Barely a few weeks back, I wrote a post lamenting our inability to learn any lessons from past experiences with China. I had not realised I would be writing a  follow-up post so soon after. I learnt recently (via Gaurav Sawant) that Chinese troops have committed 50 violations of LAC in the last 3 months alone.
Apparently platoons of PLA (on foot, horseback and helicopters) destroyed Indian defences & bunkers during this violations. Gaurav also reported that DC Leh had filed several reports saying Chinese troops beat up Indian shepherds, steal their cattle & …

Almost 40 years ago, in October 1962, young men of the Ahir Charlie Company from 13 Kumaon faced an extraordinary assault. It came in the early hours of dawn, as snow was falling at Rezang La, 17,000 feet above sea level. The story of their resistance became a legend..Of the 120 defenders, only three survived, seriously wounded. The rest – including their commander – were discovered after the winter, frozen, mostly holding their weapons but with no ammunition. This was a genuine ‘last man-last round’ defense…and it succeeded in stalling the …

How many of you read this “news” on 27th? I am guessing most of you missed it. I did too…until I was alerted to it by a friend on fb.
…The government ban on construction in Demchok, one of the disputed points in eastern Ladakh, is riling residents, who claim that the Chinese side is speedily ramping up its infrastructure and the Centre is just ‘watching’
..Even the Leh administration cannot go ahead with any construction activity here without getting it approved from the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of External Affairs.
“When …

Courtesy Acorn,  here is one very good reason why India must support Tibet (emphasis added):
Tibetan is the only language to preserve the entire range of the Buddha’s teachings, including the texts on logic and theories of knowledge (epistemology), which we inherited from India’s Nalanda University. This is a system of knowledge governed by reason and logic that has the potential to contribute to the peace and happiness of all beings. Therefore, the policy of undermining such a culture, instead of protecting and developing it, will in the long run amount …

Dear Friends, Please join me for a Live Chat on 27th March, Sunday at 930pm IST on  “Arunachal, Tibet and China: Are we Sleepwalking towards a Disaster?”

The chat will be on the CoverItLive platofrm. Please note that it will be a text-only chat. This will help a large number of people to join and participate (Voice chats are usually unable to handle more than 15 participants). Please register via the link below.
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“Arunachal, Tibet and China: Are we Sleepwalking towards a Disaster?”
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By way of background reading, please have a look at some …

Dear Friends, As we move towards the conclusion of this series on India’s finest, please take a moment today to remember the “Param Veer”s of 1962, Major Dhan Singh Thapa, PVC and Subedar Joginder Singh, PVC.     The war of 1962 is a painful chapter in Indian history…but it is also a chapter of heroic stories, of incredible valour and extraordinary courage. Today, the story of two heroes from those times – two of the finest amongst the hundreds.
From the Indian Army website:

The Param Vir Chakra is awarded for …

This is what I am reading this weekend.
How Bengal towns are becoming transit points for fake notes
West Bengal’s intelligence agencies have expressed concern that Pakistan-and Bangladesh-based racketeers are using the state’s Murshidabad and Malda districts as transit points to smuggle in fake notes to India.
Statistics reveal fake notes of nearly Rs 2.5 crore was seized from more than 300 people arrested over the past five years…
The arrested people revealed Murshidabad and Malda as transit points for the fake money racket.
…Chapai Nawabgunj is one of many centres in Bangladesh where …

…and we are in no hurry to do anything about it.
Excerpts from a very worrying article by Suman Sharma in Open Magazine (Hat Tip: Centerof right; emphasis mine):
Repeated violations of the Indo-Chinese border lead to an escalation in the war of words, but India continues to believe that the Chinese are following their usual pattern of aggravation and conciliation. Rapid Reaction Forces, comprising 4 divisions stationed at Chengdu and Lanzhou after an overnight mobilisation cross rapidly into Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh.
Indian defences are caught unawares, but the Fifth Mountain …

Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote a post titled, As the Government sleeps, dark clouds gather on the horizon… In that post, I had carried excerpts from an article by Tarun Vijay that was prompted by continued trespassing and stealth incursions by Chinese into the Ladakh area.
Two years on…and a general election later, nothing seems to have changed.
Inch by inch, the Chinese are encroaching into Indian territory…while the government acts “ignorant” or “supremely confident” depending on the mood of the moment. Sometimes, it simply brushes things under the carpet. …

Three brief excerpts for the weekend on why China is becoming a worry for the global economy and why those numbers are hard to believe…
First, an extract from China has now become the biggest risk to the world economy by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard:
…”The inherent problems of the international economic system have not been fully addressed,” said China’s president Hu Jintao. Indeed not. China is still exporting overcapacity to the rest of us on a grand scale, with deflationary consequences.
While some fret about liquidity-driven inflation, Justin Lin, World Bank chief economist, said …