Better than being Chinese. But for how long?

"Protective body armor used by security forces to guard against stone pelting in the Kashmir Valley will now be used by paramilitary troops patrolling the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to fend off sharp-edged baton and stone attacks by Chinese forces," reported the Economic Times. Apparently, "the Center is preparing a detailed plan according to which each company of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) will have 'full-body protectors' for at least 10% of its personnel. This, officials explained, can be used on a rotational basis by troops moving out on patrols". We are not told if from now on all ITBP personnel will be required to be of the same size, shape and morphology like the cloned stormtroopers in the Star Wars movies. The government's pious intentions maybe in response to a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General in February of this year, so cruelly emphasized by the brutal murder of 20 soldiers by Chinese thugs in Ladakh on 16 June. The report said that "there was a critical shortage of snow goggles ranging from 62% to 98%" and a "shortage of special rations compromised the calorie intake of soldiers by as much as 82%". The report was until 2018 and the army said things have improved. Why did 17 injured soldiers freeze to death? "It's the conventional domain of border security that governments of the past and present don't seem to appreciate. Special rations have seen cuts due to poor budgetary allocation -- the lowest one since 1962. I don't think the situation is likely to improve," wrote Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd). "We should not get the impression that Indian troops battling extreme winter conditions are not being provided for. They are but it is usually out of the reserves and emergency provisions like the Army Commander's special financial powers," wrote Deepender Singh Hooda, Former Army Commander, Northern Command. "Indian soldiers who died in close combat with Chinese troops last month were unarmed and surrounded by a larger force on a steep ridge, Indian government sources, two soldiers deployed in the area and families of the fallen men said," reported Reuters."Reuters spoke to relatives of 13 of the men who were killed, and in five cases they produced death certificates listing horrific injuries suffered during the six-hour night-time clash at 14,000 ft (4,267 meters) amid remote barren mountains." India maybe unable to protect its soldiers but at least the dead are treated with full military honors. The barbaric Chinese government does not even recognize its dead. After "a video emerged from China showing that the families of the Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA) personnel were outraged by the fact that unlike Indian soldiers, their martyrs had received no honor and no acknowledgement". Indians maybe disappointed by President Donald Trump's restrictions on immigrating to the US, but thank God we are not Chinese. At least for now.