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Siachen avalanche survivor Lance Naik Hanamanthappa passes away

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  • Siachen avalanche survivor Lance Naik Hanamanthappa passes away

    Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad, whose miraculous survival days after an avalanche hit an Army camp on the Siachen Glacier transfixed the nation, died on Thursday morning, bringing the focus back on the challenges of military deployment on the glacier, with Pakistan indicating that it is willing to consider early de-militarisation. The soldier of 19 Madras Regiment is survived by his wife and daughter.

    “Really sorry to inform everyone that LNk Hanamanthappa is no more. He breathed his last breath at 11.45 a.m. today,” an Army officer announced, bringing down the curtain on one of the most dramatic stories of grit and determination in recent memory.

    Hanamanthappa was rescued alive on Monday night, having been buried under 35 feet of snow, along with nine other soldiers, by the February 3 avalanche. He was flown to Delhi on Tuesday in an IAF aircraft and was admitted to R&R Hospital.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the nation in bidding farewell to Hanumanthappa. After laying a wreath on his mortal remains, he tweeted: “He leaves us sad & devastated. RIP Lance Naik Hanamanthappa. The soldier in you remains immortal. Proud that martyrs like you served India.”

    The bodies of nine other soldiers who were killed in the disaster have been recovered but are yet to be brought down from the glacier because of bad weather, Army officers said.
    Rest in Peace!

    What a loss ...
    Last edited by Parihaka; 11 Feb 16,, 21:05.
    sigpicAnd on the sixth day, God created the Field Artillery...

  • #2
    What happened to the post above???

    Anyways, this is not a solitary one and is definitely going to be followed by more as global warming continues. This will also definitely one again throw up the long debate of demilitarisation of the glacier and delineation of the Line of Control north of NJ 9842. One can only hope that this time around, both the sides can muster the political will to find a peaceful way out of that place. What a waste of wonderful men ...

    Rest in Peace!
    sigpicAnd on the sixth day, God created the Field Artillery...

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    • #3
      Present Arms.

      Nature against man. Nature always win.
      Chimo

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Deltacamelately View Post
        What happened to the post above???
        Fixed. R.I.P.
        In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

        Leibniz

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        • #5
          Seek Save Serve Medic

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          • #6
            Buried for 6 days. I can't even imagine the anquish.
            Chimo

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            • #7
              Siachen Stand-off




              It seems the most pointless military exercise in the world. Yet in the days since February 3 when ten Indian soldiers were hit by an avalanche and killed on the Siachen glacier some 20,000ft up in the Himalayas, it is clear there is no prospect of the 32-year old stand-off in the area between India and Pakistan ending in the foreseeable future.

              Five days after the avalanche, one of the soldiers was discovered still alive under 35ft of snow. He died in hospital yesterday, after a national outpouring of grief and a visit to his bedside by Narendra Modi, the prime minister.

              Along with the grief and extensive media coverage saluting India’s “brave hearts”, military voices have emerged arguing that the emotion should not lead to India’s troops being withdrawn, basically because Pakistan has not agreed a border line, and because relations with China that are making the area increasingly sensitive.

              No shots have been fired since a ceasefire was agreed between India and Pakistan in 2003, but soldiers continue to die because of the conditions. With temperatures averaging minus 24 degrees centigrade and dropping sometimes to minus 50, they suffer from hypothermia and frostbite and, till relatively recently, the Indian troops were ill equipped to cope. India has lost 33 soldiers since August 2012 when parliament was told that the death toll was 846 since action began in 1984. In 2012, 129 Pakistani soldiers and eleven civilians were buried in an avalanche at a camp near the glacier.

              The financial price is also high – about Rs7 crore (just over $1m) a day for India, according to reports, because of the high costs of air-lifting supplies by helicopter.

              Indian politicians often talk about ending the impasse. Manmohan Singh, the former prime minister, visited the glacier in 2005 and proposed – unrealistically – making it a “mountain of peace”.

              Proposals have emerged at various times from “track two” behind-the-scenes consultations for a settlement as a “confidence building measure” between the two countries that would also include resolving a disputed section of coastline know as Sir Creek between India’s state of Gujarat and Pakistan’s province of Sind. There were formal talks in 2012 after the Pakistan avalanche, but the defence establishments objected – in India saying, as they have this week, that the cause that led to such sacrifices cannot be thrown away.

              “Siachen has become embedded in the Indian public consciousness as a symbol of national will and determination to succeed against all odds,” a retired Indian general has said this week. “Siachen has acquired a sanctity of its own, which is part folklore, part military legend, part mythology, and a substantial measure of national pride.”

              This is the only undemarcated area between the two countries (along with Sir Creek). There is a defined but disputed 776km Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir. This is administered as a temporary arrangement and there is regular firing between the two countries and loss of life. South of that is an undisputed 2,308km formal international border running down to the Arabian Sea.

              The LoC was drawn in 1972 on the basis of land occupied by both countries, but neither side had any presence in the uninhabited area further north to Siachen, so this was not demarcated. Pakistan (and apparently the US) thought the line would continue eastwards to the Karakoram Pass with China (not to be confused with the quite separate Karakoram Highway to the west that links Pakistan with China across the Khunjerab Pass). That would have taken Siachen away from India, which, along with the joint Indo-Pak LoC demarcation process, thought the line should go northwards, thus officially giving it the glacier.

              The trouble started in 1984 when Pakistan was dispatching groups of Japanese and other mountaineers to the area. India suspected Pakistan’s motives and mobilised its army, as did Pakistan – I was on holiday in the area during the summer of 1984 and saw helicopters flying off to the glacier from Skardu in Pakistan’s Northern Areas.

              India is holding the dominating Saltoro Range to the west of Siachen, which gives it control of the glacier. Understandably, from a military point of view, it does not want to abandon that position without Pakistan agreeing to a demarcated line, which Pakistan, presumably encouraged by China, refuses to do.

              To a bystander, it seems a pointless confrontation on the world’s highest so-called battlefield. And so it would be if China was not increasingly showing interest in the area, including the disputed territory of Aksai Chin that was part of the two countries’ brief 1962 border war, when India was defeated.

              India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads ever since partition in 1947, when they became independent of Britain. They have fought three wars and one near-war (at Kargil in Kashmir in 1999). Successive prime ministers have dreamed of settling the differences, but have failed. Modi’s recent attempts with Nawaz Sharif the Pakistan prime minister, have floundered following last month’s terrorist attack on India’s Pathankot air base.

              Pakistan’s army does not seem to want a settlement of the issues and the Islamic terrorist organisations based there certainly do not. Neither does China, which has a considerable hold over what Pakistan does.

              The Siachen glacier stand-off is a significant part of that puzzle, so there is no chance that the Indian troops can leave any time soon.
              Last edited by anil; 12 Feb 16,, 17:18.

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