Apps are withdrawn as maps are redrawn

Apps and maps! One is being withdrawn and the other is being redrawn – at least in sand.

Such is the Chinese appetite for territory – which has earned it the sobriquet of ‘land mafia’ – that, its forces have etched in the ground in the Fingers region of Ladakh's Pangong Lake a massive Mandarin symbol and map of China.

Satellite data available with NDTV reveals that these etchings in the ground -- between 'Finger 4' and 'Finger 5' -- measure approximately 81 metres in length and 25 metres in breadth and are large enough to be visible to an eye in the sky.

Earlier this week, in keeping with this penchant, possibly part of its elaborate exercise in deception, Wang Hajiang, the overall commander of Chinese forces in Tibet was photographed repainting the character of 'China' in a frontier position along the IndiaChina boundary, adds NDTV.

'Fingers' in the region refer to the ridge or tongue of land descending from a hill, extending up to the banks of the high-altitude Pangong Lake. India believes it has the exclusive rights to patrol from 'Finger 1' to 'Finger 8' while China believes it has rights to patrol from 'Finger 8' to 'Finger 4'. At the moment, 'Finger 4' is the boundary between the two sides, after the violent skirmishes in Galwan. Chinese forces, deployed in significant numbers at 'Finger 4,' no longer permit Indian soldiers to patrol in the direction of 'Finger 8,' says the exclusive report in NDTV.