India and China agree to resume direct flights, Mansarovar Yatra

India and China on Monday agreed to resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra this summer, restore direct flights and ease visa restrictions after Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong in Beijing.

The two sides also agreed to resume dialogue about cooperation on trans-border rivers and about sharing hydrological data, which China has withheld for several years.

The announcement on hydrological data comes amid concerns in New Delhi about China constructing a hydropower project on the Brahmaputra river in South Tibet, The Hindu reported.

During the meeting between the Indian foreign secretary and the Chinese vice foreign minister, the two sides also “agreed to take appropriate measures to further promote and facilitate people-to-people exchanges, including media and think-tank interactions”.

While the Indian foreign ministry’s statement did not directly refer to the situation along the border between the two countries, it said: “The two sides took stock of the extant mechanisms for functional exchanges. It was agreed to resume these dialogues step by step and to utilise them to address each other’s priority areas of interest and concern.”

Border tensions between India and China escalated in June 2020 when a violent face-off between Indian and Chinese soldiers took place in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley along the Line of Actual Control. It led to the…

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