Indian media positive on Xi-Modi 'heart-to-heart summit'

NEW DELHI -- The Indian media on Saturday presented a positive and encouraging coverage of the two-day informal meeting between President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that began in China's Central Wuhan City Friday.

Most of the dailies carried front-page reports with photographs of Xi and Modi shaking hands, highlighting the first-of-its-kind meeting.

India's most circulated English daily The Times of India said in its headline: "Modi and Xi set tone by focusing on positives, plan more informal summits", and quoted the Chinese president as calling for continuous strengthening of friendly relations between the two countries so that their friendship will continue to flow forward like the Yangtze and Ganges rivers.

"The meeting lasted more than two hours instead of the scheduled 30 minutes as Xi and Modi exhibited a desire to impart a new pace to ties and preventing disputes from holding relations to ransom," it reported.

Another national daily, The Hindu, reported Modi as hoping to hold such a meeting in India in 2019.

The people of India feel proud that President Xi has received the Indian prime minister twice out of the capital, the report quoted Modi as telling Xi.

One of the oldest English dailies of India, The Statesman, described the meeting as a "heart-to-heart summit". In a report titled "Modi, Xi hold informal summit to solidify India-China ties", it said "it is being seen as an effort by both India and China to rebuild trust and improve ties."

The Indian Express said there is vast space for the two countries to take their ties to a new level.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, while India is at a critical period of its development and rejuvenation, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Beijing on April 22, after talks with visiting Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Xi and Modi decided to hold their informal meeting against this background, and it will help deepen trust between the two leaders and guide the two countries to set new goals and open up new prospects for bilateral ties, Wang said.