Context: India and China have agreed to step up efforts for the disengagement of troops and de-escalation of tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) after a conversation on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in South Africa.

Line of Actual Control (LAC)

• The LAC traverses three areas -
• Western (Ladakh, Kashmir),
• middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal) and
• eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal).
• As LAC is not fully and officially demarcated, it has led to differing perceptions regarding the alignment, with China making territorial claims in at following areas.
• The countries disagree on the exact location of the LAC in various areas, so much so that India claims that the LAC is 3,488 km long while the Chinese believe it to be around 2,000 km long.
• The two armies try and dominate by patrolling the areas up to their respective perceptions of the LAC, often bringing them into conflict.