Map on China visas

 India today termed China depicting the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin as part of its territory in its new e-passports as "unacceptable."

Indian mission in Beijing has retaliated by issuing Chinese citizens Indian visas with Indian map.

The Survey of India map on Indian visas issued to Chinese citizens shows Arunachal Pradesh and Akasi Chin as Indian territory. China claims all of the 93,000 km of Arunachal Pradesh and terms Tawang as South Tibet.

External affairs minister Salman Khurshid said India was "not prepared to accept" China's version of the maps on e-passports. "We, therefore, ensure that our flags of disagreement are put out immediately when something happens. We can do it in an agreeable way or you can do it in a disagreeable way," he said.

China's foreign ministry spokesperson said the matter should be dealt with in a "level-headed and rational manner" to avoid "unnecessary disruptions" to people to people exchanges. "Hope the countries regard it in a cool-headed manner. China would like to maintain communication with other counties to ensure convenience of travel for both Chinese and foreigners," the spokesperson said in Beijing.

After the Chinese government started issuing the new e-passports, carrying pages with watermark Chinese maps including Arunachal and Aksai Chin as its parts, India responded by issuing visas to Chinese nationals with a map of India including these places as part of its territory.

China had earlier triggered a diplomatic row by issuing stapled visas to residents of Jammu and Kashmir, terming it a "disputed territory" and denied visas to those hailing from Arunachal Pradesh. India had then protested with Beijing, which relented to go back to issuing normal visas to JandK residents.

China's claim to Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, which shares a 1,030-km unfenced border with it, is not new. In 1962, China and India fought a brief war over Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, but in 1993 and 1996 the two countries signed agreements to respect the Line of Actual Control to maintain peace and tranquility. Aksai Chin is in China's control.

On Monday, a high- level team of Chinese diplomats, for the first time, visited Sikkim in connection with consular issues, which was seen as reconfirmation of Beijing's stance of accepting the state as part of India.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao on the sidelines of the Asean summit in Cambodia where the two leaders discussed ways to move forward on the vexed boundary issue.

National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon is expected to visit Beijing soon for the next round of boundary talks at the level of Special Representatives with his Chinese counterpart Dai Bingguo.

Both Beijing and New Delhi make regular noises on the boundary issue to keep their domestic public opinion happy but have in the past decade focused on increasing bilateral trade which has risen from a measly $2 billion a decade back to reach $100 billion by 2015 while leaving the boundary dispute for 'destiny' to resolve at some future date.

Relief for Azharuddin as court strikes down ban

Twelve years after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) imposed a ban for life-time on former India captain Mohammed Azharuddin, the Andhra Pradesh High Court Thursday struck it down as "illegal".

In a major relief to the cricketer-turned-politician, a division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court set aside the order of a lower court which had upheld the ban.

It was on Dec 5, 2000, that the BCCI banned Azhar from playing professional cricket for the rest of his life after he was found guilty of match-fixing charges.

The Hyderabadi had challenged the Indian cricket board's decision in the city civil court, which upheld the ban. He then moved to high court against the lower court's order, his lawyers arguing that BCCI imposed the ban without any evidence.

The 49-year-old is currently a member of the Lok Sabha from the Moradabad constituency in Uttar Pradesh.

The court verdict has come as a major relief to Azhar, who had always maintained that the ban on him was unfair and the BCCI's decision was unilateral. The BCCI then had banned Azhar and Ajay Sharma for life and imposed a five-year ban on Ajay Jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar.

The BCCI move came after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which probed the match-fixing scandal, accused these players of having links with bookies and of under-performing in return for huge sums of money.

The match-fixing scandal came to light after then South Africa captain Hansie Cronje, in his confession, claimed that Azhar had introduced him to the bookies.

Azhar, one of India's most successful captains nd prolific batsmen, played 99 Tests and scored 6,215 runs during his career. He also played 334 One-Day Internationals scoring 9,378 runs in his 15-year international career.

The wristy batsman had taken the world of cricket by storm in 1984-85 with a world record of three consecutive centuries in three Tests on his debut against England.

He entered politics a few months before 2009 elections by joining the Congress party and was elected to the Lok Sabha.

No prime ministerial ambitions: Advani

 On his 85th birthday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani Thursday brushed away suggestions of his wanting to be the party's prime ministerial candidate.

"The party and the country have given me so much, it is much more than becoming the prime minister," Advani told reporters.

Advani is known to nurse prime ministerial ambitions and during the 2009 general elections he had gone on a countrywide rath yatra to connect with people.

Among those who went to greet Advani were party chief Nitin Gadkari, who is under attack for alleged financial impropriety in the funding of his Purti Group.

Advani had not gone for the BJP core group meeting on Tuesday to decide on the future of Gadkari in the wake of allegations against him. The party has reposed faith in Gadkari's leadership and said he has done "no legal or moral wrong".

However, Advani supported Gadkari in a blog last month, where he congratulated the BJP chief on saying he was open to a probe.

China's Hu says graft threatens state, party must stay in charge

President Hu Jintao warned China's incoming leaders on Thursday that corruption threatened the ruling Communist Party and the state, but said the party must stay in charge as it battles growing social unrest.

In a state-of-the-nation address to more than 2,000 hand-picked party delegates before he hands over power, Hu acknowledged that public anger over graft and issues like environmental degradation had undermined the party's support and led to surging numbers of protests.

"Combating corruption and promoting political integrity, which is a major political issue of great concern to the people, is a clear-cut and long-term political commitment of the party," Hu said.

"If we fail to handle this issue well, it could prove fatal to the party, and even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state. We must thus make unremitting efforts to combat corruption."

He promised political reform, but only to a degree, saying: "We will never copy a Western political system."

"We will neither walk on the closed and rigid road, nor will we walk down the evil road of changing (our) flags and banners," Hu said.

He also stressed the need to strengthen the armed forces and protect sea territory amid disputes with Japan and Southeast Asian nations.

Hu was opening a week-long congress at Beijing's Great Hall of the People that will usher in a once-in-a-decade leadership change in the world's second-largest economy.

Despite the high profile of the event and the focus on sensitive issues like reform and graft, the comments were not considered unusual since they mainly reinforced existing ideas and themes.