Modi govt boosts defences on China frontier with new tunnels, roads, airstrips

A tunnel nearing completion in the Indian Himalayas will slash by hours the time it takes troops to reach the Chinese border, part of an infrastructure blitz by New Delhi that is gathering pace since a bloody border clash. The nuclear-armed Asian giants blame each other for a brutal high-altitude battle in June that left 20 Indian soldiers dead and an unspecified number of Chinese casualties. Both have sent massive troop reinforcements, but India has also stepped up its activities behind the frontlines -- belatedly so, analysts say. Its stepped-up infrastructure programme includes roads and bridges as well as high-altitude helipads and airstrips for civilian and military aircraft. The...