While explaining what is happening in the neighbouring country, Angshuman Choudhury, Associate Fellow at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, tells Outlook the military has lost a large portion of the country to the ethnic armies in terms of effective control, especially after the operations that began on October 27 this year. That day an alliance of ethnic armed organisations launched coordinated attacks on military posts in northern Shan State bordering China and took several towns and border crossings. The rebels call the long-planned operation 1027, referring to the date the assault began. “Operation 1027 started in the north in Shan State along the China-Myanmar border. Now resistance forces have spread to other areas including the Indian-Myanmar border like Chin state and in these places, they have been able to hold on to towns and urban centres and border trading points. It has been a month and the military has been unable to capture these areas back,” Choudhury says.