By IANS,
New Delhi : There is “no war like situation” with China but the country is better prepared than it was in 1962, when the Sino-Indian war erupted and it was caught offguard, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said Friday.
“In 1962, whatever happened, we were not ready for it but today we are. Whether it is our military or paramilitary forces, they are very well trained and our soldiers are very capable. We are better prepared than before,” Shinde told reporters here on the sidelines of the golden jbilee celebrations of the paramilitary Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) that guards the border with China.
There was “no war like situation with China” and “there have been no cases of (land) intrusions from the Chinese side lately but attempts to infiltrate from the Pakistani side are rising and we are very alert”, Shinde said.
On the issue of Chinese intrusions, ITBP chief Ranjit Sinha had said Thursday that while violations of Indian airspace had increased, the “situation is not alarming”.
Sinha also said that the ITBP may get an air wing to better patrol the frontier.
Raised in 1962 in the wake of the Sino-Indian war, the ITBP is deployed from the Karakoram Pass in Ladakh to Diphu La in Arunachal Pradesh, manning border outposts across 3,488 km at altitudes ranging from 9,000-18,500 feet in the western, central and eastern sectors of the India-China border.