Cavalier India Defence Training Academy

There is finally some good news in Eastern Ladakh with the mutual disengagement of Indian and Chinese soldiers from the areas of Galwan and Hot Springs. The contentious areas of Pangong Tso and Depsang are yet to be addressed, but with the stalemate along the border having been broken, the differences between the two sides can be narrowed. Irrespective of how the current crisis plays out, it carries one major lesson. Our strategic differences with China will come into sharper focus as China grows more powerful and assertive, and this competition could increasingly play out along the unsettled Line of Actual Control (LAC). The brutality of the clash at Galwan on June 15 has demolished the existing protocols and agreements that guided the conduct of soldiers, and we could see a hotter LAC in the coming years. Indo Tibetan Border Police Jawans at a parade in Chandigarh Dealing with China in the future will require a comprehensive strategy that combines our diplomatic, economic, and milita...

Representative Image Transgenders can soon aspire to lead combat troops in central paramilitary forces as the government is mulling allowing them take the annual UPSC exam for recruitment as officers in these forces deployed across the country for various internal security duties, officials said on Thursday. Sources in the security establishment told PTI that with the central government notifying the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act in December last year it is now essential to provide transgenders a "level playing field" in all avenues and services including combat policing. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has also sought time-bound "comments", in favour or against, from the five paramilitary or Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) so that the Union Public Service Commission can be intimated whether or not to include the transgender category in the soon-to-be published notification for this year's CAPFs Assistant Commandants (ACs) exam. The AC is...