Govt: Army responded to China’s attempts
Worst affected by pandemic, America wants China, WHO to be transparent
The government on Wednesday informed Parliament that since April-May last year, the Chinese Chinese militarymade “several attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo along the Line of Actual Control (LAC)” in the western (Ladakh) sector and Indian armed forces “responded” to them “appropriately”.
It added that the government would “continue discussions with the Chinese side to achieve the objective of disengagement from all friction points and restoration of peace and tranquillity in the India-China Border Areas at an early date”.
The ministry of external affairs (MEA) on Wednesday informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply, “Since April/May 2020 the Chinese side had made several attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo along the line of actual control (LAC) in western sector. These attempts have been responded to appropriately by our armed forces. It has been made clear to the Chinese side that such unilateral attempts are unacceptable. These actions have seriously disturbed the peace and tranquillity along the LAC in the Western Sector.”
The government often refers to eastern Ladakh as western sector.
Indian and Chinese militaries are locked in a bitter standoff in eastern Ladakh for over nine months.
The MEA further told Parliament, “In order to ensure complete disengagement from all friction points and full restoration of peace and tranquillity in the India-China Border Areas, diplomatic and military engagements with the Chinese side have continued. Six meetings of the working mechanism for consultation and coordination on India-China border affairs and nine meetings of the Senior commanders have been held so far. The government will continue discussions with the Chinese side to achieve the objective of disengagement from all friction points.”
Washington, Feb. 10: It is imperative that the world learns as much as possible about the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic so that the world can understand its origins and prevent future biological catastrophes, the US has said after international experts investigating the origins of the disease have dismissed as unlikely a theory that the virus came from a laboratory in China.
The US, which is the worst affected country from the pandemic, is looking forward to receiving the report and the data from the investigation by the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) team of experts into the origins of the Covid-19 in China’s Wuhan city.
The WHO experts arrived in China last month for the long-awaited probe into the origins of the deadly coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, the team dismissed that the virus could have leaked from a Chinese lab, a theory strongly supported by former US president Donald Trump.
The team members said that the deadly virus was most likely to have transmitted from an animal to humans. “Broadly speaking, we have expressed our concerns regarding the need for full transparency and access from China and the WHO to all information regarding the earliest days of the pandemic,” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Tuesday at his daily news conference.
“It’s imperative that the world learns as much as possible about the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic so that we can understand its origins and so, importantly, we can prevent future biological catastrophes,” Price said.
“I think the jury is still out. Clearly, the Chinese, at least heretofore, had not offered the requisite transparency that we need and that just as importantly, again, the international community needs so that we can prevent these sorts of pandemics from ever happening again.
This goes back to one of the very first actions that President Joe Biden took as president when he reengaged with the WHO,” Price said. China reported the first Covid-19 case in the central Chinese city of
Wuhan and since then the disease has snowballed into a pandemic, affecting 1,06,880,652 people with 2,339,991 deaths globally.
According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus tracker, the US alone has reported 27,189,188 cases
and 4,68,103 deaths from the deadly virus.
Trump had repeatedly blamed China for covering up and not sharing information about the virus with the world, leading to a strain in relation between the two countries.
However, China has refuted the allegations. While denying that Coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China points to reports from Italy, Spain and the US about its prevalence to predating its emergence in Wuhan. —