News Brief
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
India has again rejected China's claims over Arunachal Pradesh after Beijing unilaterally renamed 30 places along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Northeast Indian state.
This comes after China, in a bid to assert its claim on Arunachal Pradesh, released a fourth list of 30 new names of various places along the LAC in the Indian state.
While addressing a press conference in Gujarat, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar responded to China's latest claims on the Indian territory.
"If today I change the name of your house, will it become mine? Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always be a state of India. Changing names does not have an effect," Jaishankar said, news agency ANI reported.
China released a list of so-called 'standardised' geographical names in Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing refers to as Zangnan, state-run Global Times reported on Sunday.
The 30 places renamed by Bejing include 12 mountains, four rivers, one lake, one mountain pass, 11 residential areas and a piece of land.
In 2017, Beijing made public the first set of 'standardized' names for six locations in Arunachal Pradesh. This was followed by a second list in 2021, which included 15 places, and in 2023, another list was released with names for 11 more places.