With reference to "Shaksgam Valley", which of the following statements is/are correct ?
1. This valley is a strategic key region, that is part of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
2. India has lodged p

Question

With reference to "Shaksgam Valley", which of the following statements is/are correct ?
1. This valley is a strategic key region, that is part of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
2. India has lodged protest against the infrastructural development being carried out by China in this valley.
Select the correct answer from the codes given below :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, Both 1 and 2. Statement 1 is correct on India's own position. The Shaksgam Valley lies in the Trans-Karakoram Tract, the strip north of the main Karakoram crest that Pakistan handed to China under the Sino-Pakistan Boundary Agreement of 2 March 1963. Pakistan could only hand it over because it was holding that part of the erstwhile princely State of Jammu and Kashmir illegally, so in Indian usage the valley is territory of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir that was further ceded to a third country. India has never accepted the transfer: it treats the 1963 agreement as illegal and void and continues to claim the tract as part of the Union Territory of Ladakh. The 'strategic key region' description is not rhetoric either — the valley sits immediately north of the Siachen region and of the Karakoram giants, and a road running through it brings Chinese access up against India's northernmost military positions. Statement 2 is correct as a matter of record. In May 2024, months before this exam, India formally protested against Chinese infrastructure construction — road building — inside the Shaksgam Valley, with the Ministry of External Affairs restating that the area is Indian territory and that India rejects China's illegal occupation of it. Because both statements hold, the answer is (d).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Concedes the protest but rejects the PoK description, presumably on the reasoning that the valley is administered by China today and so cannot be called PoK. That confuses possession with title. India's position, which is what an Indian public examination tests, is that the whole of Jammu and Kashmir including Gilgit-Baltistan is Indian, that Pakistan's occupation of it is illegal, and that Pakistan's 1963 transfer of the Shaksgam tract to China was therefore void. Statement 1 stands.  (b) Rejects both, which cannot survive the news record of 2024 alone. India's protest against Chinese construction in the Shaksgam Valley was made publicly in May 2024 and was widely reported; a candidate who had followed the year's current affairs would have had statement 2 fixed. And statement 1 is settled Indian doctrine, not a contested claim.  (c) Accepts the territorial description but denies the protest, and this is the option a candidate falls into if he remembers Shaksgam only as a static geography fact and missed the 2024 news cycle. India did protest, in May 2024, over Chinese road-building in the valley — this is exactly the sort of recent development that puts an old place-name back on the paper.

Concept: The Shaksgam Valley is the valley of the Shaksgam or Muztagh river, which rises on the northern flank of the Karakoram and runs north-westward to join the Yarkand river, whose waters end in the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang. It lies between the main Karakoram crest to the south — the wall of K2 and the Gasherbrums — and the Aghil range to the north, crossed by the Aghil Pass. Together with the neighbouring Raskam area it makes up what is called the Trans-Karakoram Tract, and its whole political significance comes from the fact that a country that did not own it gave it to another country that had no claim to it.

State PCS 2024 Q113 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q113 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer