Indian military flirts with hearts and minds on China border.

(From Agence France Presse)

Angiyo Yobin ran out as the AN-32 screamed to a halt on an airstrip little larger than a carpark, but the transport plane had brought nothing this time at India's last civilian post on Myanmar's borders.

The 25-year-old nurse returned home to wait for another "sortie" next month by the Indian Air Force, which operates flying ambulances and ferries supplies to the country's uneasy borders with China and Myanmar.

"Sorties are once or twice a month and this means no kerosene, no medicines and little food," Yobin said in Vijayanagar in far-eastern India's Arunachal Pradesh state which is claimed almost in full by China.

"But still, these sorties are our lifeline. If this airbridge breaks then we might as well just die," added Nabuye, also from Vijaynagar's dominant Catholic tribe Yobin Lisu.

Pravesh Kumar, who commands an air force airbase in Jorhat city, said supply flights across a string of clifftops and drop zones on India's borders with China and Myanmar depended on the region's inhospitable weather.

"We cater to both the army's and civilian needs with AN-32s and ME-17 helicopters but everything depends on weather," Kumar said of operations to feed or evacuate injured counter-insurgency troops and ferry civilians to cities such as Jorhat, 110 kilometres (70 miles) from the China border.