Beijing, April 17: India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will hold bilateral talks with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during her two-day China visit beginning on Saturday.
Sushma Swaraj will meet Wang on the sidelines of the foreign ministers' meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Summit (SCO).
She will meet a more powerful Wang, who in March was elevated to China's top diplomatic post of State Councillor. They are likely to discuss a host of thorny issues.
India-China ties were severely hit by the 73-day military standoff in Doklam last year. Both sides are now trying to restore normalcy to their ties by stepping up bilateral exchanges.
China's opposition to India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and its move to block bids at the UN to list Masood Azhar, chief of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group, as a global terrorist, has irked New Delhi.
In addition, New Delhi has reservations about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which cuts through Pakistan-held Kashmir that is claimed by India.
Sushma Swaraj, whose last visit to China was in 2015, is also likely to meet other top Chinese leaders.
India's Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will also visit China next week and hold a dialogue with her counterpart.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in June on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Summit.
India and Pakistan were admitted to the China-led block in 2017.
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Lok Sabha seats in southern states to increase from 129 to 195: Amit Shah
New Delhi (PTI): Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said a "completely false" narrative is being spread that the representation of southern states will go down in the Lok Sabha after its strength is increased to 816 seats following the implementation of women's reservation and delimitation of constituencies.
Intervening in the debate in Lok Sabha on the three bills introduced for amendment of the women's quota law and to set up a delimitation commission, Shah said the fact is that the number of seats will go up and power will grow.
He said the number of Lok Sabha seats in the five southern states will go up from the present 129 to 195 seats while the percentage of power will increase from 23.76 per cent to 23.87 or almost 24 per cent.
"Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka will increase to 42 from the present 28; in Andhra Pradesh, the number of Lok Sabha sets will increase to 38 from 25; in Telangana, it will be 26 from present 17; in Tamil Nadu, the number of Lok Sabha seats will go up to 59 from the present 39; and in Kerala, it will be 30 seats from the present 20," he said.
Shah strongly rejected the opposition suggestion that the government will indulge in some kind of "mischief" during the delimitation exercise, saying the NDA government has not made any changes in the existing law.
"The delimitation bill is exactly like the previous law brought by your government. There is no change, not even a comma or a full stop," he said.
Explaining how the total number of seats in the new Lok Sabha is fixed at 816, the home minister said it is exactly 50 per cent more than the current total seats.
