RAHUL BEDI in New Delhi
The Irish Times
September 9, 2010

INDIA IS augmenting its military preparedness and
infrastructural development along its 5,045km
disputed frontier with neighbouring China in
response to similarly heightened activity on the other side.

Official sources said India was making
preparations to deploy its strategic Agni II
intermediate-range ballistic missiles and Prithvi
III surface-to-surface ballistic missiles to the Chinese border.

An unspecified number of missile units under the
Strategic Forces Command, which controls India’s
nuclear arsenal, had recently been placed under
the army’s Eastern Command, which has
responsibility for managing the Chinese threat.

These measures were planned in response to China
moving its advanced, longer-range CSS-5 missiles
to the Tibet region and developing contingency
plans to shift airborne forces there at short notice.

The neighbours fought a bitter war in 1962 -- in
which India came off worse -- over their unresolved border dispute.

China maintains the disputed area to be over
120,600sq km and to include Arunachal Pradesh
province in northeastern India, a claim New Delhi dismisses.

Over the decades, there has been no indication of
a resolution to these conflicting claims, despite
continuing negotiations and the recent upswing in
diplomatic, political, commercial and even
fledgling military ties between the world’s two most populous countries.

Tensions also persist along the undemarcated line
of actual control, with India claiming frequent
instances of increasingly aggressive border
patrolling by the People’s Liberation Army,
including incursions deep into its territory in order to test its responses.

A Pentagon report on China’s military status and
ambitions had last month also warned against
Beijing militarily reinforcing its borders with
India, which, in turn, was preparing a riposte to these developments.

The Indian Air Force, for instance, plans to
increase the number of Su-30MKI multi-role
fighters at its base in Tezpur in Assam province, bordering Tibet.

Military sources said the Su-30MKI’s radius of
operation from Tezpur could be further enhanced
by 5,000km to 8,000km with air-to-air refuelling
by the air force’s recently acquired tankers to
enable them to strike at targets deep inside China.