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A view of Rohtang tunnel. File Photo

Dipender Manta

Tribune News Service

Kullu, October 4

Residents of tribal district Lahaul Spiti are eagerly awaiting the moment when BRO will connect both portals of 8.8-km-long  Rohtang tunnel which will provide all-weather connectivity to the people with the rest of the state. They are planning to throw up big celebration and rejoice the achievement as the ambitious project suffered several delays over the years.On their part, BRO authorities have declined to disclose the details of the completion of digging work of the Rohtang tunnel. The BRO personnel are working relentlessly to connect both the portals of the tunnel by the end of this month. Merely 60 m digging work remains to be done.Rigzin Samphel Heyreppa, a resident of Lahaul, said that it would be a great moment for people of this tribal district, who face immense hardship availing transportation facilities during winter season for at least six months, when mighty Rohtang Pass receives heavy snowfall at the advent of winter. The mighty Rohtang is considered gateway to Lahaul Spiti.“Every year people of this district suffer in emergency situation when they fail to transport patients (their near and dear one) in time out of the district to provide medical relief. The remote district is bereft of adequate health facilities. Due to lack of transportation facility in time, many patients even lose their lives”, he remarked.It was expected that Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will join the event, when BRO completes the tunnel digging work.Chander Mohan Parsheera of Lahaul Spiti said the tunnel should be named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his childhood friend Arjun Gopal of this tribal district. They played a vital role in the execution of the project.The project suffered several delays due to extreme tough weather and other inhospitable conditions. The project was then rescheduled for completion in the year 2015 but this time water ingress in Seri Nullah in the region hampered the digging work drastically.The BRO authority has now set the target to hand over the tunnel to the nation in year 2019. Once completed, the passage will help accelerate troop mobility to the strategic frontiers in Jammu and Kashmir besides providing a road link to Lahaul and Spiti in winter. This will give tremendous boost to tourism in the hitherto unexplored areas of Lahaul Spiti.The estimated cost of the project in 2010 was Rs 1,700 crore. It was revised to Rs 2,000 crore in 2015 and now the projected cost by 2019 is Rs 4,000 crore.

But now China is planning for 2020 what official media describe as a global scientific expeditionof ocean floors using a harder-to-see “submersible” vehicle named Jiaolong. A submersible is defined as a vehicle that operates underwater and usually refers to small research craft. This one probably works something like a bathyscaphe (see full definition here). The Jiaolong, which finished five years of trials in February, is equipped to dive to depths up to 7,000 meters for info on marine life, hydrothermal movement and “multi-metal nodule mining,” the official Xinhua News Agency says. It can be manned, as well.Like a lot of underwater missions that China pursues, this submersible comes off at first like another harmless research effort. Chinese officials are also protecting a rare oceanic “blue hole” in the disputed Paracel Islands of the South China Sea and planning an underwater observation system to send real-time seabed information back to shore and explore its chemistry, Chinese media reported in March. The system would cover the South and East China seas, both disputed by neighboring Asian countries. 

“A relatively uninformed observation is that (Xinhua) mentions metal nodule mining in the South China Sea as one of its purposes,” says Jeffrey Wilson, senior international political economy at Murdoch University in Australia. “One can, of course, only mine a seabed over which one has sovereignty.”

The undersea diving machine will add to Chinese pride as an advanced maritime nation, not just a land-based one, says Collin Koh, a maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The State Oceanic Administration has shared deep-see findings before with other countries, Koh says. So it may offer up the same in 2020. But although Chinese officials would never say so, the undersea mission might be murkily linked to ever-secretive military use, he says. Outsiders have raised the same fear about the Chinese space program. Japan with its international deep-sea drilling program could vie with China’s Jiaolong technology. Weaker rival maritime claimants could only watch, fret and fear.

“This is a problem that highlights the challenge in blurring the lines between civilian and military technologies used for marine scientific and technological work, and the duality of use of such data that is obtained,” Koh says. “We need to recall that back during the Cold War, major navies were reported to have used deep-sea submersibles for underwater espionage activities.”

पाकिस्तान की ओर से खोदी गई थी सुरंग

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh takes a salute at the ITBP Rimkhim post on Saturday.

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, September 30

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today celebrated Vijay Dashmi with ITBP personnel manning the Indo-China border in the state.On the third day of his four-day visit to Uttarakhand, the minister visited the Barahouti and Rimkhim border posts in Chamoli district along the Indo-China border. Barahouti has been in news after reports of Chinese incursions in the region recently. Rajnath Singh, who was accompanied by Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, interacted with ITBP personnel at the Sunil ITBP camp in Auli. He said the Centre was committed to the well-being of the defence and paramilitary forces.Rajnath also participated in ‘shastra puja’ that takes place on Vijay Dashmi. He said special focus was being given to strengthen security at border posts. He later went to the Auli skiing institute.A day earlier, the Union Home Minister had visited Mana, the last village on the Indian side of the border. He presented a cheque of Rs 1 lakh for the distribution of sweets among the soldiers. He also presented an LCD to them

The aircraft that crashed. ANI

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 28

An IAF training aircraft on a training sortie crashed near Hyderabad on Thursday morning.The pilot, a trainee, ejected safely.

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The plane, a Kiran trainer aircraft had got airborne from Hakimpet in Hyderabad for a routine training mission when it crashed.A Court of Inquiry will ascertain the cause of the accident.

Navy soldiers during the commissioning of INS Tarasa in Mumbai on Tuesday. PTI

Mumbai, September 26

The first Scorpene-class submarine Kalvari is expected to be commissioned by November-December, Vice Admiral Girish Luthra said on Tuesday.The Scorpene-class submarine was handed over to the Indian Navy four days back by the Mazgaon Dock Limited, one of the key ship building units of the Indian Navy.“The Kalvari submarine has already been in the sea for some time. Some 110 days of sea trials have been completed and more pre-commissioning sea trials are going on. We are expecting it to be commissioned by November-December this year,” Vice Admiral Luthra said.The submarines, designed by French naval defence and energy company DCNS, are being built by Mazagon Dock Limited here as part of Project-75 of the Indian Navy.”The Indian Navy is keen on increasing indigenous components in ship building activity. We have also increased the indigenous components in submarines as well. The components’ share needs to be increased in weapons and sensors,” Vice Admiral Luthra said.He was speaking here at the commissioning of Indian Navy’s ship Tarasa at the Naval dockyard here.The Western Naval Command today commissioned INS Tarasa, which is a 400 tonne ship.It was a much needed addition in the Navy’s fleet, Luthra said. — PTI

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 16

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman paid a maiden visit to the Headquarters of the Western Command at the Chandimandir Military Station today.She was briefed about the operational preparedness, administrative issues and ex-servicemen’s affairs by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Lt Gen Surinder Singh.Expressing complete confidence in the immense operational might of the Western Command, she lauded its contribution to all spheres, including assistance to the civilian administration, especially in the recent past.She also laid a wreath at the Veer Smriti war memorial to pay tributes to martyrs and planted a sapling in the complex. She also interacted with the troops. Sitharaman attended a function at Kasauli and later proceeded back to New Delhi.

All praise

The minister lauded the Western Command’s contribution to all spheres, including assistance to the civilian administration.

Incidents of ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops have increased sharply this year. Tribune file

Jammu, September 16

Pakistani troops targeted Indian border outposts and hamlets along the International Border (IB) in Jammu district in overnight firing and shelling, a senior BSF officer said on Saturday.

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There have been continuous ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the IB for the past four days. A BSF jawan was killed and a few others were injured in the cross-Loc fire on Friday.

Pakistani troops started firing at Indian posts in Arnia sector around midnight, prompting Border Security Force (BSF) personnel to retaliate, the officer said.

“Firing stopped at 0645 hours,” the officer said.

One temple, two houses and three cowsheds were damaged in the Pakistani firing in Sai, Treva and Jabowl villages. Three livestock were killed in the overnight shelling, the officer added.

BSF jawan Bijender Bahadur was killed and a villager injured on Friday when Pakistan troops resorted to firing and shelling along the IB in Arnia sector.

Two Pakistani soldiers were killed in retaliatory action by the BSF on Thursday, while three Indian jawans were injured in unprovoked firing and shelling by Pakistani troops along the IB and the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Poonch districts on Wednesday.

Incidents of ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops have increased sharply this year. Till August 1, there have been 285 such actions by the Pakistan Army, while in 2016, the number was significantly less at 228 for the entire year, according to figures by the Indian Army. PTI