New Delhi: The Indian government has been able to make progress with China on five to six stand-off areas in eastern Ladakh, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said on Monday, August 7, in response to criticism from opposition on the handling of the ongoing border confrontation.On Monday, Jaishankar briefed a select group of reporters on the steps taken by the government on the border and other achievements in the foreign policy sphere.“It was said that we will not be able to do anything, talks will not be successful, there will be no progress, disengagement cannot take place, but solutions were found in some of the focal points in the last three years,” he said, as quoted by PTI.He noted that “there were five-six areas that were very tense”. “There has been progress (there),” added Jaishankar.Since May 2020, there has been an ongoing stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops at multiple locations in Eastern Ladakh. Twenty Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers were killed in the first fatal encounter at the border in over four decades. Following several rounds of talks, there has been disengagement in around five points, which means that the two sides withdraw their troops from the stand-off point and also maintain a buffer zone.Since then, there has been a stalemate over the remaining friction points over Depsang and Demchok. Taking a completely opposite position from India, China has refused to budge on these two points, claiming that these are legacy issues of the larger boundary dispute and not related to the current stand-off.At the Monday briefing, Jaishankar said that the negotiations were complex and both sides are engaged to find solutions.Earlier during a MEA organised press briefing in June, Jaishankar had claimed that the current border stand-off was not due to Chinese troops grabbing land from the Indian side, but due to “forward deployment” of troops at the Line of Actual Control. The opposition has pointed out that the Indian troops were unable to patrol areas due to this understanding which has meant that New Delhi is directly unable to control the territory that it did before.When asked whether after 2014, the Indian military and the Indian Air Force are able to deploy and counter any Chinese movement better, the answer is “yes, absolutely”.According to Jaishankar, there has been a significant increase in the overall mobility of both the armed forces and the civilian population in the border regions over the past few years. He attributed this development to the government’s dedicated efforts in rapidly enhancing infrastructure in these frontier areas.Further, he stated that ongoing infrastructure development along the India-China border will play a crucial role in shaping India’s response to national security challenges.