ARUNACHAL PRADESH: Tuesday was spent celebrating Dussehra with Army personnel at a forward base in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. According to sources, the defence minister also conducted a “Shastra Puja”—a ceremony in which weapons are worshipped. Singh is celebrating Dussehra with the soldiers along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), a strategically significant position, during a period when China and India have been locked in a brutal standoff in some areas of eastern Ladakh for more than three years. For the past few years, Singh has celebrated Dussehra with “Shastra Puja,” even while he was the Union Home Minister in the previous NDA government.In spite of the fact that both parties have concluded their disengagement from a number of regions after intensive military and political negotiations, Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged in combat for more than three years in certain areas of eastern Ladakh. India has consistently argued that normal relations with China are contingent upon peace prevailing in the border regions. Following the standoff in eastern Ladakh, the Army has increased personnel and weapon deployment along the roughly 3,500 km-long Ladakh-Arunachal Pradesh corridor, including in the Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh sectors.
