New Delhi: As India and China are locked in a standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the Indian Army and Air Force have conducted a 96-hour multi-domain air and land exercise, ‘Vayu Prahar’, in the eastern sector.
Sources in India’s defense and security establishment said the exercise was conducted in the second week of March. The main objective, he explained, was to create plans that could coordinate multi-domain operations.
Essentially, multi-domain operations are used to coordinate activities across multiple branches of the military to achieve convergent results.
“The conduct of Vayu Prahar exercise enabled coordination and rehearsal among various agencies for quick movement, transportation and deployment of forces within a theatre, which can be executed across the theatre,” a source said.
According to sources, the scope of the joint exercise included “rapid mobilization of a quick reaction force from the hinterland”. The force was then tasked with conducting air-land operations at the designated Advance Landing Ground (ALG).
Sources said that after landing at the ALG, the Rapid Action Force was responsible for carrying out “contingency operations” in the challenging high altitude terrain.
An ALG is usually a single landing strip for an aircraft, operated primarily by military forces in India.
While the sources did not specify the exact location of the exercise and the ALGs, there are seven-eight ALGs in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, which is located in the eastern sector of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.
In December 2022, more than 200 soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army of China crowd With Indian soldiers in the Yangtse region of Arunachal’s Tawang district. The skirmish comes amid growing reports of Chinese incursions and construction activity in the past few years near the eastern sector.
Besides, the standoff between India and China in the western sector of the LAC in eastern Ladakh is now in its third year. ThePrint had informed of The standoff over the Depsang plains continues after 17 rounds of Corps Commander level talks. talks ahead waited for for later this month.
(Editing by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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