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As China Recruits Tibetan Youth For LAC Deployment, India Keeps Close Eye

Nitin A. Gokhale
January 3, 2022 - 7:00 am
4 minutes read

As China Recruits Tibetan Youth For LAC Deployment, India Keeps Close Eye

Members of Snow Hawk Air Patrol Team at a flag presentation ceremony for new militia units at the Militia Training Base in Lhasa Garrison. (Photo: Guo Weifeng; China Military Online)

NEW DELHI: Nearly six months after it first became public, Indian intelligence agencies and Army personnel are keeping a close watch on how a special recruitment drive undertaken by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is progressing in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India. Apart from the sustained pace of infrastructure building in Aksai Chin and areas close to Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, the focused attention in the PLA in the past couple of years to induct Tibetan youth into its various units has come under intense scrutiny of the Indian establishment dealing with China. Recent indications suggest that a Special Recruitment Drive (SDR) has been undertaken by the PLA to attract Tibetan youths into its fold. According to a March 2020 directive, every household in the Lhasa region has to send one youth to join the militia units that are being raised in Tibet. Majority of the Tibetans are reportedly part of the militia and the People’s Armed Police Force (PAPF)....Read More

Nitin A. Gokhale

Left to himself, Nitin A. Gokhale would rather watch films and sports matches but his day job as a media entrepreneur, communications specialist, analyst and author, leaves him little time to indulge in his primary interests. Gokhale in fact started his career in journalism in 1983 as a sports reporter. Since then he has, in the past 41 years, traversed the entire spectrum across print, broadcast and digital space. One of South Asia's leading strategic analysts, Gokhale has moved on from conventional media to become an independent media entrepreneur running three niche digital platforms—BharatShakti, StratNewsGlobal and Interstellar—besides undertaking consultancy and training workshops in communications for military institutions, corporates and individuals. Now better known for his conflict coverage and strategic analyses, Gokhale has lived and reported from India’s North-east for 23 years between 1983 and 2006, been on the ground at Kargil in the summer of 1999 and also brought us live coverage from Sri Lanka’s Eelam War IV between 2006-2009. An alumni of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Hawaii, Gokhale now writes, lectures and analyses security and strategic matters in Indo-Pacific and travels regularly to US, Europe, Australia, South and South-East Asia to take part in various seminars and conferences. Gokhale is also a popular visiting faculty at India’s Defence Services Staff College, the three war colleges, India's National Defence College, College of Defence Management and the IB’s intelligence school.

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