New Delhi: Amid the renewed tension with China over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the US is set to hold joint military drills with India near the latter’s disputed Himalayan border with its neighbor in mid-October.
According to the media report, The exercise will be held at an altitude of 10,000 feet in Auli in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand and will focus on high-altitude warfare training. Auli is about 95 kilometers from the Line of Actual Control (LAC), an inhospitable piece of land where the disputed border between India and China is roughly demarcated.
The drills will take place as part of the 18th edition of an annual joint exercise known as “Yudh Abhyas” — or “War Practice”. This edition of the exercise will see greater integration of air and ground assets, meaning the Indian Air Force will also play a key role.
Relations between India and China have been strained since a bloody clash between their soldiers at Galwan Valley in Ladakh, which is also along the Himalayan border, in June 2020 left at least 20 Indian troops and forty Chinese soldiers dead.
Tensions have been raised further recently by China building a bridge across the Pangong Tso lake that sits along the border – a move condemned by the Indian government as an “illegal occupation.”
(Vinayak)