The People’s Liberation Army today accused the Indian military of stopping the construction of a road in what it claims to be China’s “sovereign territory” in the Sikkim section of the India-China border and said the move has “seriously damaged” border peace and tranquillity.

In a statement, the Chinese defence ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said recently China had begun the construction of a road in DongLang region, but was stopped by Indian troops crossing the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

“The China-India boundary in Sikkim has delineated by historical treaty. After the independence of India, the Indian government has repeatedly confirmed it in writing acknowledging that both sides have no objection to Sikkim border,” the statement said.

“For China to build the road was completely an act of sovereignty on its own territory and the Indian side has no right to interfere,” it said.

Earlier, the Chinese side briefed the Indian side on this issue, it added.

“In this context, the Indian troops unilaterally provoked trouble which was in violation of the relevant agreement between the two sides and the mutual consensus of between the leaders of the two countries,” it said.

“This seriously damaged peace and tranquillity in the border areas. China is committed to developing bilateral relations with India, but also firmly defend its legitimate rights and interests,” it said.

“We hope that the Indian side will meet China halfway, and do not take any actions to complicate the boundary problem, and jointly maintain momentum of good development of bilateral relations”.

Tension mounted in a remote area of Sikkim after a scuffle broke out between personnel of the Indian Army and the PLA, leading to Chinese troops damaging bunkers on the Indian side of the border.

The incident happened in the first week of June near the Lalten post in the Doka La general area in Sikkim after a face-off between the two forces, which triggered tension along the Sino-Indian frontier, official sources in New Delhi said.

After the scuffle, the PLA entered Indian territory and damaged two make-shift bunkers of the Army, the sources said.

After the India-China war of 1962, the area has been under the Indian Army and the ITBP, which is the border guarding force and has a camp 15km from the international border.

This is apparently the reason why China stopped a batch of 47 Indian pilgrims from crossing through Nathu La border in Sikkim into Tibet to visit Kailash and Manasarovar.

Earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told the media here that the Foreign Ministries of both the countries were in touch over the entry of 47 Indian pilgrims blocked by China from entering Tibet at the Nathu La border in Sikkim.

“According to my information, the two governments are in touch over this issue,” Geng told reporters, declining to elaborate whether it was due to any weather-related issues like landslides and rains.

He said the issue was being discussed by the two foreign ministries. China last week refused entry to 47 Indian pilgrims who were scheduled to travel to Kailash Mansarovar through the Nathu La pass in Sikkim.

The pilgrims were scheduled to cross over to the Chinese side on June 19 but had failed to do so due to inclement weather. They waited at the base camp and tried to cross again on June 23 but were denied permission by the Chinese officials.

This is the second route agreed by the two counties for the Kailash yatra. Till 2015 the Yatra was being organised by External Affairs Ministry since 1981 only through Lipu Pass in the Himalayas connecting the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand in India with the old trading town of Taklakot in Tibet.

The Nathulla route enabled pilgrims to travel 1500 km long route from Nathu La to Kailash by buses.

Simran Sodhi Tribune News Service New Delhi, June 23 India’s hope of getting through to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) this year virtually came to an end today with China reiterating its opposition to India’s bid. This comes in the backdrop of the ongoing NSG plenary session in the Swiss capital Bern that concludes today. India had kept its outreach to the NSG members in the run up to the Bern session low key, keeping in view the negative backlash it endured last year after the Seoul fiasco. Sources said the government pushed forward India’s case with various NSG members, but in a quieter way. The problem, however, seems to be that with China not budging from its position, and the NSG working on the basis of a consensus, India’s chances have hardly moved forward. Smaller countries like Turkey and New Zealand also continue to hold on to their reservations about India’s entry into the group. “As for non-NPT countries being admitted to the group, I can tell you there is no change to China’s position,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said today. “I want to point out that the NSG has clear rules on expansion and the Seoul plenary made clear mandates on how to deal with this issue. With these rules and mandates, we need to act as they dictate.” “As for the criteria regarding admitting new members,” Geng added, “as far as I know this plenary meeting in Switzerland will follow the mandate of the Seoul plenary and uphold the principle of decision upon consensus, and continue to discuss various dimensions like technology, law, legal and political aspects of non-NPT countries admission to the group”. China has further complicated the situation by holding talks in Islamabad on Pakistan’s entry into the NSG. Pakistan also followed India’s example and has been pushing for a berth, citing the fact that if India, a non-signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) can be considered, then why not other non-NPT states. India has been arguing that its case needs to be de-hyphenated from Pakistan’s, but China seems to have other thoughts.

Kulbhushan Jadhav. AFP file

Islamabad, June 22

Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court, has filed a mercy petition to Pakistan Army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, the Army said here on Thursday.The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), in a statement, claimed that in his plea, Jadhav has “admitted his involvement in espionage, terrorist and subversive activities” in Pakistan and “expressed remorse” at the resultant loss of lives and extensive damage to property.”Seeking forgiveness for his actions he has requested the Chief of Army Staff to spare his life on compassionate grounds,” the ISPR said.The statement said that Jadhav, a retired Indian Navy officer, had earlier appealed to the Military Appellate Court which was rejected.Under the law he is eligible to appeal for clemency to the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and if rejected, subsequently to the Pakistan President.The military also released a “second confessional video”, in which purportedly Jadhav can be seen “accepting his acts of terrorism and espionage”.Video posted by Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, DG ISPR, on his Facebook pageThe Army said it released the video “so that the world should know what India has done and continues to do against Pakistan.”India moved the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the death penalty handed down to Jadhav on May 8.In a hearing of the case on May 18, a 10-member bench of the ICJ restrained Pakistan from executing Jadhav.Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy. — PTI

President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said that in the rapidly changing environment, the nation’s faith in the armed forces has remained intact. “In the rapidly changing environment, one factor which has not changed is the faith reposed in the armed forces by the entire nation,” Mukherjee said while addressing the convocation ceremony of the College of Military Engineering (CME) here. In all, seventy one M.Tech and B.Tech students passed out from the premier technical and tactical training institution of the Indian Army, established in 1943.Mukherjee said that the Indian Army engineers had traditionally left their mark on prestigious national projects, “be it oil pipeline at Siachen, prestigious naval bases and airfields in the North East or roads cutting through the Himalayan ranges”. “I am sure that each and every one of you will follow the footsteps of your illustrious predecessors and shall live up to the high standards expected of you,” he said.

AN APPEAL TO CHIEFS BY VETERANS ::DONOT MAKE RESPECTABLE RANKS AS ACTING RANKS FOR ADVERTISEMENTS BY ACTORS WITH NO CONCERN FOR FORCES

REGISTRATION DATE EXTENDED UPTO 25 JUN 2017 FOR “GUARDIANS OF GOVERNANCE” A PUNJAB GOVT PROJECT OF ESM EMPLOYMENT TO ACT AS EYES AND EARS OF CM

FOR A MULTI-PRONGED, PRAGMATIC K-STRATEGY LT GEN VIJAY OBEROI (RETD)

THE SOUTH KASHMIR RAGE: WHAT WENT WRONG? BY LT GEN SYED ATA HUSNAIN (RETD)

THE OLIVE GREEN BLOOD GROUP

BJP FOR APOLOGY, RAHUL SAYS STAY OFF ARMY CHIEF

AFP file photo

NOTWITHSTANDING our media’s predictable preoccupation with levels of PM Modi’s diplomatic civility with Nawaz Sharif and Xi Jinping, what took place on Friday in Astana was seminal. After a five-year wait, India and Pakistan were admitted to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), till then a six-member club of Russia, China and four Central Asian nations. Cast a look at any world map and this grouping’s geo-political footprint becomes obvious. All the countries straddle an arc of instability that has brought violent extremism in its wake for the past three decades. It is these countries rather than the extra-regional actors who know where the shoe pinches. They have been at the receiving end of radicalised, gun-toting militants and are now facing the spectre of the ISIS.India and Pakistan complete the lineup to fight ISIS-inspired militancy that seeks the destruction of all states not measuring up to its standards of piety and fervour. None of the SCO states make the grade. On the commerce side, Central and South Asia remains the least interconnected region. The various sinews of the famed Silk Road are now just memories. Even if India ignores the Pakistan portion of the OBOR, there are endless possibilities for connecting with these areas, especially North India that has endured the inconvenience of post-Independence borders sealing off millennia-old trading routes. Once the routes open up, oil and gas pipelines would follow.Sceptics claim India and Pakistan will bring their disputes to the SCO table and render it as dysfunctional as SAARC. The assumption is predicated on the belief that members do not launder their bilateral disputes at the SCO. In fact, the SCO’s founding purpose was to sort out disputes among its members. With a considerate Russia and sympathetic Central Asian states, India will get ample hearing at the SCO which could help sort out some of the crinkles in its relations with China and Pakistan. As Turkey and Iran wait on the sidelines for admission, the SCO is a work in progress. But it would not be without its uses for India even in the current format.

Geeta Devi, wife of martyr Ravi Paul, along with her children at Sarwah village in Samba district. Tribune Photo: Inderjeet Singh

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Sarwah (Samba), June 10

The patience of Geeta Devi, 35, wife of Uri martyr Havildar Ravi Pal, is running out as for the last six months she has been moving from one office to another to get ex gratia and other compensation to which a martyr’s family is entitled to. She has been facing official apathy and the apathetic attitude of local politicians. Geeta says, “I have two young children. How can I regularly visit government offices for ex gratia and compensation?” Her elder son Vansh is in Class VII and the younger one Sudhanash is in Class V. “The state government has not sanctioned even a single penny for our family,” says a sobbing Geeta. She said except “photo sessions”, politicians had failed to do anything. Geeta had submitted a job application before the tehsildar concerned in December 2016. When her husband was martyred in September last year, she was promised a job by the authorities. “It appears that my application is gathering dust as there is no progress in 

my case,” she said.

Of the 18 soldiers who were killed in the Uri terror attack on September 18, 2016, Havildar Ravi Pal of Sarwah village in Samba district and Subedar Karnail Singh of Shibu Chack village in Bishnah belonged to the Jammu region. All other state governments had instantly announced compensation to the next of kin of the bravehearts.On January 18 this year, the state government had announced in the Assembly that the ex gratia cases of the next of kin of the Uri attack victims of 2016 had not been received by the Home Department so far.The BJP had announced an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh each to the two martyrs on its own but the party ministers in the coalition have so far failed to get the compensation sanctioned from the government. Meanwhile, no official was ready to come on record over the inordinate delay in releasing the ex gratia to the Uri martyrs. While the Ramgarh tehsildar has recently taken over, other senior officials preferred to maintain silence.Despite repeated attempts, local BJP MLA Chander Prakash Ganga, who is also a Cabinet minister in the coalition, was not available for comment. His personal staff claimed that the “minister is busy in a meeting”. 

Relief released

• UP Rs 20 lakh
• Jharkhand Rs 11 lakh
• Orrisa Rs 10 lakhplus pension
• Maharashtra Rs 15 lakh
• Bihar Rs 15 lakh
• J&K Nothing so far