Xi Jinping calls for 'elephant-dragon tango' on 75th anniversary of India, China ties
Beijing (PTI): In a message marking 75th anniversary of their bilateral relations, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday stressed on partnership between India and China for “mutual achievement” and the need to do the “dragon-elephant tango” to serve their fundamental interests.
Apart from President Xi's message to his counterpart Droupadi Murmu, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Prime Minister Narendra Modi too exchanged congratulatory messages to mark the occasion, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced here.
In her message, Murmu said a stable, predictable and friendly bilateral relationship will benefit both countries and the world, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The development comes amid the efforts to reset the ties after over four years of freeze due to the eastern Ladakh military standoff.
President Xi, in his message to Murmu, said China and India, both ancient civilisations, major developing countries and important members of the Global South, are at a critical stage of their respective modernisation efforts.
“The development of China-India relations demonstrates that it is the right choice for China and India to be partners of mutual achievement and realise the 'dragon elephant tango,' which fully serves the fundamental interests of both countries and their peoples,” Xinhua said quoting Xi.
Xi called on both sides to view and handle bilateral relations from a strategic height and long-term perspective, seek a way, which features peaceful coexistence, mutual trust, mutual benefit and common development, for neighbouring major countries to get along with each other, and jointly promote a multi-polar world and greater democracy in international relations.
He also said he stands ready to work with Murmu to take the anniversary of ties as an opportunity to enhance strategic mutual trust, strengthen exchanges and cooperation in various fields, deepen communication and coordination in major international affairs, jointly safeguard peace and tranquility in the China-India border area, push forward a sound and steady development of bilateral relations and contribute to world peace and prosperity.
For her part, Murmu said India and China are two major neighboring countries that are home to one-third of the world's population, noting that a stable, predictable and friendly bilateral relationship will benefit both countries and the world.
She proposed to take the 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties as an opportunity to jointly promote the sound and steady development of India-China relations, Xinhua reported.
Earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun while announcing the exchange of greetings by the leaders told media briefing here that the historical course of our bilateral relations shows that being partners that contributed to each other's success and the cooperative dance of 'the dragon and the elephant' is the right choice for both sides.
Under the strategic guidance of the leaders of our two countries, China stands ready to work with India to view and handle bilateral relations with a strategic and long-term perspective and take this occasion as an opportunity to enhance strategic mutual trust and step up exchanges and cooperation in various fields, Guo said.
He was referring to how Modi and Xi provided strategic guidance for the development of bilateral relations at their meeting at Kazan in Russia on the sidelines of the BRICS summit last year.
The two sides are implementing the consensus of the two leaders and are promoting cooperation and achieving fruitful outcomes.
Both the countries should also deepen communication and coordination in major international affairs, jointly maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas and advance China-India relations on the track of sound and stable development, Guo said.
To a question about the plans by both the countries to celebrate the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations, he said the two sides have the willingness to take the occasion to advance the bilateral relations.
Details of the specific events will be released in due course, he said.
After last year's meeting between Modi and Xi, both countries held a series of high level meetings, including that of the Special Representatives (SRs) of the boundary mechanism followed by the visit of Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri to Beijing for talks to normalise relations after the four-year freeze in relations due to the Ladakh standoff.
This year, on March 25, India and China held a fresh edition of diplomatic talks in Beijing focusing on ensuring effective border management and early resumption of cross-border cooperation and exchanges, including on trans-border rivers and resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra.
In the meeting of WMCC (Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination) on China-India Border Affairs, the two sides explored various measures and proposals to give effect to the decisions taken during talks between NSA Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Special Representatives (SR) dialogue in December.
On the following day, Gourangalal Das, the joint secretary in the MEA's East Asia division, and Liu Jinsong, the director general at the Chinese foreign ministry's department of Asian Affairs met in Beijing during which they explored ways to rebuild ties and agreed to initiate efforts to promote people-to-people exchanges, including arrangements for resumption of direct flights and to resume Kailash Manasarovar Yatra this year.
In the meeting, the two sides also discussed resumption of dialogue mechanisms in a step-by-step manner to utilise them to address each other's priority areas of interest and concern and move the relations to a more stable and predictable path, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said in a press release.
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Actress sexual assault: Court says Prosecution 'miserably' failed to prove conspiracy against Dileep
Kochi (PTI): The prosecution had "miserably" failed to prove the conspiracy charge against Dileep in the sensational 2017 actress sexual assault case, a local court has observed while citing inconsistencies and lack of sufficient evidence against the Malayalam star.
The full judgement of Ernakulam District and Principal Sessions Court Judge Honey M Varghese was released late on Friday, and has revealed the judge also pointing out at unsustainable arguments put forth by the prosecution.
"The prosecution miserably failed to prove the conspiracy between accused No.1 (Pulsar Suni) and accused No.8 (Dileep) in executing the offence against the victim," the court held.
It examined in detail, the prosecution's allegation that Dileep had hired the prime accused to sexually assault the survivor and record visuals, including close-up footage of a gold ring she was wearing, to establish her identity.
On page 1130 of the judgment, under paragraph 703, the court framed the issue as whether the prosecution's contention that NS Sunil (Pulsar Suni) recorded visuals of the gold ring worn by the victim at the time of the occurrence, so as to clearly disclose her identity, was sustainable.
The prosecution contended Dileep and Suni had planned the recording so that the actress' identity would be unmistakable, with the video of the gold ring intended to convince Dileep that the visuals were genuine.
However, the court noted that this contention was not stated in the first charge sheet and was introduced only in the second one.
As part of this claim, a gold ring was seized after the victim produced it before the police.
The court observed that multiple statements of the victim were recorded from February 18, 2017, following the incident, and that she first raised allegations against Dileep only on June 3, 2017.
Even on that day, nothing was mentioned about filming of the ring as claimed by the prosecution, the court said.
The prosecution failed to explain why the victim did not disclose this fact at the earliest available opportunities.
It further noted that although the victim had viewed the sexual assault visuals twice, she did not mention any specific recording of the gold ring on those occasions, which remained unexplained.
The court also examined the approvers' statements.
One approver told the magistrate that Dileep had instructed Pulsar Suni to record the victim's wedding ring.
The court observed that no such wedding ring was available with her at that time.
During the trial, the approver changed his version, the court said.
The Special Public Prosecutor put a leading question to the approver on whether Dileep had instructed the recording of the ring, after which he deposed that the instruction was to record it to prove the victim's identity.
The court observed that the approver changed his account to corroborate the victim's evidence.
When the same question was put to another approver, he repeated the claim during the trial but admitted he had never stated this fact before the investigating officer.
The court noted that the second approver even went to the extent of claiming Dileep had instructed the execution of the crime as the victim's engagement was over.
This showed that the evidence of the second approver regarding the shooting of the ring was untrue, as her engagement had taken place after the crime.
The court further observed that the visuals themselves clearly revealed the victim's identity and that there was no need to capture images of the ring to establish identity.
In paragraph 887, the court examined the alleged motive behind the crime and noted that in the first charge sheet, the prosecution had claimed that accused persons 1 to 6 had kidnapped the victim with the common intention of capturing nude visuals to extort money by threatening to circulate them and there was no mention about Dileep's role in it.
The court also rejected the prosecution's claim that the accused had been planning the assault on Dileep's instructions since 2013, noting that the allegation was not supported by reliable evidence.
It similarly ruled out the claim that Suni attempted to sexually assault the victim in Goa in January 2017, stating that witness statements showed no such misconduct when he served as the driver of the vehicle used by the actress there.
The court also discussed various controversies that followed Dileep's arrest and the evidence relied upon by the prosecution, ultimately finding that the case had not been proved.
Pronouning its verdict on the sensational case on December 8, the court acquitted Dileep and three others.
Later, the court sentenced six accused, including the prime accused Suni, to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment.
The assault on the multilingual actress, after the accused allegedly forced their way into her car and held it under their control for two hours on February 17, 2017, had shocked Kerala.
Pulsar Suni sexually assaulted the actress and video recorded the act with the help of the other convicted persons in the moving car.
