Strategic push: India explores feasibility of connecting Tawang with rail network

lcafanboy

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Strategic push: India explores feasibility of connecting Tawang with rail network
A Reuters file photo of Tezpur-Tawang highway in Arunachal Pradesh
HIGHLIGHTS
  • Centre has asked Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha and Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju to explore feasibility of the rail network
  • It takes 18 hours from Guwahati in Assam to reach Tawang through road

NEW DELHI: Giving strategic interests a further push, the Centre is exploring feasibility to connect India-China border district Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh with the Manoj Sinha and Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who is also an MP from Arunachal West seat, to explore the feasibility of the rail network in the remote area.



The two ministers will tour the state on Saturday to study the viability of connecting Tawang with Bhalukpong which is the last station of Indian Railways on Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border.

Sinha and Rijiju will be visiting Arunachal Pradesh from April 1 in connection with commencement of final location survey of new broad gauge line connecting Bhalukpong with Tawang which is a distance of 378 kilometres.

It takes 18 hours from Guwahati in Assam to reach Tawang through road. Guwahati is the nearest major city and citizens of Tawang depend on it for any medical emergency.


Other new broad guage railway lines which will be part of the survey will be 249-kilometre North Lakhimpur-Bame -Silapathar which is between Pasighat airport and Rupa in Arunachal Pradesh.

Sinha and Rijiju will also be meeting citizens, elected representatives and senior railway officers during the visit.

Tawang is of immense strategic importance to India as it is located on the China-India border and China has been laying claim to it.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of Tibet and routinely objects to any visit by top Indian leaders, officials and diplomats to the area.

It had recently objected to a proposed visit of the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh.


The government has said the Dalai Lama is China ready to cede land for part of Arunachal Pradesh?


Tawang was one of the regions where Indian Army had come under attack from China in the 1962 war.

Ignoring China's protests, the government had earlier allowed then US ambassador to India Richard Verma and Tibetan spiritual leader Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje's visit to Arunachal Pradesh last year.



http://m.timesofindia.com/india/str...ng-with-rail-network/articleshow/57922529.cms

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lcafanboy

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Chinmoy

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While working on the feasibility, how about improving the Tezpur-Tawang Highway first and actually making a tar road there?
The biggest prob in this is the political willingness and lack of interest or balls from political elite. Add it up with the geographical extremities, you do get something of a lethal combination.

Eastern part of Himalaya is much more geographically unstable then the western part due to incessant rain. Its not that work is not done at this part, but the issue is timing. BRO and GREF does get only a margin of 3 to 4 months in this sector to work upon. After that its incessant rain in summer which wrecks a havoc. Then come the traffic in this road. If you do compare this sector with other part of AP, you would find that inspite of heavy rain, other sector like Upper Subansiri or Alo or Tuting does have much better road quality. The reason being less traffic. Tawang is a strategic as well as tourist hotspot. The amount of footfall in Tawang is much much more then anywhere in AP. This heavy footfall too does create a havoc on already brittle road network.

Anyway things are getting better for last couple of years, but a lot still remains to be done. Road connectivity is much more viable in this sector then Railway if someone do ask me.
 

roma

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Any such rads or railroads which connect to strategic or disputed areas should be constructed in such a way to aid our transport but if we are temporarily on a retreat then they should be easily destroyable to obstruct the enemy from using the same to their advantage
 

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China asks India for caution, restraint on Tawang rail link

By PTI | Updated: Apr 01, 2017, 07.36 PM IST
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READ MORE ON » Tawang Rail Link | India | China | Arunachal Pradesh



China has in recent days upped its rhetoric on claims to Arunachal Pradesh, which it says is Southern Tibet, and even warned India of "serious damage" to ties if New Delhi allows Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit the state next week.


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BEIJING: China today asked India to exercise "restraint" on its plan to link the strategic border district of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh with a railway network, saying any "unilateral action" might "complicate" the unresolved border issue.

"We hope that the Indian side can exercise caution, show restraint and refrain from unilateral actions that might further complicate the question so as to create a sound condition for enhancing mutual trust between China and India and promoting proper resolution of the boundary question," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.

"China's position on eastern section of the China-India boundary is consistent and clear. At present, the two sides are working to resolve the territorial dispute through negotiation and consultation," the ministry told PTI in a written reply following a query about reports that India was exploring possibilities to link Tawang with a railway network.

China has in recent days upped its rhetoric on claims to Arunachal Pradesh, which it says is Southern Tibet, and even warned India of "serious damage" to ties if New Delhi allows Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit the state next week.

The ministry yesterday warned New Delhi that the visit of the Dalai Lama, the highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, will "come down to India to make a choice".

Tawang, which happens to be the birthplace in 1683 of the sixth Dalai Lama, is at the centre of Tibetan Buddhism and a friction point between India and China relations.


India and China are in discussion to resolve their border dispute that covers the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). While Beijing claims Arunachal as part of Southern Tibet, India asserts that the dispute also covers the 'Aksai Chin' area, which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.

The ministry said the two sides have "agreed that pending final settlement, both sides will work together to properly manage the dispute" and preserve peace in the border areas.

The Chinese reaction today to the possible rail network and the Dalai Lama's visit to Tawang was the third time in recent weeks the foreign ministry has aired its objections.

Tawang has immense strategic value to India due to its location. The hilly region close to the Sino-India border was also in the news earlier this month when Dai Bingguo, a former Chinese Special Representative for India-China border talks, said the border dispute can be resolved if New Delhi accepts Beijing's claim over Tawang.

"If the Indian side takes care of China's concerns in the eastern sector of their border, the Chinese side will respond accordingly and address India's concerns elsewhere," Dai had told the Chinese media in an interview.

But the proposal was rejected as impractical by Indian officials as Tawang is an integral part of Arunachal Pradesh and has sent representatives to Parliament in every election since 1950.

Lian Xiangmin, Director of contemporary research of China's state-run Tibetology Research Centre, last month said, "Tawang is part of Tibet and Tibet is part of China. So Tawang is part of China. There is not much problem here."

India, giving a push to its strategic interests, is exploring the feasibility to link Tawang with a rail network. The government has asked Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha and Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who is also a Member of Parliament from Arunachal West seat, to explore the feasibility of a rail network in the remote area.

The two ministers will tour the state to study the viability of connecting Tawang with Bhalukpong - the last station of the Railways on Assam-Arunachal Pradesh boundary at a distance of 378 kms - and to commence the final location survey of a new broad gauge line connecting the two cities.

It takes 18 hours from Guwahati in Assam to reach Tawang by road. Guwahati is the nearest major city and Tawang residents depend on it for medical emergencies.

The other broad gauge railway line that will be part of their survey will be the 249-kilometre North Lakhimpur-Bame- Silapathar section, which is between Pasighat airport and Rupa in Arunachal.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...-on-tawang-rail-link/articleshow/57963874.cms

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Kshatriya87

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Don't know why these chinese keep crying foul when India does it. They are free to construct on their side, free to build infra in Aksai Chin, free to build CPEC in PoK, GB. But India is not?
 

Tshering22

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Don't know why these chinese keep crying foul when India does it. They are free to construct on their side, free to build infra in Aksai Chin, free to build CPEC in PoK, GB. But India is not?
Because we don't show a more forceful stance.

CCP is not your goodwill kind of a regime. It was born out of an exploitative act when the nationalists of Taiwan were war weary and weakened after they fought the Japanese head on. The communists raised the battle cry when both Japanese and Chinese nationalists were tired and the war was about to close.

Mao simply stabbed the last remains of Japanese imperial influence and claimed total victory. As soon as the communists took power after their civil war, they revised complete history to suit their convenience. They rejected any attempts to question them through a show of brute force, fear and intimidation tactics. Lakhs were killed brutally without even batting an eye lash.

In short; China under CCP isn't the China under Qing Empire who was friendly to India.

They only understand a disproportionate show of force and opportunism; something that Nehruvian India even under BJP isn't able to shake off.
 

amoy

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Because we don't show a more forceful stance.

CCP is not your goodwill kind of a regime. It was born out of an exploitative act when the nationalists of Taiwan were war weary and weakened after they fought the Japanese head on. The communists raised the battle cry when both Japanese and Chinese nationalists were tired and the war was about to close.

Mao simply stabbed the last remains of Japanese imperial influence and claimed total victory. As soon as the communists took power after their civil war, they revised complete history to suit their convenience. They rejected any attempts to question them through a show of brute force, fear and intimidation tactics. Lakhs were killed brutally without even batting an eye lash.

In short; China under CCP isn't the China under Qing Empire who was friendly to India.

They only understand a disproportionate show of force and opportunism; something that Nehruvian India even under BJP isn't able to shake off.
During Qing Dynasty there was NO india, but numerous independent maharajas or nawab.

And it wasn't so sweet a relationship either.

The Sino-Sikh War (also referred to as the Invasion of Tibet or the Dogra War) was fought from May 1841 to August 1842, between the forces of Qing China and the Sikh Empire
Historians continue to debate the reasons for the invasion; some say control of Tibet would have given Gulab Singh a monopoly on the lucrative pashmina wool trade of Tibet, others believe that he aimed to establish a land bridge between Ladakh and Nepal to create a Sikh-Gorkha alliance against the British.
At this point, neither side wished to continue the conflict, as the Sikhs were embroiled in tensions with the British that would lead up to the First Anglo-Sikh War, while the Qing were in the midst of the First Opium War with the East India Company. Qing China and the Sikh Empire signed a treaty in September 1842 that stipulated no transgressions or interference in the other country's frontiers.
What a revisionist history were u guys taught on earth?

Still the fairy tale of "innocent Indians" (under dovish Nehru) being back-stabbed by brutal Chinese?
 

Razor

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During Qing Dynasty there was NO india, but numerous independent maharajas or nawab.
There was NO china either, just the empire of Ching.

PS: Suck on this now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_India

Historically the name India may referred to either the region of Greater India and the Indian subcontinent. Today it refers to the contemporary Republic of India located therein. But originally the name is derived from the name of the Sindhu (Indus River) which is in Pakistan today, and it has been in use in Greek since Herodotus (4th century BC).[1] The term appeared in Old English as early the 9th century and reemerged in Modern English in the 17th century. Ouch

The Republic of India has two principal short names in both official and popular English usage, each of which is historically significant, India and Bharat. The first article of the Constitution of India states that "India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states," implicitly codifying India and Bharat as equally official short names for the Republic of India. A third name, Hindustan, is a historical term for the north and northwestern subcontinent (especially during the British India period) that is now widely used as an alternative name for the region comprising most of the modern nations of the subcontinent when Indians speak among themselves. The usage of Bharat, Hindustan or India is dependent on the context and language of conversation.

According to Manusmṛti (2.21–22) North India (i.e., India north of the Vindhyas) is also known as Āryāvarta (Sanskrit: आर्यावर्त, abode of the Aryans).
 

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Any such rads or railroads which connect to strategic or disputed areas should be constructed in such a way to aid our transport but if we are temporarily on a retreat then they should be easily destroyable to obstruct the enemy from using the same to their advantage
That aspect of demolition of vital bridges would be factored into the plans. This would only be done as a last resort.
 

pmaitra

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There was NO china either, just the empire of Ching.

PS: Suck on this now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_India
+100. :)

@amoy,

Everyone's history is shaded in their own coloured glasses. Look at both the versions and of course, you would look at it from your perspective.

However, for others, I agree with @amoy on the point that the Dogras wanted a trade route with Nepal. As a matter of fact, they wanted control of a trading post at the Nepal-Tibet-Uttar Pradesh (now Uttarkhand) trijunction, a few miles into Tibet, called Taklakot. Both the Nepalese and Tibetans joined hands and sought Chinese (Qing Dynasty's) help.

The other time around also the same thing happened. When British India invaded Tibet through Sikkim, the Tibetans went and sought Chinese help. See: British expedition to Tibet

I would like to disabuse people of the idea that the Tibetans want to be with India. No. They want to be independent. When threatened by the Chinese, they will align with India, and when threatened by India, they will align with the Chinese. This is how every nation in the human history has behaved.
 

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