In his first meeting with new Chinese President Xi Jinpeng, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sought a joint mechanism to enable India assess the type of construction activity being carried out in Tibet on Brahmaputra river.
The Chinese President assured Dr. Singh that his government was “quite conscious” of its responsibilities and the interests of lower riparian countries. “As regards the specific mechanism I suggested, he said they would have it further looked into,” Dr. Singh said when asked by newspersons to give an account of his maiden meeting with Mr. Xi. China already shares hydrological data with India.
But the Prime Minister added the Indian assessment was that there was no reason so far to worry about China building dams (especially at a certain stretch known as the Brahmaputra bend), because most of them were of the run-of-the-river type that does not impede water flows. India applies this logic to defend construction of hydro-electric projects on rivers flowing into Pakistan.
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