00:00I now want to shift focus to the other big story we're tracking here on India first,
00:04and that is on India-China relations.
00:07India has now standardized names of features including an Aksaichin region,
00:13territory that is ours, historically ours, part of Ladakh,
00:17but under Chinese control since the 1950s.
00:20Now, the list of changed names include Dehra Compass and Shamal Lungfa,
00:25along with Kumara and a Point, Guru Rinpoche Lake,
00:29Atisha Giri, or Sakyasri Giri, and Maheshwara Rhee.
00:35Now, these are all names that you watch on your television screen,
00:40names in Aksaichin also that now have been given Indian names.
00:44India has now put 28 more locations on geographical features of Ladakh
00:49on the official map of India.
00:52This is significant.
00:54This move comes at a time that there is a long-standing dispute
00:58between India and China.
01:00It's frozen turbulence.
01:02The center, in consultation with the administration in Ladakh,
01:05has formally standardized these names, saying,
01:08the exercise is aimed at accurate recognition and greater public awareness.
01:13So, of these 28 features, 10 are peaks, 7 are land areas,
01:183 are mountains, 2 are passes, 2 are glaciers.
01:22The list includes a valley, a river, a lake, and a water body,
01:26so that in future, everyone knows them by these names in India and across the world,
01:32because this will be on the map.
01:33What makes this move particularly significant is some of these names are actually in Aksaichin.
01:40Strategically, extremely important.
01:42Now, when you look at that area in red, that is Indian territory.
01:46It's in Chinese control.
01:48This actually connects China's Xinjiang and self-claimed Tibet regions
01:53and the Chinese G219 highway that runs through this territory.
01:58For India, the region remains core part of our territorial claim,
02:02a key element of that wider boundary dispute with China,
02:06the boundary issue with China.
02:08This is not the first time that India and China have used place names to assert respective positions.
02:14China started the game.
02:15It started naming places in Arunachal Pradesh in 2017,
02:19naming six locations.
02:21Followed that with another 15 names in 2021,
02:2411 in 2023, 13 in 2024,
02:2727 in 2025, another 23 in April this year.
02:31India, of course, has consistently rejected these moves by China.
02:35In August this year, India responded.
02:38India responded by standardizing 27 locations across Arunachal Pradesh.
02:43China then rejected India's move, calling it illegal, null and void.
02:48But now, India is playing the same game.
02:52India has extended the map exercise to parts of Ladakh,
02:55including Aksaichin, 28 features formally identified.
02:59What makes the timing particularly notable is that this comes just weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi
03:05and Chinese President Xi Jinping's meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Delhi.
03:11Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly stressed that peace and tranquility along the borders
03:18is essential for the development of India-China relations.
03:22And both leaders have reiterated the commitment to what is often described as is fair,
03:31reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question.
03:36But let me now bring in Lieutenant General Rakesh Sharma,
03:41a distinguished fellow at the Vivekanand Foundation,
03:44former Adjutant General, former Ladakh Co-Commander and a Strategic Analyst
03:48to help us understand the standardization of names.
03:53General, welcome.
03:54What do you make of India formally naming 28 locations and geographical features in Ladakh
04:00on the Survey of India map,
04:01including some places in Aksaichin, in Gogra, in Hot Spring area,
04:07that is ours, including in Gilgit and Baltistan.
04:11Your reading of its geopolitical significance, sir.
04:17Thank you, Gaurav, for inviting me.
04:19Now, of course, it is significant.
04:21It is very significant as what has happened in the renaming of what the Survey of India has done.
04:26And you see, many of these names are historic.
04:30There are names in these areas which are Yarkhandi names,
04:33there are Buddhist names, there are names of Tibetan origin, Ladakhki origin,
04:37the names which are related to the caravans which used to move in these areas,
04:41some showing where wood can be found,
04:43some place where somebody had died,
04:46or there was a Lungar, Haji Lungar.
04:47So, you know, the names are historic and all very romanticized names across this area.
04:52The names of which have been changed in Gogra, Hot Spring.
04:56Hot Spring is a hot spring.
04:58It's not a name of a place.
04:59So, some of them are logically rightly changed.
05:02What, you know, draws my attention to the whole thing is
05:06the names that they have changed in Gilgit, Baltistan,
05:09and in Shakskam Valley.
05:11You see, if you connect this recent to what's been happening in the course of two, three months,
05:16the China-Pakistan Boundary Commission, which has started working,
05:20they had the first meeting on the 17th of September,
05:23and they are talking about that boundary,
05:25which was actually earlier, Pakistan used to say frontier and defined.
05:30And actually, a frontier between Pakistan and, you know, Gilgit, Baltistan and Sinkiang is even defined.
05:36Now, they say the 2,000 square kilometers were given by Chinese to Pakistanis
05:42when Shakskam Valley was handed over.
05:44And the Shakskam Valley is not 5,180 square kilometers, but only 2,000.
05:49So, the barter was equal.
05:50So, there is a confusion in that border,
05:52which has been created from 1963 onwards between Gilgit, Baltistan and Sinkiang.
05:59Now, this border commission, which should have, you know, could have come up in 1963.
06:05And we went to United Nations in September 1963, when they are putting boundary markers.
06:10But, you know, in 2013, again, the boundary talks, some talks took place.
06:15This recent border…
06:16And it's illegal.
06:16So, what you are saying is the boundary talks between China and Pakistan are illegal,
06:20because Pakistan is an illegal occupation of not just Pakistan-occupied Gilgit, Baltistan
06:26and Jammu Kashmir, also that part of Shakskam, which Pakistan illegally gave to China.
06:32Exactly.
06:33So, if that's the point, now, you know, when the commission starts meeting,
06:37why is the commission coming now in the month of August, September?
06:40It is…
06:41Our hackers would have drawn up as to something more is happening on that boundary commission.
06:46And that boundary commission doesn't follow Karakoram range.
06:52It has gone, Karakoram tracks.
06:54And some areas on this side of Karakoram are hackers would have been raised.
06:58And the changing of names, to me, finds a logical move forward to say,
07:04okay, these areas are ours.
07:06These are our names.
07:07So, that, I think, draws my significant attention to changing the names in that part of Ladakh.
07:13You know, see, when the Ladakh map came up, subsequently, after 370 was removed,
07:18the Ladakh map shows Gilgit, Baltistan as part of Ladakh.
07:21Which it is, yes, sir.
07:23Yeah.
07:24So, now, we are wanting to take a recourse to that areas,
07:28which we actually are ours, historically ours, legally ours.
07:33And, you know, we need to actually signify that we need to do all this.
07:37Otherwise, one fine day…
07:39Shouldn't all this have happened much, much earlier, sir?
07:42Because China has carried out these exercises several times in the past.
07:47And we've been more than nice to China.
07:50More than, you know, in some instances, people may argue
07:54that we've tried to perhaps bury this under the carpet.
07:58Now, you know, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government
08:01is bringing it all out in the open for India, for future generations of our country
08:06and the world to see.
08:08This is ours.
08:08And it's taking claim to what is ours.
08:13So, actually, Gaurav, I'm not going back to history.
08:17History has got many motivations.
08:19And it is read and interpreted by everybody who wants to read history.
08:23But I'm just saying for today.
08:26And today I'm saying that what has happened,
08:28by renaming these areas, it is actually a clear message.
08:31Please do not go ahead and sort out this boundary business,
08:35which you have started on 17th of September in Islamabad,
08:38and move ahead and say, you know, draw some lines
08:40or draw some boundary markers.
08:42So, that's one.
08:43And, you know, it is also carried forward towards the exciting areas
08:47and the areas right up to Changchangu Valley.
08:50Both the routes that used to converge in this area.
08:53I think it's a bold step.
08:56One must not overdo the reading part of the exciting
09:00because these are, the exciting is not part of the,
09:03presently, Eastern Ladakh is not part of the early harvest format.
09:08Early harvest format goes across to the central sector.
09:11So, it is not there.
09:12But it's a kind of preparation that any prudent nation does
09:16in preparing for next five years, ten years.
09:19And I think we should add soft for what has been done.
09:22Fair enough.
09:23I will let that be the last word on this part of the show,
09:26on this subject.
09:27But this is a debate we will continue to have.
09:30Jainal, as always, many thanks for joining me here
09:32on India First.
