India today better equipped than in 1962: Jitendra Singh

Amid the stand-off on the border with China, Minister of State in the PMO Jitendra Singh on Wednesday said that India is today better equipped to meet challenges than it was in 1962.

To a question on the situation on the border with China, where troops of both countries are engaged in a stand-off, Singh said that "India today is not the India of 1962", when it lost the war.

India today is much different and much better equipped to meet any challenge, he said.

His comments reiterate what Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said a few days ago that the India of 2017 is different from the India of 1962.

Jitender Singh's comments come as China on Wednesday demanded that India withdraw its troops from Doklam in the Sikkin sector as a precondition for dialogue.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said in Beijing that the trespass by Indian troops in Doklam was different from the "frictions in the undefined sections of the boundary" between India and China.

Geng said what has happened in Doklam is a dispute. He dismissed Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar's remarks that differences over the border between India and China had occurred in the past also and were resolved.

--IANS

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