Operation Chequerboard was a high-altitude military exercise conducted by India along the Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 border in North East India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. The exercise was conducted to test Indian military response in the Northeast Himalayan region and the US and Soviet reaction to potential Sino-Indian tensions in the region. The Chinese and Indian armies nearly went to war as both sides patrolled the desolate frontier and skirmishes were not infrequent.

The exercise involved 10 divisions of the Indian Army

Indian Army

The Indian Army is the land based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. With about 1,100,000 soldiers in active service and about 1,150,000 reserve troops, the Indian Army is the world's largest standing volunteer army...

 and several squadrons

Squadron (aviation)

A squadron in air force, army aviation or naval aviation is mainly a unit comprising a number of military aircraft, usually of the same type, typically with 12 to 24 aircraft, sometimes divided into three or four flights, depending on aircraft type and air force...

 of the IAF

Indian Air Force

The Indian Air Force is the air arm of the Indian armed forces. Its primary responsibility is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during a conflict...

 and a redeployment of troops at several places in North East India. The Indian Army moved 3 divisions to positions around Wangdung, where they were supplied and maintained solely by air. These troop reinforcements were over and above the 50,000 troops already present across Arunachal Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh is a state of India, located in the far northeast. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south, and shares international borders with Burma in the east, Bhutan in the west, and the People's Republic of China in the north. The majority of the territory is claimed by...

. The military exercise coincided with statements from India's Chief of Army Staff General K. Sundarji that India recognizes the major boundary differences with China and Indian deployments are intended to give Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1999), p. 289.

External links

• The Hindu Border with China, 22 November 2000.