Ajai Shukla, the consulting editor on strategic affairs for the Business Standard newspaper, has emerged as a beacon in the darkness enveloping Indian journalism. His reportage on the Chinese intrusion into Ladakh has exposed the flaws in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's China policy as well as his spin to conceal its failure. Shukla has, as a corollary, done a service to our democracy.

Shukla was the sole journalist who did not parrot the government's claims that China had agreed to disengage and withdraw troops from India's territory. He, in fact, mapped the Line of Actual Control to show it had shifted westward, into our territory, by about 12-15 km in Depsang; by 1 km at Patrolling Point-14 in the Galwan Valley; by 2-4 km at three other patrolling points; and by 8 km at the Pangong Tso Lake. He said China was refusing to restore the status quo as had existed before its troops walked into Ladakh.