The government of Bhutan today rejected Chinese claims that it had conveyed to Beijing through the diplomatic channels that the Doklam area was not its territory, news agency ANI reported.

“Our position on the border issue of Doklam is very clear. Please refer to our statement which has been published on the web site of Bhutan’s foreign ministry on June 29, 2017,” ANI quoted its official sources in the Bhutanese Government as saying.

On Wednesday, China’s top diplomat on the border dispute, Wang Wenli, reportedly told a visiting Indian media delegation that Bhutan has conveyed to Beijing through the diplomatic channels that the area of the standoff is not its territory although she did not provide any evidence in support of her claim.

“After the incident, the Bhutanese made it very clear to us that the place where the trespassing happened is not Bhutan’s territory,” Wang Wenli was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

Wang Wenli further alleged that the Bhutanese find it very strange that the Indian border troops are on the Chinese soil and claimed that her views have been gleaned from Bhutanese state media and legal blogs which have “more convincing information”.

According to ANI, its official sources in Bhutan government have firmly denied Chinese claims by pointing out that Thimphu had clearly stated its stand on this matter in a statement on June 29, 2017 which was also posted on the web site of Bhutan’s foreign ministry.

“Bhutan has conveyed to the Chinese side, both on the ground and through the diplomatic channel, that the construction of the (motorable) road inside Bhutanese territory is a direct violation of the (written) agreements (of 1988 and 1998) and affects the process of demarcating the boundary between our two countries,” the Bhutanese foreign ministry statement said.

ANI further quoted its sources as saying that the statement is clear that the agreements of 1988 and 1998 also state that both sides “will refrain from taking unilateral action, or use of force, to change the status quo of the boundary and Bhutan hopes that the status quo in the Doklam area will be maintained as before 16 June, 2017.”

India has also supported the statement issued by the government of Bhutan and pointed out that the construction of the road inside Bhutanese territory is a direct violation of the 1988 and 1998 agreements between Bhutan and China and affects the process of demarcating the boundary between these two countries.

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 28

India and China today agreed to “expeditious disengagement” of border personnel at Doklam, bringing to an end a tense standoff since June 16 at the plateau located at the Sikkim-Bhutan-China tri-junction.The announcement that the process of disengagement “has since been almost completed under verification” comes ahead of the September 3-5 BRICS Summit in China. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to attend the annual meeting of the multi-lateral grouping.

Edit:Border standoff

Emphasising that India always maintained it is only through diplomatic channels that differences on such matters can be addressed, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said: “Our principled position is that agreements and understandings reached on boundary issues must be scrupulously respected.”(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)The MEA was responding to questions following reports quoting Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying that Indian soldiers and equipment had been pulled back to the Indian side of the border and the Chinese side continued to patrol the Doklam area. “The Chinese side continues to uphold sovereignty and territorial integrity according to the historical convention,” she said.There was no mention by either side whether the construction of the road, which India objected to, would be stopped by China.The dispute leading to a face-off at the border began after Indian troops stepped on to a territory held by Bhutan, preventing a Chinese team from constructing a road near the plateau. While New Delhi said it significantly changed the status quo having “serious security implications” for it, China insisted India must pull back its troops before any discussion.Earlier, India announced that both sides maintained diplomatic communication and during these exchanges, New Delhi was able to express its views and convey its concerns and interests.The MEA said India’s policy remained guided by the belief that peace and tranquility in the border areas was an essential prerequisite to further development of bilateral relationship.Meanwhile, sources in the Indian Army said while its troops disengaged around noon, its “operational alert” across the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC) will continue during the month.Vigil will continue, the sources said, adding that operational moves on the Indian side would continue. China recently created a western theatre.

Concerns conveyed, says New Delhi“In recent weeks, India and China have maintained diplomatic communication in respect of incident at Doklam. We were able to express our views and convey concerns and interests… On this basis, expeditious disengagement of border personnel at face-off site has been agreed to, and is ongoing”— An MEA statementIndia has pulled back: Beijing“On the afternoon of August 28, the Indian side pulled back all Indian troops and equipment to the Indian side of the boundary and the Chinese personnel have verified this… The Chinese side will continue to exercise its sovereignty and uphold its territorial integrity in accordance with historical conventions” — Chinese spokesperson

Members participating in the Victory Run from Delhi to Dras to pay homage to Kargil martyrs on the conflict’s 18th anniversary during their flag-off from Chandigarh by former Army Chief Gen VP Malik on Saturday. Tribune photo: Manoj Mahajan

Expedition marks 18th anniversary of Kargil conflict

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 5

To commemorate the 18th anniversary of the 1999 Kargil conflict and pay tributes to martyrs, a victory run is being organised where 18 soldiers are undertaking a duathlon (run-cycle-run) from New Delhi to Dras in Jammu and Kashmir from July 30 to August 29.The aim is to create a world record for the longest duathlon, covering 1,400 kilometers. It was flagged off on its next leg by Gen VP Malik (retd), who was the Army Chief during the conflict, from the Chandigarh War Memorial here on Saturday.A simple ceremony was held at the memorial, where a wreath was laid in the memory of the martyrs of the Kargil War and the expedition flag was handed over to the team leader, Wg Cdr Paramvir Singh, an ultra-endurance athlete. The team includes a female member, Lt Col Lipsa.The first leg of 574 km from Delhi to Manali via Chandigarh will take 12 days. From Manali, the team will begin cycling and cover 557 km to Leh with a detour to Khardung La – the highest point on the route at 5,358m. Finally, after the only day of rest and acclimatisation at Leh, they will begin running again and cover 270 km to culminate at Dras, where the Kargil War Memorial is located.This would not only be the most challenging duathlon in the world but also the longest duathlon ever, involving steep uphill and downhill gradients, extremely hot and humid weather in the plains to cold temperature in Ladakh and the effects of the high altitude, requiring the highest levels of endurance, both physical and mental.

DGP BS Sandhu. ANI

Chandigarh, August 27

Maintaining law and order will be the top priority for the Haryana Police on Monday, when the quantum of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s sentence will be announced, state DGP BS Sandhu said today even as the toll in Friday’s violence rose to 38.To ensure there was no repeat of violence that erupted in Panchkula last week when thousands of Dera followers gathered around the CBI court that convicted Singh in a rape case, all routes to the Sunaria jail in Rohtak, where the self-styled godman has been lodged, have been sealed.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)Addressing a press conference here, DGP Sandhu said that in Haryana, only Sirsa, where the sect is headquartered, was now under curfew.“The top priority now is to ensure that law and order is maintained when the sentencing of convicted Dera Sacha Sauda chief takes place in Rohtak tomorrow,” he said.The DGP added that the death toll in the violence that broke out in Panchkula and Sirsa after the conviction of the dera chief on Friday had risen to 38.While 32 persons died in the violence on Friday at Panchkula, six others died at Sirsa, where curfew was still in place, he said.The dera chief is now lodged in the Sunaria jail in Rohtak, where the special CBI court judge will be flown from here for the pronouncement of the sentence.On Friday, the court had convicted the dera chief in a rape case.In Rohtak, foolproof arrangements have been made and all routes leading to the jail have been sealed, DGP Sandhu said.Asked about a 35-year-old cameraman of a news channel being attacked today at Sirsa allegedly by dera followers, Sandhu said a case has been registered in this regard.He sought to assure media persons that the police will give them full protection, but urged them to take precautions when they venture out into sensitive areas. — PTI

Nitish Sharma

Tribune News Service

Ambala, August 5

Family members of Major Yogesh Gupta, who sacrificed his life while fighting terrorists in Surankot in Jammu and Kashmir in July, 2002, have decided to approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court if no gallantry award and a road or a chowk is announced after the martyr.Ved Prakash Gupta, farther of the martyr, says, “No gallantry award has been announced for Yogesh though he killed four dreaded terrorists before sacrificing his life. My wife, who struggled for nearly 15 years to keep the name of Yogesh alive in public memory, died on June 13 with her earnest desire unfulfilled. We feel dejected when a gallantry award is presented to the next of kin of other martyrs while Yogesh has been given none”.“We have written numerous letters to the GOC in Ambala, the President, the Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Defence, local administration, state officials and the MLA over the last 15 years, but to no avail”, he adds.Gupta says, “We just want a road or a chowk to be named after Major Yogesh. After a struggle of 15 years, we got a reply in February this year that according to the government policy, the Deputy Commissioner has the authority to effect the change after considering the matter as and when any gram panchayat or municipal council approaches him with a resolution in this regard”.“It gives us a feeling that a letter from a gram panchayat or a municipal council gets more respect than the martyrdom of an Army Major and the struggle of his parents. It is the duty of the local administration and the government to do the needful instead of the aggrieved family to request people to pass resolutions and approach them,” he adds.The martyr’s father says, “We are not seeking monetary help. It is a matter of honouring a martyr and remembering his bravery. Renaming a road or a chowk will help in keeping his name alive and inspiring the future generation”.“We have written a letter to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and sent a reminder to the Ministry of Defence this week. This is our last attempt, as we have been struggling for 15 years now. If no gallantry award is announced or a chowk is renamed after Major Yogesh, we will approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court to seek justice for the martyr,” says Gupta.

Sirsa Deputy Commissioner Prabhjot Singh (extreme right) and SSP Ashwin Shenvi review security arrangements at a police naka on Wednesday. Photo: Manoj Dhaka

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 23

The state has been put on “high alert” with prohibitory orders being clamped in 10 districts, including Panchkula, Sirsa and those bordering neighbouring Punjab, ahead of the verdict in a rape case against Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.The state government, which is on tenterhooks with regard to the law and order situation, has intimated the Army to be prepared to step in, if and when needed. The possibility of curfew is not ruled out.As many as 2,500 more police personnel have been mobilised by way of rationalisation to keep vigil till the verdict in the case is out.Even as 18 more companies of paramilitary forces arrived in the state taking the total number of companies available to 53, the Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP government deputed 10 senior IPS officers and 10 HCS officers to monitor the law and order situation in Panchkula.The government has also notified temporary prisons in various districts and two drones have been pressed into service in Panchkula to keep an eye on the dera followers camping in the city.Haryana Roadways buses would ply normally on their regular routes in the state over the next two days but will not enter Ambala and Panchkula as a precautionary measure.While social media is being closely monitored in all 10 “sensitive” districts, sources in the government said it was not averse to the idea of suspending internet services, if needed. “All content on social media is being closely scrutinised at the district level and internet services could be suspended if the situation turns volatile,” sources claimed.Declaring a three-day holiday in educational institutions, including government, private, government-aided and BEd colleges and universities of the state from August 23 to 25, as per a notification of the Higher Education Department, the government cancelled leave of field officers and police personnel while ordering all medical and paramedical staff to remain on duty till August 30. Closure of schools, however, has been left to the respective Deputy Commissioners.Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Ram Niwas, said the situation in the state was dynamic and the government would employ all measures to maintain law and order in view of the changing situation.

Govt weighs options

• With followers of Dera Sacha Sauda chief streaming into Panchkula and at the dera headquarters in Sirsa as a build-up to the August 25 verdict of the CBI court in the rape case against him, the government is learnt to be weighing various options to deal with the fluid ground situation in the state even as uncertainty surrounds the appearance of the dera chief in the court.
• Though the government is hopeful that the Dera chief will show up in the court, the top brass spent the day reviewing security arrangements and weighing its options during various rounds of meetings.
• Sources said there was a possibility that the judgment in the case could be delivered via video-conferencing with the dera chief in Sirsa if there seemed a possibility of the situation turning volatile. Further, the government could move an application in the CBI court seeking deferral of the verdict if there is a threat to the law and order situation.

Dera followers told to hide identity Hisar: Dera Sacha Sauda followers are being guided on ways to hoodwink security forces and reach Panchkula. At Naam Charcha Ghars, ‘premis’ are gathering and being told to reach Panchkula by all means and keep their identities hidden. At the Naam Charcha Ghar in Gangwa village in this district, it was announced through a mike to take Haryana Roadways buses or any private vehicle to reach Panchkula. ‘Premis’ have been told not to take the pendant with a photo of the dera head along. “Instructions are being issued to the followers via Whatsapp groups,” a source said, adding that they were advised not to proceed in groups.—TNS

Rajmata Mohinder Kaur has passed on to her son, Capt Amarinder Singh, a part of the republican and Akali tradition

KC Singh

TWO events affecting the chief ministers in the two Punjabs on the opposite side of the Indo-Pakistan border remind one of William Wordsworth’s The Solitary Reaper: “For old, unhappy, far-off things; And battles long ago”. One was the passing away of the Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh’s mother and the last recognised Maharani of Patiala, Rajmata Mohinder Kaur nee Mehtab Kaur. The other is Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s ouster in Pakistan on the vacuous ground of his conduct lacking “ameen” and “sadiq”, words implying undefined piety, inserted in the Pakistani constitution by the late President Zia-ul-Haq from Islamic jurisprudence, simply because he concealed the unpaid chairmanship of a free trade zone company in Dubai. Nawaz is likely to be replaced by his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, the current Chief Minister of Pakistani Punjab. Both events have provenance that merits recalling.The Rajmata was married at 16 and became the Maharani of Patiala a year later, on the death of her colourful father-in-law, Maharaja Bhupinder Singh. She has now left amidst all the pomp that the mother of the current ruler of Punjab, not just Patiala, automatically begets. Both my family and that of my wife flourished under the last two rulers of the Patiala state. My wife’s grandfather, Lt-Gen Balwant Singh, rose to head the Patiala state forces before retiring in 1948. My grandfather, Capt Waryam Singh, was In-charge of Deodi i.e. comptroller of household in the 1920s, serving a young Bhupinder Singh.My debt to Patiala is thus indirect and distant, although the past, bits of which one learnt in one’s youth, is worth recalling. This is also a way of condoling for those who are neither friends of Captain Sahib nor courtiers, and yet are more than passing acquaintances; protocol and inaccessibility rule out a personal visit. The first wife of Maharaja Yadavindra Singh was Rajkumari Hem Prabha Devi of Saraikela, now in Orissa, from the family of Singhdeos. She passed away unheralded in 2014, aged 101. The stated reason for the Crown Prince remarrying was the first marriage being issueless. Actually the truth is more complex.Alongside the freedom movement agitation began in states run by local rulers for greater political rights and civil liberties. The Panjab Riyasti Praja Mandal was formed in 1928, aligning itself with the national All India States People’s Conference. The initiative in Punjab came from Akali workers, self-confident after succeeding at gurdwara reform. At their first meeting at Mansa on July 17, 1928, they appointed Seva Singh Thikrivala as president. In 1929 they produced a report titled “Indictment of Patiala” against Maharaja Bhupinder Singh and sent it to the Viceroy. Despite this the Maharaja, as the sitting Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes was the sole representative of rulers at the Round Table Conference in November 1930. The Praja Mandal stepped up the agitation and Thikrivala, who had been once released, was jailed again in 1933, where he died in 1935.The father of the Rajamata, Harchand Singh Jaijee, was a close aide of Thikrivala. That is why despite the family belonging to Patiala, the Rajmata was born at Ludhiana, a part of British India and out of Maharaja Patiala’s reach. In 1936 Patiala state signed an agreement with Akali leader Master Tara Singh, splitting the Praja Mandal movement. The marriage of Sardar Jaijee’s daughter to the heir apparent Yadavindra Singh in 1938 thus tied into this appeasing of Sikh sentiments. In fact, stories circulated that Akali leaders wanted the future ruler of Patiala to marry in a Sikh family so as to beget genuine Sikh heirs. Ironically, having got their wish in the birth of Capt Amarinder Singh, Akalis now discover that he has become their main Congress challenger in Punjab, as the Bluestar taint does not stick on him.Thus Captain Singh inherited both a regal lineage through his father but also a republican and Akali tradition through his mother. As an inheritor of this fusion it was not surprising he walked away from the Congress in 1984 over the Army entering the Golden Temple during Operation Bluestar. I remember as Deputy Secretary to President Zail Singh in 1984, when PM Indira Gandhi’s office was desperately trying to locate and dissuade Captain Sahib the argument in Rashtrapati Bhavan was that his maternal Jaijee family had incited Captain Singh. The Rajmata herself showed the same streak when throwing her lot with the Morarji Desai Congress, due to her rumoured friendship with Asoka Mehta, one of the founders of the trade union movement and INTUC.  Thus the Rajmata’s death closes this chapter of Indian and Punjab history where she bridged the divide between effete royalty and Sikh and republican traditions, as indeed the conflict within the Congress between its past freedom movement camaraderie and subservience to one family.In Pakistan it is again a concerted attempt by the military and its allies like Imran Khan to end Nawaz Sharif’s attempt to perpetuate family rule. Shahbaz, I have on authority of a former aide to the then PM Nawaz Sharif, was in the PM’s house in 1999 when Nawaz decided to sack the Army chief, Gen Perevz Musharraf, during an official visit to Sri Lanka. General Musharraf indirectly confirmed this recently saying he thought Shahbaz was his friend. Nawaz’s family had convinced him that Shahbaz and Musharraf were plotting against him. So he never consulted his own brother before his foolish move. Shahbaz is obviously more acceptable to the military than Nawaz’s daughter, Mariam, who was the designated heir. He also has had working relations with Jehadi outfits, having used the carrot and the stick to control them in Punjab. There will be continuity and change, the nature of which will determine Indo-Pak relations. Similarly, the Modi government is not only impaling Lalu Yadav but his entire line of heirs with money laundering charges. Corruption, money-laundering, Panama Papers, benami deals are the new weapons which those in power in the subcontinent are using to corner political rivals and their families. But like the Akalis in Punjab, the BJP may find that clearing the cluttered Opposition leadership stable may actually open space for new leaders who could become the real challenge. The BJP and the Pakistani Army must remember the Chinese curse: “May all your wishes come true”. The writer is a former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs

A US expert has said that the ongoing border dispute between the Indian and Chinese troops at Dokhlam in the Sikkim sector could lead to a war.

“Yes I do, and I don’t say that lightly,” Jeff M. Smith, a scholar at the American Foreign Policy Council, told the New York Times when he was asked whether he thought the India-China stand-off could spiral into war.

“Both sides have taken hardline positions that make it difficult to back down. The messaging is eerily similar,” Smith said, referring to the countries’ 1962 war that was also over border disputes.

Doklam, at the tri-junction of China, India, and Bhutan, holds strategic importance for all three.

The border row between the two countries was triggered in June when the Indian Army stopped a road construction by Chinese troops in Doklam.

China has told India repeatedly to withdraw troops from Doklam, which it calls as its own territory. New Delhi has said that troops from both sides should withdraw for a dialogue as Doklam belongs to its ally Bhutan.

Bhutan, a Himalayan nation that has no diplomatic ties with China, also protested against the road construction by Chinese troops.