BY
RAVI RIKHYE
China is finalizing details of a 111-km rail-link between the
Bangladesh and Yunnan, China rail systems. The Bangladesh and Yunnan,
China governments have pledged their full support cooperation. A new
deep water is being built by China at Chittagong. This will greatly
reduce freight delivery time for South West China as it will now not
be neccessary to haul freight through the Malacca Straits to East
China ports and from there to SW China. Like everyone who has to pass
through the Malacca Straits, China is nervous about this choke point.
We mentioned some years back that the Chinese rail line to Lhasa will
be expanded to Gyantze and Xigatze, SW and W of Lhasa respectively.
Work for this line has started.
On due time the lone will be extended from Xigatze to Kathmandu in Nepal.
But this is not the big news. China has already build a nice airbase
at Nyngchi, which is South East of Lhasa. It had a long runway capable
of handling fighters without difficulty, and plenty of apron space to
park military aircraft. Currently the place is used primarily by civil
aviation.
Now China will build a new line from Lhasa to Nyngchi. There is a
sound economic reason for this, because China is building numerous
hydel dams on the Brahmaputra River. So far there does not appear to
be any water diversion. But China is preparing to build a dam that
will be twice as large as Three Gorges - which is already the largest
dam in the world. So it will definitely need a rail line to support
this project.
BUT - the net effect is that India will soon face a lateral west-east
rail line running opposite its entire northeast border. Because Tibet
is a plateau, China already has excellent road connections, so it
doesn't really need the rail line for military logistics. Nonetheless,
the lateral rail line will make possible easy shifting of troops
west-east. Presently, both India and China are confined to north south
roads, and east-west movement is difficult.
India, of course, has a dense railway network running north and south
of the Brahmaputra River. But it does not yet have an east west
lateral road except in parts, from example, the Central Bhutan
highway. Roads are being built, by Indian standards quite fast, but
considering this is an emergency, its quite sing in the sunshine and
dance in the rain.
But: If India feels like it, the job is done and done well
An example in case is the expansion of the Nyoma Advanced Landing
Ground into a sealed surface, packed-earth airfield within 90 days.
Nyoma is at an altitude of 13,300-feet in the Indus River valley in
Ladakh, directly south of Chushul and some 30-km from the line of
control. As part of their reactivation of several Advanced Landing
Grounds in response to increasing tension with China, the Indian
Army/Indian Air Force got Nyoma ALG going. It appears from Google
Earth the ALG is 100-meters by 30+ meters. Type "Nyoma, Jammu and
Kashmir" into the search box, and you will see a perfect green-brown
rectangle on the east bank of the Indus, with a straight road leading
to the village. We cannot say for a fact it is the ALG because the
satellite photograph is unclear, but we don't see anything else that
looks like it.
Anyway, someone decided the ALG needed to be expanded into a regular
airfield capable of taking the An-32, which is a lot like the Italian
G222/US C-27 except that it has a high wing and the engines are less
prone to ingest rocks and debris from a rough surface.
So an Army engineer regiment was put on the job, and 90 days later you
had a 2700-meter airfield (the high altitude necessitates a much
longer airfield than in the plains). The airfield is packed mud,
surfaced with a sealant developed in South Africa and also used by the
Israelis.
To read about the sealant, go to
http://ajaishukla.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html and scroll down
to September 7, 2010.
Now India has decided to expand Nyoma into a full-service,
multi-functional airbase, capable of taking the Air Force's heaviest
fighters, the Su-30. The job will take 28 months - but it will still
require four years, as five months of the year it's hard winter and
not the best time to be working outside.
Ajai Shukla, whose blog we refer you to above, also notes that during
the preparations for the Delhi Games, someone discovered far too late
that a 1500-square-meter parking area for 100 buses had been
overlooked. The company that makes the surface sealant undertook to
get the job done. Within 14-hours the parking area was ready.
So this is what we mean when we say if Indian feel like doing
something, they can work as fast and as efficiently as anyone, the
Delhi Games notwithstanding.
There were two fiascos with the Games. Serious work did not start till
2008, whereas it should have begun in 2006. And the entire thing was
"planned", "contracted", and "executed" (please do think Austin
Powers) by somewhere around 60 government agencies, and ended up
costing 60-100 times more than originally estimate.
Now before our American friends get on our case about the Government
as inefficient, we need to point out that another Government company,
the Delhi Metro, headed by a government bureaucrat, had its expansion
of routes for the Games up and running perfectly as per deadline. The
difference between the Delhi Metro and the agencies responsible for
the games is that the bureaucrat in charge of the Metro does not let
anyone interfere with the work, politician or bureaucrat, and once he
sets a deadline, it has to be met.
--
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death." --
Albert Einstein !!!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-AFGHANISTAN
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Pakistan-Army-Journal-The-Citadel
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21952758/1971-India-Pakistan-War
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25171703/BOOK-REVIEWS-BY-AGHA-H-AMIN
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