| (The Editor's Pick is a new newsletter from The Hindu that provides a snapshot of the most important stories from today's edition of our newspaper, along with a note from our top editors on why we chose to give prominence to these stories.)
Hours after China's People's Liberation Army claimed that Indian troops had opened fire at the disputed LAC in Ladakh, the Indian Army said that it was PLA troops that had fired in the air. This would be the first time that shots have been fired at the LAC since 1975. Aggressive moves have been on at the south bank of the Pangong Tso Lake since August 29, with India saying the Chinese were attempting to dislodge Indian troops from some strategic locations that it had occupied. The firings mean a new level of aggression that may further harden stances in negotiations at all levels, none of which has been able to make any headway so far. This makes the task tougher for External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who is in Moscow for a preparatory meeting of Foreign Ministers ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. He is set to meet his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in a bilateral meeting on the sidelines. Mr. Jaishankar had last week spoken of diplomacy as being the only solution to the crisis. But a meeting between Indian and Chinese Defence Ministers, the highest-level face-to-face talks so far, had failed to break the deadlock. The EAM, who has considerable experience on China as a diplomat, now has his task cut out for him. This increasingly tougher road for diplomacy, and the new levels of aggression at the border — which is a throwback to the period before the 1962 war, according to some experts — is what makes this story important. | 
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