Indian Army Orders People Near Doklam to Vacate Their Village

New Delhi: The Indian Army has ordered the evacuation of a village close to the Doklam India-Bhutan-China tri-junction.

According to sources, a few hundred villagers living in Nathang village have been asked to vacate their houses immediately. Nathang is 35 km from the site of the two-month old standoff between Indian and Chinese troops.

It was not immediately clear if the order had been issued to accommodate thousands of soldiers of the 33 Corp who are reportedly moving from Sukna towards Doklam or whether it was a precautionary measure to avoid civilian casualties in case of a skirmish.

Villagers of Nathang, a small village with just a few hundred inhabitants, whom News18 spoke to, confirmed witnessing heavy troop movement in the area of late.

While the Army officially did not talk about the troop movement, some senior military officers called it an annual exercise that takes place in September, but has been advanced this year.

According to some reports, the Indian Army has called the troop movement in the area a regular maintenance move. The reports went on to quote army sources as saying that the military is in a 'no war, no peace' mode.

This, in military parlance, means being in a confrontational position with the enemy.

The state-controlled Chinese media has in the last few weeks been beating war drums quite incessantly. In a recent editorial published in China Daily, India was warned that “the countdown to a clash between the two forces has begun”.

The editorial, titled New Delhi should come to its senses while it has time, went on to state that the window to peacefully resolve the standoff in Doklam was closing as the row enters its seventh week.

“The countdown to a clash between the two forces has begun, and the clock is ticking away the time to what seems to be an inevitable conclusion.”

This is just one of the several vitriolic articles that have appeared in Chinese news agency Xinhua and their newspaper Global Times, in recent past.

The face-off between Indian and Chinese troops though is two months old now.

It started in mid-June in Doklam tri-junction when Indian troops stopped the Chinese army from building a road in the disputed area. China building a road on that site, India feared, would allow Chinese troops to cut India’s access to its northeastern states.

As per China's claims, it was constructing the road within its own territory.

Since the standoff, India has constantly batted for a dialogue but China has demanded immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Indian troops before a dialogue or peace process is initiated

LG V30 to feature the world’s widest aperture on a phone camera and TouchSense haptics

LG has just shared some camera-related details about its upcoming V30smartphone. The South Korean company claims the device "will include the world’s largest aperture and clearest lens ever to be featured in a smartphone."

The V30, like its predecessor, has a dual camera setup. However, the company says the main camera module includes an F/1.6 lens (a first for LG), which delivers 25% more light to the sensor compared to an F/1.8 lens.

"The glass Crystal Clear Lens also delivers greater light-collecting ability than a plastic lens as well as better color reproduction," LG says in a press release. "This makes the V30 particularly well suited for photography and videography."

The company also claims the V30 wide angle camera has 30% lower edge distortion compared to the V20's. It was also revealed the rear camera module on the upcoming phone is 30% smaller in size compared its predecessor.

Aside from this, in a separate press release, it was announced that the V30 and other future LG devices will feature Immersion’s TouchSense technology for high-definition haptics. It's claimed that this technology "enables device manufacturers to simulate the connected experiences of the real world."

Countdown to India-China military clash has begun: Chinese daily on Doklam standoff

Upping the rhetoric over the ongoing Doklam standoff, an editorial in the English-language China Daily, which focuses mostly on an international audience, has warned that the countdown to a clash between India and China has begun.

Titled, 'New Delhi should come to its senses while it has time', the editorial says that the "window for a peaceful solution is closing."

"The countdown to a clash between the two forces has begun, and the clock is ticking away the time to what seems to be an inevitable conclusion," the piece reads, commenting that a clash can be easily avoided be avoided if New Delhi heeds Beijing's demand that Indian troops unconditionally step back from the standoff site in Doklam.

Soldiers of the Indian Army and China's People's Liberation Army have for seven weeks been locked in a high-stakes, but peaceful standoff. The face-off was sparked after Indian troops stopped a Chinese PLA unit from extending a road on the Doklam plateau in a region contested between China and Bhutan

The China Daily editorial, which is just the latest in what has been a series of jingoistic articles that have been churned out by the state-backed media in China, says that Beijing wants to avoid conflict.

"Beijing has time and again sent the message that to avoid conflict all India needs to do is withdraw all its troops from an area that based on historical treaties, historically expressed agreements and long-exercised control both have long agreed is Chinese territory," the piece says.

China Daily goes on to refer to a recent Chinese Ministry of Defence statement to say, "There is a "bottom line" to the restraint shown by China to India's trespass... Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear will have got the message. Yet New Delhi refuses to come to its senses and pull its troops back to its own side of the border."

The editorial then reiterates points that have previously been raised by Chinese media - that India has entered China's territory and that New Delhi's "audacity in challenging China's sovereignty may come from its own sense of inferiority and insecurity in the face of China's rapid rise to prominence in the region."

"India's trespassing is changing the long and legally established status quo in the area and is thus an act that China has no option but to resist," the editorial continues as it, again, says that the ball is in New Delhi's court as far as preventing a conflict is concerned. "...being at loggerheads serves neither side any good, and a violent clash is still avoidable, even at this late stage," the article reads.

Concluding with a Chinese proverb, the piece ends, "He who stirs up trouble should end it, as a Chinese proverb goes. India should withdraw its troops while the clock is still ticking. It will only have itself to blame if its stubborn refusal to heed the voice of reason leads to consequences it regrets."