Daulat Beg Oldie

WHY IN NEWS?

• The construction of a 255-km long all-weather road to Daulat Beg Oldie is said to be one of the reasons for People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) targeting of Indian territory along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh.

ABOUT THE DAULAT BEG OLDIE (DBO):

• DBO is the northernmost corner of Indian territory in Ladakh, in the area better known in Army parlance as Sub-Sector North.
• DBO has the world’s highest airstrip, originally built during the 1962 war but abandoned until 2008, when the Indian Air Force (IAF) revived it.
• A military outpost was created in DBO in reaction to China’s occupation of Aksai Chin, and is at present manned by a combination of the Army’s Ladakh Scouts and the paramilitary Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).

IMPORTANCE:

• To the west of DBO is the region where China abuts Pakistan in the Gilgit-Baltistan area, once a part of the erstwhile Kashmir principality.

• This is also the critical region where China is currently constructing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), to which India has objected.
• Darbuk-Shyokh-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) highway provides the Indian military access to the section of theTibet-Xinjaing highway that passes through Aksai Chin. 

PRELIMS QUESTION:

Q. Daulat Beg Oldie, seen recently in news, is located in:

1. Ladakh
2. Jammu and Kashmir
3. Arunachal Pradesh
4. Himachal Pradesh

Answer to Prelims question