South Asia and Beyond

What India’s Doing To Remain A Step Forward In The Eastern Sector

 What India’s Doing To Remain A Step Forward In The Eastern Sector
ARUNACHAL PRADESH/ASSAM: The faceoff between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Tawang sector last month may or may not have been one of the reasons for the stalemate in Ladakh to continue at the end of the 13th round of talks between Corps Commanders but the fact that PLA soldiers are testing the waters by making forays into different sectors of the India-China border in the past two months confirms an assessment in India’s national security establishment that China will continue to exert pressure on the LAC through the upcoming winter season and beyond. This assessment, done in the immediate aftermath of the first round of disengagement in February earlier this year, had factored in rotation of troops on the Chinese side and PLA’s plan to upgrade its infrastructure in Aksai Chin. Even before China started replacing the formations that were deployed during the 2020-21 standoff in Ladakh, India had changed its ORBAT (order of Battle) by ordering a rebalance of its forces to the northern front. As is well known by now, the Indian Army earlier this summer allocated the Mathura-based 1 strike Corps to the Northern Command and the 17 Mountain Strike Corps to the Eastern Command to strengthen its offensive options against China....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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