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India, Dec. 15 -- It had to be Yangtse. The Yangtse, which was blessed by Guru Rimpoche, also known as Padmasambhava, a professor at Nalanda University in the 8th century, who introduced Tantric Buddhism to Tibet. The Yangtse, with the famous Chumi Gyatse waterfall, also called the holy waterfall, revered by Buddhists on both sides of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) dividing India and China in Tawang, and where 108 water springs burst forth from spots where Rimpoche is said to have thrown his prayer beads. The Yangtse, where the grazing rights of the villagers were attempted to be resolved in the famous expedition of Sir Francis Younghusband in the first few years of the 20th century. And most importantly, the Yangtse was captured by the Indian Army in response to the Chinese intrusion in Sumdorong Chu in 1987-88.
Yangtse defied habitation for ages due to extreme terrain and weather. It is steeped in history, religion, politics, is crucial to military strategy, and is the most prominent among eight major flashpoints on the eastern LAC.
For the People's Liberation Army (PLA),...