LAC

Why in news?

• India and China discussed the ongoing impasse at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, at the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Dushanbe

About Line of Actual Control (LAC)

• The Line of Actual Control (LAC) is a notional demarcation line that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory in the Sino-Indian border dispute.
• The term is said to have been used by Zhou Enlai in a 1959 letter to Jawaharlal Nehru.
• It subsequently referred to the line formed after the 1962 Sino-Indian War and is part of the Sino-Indian border dispute.
• It is different from the borders claimed by each country in the Sino-Indian border dispute.
• The Indian claims include the entire Aksai Chin region and the Chinese claim include Arunachal Pradesh. These claims are not included in the "actual control".
• The LAC is generally divided into three sectors:
  • The western sector between Ladakh on the Indian side and the Tibet and Xinjiang autonomous regions on the Chinese side. This sector was the location of the 2020 China–India skirmishes.
  • The middle, mostly-undisputed sector between Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh on the Indian side and the Tibet autonomous region on the Chinese side.
  • The eastern sector between Arunachal Pradesh on the Indian side and the Tibet autonomous region on the Chinese side. This sector generally follows the McMahon Line.[a]
• The term "line of actual control" originally referred only to the boundary in the western sector after the 1962 Sino-Indian War, but during the 1990s came to refer to the entire de facto border.

PRELIMS QUESTION:

Line of actual control forms the effective boundary between India and which of the following countries?

(a) Afghanistan

(b) Pakistan

(c) Bangladesh

(d) China

Answer