Group Captains Ajay Rathi, Manish Sharma and Air Comm Subroto Kundu to be awarded for their roles in Ladakh standoff

New Delhi: Group Captain Ajay Rathi, Air Commodore Subroto Kundu and Group Captain Manish Sharma are set to receive awards at the Indian Air Force (IAF) investiture ceremony for their respective roles during the military standoff with China in the eastern Ladakh region, which is going on for the past two years.

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar, on Wednesday, during his US visit said that it is in the mutual interest of India and China to find a way to accommodate each other. Responding to a question on the rise of China and India at Columbia University, Jaishankar said that a failure on part of Beijing and New Delhi to find such a way will affect the rise of Asia.

Admitting that India's relations with China are 'not normal', the EAM said that the issue is how the two rising powers, in absolute proximity to each other, 'find a modus vivendi in a dynamic situation'.

Jaishankar's remarks come days after Chinese and Indian armies completed their disengagement in the Gogra-Hot Springs area in Ladakh. The standoff started in May 2020 following a violent faceoff in the Pangong Lake area, and resulted in a full-scale military build-up along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The disengagement, which also coincided with PM Narendra Modi's visit to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meet in Samarkand, was a result of a series of diplomatic and military-to-military engagements.