Cavalier India Defence Training Academy

  For the first time since 2012, India and China on Tuesday held consultations on UN Security Council (UNSC) agenda, with New Delhi seeking to build consensus on its UNSC priorities as well as on designating terrorists by the powerful body of the UN. In the first bilateral meet which did not focus on LAC stand-off since last April. Both sides discussed a wide-range of issues on the UNSC agenda. The Indian delegation briefed the Chinese side on India’s priorities during its UNSC tenure. India, which began its two-year term as a non-permanent member of UNSC on January 1, will have counter-terrorism and maritime security among its key priorities to achieve peace and stability in the international arena. The Indian delegation sought constructive support from China on its priorities, ET has learnt. India will hold the presidency of the UNSC in August 2021. During its presidency, India will focus on initiatives around Counter-terrorism, maritime Security and ICT for peacekeeping. China’s...

Russia said Friday it welcomed a proposal by US President Joe Biden to extend New START, a landmark nuclear arms reduction agreement due to expire next month. Representative Image The accord is the last arms control agreement between the former Cold War rivals but negotiations to extend it had faltered under Biden's predecessor Donald Trump. "We can only welcome the political will to extend this document," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Peskov added however that any decision to extend the pact would depend on "the details of the proposal" from Washington. He said Moscow needed more time to study the US administration's offer. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Thursday that the US would lobby for a five-year extension to the pact. She said the extension was needed now more than ever given "adversarial" ties between Russia and the United States. Peskov noted that previous conditions for the extension of the accord ...

Get complete details about neighbouring countries of India. Know about the boundary of neighbouring countries of India. India is the 7th largest country in the world. It is at a strategic location and has many neighbours. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean in the south, the Arabian Sea in the west and Bay of Bengal in the east. Neighbouring Countries of India India has a total land border of 15,200 Km. The total length of the Indian coastline is 7516.6 Km. Being this huge landmass, it shares its border with 7 countries. Below is a table which represents the various neighbours of India: In addition to this India shares maritime borders with Sri Lanka & Maldives. Note: India has the third-largest international border in the world after Russia and China. India & Afghanistan   About Afghanistan President NAshraf Ghani Ofcial language Dari and Pashto State/Provinces 34 Provinces C...

CONTEXT The Foreign Ministers of Nepal and China jointly certified the elevation of Mount Everest at 8,848.86 metres above sea level 86 cm higher than what was recognised since 1954.  About Mount Everest Mount Everest rises from the border between Nepal and China. Everest is also known as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Mount Qomolangma in China. BACKGROUND No other mountain has perhaps been the subject of as much debate. Over the years, there have been debates on issues like whether it should be “rock height”, or whether the snow cladding it, too, should be accounted for. How and when was the earlier measurement of 8,848 m done? Earlier measurement was determined by the Survey of India in 1954, using instruments like theodolites and chains, with GPS still decades away. The elevation of 8,848 m came to be accepted in all references worldwide except by China. In 1999, a US team put the elevation at 29,035 feet (nearly 8,850 m).

China’s upstream activities along the Brahmaputra River have impacts on countries downstream and the ecology surrounding. CONTEXT Amid simmering border tension with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh, China is planning to build a major hydro-power project on Brahmaputra River in Tibet and a proposal for this has been clearly put forward in the 14th Five-Year Plan to be implemented from next year. Response from India and Bangladesh Proposals for dams on the Brahmaputra have evoked concerns in India and Bangladesh, the riparian states, and China has downplayed such anxieties saying it would keep their interests in mind. What are India’s concerns? China’s dam building overdrive is a concern because there are no bilateral or multilateral treaties on the water. China believes dam building on the Brahmaputra helps it assert claim over Arunachal Pradesh. India believes China’s projects in the Tibetan plateau t hreaten to reduce river flows into India. Dams, canals...

CONTEXT Vietnam has invited India for ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting-Plus (ADMM Plus) being hosted by Vietnam in December 2020. About ADMM- Plus Consistent with the ADMM guiding principles of open and outward looking, the 2nd ADMM in Singapore in 2007 adopted the Concept Paper to establish the ADMM-Plus. The ADMM-Plus is a platform for ASEAN and its eight Dialogue Partners to strengthen security and defence cooperation for peace, stability, and development in the region. Eight Dialogue Partners are Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Russia and the USA (collectively referred to as the “Plus Countries” ). Agreed five areas of practical cooperation under this mechanism are: Maritime security, counter-terrorism, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, peacekeeping operations and military medicine. In 2013, a new priority area of humanitarian mine action was agreed.

Satellite imagery analysts claimed the village was two kilometres inside Bhutanese territory. The Chinese journalist has since deleted his tweet about the village. Representational image of Chinese soldiers | Photo: D. Myles Cullen | Commons A Chinese journalist has sparked controversy after tweeting, and then deleting, the map of a new village of the country.  Satellite imagery analysts claimed the village was two kilometres inside Bhutanese territory and near the Doklam Plateau , but Bhutan has contested the analysis, asserting that there is no Chinese encroachment on its territory. “There is no Chinese village on Bhutanese territory,” Major General V. Namgyel, Bhutan’s envoy to India, told ThePrint. Asked if the village was on Chinese land, he repeated that all he can say is that there are no Chinese villages on Bhutanese land. To combat this Chinese engineers have constructed a small retaining wall, I assume designed to keep any flood water out of the village. I'm not sure I...

While it is unclear if the government is considering joining the China­ led Regional Cooperation Economic Partnership , Colombo seems open to the idea. Located along one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, Sri Lanka is keen on developing the Colombo and Hambantota ports. A view of the East Container Terminal at the Colombo Port. | Photo Credit: Meera Srinivasan Sri Lanka’s growing emphasis on tapping the emerging Asian market would make the China-led Regional Cooperation Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement seem an ideal forum to build trade ties in the region. But given the island nation’s current economic challenges and India’s decision to opt out of the formidable grouping, the road is far from easy for Sri Lanka, according to economists. Few would dispute Sri Lanka’s distinct advantage, thanks to its strategic location in the Indian Ocean, along one of the busiest shipping routes in the world. “We must develop the [southern] Hambantota and Colombo Ports together with the ...

One of the key principles guiding the BRICS since inception is that member countries do not cross each other’s “red lines” and follow the general “club” principle of not publicizing members’ disagreements. The BRICS leaders at the tenth summit held in South Africa in 2018 The main challenge ahead of the BRICS is not procedural nor bureaucratic, but to continue to lead with innovative thinking and practical responses to some of the most pressing development challenges of our time. The 12th BRICS Summit on November 17 will be a test for the grouping under Russia’s helm. Since the creation of the BRICS in 2009, the five countries have strengthened their participation in the world economy. Pushed by China and India, the total BRICS GDP amounted to 25% of global GDP (US$21 trillion) and BRICS share in international trade stood at almost 20% (US$6.7 trillion) in 2020. Over the past five years, intra-BRICS exports grew by 45% and the share of intra-BRICS exports in total BRICS internationa...

 The Indian Navy has conducted exercises with Russia and ‘Quad’ countries - an informal security forum comprising India (Representative image) The Indian Navy has conducted exercises with Russia and 'Quad' countries - an informal security forum comprising India, the US, Japan and Australia - in a message to China on getting a wider footprint in the Indo-Pacific region. The Indo-Pacific region is seen from the west coast of India to the US. The Indian Navy carried out a three-day bilateral maritime exercise with Japan in the north Arabian Sea from September 26, 2020 to September 28, 2020. It was the fourth edition of India-Japan Maritime bilateral exercise JIMEX, which is conducted biennially. The last edition of JIMEX was conducted in October 2018 off Visakhapatnam in India. Naval cooperation between India and Japan has increased in scope and complexity over the years. Advanced level of operations and exercises took place during three days. It is indicative of the continued ups...

Bactrian Camel The Indian Army has decided to include an animal working for centuries in these adverse environmental conditions to patrol and carry goods in the cold desert of Ladakh. In Leh-based DRDO's Institute of Defence Institute for High Altitude Research (DIHAR), local two hump camels, Bactrian Camels, are being prepared for the Army. DIHAR officials say that Bactrian Camel is working brilliantly in the environment of Ladakh. Bactrian camels have been joining caravans from China, Tibet, Mongolia to Central Asia for centuries, crossing cold deserts and ice. Bactrian camel has been showcased in many artifacts of Central Asia in the third century. Bactrian Camel Italian traveler and businessman Marco Polo traveled on the Silk Route several times from 1271 to 1295. Marco Polo introduced Europe to Bactrian Camel. The Indian Army is currently training Bactrian camels with common camels at DIHAR's lab in Leh, and the results are very encouraging. DIHAR scientist Sarangi says th...