India, China to set up panel to monitor flood waters

By Arvind Padmanabhan

IANS


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New Delhi : After calling China India's "greatest neighbour" Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday said the two sides will soon set up an expert group that will share and monitor hydrological data on interlinked rivers.

Speaking to journalists on his way back from Germany, where he met President Hu Juntao Friday on the margins of the G8 Outreach Summit, the prime minister said they also decided to ask the special representatives on the long pending border issue to speed up matters.

"I did raise the issue of border, cooperation in the management of inter state rivers, exchange of data, flood warning," the prime minister said, referring to his deliberations in Berlin with the Chinese president.

"President Hu Jintao responded quite positively that they will sit down, they will nominate their representatives on these groups," the prime minister said on the expert group proposed during Hu's visit to India last November.

The group will collect and exchange hydrological data from inter-state rivers like the Sutlej and Brahmaputra, to see how emergency situations can be managed during flooding.

"President Hu also agreed that our both special representatives dealing with the border issue must move forward and both of us expressed that is the direction we will give to our special representatives," Manmohan Singh said.

"It was a very cordial meeting and President Hu was very complimenting on what has been done in recent years to bring our two countries closer to each other," the prime minister added.

Both Hu and Manmohan Singh were in Germany to attend the G8 Outreach summit in Heiligendamm. Brazil, Mexico and South Africa are the other outreach partners of the influential group of emerging powers that were invited to meet with the G8 group of the rich and influential.

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