Border Management

The long expected Agreement on Border Defence Cooperation (BDCA) was signed between the governments of India and China on 23 October 2013 in Beijing, during the visit of the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to the People’s Republic of China. The draft of the agreement had been through close-door negotiations by both the governments for about a year prior to its signing. Incidentally, it was also during these negotiations that a three week long face-to-face incident occurred—in April-May 2013—at Depsang located in the Aksai Chin region which is disputed between India and China.

• Bijoy Das
• January 2014
• Journal of Defence Studies

China’s border intrusions have been bolstered by a steady and committed expansion of its military hardware and infrastructure in Tibet and neighbouring provinces. The improvement of surface transportation near the LAC has resulted in larger military presence and augmented rapid deployment capacities of the PLA and the PLAAF.

• Namrata Goswami
• December 17, 2013
• Issue Brief

In addition to building a 10-km fence along its border with Myanmar, India should strengthen the security of the border by deploying adequate guarding forces, revise the FMR and constructively engage with Myanmar to prevent the cross-border movement of insurgents and traffickers.

• Pushpita Das
• November 15, 2013
• IDSA Comments

The new architecture admittedly is a rehash of previously signed (1993, 1996, 2005 and 2012) de-escalatory measures. Most of the Clauses outline mechanisms for exchanging information, consultations about military activities and enhancing communications between border personnel and headquarters.

• P. Stobdan
• October 29, 2013
• IDSA Comments

Transforming the India-Nepal border from an ‘open border’ to a ‘closed border’ would severely damage the traditional socio-cultural and economic ties. It would be prudent to keep the border open but manage it more effectively through mutual cooperation.

• Pushpita Das
• September 19, 2013
• IDSA Comments

That cooperation between neighbours can pave the way for resolving issues relating to the management of shared borders is amply demonstrated by the outcomes of various bilateral interactions that took place between India and Bangladesh in recent months.

• Pushpita Das
• October 12, 2012
• IDSA Comments

This article develops the message that the artificially introduced administrative borders during the Soviet era, which were subject to the processes of re-delimitation after 1991, whether for reasons of security, administration, mutual distrust or the population's ethnic attachment, have become results and means of political manipulation and pressurisation. This has resulted in further pushing regional states to follow mutually exclusive policies.

• Timur Dadabaev
• July 2012
• Strategic Analysis

Given the urgent need to build strategic roads along the India-China border, the Ministry of Home has sanctioned Rs.1,934 crore for strategic road projects of about 804 kms.

• Namrata Goswami
• June 07, 2012
• IDSA Comments

India should implement its agreements with Bangladesh in a time bound manner, fast track trans-border infrastructural developmental schemes and address the interests of the common people of Bangladesh.

• Pushpita Das
• January 04, 2012
• IDSA Comments

India has been grappling with the problem of devising an efficient border management strategy that would prevent the entry of dangerous elements while at the same time allowing the legitimate flow of goods, services and people. Given that it has always been vulnerable to cross-border threats and challenges such as illegal migration, drug and human trafficking, gunrunning, smuggling of commodities and cross-border terrorism, India has taken a largely unilateral approach towards border management whereby security of the borders is accorded primacy over the free movement of people and goods.

• Pushpita Das
• January 2012
• Strategic Analysis