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PM Modi To Review China, Pak Situation At Military Meet

(This was originally posted in Times Of India by Rajat Pandit)

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will review the operational situation on the China and Pakistan fronts as well as the progress in the much-needed integration of the armed forces during the combined commanders’ conference (CCC) in the first week of March. The CCC, which will be held at Kevadia in Gujarat with all top commanders of the Army, Navy, and IAF, will come after Phase-I of the ongoing troop disengagement between India and China in Pangong Tso area of eastern Ladakh is completed this weekend.

It will also take place ahead of the impending creation of two unified tri-Service commands in the shape of the “functional” Air Defence Command (ADC) and the “geographical” Maritime Theatre Command (MTC) this year, as was reported by TOI in December. “The PM, for the first time in his second tenure, will address the CCC and is likely to give directions to the armed forces to be prepared to meet all challenges with greater integration among themselves in a cost-effective manner,” said a senior official. within 48 hours of the Pangong Tso disengagement being completed, India and China will hold the tenth round of corps commander-level meeting to discuss the remaining trouble spots at the strategically-located Depsang Plains as well as Gogra, Hot Springs, and the Charging Ninglung Nallah (CNN) track junction in the Demchok sector.

The new unified commands, in turn, are part of the biggest-ever military restructuring plan to build an integrated land-air-sea war-fighting machinery. The MTC, with its headquarters at the Karwar naval base in coastal Karnataka, will have operational control over the western and eastern naval fleets, maritime strike fighter jets and transport aircraft, two amphibious infantry brigades, and coastal patrol vessels, as was reported by TOI earlier. This becomes crucial in face of China’s ever-expanding naval footprint in the IOR. China already has the world’s largest Navy with 350 warships and submarines and plans to reach a force-level of 420 by the end of this decade.

The theatre commander will report to the joint chiefs of staff committee led by the chief of defense staff. Similar will be the case when the theatre commands for the land borders with China and Pakistan come up subsequently. At present, India has as many as 17 single-service commands (Army 7, IAF 7, and Navy 3), with very little synergy in planning and operations as well as disjointed command-and-control structures. The only two existing tri-Service commands came up after the 1999 Kargil conflict. The Andaman & Nicobar Command was set up as a “geographical” command in October 2001, while the “functional” Strategic Forces Command to handle the country’s nuclear arsenal came up in January 2003.

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Times of India

Kartik Sud

I am working as a News Author With the DefenceXP network, Observing LOC and LAC

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