New Delhi could no longer depend on the ALGs at Daulat Beg Oldi, Fukche and Chushul in eastern Ladakh as they are under direct observation by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and could be easy targets if hostilities break out.
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The airstrip at Daulat Beg Oldi can be used only to drop supplies from aircraft and helicopters due to its high altitude (16,700 feet), low oxygen and high winds. To connect this airstrip, the government has cleared an ambitious plan to tunnel through the glaciated Saser La, on the right side of the 25,000-foot-high Saser Kangri peak in eastern Ladakh.
While the defence ministry offers a baffling argument of democracy versus dictatorship to justify the slow progress of road infrastructure-building in Ladakh, the Chinese army operates no less than five ALGs across the LAC.
The Chinese army has two regiments of 16,000 troopers at Qizil Jilga (40 km from the LAC) and Shiquanhe (50 km), two battalions of 2,000 men at Rudok (22 km) and Spanggur (8 km) and a company of 120 soldiers at Old Demchok, just 1 km from the LAC. Besides, Beijing has five civilian
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India has airbases in Leh, Thoise and now, Nyoma. A dusty track links Daulat Beg Oldi with Demchok in eastern Ladakh to carry supplies to the posts on vigil against the PLA.
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India has airbases in Leh, Thoise and now, Nyoma. A dusty track links Daulat Beg Oldi with Demchok in eastern Ladakh to carry supplies to the posts on vigil against the PLA.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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