By NNN-PTI,
Beijing : India plans to discuss with China how it can assist in relief and reconstruction in the country’s earthquake-devastated southwest region, Indian Ambassador to China Nirupama Rao said.
“We know there are special needs to rebuild schools and homes and to provide medical care, especially trauma counselling for the affected,” Rao said at a seminar here.
She said India would like to be in touch with the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs and Sichuan provincial government to identify special projects that would help the affected people.
Expressing India’s willingness to send a relief team to the quake-devastated Sichuan province, she said, “it would be a great idea that the team could provide aid in the quake stricken areas,” according to state-run Xinhua news agency.
Rao was speaking at a commemorative function on the 70th anniversary of the Aid-China-Indian Medical Mission organised by China Soong Ching Living Foundation and the China Society for People’s Friendship Studies.
A five-member medical team including Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis came to China in 1938 to help the suffering Chinese in the “War of Resistance against Japanese”. Kotnis, who stayed back, died of illness in December 1942 at the age of 32.
A memorial hall has been built in Baoding in northern Hebei province to commemorate Kotnis and Dr Norman Bethune, a Canadian who also served in China.
Rao noted that India and China had established a Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis Memorial Joint Medical Mission comprising 10 young doctors from each side.