Chinese government sources said on Monday that one of the lessons that could be drawn from the recent face-off is that it is “important to resolve things in a timely manner”. Describing the recent incursion as an “isolated incident”, sources said: “We need a stronger sense of urgency to speed up our negotiations (on the boundary issue).”
The sense of urgency from Beijing was also evident with Chinese government sources stating that “the two sides should make greater efforts to find a mutually acceptable, fair resolution to the boundary question”.
Acknowledging that the boundary question is “an issue left over from history and it takes time to resolve it”, the sources said, “Whether it can be resolved quickly depends on the political will of the two countries.” They added that “the boundary question is not the whole picture of our relations and should not allow it to stand in the way of our ties”.
In this regard, sources also drew attention to the fact that 15 rounds of negotiations on the boundary question have been held so far between the special representatives (SRs) of the two countries and an agreement on the framework has to be reached.
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‘Bypoll must be within sept 30’
AGE CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA, May 13
In a setback to the Mamata Banerjee government, the Calcutta High Court on Monday directed the state government to conduct the bypoll of ward 1 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) within September 30. The seat fell vacant after Ela Saha, councillor of the ward 1, died in December 2011.
It may be noted that the division bench comprising chief justice Arun Mishra and Jaymalya Bagchi on Friday questioned B.P. Gopalika, secretary of the state municipal affairs department, who was asked to appear in court in connection with a PIL filed by advocate Anindya Sundar Das. The court had then enquired about the status of the bypoll from the state election commissin. The advocates of the commission Lakshmi Chand Bihani informed the court that the commission had sent several letters as many as 12 times, however did not receive any response.
Justice Mishra and Justice Bagchi on Friday reprimanded the state government and had directed Mr Gopalika to come up with a date at the next hearing. However, on this day, when the judges asked about the date, Mr Gopalika said that the state government would fix the date as soon as possible. But the division bench was displeased with the reply and said that the bypoll must be conducted within four months.