JOIN USArmies of India and China will on each other in an exercise that witnessed ups and downs since its inception eight years ago.
The fifth edition of the India-China military training exercise, “Hand-in-Hand” is scheduled to commence on October 12 at Kunming, the capital of southwestern China’s Yunnan province. The mock war drill would continue for 12 days.
Indian troops from 2 Naga regiment would participate in the exercise that would focus on counter-insurgency and disaster relief operations, said an Army officer. A total of 144 people from southwestern China’s Chengdu Military Command will join their Indian counterparts for the drill.
The Hand-in-Hand series of exercise began in 2007 as one of the confidence building measures between the two militaries that fought with each other in 1962.
But the annual drill was suspended after the first two editions in Kunming (2007) and Belagavi (2008), because of a raging diplomatic row on the visa issue, compounded by border frictions. The annual war-game resumed in 2013 when troops from two sides were engaged in the drill in Chengdu in Sichuan province.
The 2014 edition of the company-level exercise was held at Aundh in Pune where two sides shared the drills and practices learnt while tackling insurgency and terrorism besides honing their basic military exercises.
This time, the exercise will lay emphasis on joint handling of insurgency at sub-unit level while issues related to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief will be discussed at formation headquarters level.
In a military-diplomacy balance, Indian Navy would exercise with the US and Japanese navies in the Bay of Bengal almost same time.