PM meets Xi, raises Brahmaputra issue

• Conveys concerns over three dams across the river
• Both agree not to allow differences to affect growth of ties

Govt will last full term: PM The Prime Minister on his flight back home told newsmen, "I am confident that our government will complete full five years, and that the next election to the Lok Sabha will be held on schedule." He ruled out any threat to his government. He was replying to a question whether Samajawadi Party threat would affect the survival of his government. Durban (PTI): In the first-high level contact after the new Chinese leadership took over, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met President Xi Jinping late on Wednesday night and raised the issue of Beijing's proposal to construct three dams across the Brahmaputra river on its side. Singh called on President Xi, who took over as President earlier this month as part of decadal change of power structure in China, on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit which the two leaders attended here. This is the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders at the highest level after the recent change in power structure in China. "Water was discussed," official sources said tersely after a 25-minute meeting after the summit without getting into specifics. The Prime Minister is understood to have conveyed to President Xi concerns in India over the Chinese proposal to construct three dams across the Brahmaputra. India has said the proposal would affect water flow to India while China said it was just run-of-the mill project that would not hold water. The entire expanse of the bilateral relationship was discussed and the meeting was very positive, the sources said. Xi laid the groundwork of his meeting with Manmohan Singh with a five-point formula to improve ties with India, underscoring that peace between the two sides must be maintained across the borders without affecting neither the talks to resolve the dispute nor other aspects of the ties. Broadly, the five proposals call for maintaining strategic communication and keeping ties on the right track, expanding cooperation in infrastructure and mutual investment, strengthening cultural ties, increasing coordination on multilateral affairs, and accommodating each other's core concerns. The Prime Minister invited President Xi to visit India to which he said he accepted it and would make the visit at an appropriate time. Similarly, the President extended an invitation to Singh to visit China and he reciprocated it in a similar vein.