International and Bilateral Issues

A day after beginning talks on the boundary question, India and China on Tuesday agreed to set up a working mechanism on border management to deal with important affairs related to maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas.
The working mechanism will “study ways and means to conduct and strengthen exchanges and cooperation between military personnel and establishments of the two sides in the border areas.''
- It will be headed by a joint secretary-level officer from the Ministry of External Affairs and a Director General-level officer from the Chinese Foreign Ministry and will comprise diplomatic and military officials of the two sides.
- It will hold consultations once or twice every year, alternately in India and China. Emergency consultations, if required, may be convened after mutual agreement.
The two sides also expressed their belief in respecting and abiding by the Line of Actual Control
They noted that strengthening peace and tranquillity on the India-China border areas was “very significant'' for enhancing mutual trust and security between the two countries, for resolving the boundary question at an early date and for building the India-China strategic and cooperative partnership.

Online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, will black out its website on Wednesday for 24 hours to protest anti-piracy bills under consideration in the U.S. Congress.
The website said if passed the “destructive” legislation would “endanger” free speech and impose censorship on international websites.