Sikkim Standoff

A hotline has been set up between the Indian and Chinese armies in the North Sikkim sector to further boost confidence along the Line of Actual Control in the region, officials said on Sunday.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will perform the "Shastra Puja" - the customary worship of weapons for the festival of Navratri - at Sikkim's Sherathang, less than 2 km from the Line of Actual Control - on Sunday and spend Dussehra with soldiers a day later, in a hugely symbolic gesture amid the standoff with China in eastern Ladakh.

A journey to the Indian Army's strategic Dokala base, which stands at the edge of the disputed Doklam plateau near Sikkim, now takes no more than 40 minutes on an all-weather black tarred road that has no restrictions on its load carrying capacity.

India and China will hold the next round of border talks in New Delhi on Friday, the first after the 73-day-long military standoff between the two countries in Doklam in the Sikkim sector this summer.

New satellite images of the Doklam area to the east of Sikkim clearly indicate that Chinese road workers have expanded multiple stretches of the existing track in the disputed area, a short distance away from the site where Indian and Chinese soldiers faced off for 70 days earlier this year.

Two months after the disengagement at Doklam on Sikkim's border, officers of the Indian Army and the People's Liberation Army of China met at BumLa in Arunachal Pradesh for a BMP or Border Personnel Meeting for an exchange of good wishes and a recommitment to maintain peace.

All jawans and officers of the Indo-Tibetan Border Force (ITBP), which guards the border with China, will be taught basic Mandarin to help them deal with soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army, union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said today

High-res satellite images accessed by NDTV show that China has, over the last decade, been steadily converting tracts of land in the disputed Doklam Plateau into full-fledged all-weather roads that run a few hundred metres from Indian posts such as Doka La in Sikkim.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has received plenty of favourable reviews from Chinese media for her weekend visit to the border at Sikkim which only months ago witnessed a major stand-off between the armies of the two countries.

Referring to the 1890 UK-China treaty, China today claimed it demarcated the Sikkim sector of the Sino-Indian border as it urged New Delhi to abide by its provisions, a day after Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made her maiden visit to the Nathu La post.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's day-long visit to Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, including the border at Nathu-La on Saturday had an unexpected bonus - an exchange with Chinese soldiers, a video of which was widely shared on social media.

Barely a month after the winding down of an aggressive stand-off with India at the Sikkim border, the Chinese army is back to building a road on the Doklam Plateau, just 10 km from the location of the last conflict. The Doklam Plateau is claimed by both Beijing and Bhutan as their territory. India backs Bhutan's claim.

China and India are working together to "take forward" their relationship leaving behind the Doklam episode, the Chinese Consul General here has said.

Post the Doklam standoff, China today said it cannot share the hydrological data of the Brahmaputra river with India due to upgradation of the data collection station in Tibet but expressed readiness for talks to reopen the Nathu La pass in Sikkim for the Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in China to attend a summit of BRICS -- a grouping of the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- has said he is looking for "productive discussions and positive outcomes". The three-day summit -- to be held in the coastal city of Xiamen -- comes days after India and China ended th...

A hotline has been set up between the Indian and Chinese armies in the North Sikkim sector to further boost confidence along the Line of Actual Control in the region, officials said on Sunday.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will perform the "Shastra Puja" - the customary worship of weapons for the festival of Navratri - at Sikkim's Sherathang, less than 2 km from the Line of Actual Control - on Sunday and spend Dussehra with soldiers a day later, in a hugely symbolic gesture amid the standoff with China in eastern Ladakh.

A journey to the Indian Army's strategic Dokala base, which stands at the edge of the disputed Doklam plateau near Sikkim, now takes no more than 40 minutes on an all-weather black tarred road that has no restrictions on its load carrying capacity.

India and China will hold the next round of border talks in New Delhi on Friday, the first after the 73-day-long military standoff between the two countries in Doklam in the Sikkim sector this summer.

New satellite images of the Doklam area to the east of Sikkim clearly indicate that Chinese road workers have expanded multiple stretches of the existing track in the disputed area, a short distance away from the site where Indian and Chinese soldiers faced off for 70 days earlier this year.

Two months after the disengagement at Doklam on Sikkim's border, officers of the Indian Army and the People's Liberation Army of China met at BumLa in Arunachal Pradesh for a BMP or Border Personnel Meeting for an exchange of good wishes and a recommitment to maintain peace.

All jawans and officers of the Indo-Tibetan Border Force (ITBP), which guards the border with China, will be taught basic Mandarin to help them deal with soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army, union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said today

High-res satellite images accessed by NDTV show that China has, over the last decade, been steadily converting tracts of land in the disputed Doklam Plateau into full-fledged all-weather roads that run a few hundred metres from Indian posts such as Doka La in Sikkim.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has received plenty of favourable reviews from Chinese media for her weekend visit to the border at Sikkim which only months ago witnessed a major stand-off between the armies of the two countries.

Referring to the 1890 UK-China treaty, China today claimed it demarcated the Sikkim sector of the Sino-Indian border as it urged New Delhi to abide by its provisions, a day after Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made her maiden visit to the Nathu La post.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's day-long visit to Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, including the border at Nathu-La on Saturday had an unexpected bonus - an exchange with Chinese soldiers, a video of which was widely shared on social media.

Barely a month after the winding down of an aggressive stand-off with India at the Sikkim border, the Chinese army is back to building a road on the Doklam Plateau, just 10 km from the location of the last conflict. The Doklam Plateau is claimed by both Beijing and Bhutan as their territory. India backs Bhutan's claim.

China and India are working together to "take forward" their relationship leaving behind the Doklam episode, the Chinese Consul General here has said.

Post the Doklam standoff, China today said it cannot share the hydrological data of the Brahmaputra river with India due to upgradation of the data collection station in Tibet but expressed readiness for talks to reopen the Nathu La pass in Sikkim for the Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in China to attend a summit of BRICS -- a grouping of the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- has said he is looking for "productive discussions and positive outcomes". The three-day summit -- to be held in the coastal city of Xiamen -- comes days after India and China ended th...