Green Energy
India to deploy 36,000 extra troops on Chinese border
Officials say they were formed at the behest of the Indian army chief, General VK Singh - who said they were necessary to beef up defences against China.
Gen Singh was not available for comment but one of his staff officers, on condition of anonymity, told the BBC that the army chief had "pushed very hard to fast-track the raising of the two divisions".
He said that they should be "fully operational" by March 2011.
He said their formation was India's response to the "huge Chinese build-up" in Tibet over the last three to four years. But he did not wish to elaborate.
India is also raising a paramilitary force called the Arunachal Scouts and Sikkim Scouts to help the army protect the Sino-Indian border in the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.
"All the men in these formations will be drawn from mountain-fit local tribesmen but the officers will be from the army, at least for a while," said a corps commander.
Their formation will be modelled on the Ladakh Scouts, who the army says bravely fought Pakistani intruders during the Kargil conflict of 1999.
India says the new measures have been put in place partly because China has "superb" communications on its side of the border, especially after a new train line to Lhasa was built in 2006.
India says that the Chinese airlift capability is also far superior.
The formation of the two new divisions means that India's deployments in the eastern sector of its border with China now matches the five army divisions that existed in 1986-87, when the two countries nearly went to war.
But after India and China signed a "Peace and Tranquillity" treaty in 1993, both sides scaled down their deployments as part of a confidence-building package.
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Green Energy
India to deploy 36,000 extra troops on Chinese border
Officials say they were formed at the behest of the Indian army chief, General VK Singh - who said they were necessary to beef up defences against China.
Gen Singh was not available for comment but one of his staff officers, on condition of anonymity, told the BBC that the army chief had "pushed very hard to fast-track the raising of the two divisions".
He said that they should be "fully operational" by March 2011.
He said their formation was India's response to the "huge Chinese build-up" in Tibet over the last three to four years. But he did not wish to elaborate.
India is also raising a paramilitary force called the Arunachal Scouts and Sikkim Scouts to help the army protect the Sino-Indian border in the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.
"All the men in these formations will be drawn from mountain-fit local tribesmen but the officers will be from the army, at least for a while," said a corps commander.
Their formation will be modelled on the Ladakh Scouts, who the army says bravely fought Pakistani intruders during the Kargil conflict of 1999.
India says the new measures have been put in place partly because China has "superb" communications on its side of the border, especially after a new train line to Lhasa was built in 2006.
India says that the Chinese airlift capability is also far superior.
The formation of the two new divisions means that India's deployments in the eastern sector of its border with China now matches the five army divisions that existed in 1986-87, when the two countries nearly went to war.
But after India and China signed a "Peace and Tranquillity" treaty in 1993, both sides scaled down their deployments as part of a confidence-building package.
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DEBKAfile's military sources report that in their talks in New Delhi and Islamabad Wednesday, Dec. 3, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and top US soldier, Adm. Mike Mullen, failed to tamp down the rising military tensions between India and Pakistan....
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It appears so. From the Middle East to South Asia. From Egypt to Pakistan. That's right, a Jewish general led Indian army to victory in 1971 war against Pakistan. In the annals of modern warfare, the 1971 war between India and Pakistan is regarded...