title: China–India relations

text: It is the popular perception that the catchphrase of India's diplomacy with China in the 1950s was "Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai", which means, in Hindi, "Indians and Chinese are brothers". Nehru sought to initiate a more direct dialogue between the peoples of China and India in culture and literature. Around then, the famous Indian artist (painter) Beohar Rammanohar Sinha, who had earlier decorated the pages of the original Constitution of India, was sent to China in 1957 on a Government of India fellowship to establish a direct cross-cultural and inter-civilization bridge. Noted Indian scholar Rahul Sankrityayan and diplomat Natwar Singh were also there, and Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan paid a visit to PRC.


title: China–India relations

text: After signing the 1954 agreement, India published new maps showing defined borders, as it became apprehensive that China might make claims on Indian territory. Two major territorial disputes existed between China and India, which remained dormant until 1959. In the northeast, Indian territory included the Assam Himalayan region up to the McMahon Line, which China did not recognise as a legal boundary. In the western sector, Indian territory inherited from the British Raj included the Aksai Chin plateau, which Chinese maps started showing as Chinese territory in the 1940s if not earlier. When India discovered that China built a road through the region, border clashes and Indian protests became more frequent. In January 1959, PRC premier Zhou Enlai wrote to Nehru, pointing out that no government in China had accepted as legal the McMahon Line, which the 1914 Simla Convention defined the eastern section of the border between India and Tibet.


title: China–India relations

text: In March 1959, the Dalai Lama, spiritual and temporal head of the Tibet, sought sanctuary in Dharmsala, Himachal Pradesh where he established the Tibetan government-in-exile. Thousands of Tibetan refugees settled in northwestern India. The PRC accused India of expansionism and imperialism in Tibet and throughout the Himalayan region. China claimed huge swaths of territory over which India's maps showed clear sovereignty, and demanded "rectification" of the entire border.


title: China–India relations

text: Border disputes resulted in a short border war between the People's Republic of China and India on 20 October 1962. The border clash resulted in an overall defeat of India as the PRC pushed the Indian forces to within 48 km of the Assam plains in the northeast. It also occupied strategic points in the Aksai Chin and Demchok regions of Ladakh, before declaring a unilateral ceasefire on 21 November. It claimed that it withdrew to 20 km behind its contended line of control. India disagreed with the claim.


title: China–India relations

text: During the Sino-Indian border conflict, India's Communist Party was accused by the Indian government of being pro-PRC, and many of its political leaders were jailed. Subsequently, the Communist Party of India (CPI) split with the leftist section forming the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1964.


title: China–India relations

text: Relations between the PRC and India deteriorated during the rest of the 1960s and the early 1970s while the China–Pakistan relations improved and Sino-Soviet relations worsened. The PRC backed Pakistan in its 1965 war with India, and issued "ultimatums" threatening military action at its own border. The threats only served to damage Pakistan's relations with the western powers. In late 1967, there were two more conflicts between Indian and Chinese forces at their contested border, in Sikkim, known as the Nathu La and Cho La clashes. Both sides suffered heavy casualties but India came out in a better position than PRC.


title: China–India relations

text: Between 1967 and 1971, an all-weather road was built across the Aksai Chin territory claimed by India, linking PRC's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Pakistan.The PRC continued an active propaganda campaign against India and supplied ideological, financial and other assistance to dissident groups, especially to tribes in northeastern India. The PRC accused India of assisting the Khampa rebels in Tibet. Sri Lanka played the role of chief negotiator for the withdrawal of Chinese troops from the Indian territory. Both countries agreed to Colombo's proposals.


title: China–India relations

text: In August 1971, India signed its Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Co-operation with the Soviet Union. The PRC sided with Pakistan in its December 1971 war with India. Although China strongly condemned India, it did not carry out its veiled threat to intervene on Pakistan's behalf. By this time, the PRC had replaced the Republic of China in the UN where its representatives denounced India as being a "tool of Soviet expansionism."


title: China–India relations

text: India and the PRC renewed efforts to improve relations after Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's Congress party lost the 1977 elections to Morarji Desai's Janata Party. In 1978, the Indian Minister of External Affairs Atal Bihari Vajpayee made a landmark visit to Beijing, and both countries officially re-established diplomatic relations in 1979. The PRC modified its pro-Pakistan stand on Kashmir and appeared willing to remain silent on India's absorption of Sikkim and its special advisory relationship with Bhutan. The PRC's leaders agreed to discuss the boundary issue, India's priority, as the first step to a broadening of relations. The two countries hosted each other's news agencies, and Mount Kailash and Mansarowar Lake in Tibet, the home of the Hindu pantheon, were opened to annual pilgrimages.


title: China–India relations

text: In 1981, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, Huang Hua made a landmark visit to New Delhi. PRC Premier Zhao Ziyang concurrently toured Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.


title: China–India relations

text: In 1980, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi approved a plan to upgrade the deployment of forces around the Line of Actual Control. India also undertook infrastructural development in disputed areas. In 1984, squads of Indian soldiers began actively patrolling the Sumdorong Chu Valley in Arunachal Pradesh. In the winter of 1986, the Chinese deployed their troops to the Sumdorong Chu before the Indian team could arrive and built a helipad at Wandung. Surprised by the Chinese occupation, India's then Chief of Army Staff, General K.Sundarji, airlifted a brigade to the region. Chinese troops could not move any further into the valley and were forced to away from the valley. By 1987, Beijing's reaction was similar to that in 1962 and this prompted many Western diplomats to predict war. However, Indian foreign minister N.D. Tiwari and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi travelled to Beijing to negotiate a mutual de-escalation.


title: China–India relations

text: India and the PRC held eight rounds of border negotiations between December 1981 and November 1987. In 1985 the PRC insisted on mutual concessions without defining the exact terms of its "package proposal" or where the actual line of control lay. In 1986 and 1987, the negotiations achieved nothing, given the charges exchanged between the two countries of military encroachment in the Sumdorung Chu Valley. China's construction of a military post and helicopter pad in the area in 1986 and India's grant of statehood to Arunachal Pradesh (formerly the North-East Frontier Agency) in February 1987 caused both sides to deploy troops to the area. The PRC relayed warnings that it would "teach India a lesson" if it did not cease "nibbling" at Chinese territory. By the summer of 1987, however, both sides had backed away from conflict and denied military clashes had taken place.


title: China–India relations

text: A warming trend in relations was facilitated by Rajiv Gandhi's visit to China in December 1988. The two sides issued a joint communiqué that stressed the need to restore friendly relations on the basis of the Panchsheel. India and the People's Republic of China agreed to achieve a "fair and reasonable settlement while seeking a mutually acceptable solution" to the border dispute. The communiqué also expressed China's concern about agitation by Tibetan separatists in India and reiterated that anti-China political activities by expatriate Tibetans would not be tolerated. Rajiv Gandhi signed bilateral agreements on science and technology co-operation, establish direct air links, and on cultural exchanges. The two sides also agreed to hold annual diplomatic consultations between foreign ministers, set up a joint committee on economic and scientific co-operation, and a joint working group on the boundary issue. The latter group was to be led by the Indian foreign secretary and the Chinese vice minister of foreign affairs.


title: China–India relations

text: Top-level dialogue continued with the December 1991 visit of PRC premier Li Peng to India and the May 1992 visit to China of Indian president R. Venkataraman. Six rounds of talks of the Indian-Chinese Joint Working Group on the Border Issue were held between December 1988 and June 1993. Progress was also made in reducing tensions on the border via mutual troop reductions, regular meetings of local military commanders, and advance notification about military exercises. In July 1992, Sharad Pawar visited Beijing, the first Indian Minister of Defence to do so. Consulates reopened in Bombay (Mumbai) and Shanghai in December 1992.


title: China–India relations

text: In 1993, The sixth-round of the joint working group talks was held in New Delhi but resulted in only minor developments. Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and Premier Li Peng signed a border agreement dealing with cross-border trade, cooperation on environmental issues (e.g. Pollution, Animal extinction, Global warming, etc.) and radio and television broadcasting. A senior-level Chinese military delegation made a goodwill visit to India in December 1993 aimed at "fostering confidence-building measures between the defence forces of the two countries." The visit, however, came at a time when China was providing greater military support to Burma. The presence of Chinese radar technicians in Burma's Coco Islands, which border India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands caused concern in India.


title: China–India relations

text: In January 1994, Beijing announced that it not only favored a negotiated solution on Kashmir, but also opposed any form of independence for the region. Talks were held in New Delhi in February aimed at confirming established "confidence-building measures", discussing clarification of the "line of actual control", reduction of armed forces along the line, and prior information about forthcoming military exercises. China's hope for settlement of the boundary issue was reiterated.


title: China–India relations

text: In 1995, talks by the India-China Expert Group led to an agreement to set up two additional points of contact along the 4,000 km border to facilitate meetings between military personnel. The two sides were reportedly "seriously engaged" in defining the McMahon Line and the line of actual control vis-à-vis military exercises and prevention of air intrusion. Talks were held in Beijing in July and in New Delhi in August to improve border security, combat cross-border crimes and on additional troop withdrawals from the border. These talks further reduced tensions.


title: China–India relations

text: There was little notice taken in Beijing of the April 1995 announcement of the opening of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre in New Delhi. The Centre serves as the representative office of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and is the counterpart of the India-Taipei Association located in Taiwan. Both institutions share the goal of improving India-ROC relations, which have been strained since New Delhi's recognition of Beijing in 1950.


title: China–India relations

text: China-Indian relations hit a low point in 1998 following India's nuclear tests. Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes declared that "“in my perception of national security, China is enemy No 1...and any person who is concerned about India's security must agree with that fact", hinting that India developed nuclear weapons in defence against China's nuclear arsenal. In 1998, China was one of the strongest international critics of India's nuclear tests and entry into the nuclear club. During the 1999 Kargil War China voiced support for Pakistan, but also counseled Pakistan to withdraw its forces.


title: China–India relations

text: In a major embarrassment for China, the 17th Karmapa, Urgyen Trinley Dorje, who was proclaimed by China, made a dramatic escape from Tibet to the Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim. Chinese officials were in a quandary on this issue as any protest to India on the issue would mean an explicit endorsement on India's governance of Sikkim, which the Chinese still hadn't recognised. In 2003, China officially recognised Indian sovereignty over Sikkim as the two countries moved towards resolving their border disputes.


title: China–India relations

text: In 2004, the two countries proposed opening up the Nathula and Jelepla Passes in Sikkim. 2004 was a milestone in China-Indian bilateral trade, surpassing the US$10  billion mark for the first time. In April 2005, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Bangalore to push for increased China-Indian cooperation in high-tech industries. Wen stated that the 21st century will be "the Asian century of the IT industry." Regarding the issue of India gaining a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, Wen Jiabao initially seemed to support the idea, but had returned to a neutral position.


title: China–India relations

text: In the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit in 2005, China was granted observer status. While other countries in the region are ready to consider China for permanent membership in the SAARC, India seemed reluctant.


title: China–India relations

text: In 2005, China and India signed the 'Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity'. However, there has been very little, if any, strategic convergence between the two countries.


title: China–India relations

text: Issues surrounding energy have risen in significance. Both countries have growing energy demand to support economic growth. Both countries signed an agreement in 2006 to envisage ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to placing joint bids for promising projects.


title: China–India relations

text: In 2006, China and India re-opened the Nathula pass for trading; Nathula had been closed 44 years prior to 2006. The re-opening of border trade helps to ease the economic isolation of the region. In November 2006, China and India had a verbal spat over the claim of the north-east Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. India claimed that China was occupying 38,000 square kilometres of its territory in Kashmir, while China claimed the whole of Arunachal Pradesh as its own.


title: China–India relations

text: In 2007, China denied the application for visa from an Indian Administrative Service officer in Arunachal Pradesh. According to China, since Arunachal Pradesh is a territory of China, he would not need a visa to visit his own country. Later in December 2007, China reversed its policy by granting a visa to Marpe Sora, an Arunachal born professor in computer science.


title: China–India relations

text: In January 2008, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited China to discuss trade, commerce, defence, military, and various other issues.


title: China–India relations

text: Until 2008 the British Government's position remained the same as had been since the Simla Accord of 1913: that China held suzerainty over Tibet but not sovereignty. Britain revised this view on 29 October 2008, when it recognized Chinese sovereignty over Tibet through its website. The Economist stated that although the British Foreign Office's website does not use the word sovereignty, officials at the Foreign Office said "it means that, as far as Britain is concerned, 'Tibet is part of China. Full stop.'" This change in Britain's position affects India's claim to its North Eastern territories which rely on the same Simla Accord that Britain's prior position on Tibet's sovereignty was based upon.


title: China–India relations

text: In October 2009, Asian Development Bank formally acknowledging Arunachal Pradesh as part of India, approved a loan to India for a development project there. Earlier China had exercised pressure on the bank to cease the loan, however India succeeded in securing the loan with the help of the United States and Japan. China expressed displeasure at ADB.


title: China–India relations

text: A public opinion poll of the entire population of China conducted by Pew in spring 2008 shows "views about India are mixed at best – 25% say India is a partner, while a similar number (24%) describe it as an enemy".


title: China–India relations

text: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao paid an official visit to India from 15 to 17 December 2010 at the invitation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He was accompanied by 400 Chinese business leaders, who wished to sign business deals with Indian companies. During this visit Premier Wen Jiabao said "India and China are two very populous countries with ancient civilisations, friendship between the two countries has a time-honoured history, which can be dated back 2,000 years".


title: China–India relations

text: In April 2011, during the BRICS summit in Sanya, Hainan, China the two countries agreed to restore defence co-operation and China had hinted that it may reverse its policy of administering stapled visas to residents of Jammu and Kashmir. This practice was later stopped, and as a result, defence ties were resumed between the two countries and joint military drills were expected.


title: China–India relations

text: In the March 2012 BRICS summit in New Delhi, CCP General Secretary and Chinese President Hu Jintao told Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that "it is China's unswerving policy to develop China-Indian friendship, deepen strategic cooperation and seek common development". Other topics were discussed, including border dispute problems and a unified BRICS central bank. In April 2012, in response to India's test of an Agni-V missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to Beijing, the PRC called for the two countries to "cherish the hard-earned momentum of co-operation".


title: China–India relations

text: The 2013 Depsang standoff lasted for three weeks, before being defused on 5 May 2013. Days before a trip by Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid to China; Khurshid said that both countries had a shared interest in not having the border issue exacerbate or "destroy" long-term progress in relations. The Chinese agreed to withdraw their troops in exchange for an Indian agreement to demolish several "live-in bunkers" 250 km to the south in the disputed Chumar sector. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made his first foreign visit to India on 18 May 2013. Indian President Pranab Mukherjee's visit to Arunachal Pradesh in late November 2013 and mentioning in his speech that the area was an "integral and important part of India" angered Beijing, and retaliatory statements followed.


title: China–India relations

text: Xi Jinping, was one of the top world leaders to visit New Delhi after Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister of India in 2014. India's insistence to raise South China Sea in various multilateral forums subsequently did not help that beginning once again, the relationship facing suspicion from Indian administration and media alike. In September 2014 the relationship took a sting as troops of the People's Liberation Army reportedly entered two kilometres inside the Line of Actual Control in Chumar sector. The next month, V. K. Singh said that China and India had come to a "convergence of views" on the threat of terrorism emanating from Pakistan. According to a 2014 BBC World Service Poll, 23% of Indians view China positively, with 47% expressing a negative view, whereas 27% of Chinese people view India positively, with 35% expressing a negative view. A 2014 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center showed 72% of Indians were concerned that territorial disputes between China and neighbouring countries could lead to a military conflict.China and India have been working together to produce films together, such as "Kung Fu Yoga" starring Jackie Chan. However, disruptions have risen again due to China building trade routes, the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, with Pakistan on disputed Kashmir territory. On 16 June 2017 Chinese troops with construction vehicles and road-building equipment began extending an existing road southward in Doklam, a territory which is claimed by both China as well as India's ally Bhutan. On 18 June 2017, around 270 Indian troops, with weapons and two bulldozers, entered Doklam to stop the Chinese troops from constructing the road. Among other charges, China accused India of illegal intrusion into its territory, across what it called the mutually agreed China-India boundary, and violation of its territorial sovereignty and UN Charter. India accused China of changing the status quo in violation of a 2012 understanding between the two governments regarding the tri-junction boundary points and causing "security concerns", which were widely understood as at its concerns with the strategic Siliguri Corridor. India media reported that on 28 June Bhutan issued a "demarche," demanding China to cease road-building in Doklam and maintain the status quo. The Minister of External Affairs of India Sushma Swaraj said that if China unilaterally changed the status-quo of the tri-junction point between China-India and Bhutan then it posed a challenge to the security of India. China repeatedly said that India's withdrawal was a prerequisite for meaningful dialogue. On 21 July 2017, the Minister of External Affairs of India Sushma Swaraj said that for dialogue, both India and China must withdraw their troops. On 2 August 2017, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China published a document claiming that Indian border forces had illegally crossed the border between China and India and detailed China's position on the matter. The document said that China notified India regarding its plan to construct road in advance "in full reflection of China's goodwill". The Indian Foreign Ministry replied by referring towards their earlier press release on this matter, as opposed to a point-by-point rebuttal. On 28 August 2017, China and India reached a consensus to put an end to the border stand-off. Both of them agreed to disengage from the standoff in Doklam.


title: China–India relations

text: In May 2018, the two countries agreed to coordinate their development programmes in Afghanistan in the areas of health, education and food security. In 2019, India reiterated that it would not join China's Belt and Road Initiative, stating that it cannot accept a project that ignores concerns about its territorial integrity. On 11 October 2019, President Xi Jinping met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu, India for a second informal meeting between India and China. Modi and Xi Jinping met 18 times between 2014 and 2019.


title: China–India relations

text: On 10 May 2020, Chinese and Indian troops clashed in Nathu La, Sikkim, leaving 11 soldiers injured. Following the skirmishes in Sikkim, tensions between the two countries grew in Ladakh with a buildup of troops at multiple locations. There were 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of PLA soldiers killed on the night of 15/16 June. China reinforced troops near the Indian border with Tibet, Chinese state media reported. Bilateral agreements between India and China prevent the use of guns along the line of actual control; however these skirmishes saw the first shots, warning shots, being fired in decades.


title: China–India relations

text: Following the deaths, Prime Minister Modi addressed the nation about the incident, saying that "the sacrifice made by our soldiers will not go in vain", while the Indian foreign minister told the Chinese foreign minister that Chinese actions in Galwan were "pre-meditated". Following the Galwan Valley clash on 15 June 2020, there were renewed calls across India to boycott Chinese goods, however, numerous Indian government officials said that border tensions would have little impact on trade.


title: China–India relations

text: On 29 June 2020, the Indian government banned 59 widely used Chinese mobile phone and desktop applications in response to rising tensions and escalating diplomatic dispute between the two nations. On 19 August, Times of India reported that the ministry of external affairs of India has been told that visas for Chinese businessmen, academics, industry experts, and advocacy groups will need prior security clearance, and the measures are similar to those that have long been employed with Pakistan. On 19 September, India police arrested a freelance journalist for passing sensitive information to Chinese intelligence.


title: China–India relations

text: On 27 October 2020, the United States and India signed the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA), enabling greater information-sharing and further defense cooperation, to counter China's growing military power in the region.


title: China–India relations

text: After 2022 visit by Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India responded, "Like many other countries, India too is concerned at recent developments. We urge the exercise of restraint, avoidance of unilateral actions to change status quo, de-escalation of tensions and efforts to maintain peace and stability in the region." India stopped reiterating the so-called "One China" policy as early as 2010.


title: China–India relations

text: In September 2022, India and China pulled back soldiers from a friction point along line of actual control, however the situation of their de facto border "Still Not Normal". "The Diplomat" has reported that normalcy around the border between the countries seems unlikely and may not develop further.


title: China–India relations

text: The United States and Russia (previously Soviet Union) have been a consistent part of developments in Chinese and Indian relations.


title: China–India relations

text: As a major power, Japan has also been part of China–India relations with initiatives such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Pakistan and China share warm relations that drive Chinese infrastructure projects in the disputed territory of northern Kashmir. The Middle East, Latin America, and Africa are places where both India and China engage and compete. The Middle East is important to both countries in terms of their energy security. In Africa, China and India seem most engaged across a wide variety of issues from development to peacekeeping. In South Asia and South-East Asia, a power balance struggle between China and India is seen in triangular relations.


title: China–India relations

text: Nepal's geostrategic situation during periods of heightened tensions between China and India, such as during the 1962 war, resulted in varying shades of cautionary neutrality when making statements; Nepal's Permanent Representative stated "we do not want to pass judgement on the merits of Sino-Indian border dispute. As a country friendly to both...". Tulsi Giri, then the Nepalese foreign minister stated, "Nepal's relations with India will remain close [...] Yet, Nepal has a 600-mile boundary with China, China has now emerged as a great power. Friendly relations with our northern neighbour (China) should be the natural aim of the country's foreign policy." During the time Tibet was independent, Nepal played the role as an important buffer state and was central to influence between the regions.


title: China–India relations

text: The China-Nepal-India Economic Corridor (CNIEC) was proposed by China in April 2018. It is an extension of the agreed upon China-Nepal Trans-Himalayan Multi-dimensional Connectivity Network into India. While China and Nepal have shown favourable reactions towards CNIEC, India is "indifferent". This indifference is postulated to stem from CNIEC being a part of BRI, China's growing influence over Nepal, and an end to "India's monopoly over Nepal's transit points and Nepal's attempt to end its dependency on India".


title: China–India relations

text: On 28 March 1963, Sudhir Ghosh recorded the President of the United States John F Kennedy's reaction on reading Sri Aurobindo's words, "One great Indian, Nehru, showed you the path of non-alignment between China and America, and another great Indian Aurobindo, showed you another way of survival. The choice is up to the people of India." Earlier in the meeting Ghosh recorded Kennedy's reaction to a letter from Nehru, "He indignantly said that only a few months earlier when Mr Nehru was overwhelmed by the power of Communist China he made desperate appeal to him for air protection, and non-alignment or no non-alignment, the President had to respond. He added sarcastically that Mr Nehru's conversion lasted only a few days."


title: China–India relations

text: Pakistan, and more importantly Myanmar, other that India itself, are potential land routes into the Indian Ocean. Pan Qi, Vice Minister for Communications, wrote in 1985 that China would need to find an outlet for its landlocked provinces. At the time he suggested routes to the Indian Ocean through Myanmar.


title: China–India relations

text: China and India conduct a joint military exercise called 'Exercise Hand–in–Hand'. The exercise began in 2007 with the second edition taking place in 2008. The third, fifth, and seventh editions of Hand-in-Hand were conducted in China in 2013, 2015 and 2018 respectively while the fourth edition and sixth editions were held in India in 2014 and 2016. The eighth edition was held in India in 2019.


title: China–India relations

text: A total of seven rivers that start in Tibet flow through India — Indus, Satlej, Karnali (Ghaghara), Subansiri, Brahmaputra and Lohit (and its tributary Dulai).


title: China–India relations

text: Brahma Chellaney has written that "India's formal recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet constitutes the single biggest security blunder with lasting consequences for Indian territorial and river-water interests".


title: China–India relations

text: India has concern with China's water–diversion, dam–building and inter–river plans. Moreso, in a conflict, India fears that China can use the rivers as leverage. China has already constructed ten dams on the Bhramaputra and its tributaries such as the Zangmu Dam, and there has been talk of China building a mega–dam at the "great bend" called the Motuo Dam. India's concerns also stem from the fact that China does not cooperate with regard to timely sharing of information related to projects which would impact water sharing; nor does China allow Indian experts to visit dam sites. There are a number of MOUs on hydrological data sharing between the two countries with regard to the Brahmaputra including emergency management.


title: China–India relations

text: An alternate view is also presented in relation to "misinformation spread by some (Indian) newspapers" and the waters of Brahmaputra — "80 per cent of the waters of the Brahmaputra emanate from the north side of the Himalayas in China and that that country cannot be the sole arbiter of its international waters. This is not right. Eighty per cent of the waters of the mighty Brahmaputra are picked up after it enters India" and that Chinese activities have helped India by reducing annual flood intensity in the north-east.


title: China–India relations

text: India-China economic relations have been institutionalized through the Joint Economic Group and Business Council, as well as more focused efforts such as the "Agreement on the Avoidance of Double Taxation".


title: China–India relations

text: China and India have developed their own complementary skills following a period in which they had cut themselves off from each other. By 2007, while China excelled at cost-effective manufacturing, India was skilled in cost effective designing and development. In 2007 Tarun Khanna wrote in Harvard Business Review that "The simplest, and most powerful, way of combining China and India is to focus on hardware in China and on software in India." In the 2009 book "Getting China and India Right", the authors suggest a China plus India strategy so as to strategically benefit from both India's and China's scale, complementary strengths, and reducing the risk of being unilaterally present.


title: China–India relations

text: There are cases when Indian companies have gone to China and done well, such as Mahindra and Mahindra, while Chinese companies such as Huawei have done well in India. Huawei set up its Indian unit in 1999 and by 2007 had 1500 engineers. Huawei's Bangalore unit, already one of Huawei's most important research and development centres, was Capability Maturity Model Level 5 certified in 2003.


title: China–India relations

text: In the oil sector there is competition and engagement — China's Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corporation and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation fight over oil assets in some regions while winning bids as joint ventures in others such as Syria, Colombia, Angola and Venezuela.


title: China–India relations

text: India imported $65.3 billion worth of good from China in the fiscal year ended March 2020, and exported $16.6 billion, according the commerce ministry.


title: China–India relations

text: In June 2012, China stated its position that "Sino-Indian ties" could be the most "important bilateral partnership of the century". That month Wen Jiabao, the Premier of China and Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India set a goal to increase bilateral trade between the two countries to US$100 billion by 2015.


title: China–India relations

text: Bilateral trade between China and India touched US$89.6 billion in 2017–18, with the trade deficit widening to US$62.9 billion in China's favour. In 2017, the volume of bilateral trade between India & China stands at US$84.5 billion. This figure excludes bilateral trade between India and Hong Kong which stands at another US$34 billion.


title: China–India relations

text: Chinese imports from India amounted to $16.4 billion or 0.8% of its overall imports, and 4.2% of India's overall exports in 2014. Major commodities exported from India to China were: cotton; gems, precious metals, coins; copper; ores, slag, ash; organic chemicals; salt, sulphur, stone, cement; machines, engines, pumps.


title: China–India relations

text: Chinese exports to India amounted to $58.4 billion or 2.3% of its overall exports, and 12.6% of India's overall imports in 2014. Major commodities exported from China to India were: electronic equipment; machines, engines, pumps; organic chemicals; fertilizers; iron and steel; pastics; iron or steel products; gems, precious metals, coins; ships, boats; medical, technical equipment.


title: China–India relations

text: In 2018, a Standing Committee on Commerce chaired by Naresh Gujral submitted a report on the 'Impact of Chinese Goods on Indian Industry'. The report pointed out insufficient implementation of anti-dumping laws, reliance on Chinese raw materials in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, reliance on Chinese imports in India's National Solar Mission, Goods and Services Tax on certain products resulting in increased imports from China, and Indian smart city administrations preferring Chinese bicycles over Indian ones. According to a survey published in ThePrint 43% Indians did not buy ‘Made in China’ products since Galwan clash last year.


title: Elections in India

text: India has a parliamentary system as defined by its constitution, with power distributed between the central government and the states.


title: Elections in India

text: The President of India is the ceremonial head of state of the country and supreme commander-in-chief for all defence forces in India.


title: Elections in India

text: However, it is the Prime Minister of India, who is the leader of the party or political alliance having a majority in the national elections to the Lok Sabha. The Prime Minister is the leader of the executive branch of the Government of India. The Prime Minister is the chief adviser to the President of India and the head of the Union Council of Ministers.


title: Elections in India

text: India is regionally divided into States (and Union Territories) and each State has a Governor who is the state's head, but the executive authority rests with the Chief Minister who is the leader of the party or political alliance that has won a majority in the regional elections otherwise known as State Assembly Elections that exercises executive powers in that State. The respective State's Chief Minister has executive powers within the State and works jointly with the Prime Minister of India or their ministers on matters that require both State and Central attention. Some Union Territories also elect an Assembly and have a territorial government and other (mainly smaller) Union Territories are governed by a person appointed by the President of India.


title: Elections in India

text: The President of India monitors the rule of law through their appointed governors in each State and on their recommendation can take over the executive powers from the Chief Minister of the State, temporarily when the elected representatives of the State government has failed to create a peaceful environment and has deteriorated into chaos. The President of India dissolves the existing State government if necessary, and a new election is conducted.


title: Elections in India

text: Election Commission is the federal body of India which is enacted under the provisions of the Constitution, responsible for monitoring and administering all the electoral processes of India. This body is responsible for ensuring elections are free and fair, without any bias.


title: Elections in India

text: Election ensures the conduct of members pre-elections, during elections, and post-elections are as per the statutory legislation.


title: Elections in India

text: All election-related disputes are handled by the Election Commission. The Supreme Court of India has held that where the enacted laws are silent or make insufficient provisions to deal with a given situation in the conduct of elections, the Election Commission has the residuary powers under the Constitution to act as appropriate.The first election Commissioner was Sukumar Sen


title: Elections in India

text: Members of Lok Sabha (House of the People) or the lower house of India's Parliament are elected by being voted upon by all adult citizens of India, from a set of candidates who stand in their respective constituencies. Every adult citizen of India can vote only in their constituency. Candidates who win the Lok Sabha elections are called 'Member of Parliament' and hold their seats for five years or until the body is dissolved by the President on the advice of the council of ministers. The house meets in the Lok Sabha Chambers of the Sansad Bhavan in New Delhi, on matters relating to the creation of new laws, removing or improving the existing laws that affect all citizens of India. Elections take place once in 5 years to elect 543 members for the Lok Sabha (Lower house).


title: Elections in India

text: When an elected candidate to either the State Assembly or Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha leaves the office vacant before their term ends, a by-election is conducted to find a suitable replacement to fill the vacant position. It is often referred to in India as Bypolls.


title: Elections in India

text: But other reasons occur when the incumbent becomes ineligible to continue in office (criminal conviction, or failure to maintain a minimum attendance in the office or due to election irregularities found later. Also, when a candidate has won more than one seat, they have to vacate one).


title: Elections in India

text: The Rajya Sabha, also known as the Council of States, is the upper house of India's Parliament. Candidates are not elected directly by the citizens, but by the Members of Legislative Assemblies and up to 12 can be nominated by the President of India for their contributions to art, literature, science, and social services. Members of the Parliament in Rajya Sabha get a tenure of six years, with one-third of the body facing re-election every two years. Rajya Sabha acts as a second-level review body before a bill becomes an act.


title: Elections in India

text: The Vice President of India is the "ex-officio" Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, who presides over its sessions.


title: Elections in India

text: The Legislative proposals (making new laws, removing or appending new conditions to the existing law) are brought before either house of the Parliament in the form of a bill. A bill is the draft of a legislative proposal, which, when passed by both houses of Parliament (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) and assented to by the President, becomes an Act of Parliament.


title: Elections in India

text: The Constitution of India, however, places some restrictions on the Rajya Sabha which makes the Lok Sabha more powerful in certain areas. For example, it stipulates that Money bills must originate in the Lok Sabha.


title: Elections in India

text: Members of Rajya Sabha debate bills sent by the Lok Sabha and can approve, reject or send the bill back to the Lok Sabha for further debate and discussion on the matter, as well as to suggest better changes in the drafted bill. Members of Rajya Sabha can only make recommendations to the Lok Sabha for money bills within 14 days. Even if Rajya Sabha fails to return the money bill in 14 days to the Lok Sabha, that bill is deemed to have passed by both the Houses. Also, if the Lok Sabha rejects any (or all) of the amendments proposed by the Rajya Sabha, the bill is deemed to have been passed by both Houses of Parliament of India in the form of the Lok Sabha finally passes it.


title: Elections in India

text: Candidates are required to file their nomination papers with the Electoral Commission. Then, a list of candidates is published. No party is allowed to use government resources for campaigning. No party is allowed to bribe the candidates before elections. The government cannot start a project during the election period. Campaigning ends by 6:00 pm two days before the polling day.


title: Elections in India

text: The polling is held between 7:00 am and 6:00 pm. The Collector of each district is in charge of polling. Government employees are employed as poll officers at the polling stations. Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) are being used instead of ballot boxes to prevent election fraud. After the citizen votes his or her left index finger is marked with indelible ink. This practice was instituted in 1962.


title: Elections in India

text: Research into indelible ink was commenced by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). In the 1950s, M. L. Goel worked on this research at the Chemical Division of the National Physical Laboratory of India. The ink used contains silver nitrate, which makes it photo-sensitive. It is stored in amber-colored plastic or brown-colored glass bottles. On application, the ink remains on the fingernail for at least two days. It may last up to a month depending upon the person's body temperature and the environment.


title: Elections in India

text: BHAVIK (EVM) were first used in the 1997 election and became the only method of voting in 2004. The EVMs save time in reporting results. A voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) was introduced on 14 August 2014 in Nagaland. In the 2014 general election, VVPAT was operational in 8 constituencies (Lucknow, Gandhinagar, Bangalore South, Chennai Central, Jadavpur, Raipur, Patna Sahib and Mizoram) as a pilot project. A slip generated by the VVPAT tells a voter to which party or candidate their vote has been given, their name, their constituency and their polling booth.


title: Elections in India

text: Opposition parties demanded that VVPAT be made mandatory all over India due to allegations on the government of hacking the EVM. Accordingly, Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) and EVMs were used in every assembly and the general election in India since 2019. On 9 April 2019, Supreme Court of India gave the judgement, ordering the Election Commission of India to increase VVPAT slips vote count to five randomly selected EVMs per assembly constituency, which means Election Commission of India has to count VVPAT slips of 20,625 EVMs in 2019 General elections. VVPAT enables voters to cross-check whether the vote they have given goes to their desired candidate as the VVPAT unit produces a paper slip, additionally called ballot slip, that contains the name, serial number, and image of the candidate selected by the voter for his vote. Post the 2019 general election, ECI declared that no mismatches between EVM and VVPAT.


title: Elections in India

text: On 27 September 2013, the Supreme Court of India judged that citizens have the right to a negative vote by exercising a "None of the above" (NOTA) option. This was the result of petitioning from the Electoral Commission and the People's Union for Civil Liberties from 2009. In November 2013, NOTA was introduced in five state elections. If majority voting is for NOTA, the region comes under the presidential jurisdiction and is treated with laws similar to a national territory.


title: Elections in India

text: India does not provide general absentee voting. On 24 November 2010, the Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill 2010 was gazetted to give voting rights to non-resident Indians but a physical presence at the voting booth is still required.


title: Elections in India

text: Postal voting in India is done only through the "Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot Papers (ETPB)" system of Election Commission of India, where ballot papers are distributed to the registered eligible voters and they return the votes by post. When the counting of votes commences, these postal votes are counted before those from the Electronic Voting Machines. Only certain categories of people are eligible to register as postal voters. People working in the Union armed forces and state police as well as their spouses, and employees working for the Government of India who are officially posted abroad can register for the postal vote, these are also called the "Service voters". Additionally, people in preventive detention, disabled and those above the age of 80 years old can use postal vote. Prisoners can not vote at all.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: Jugjugg Jeeyo () is a 2022 Indian Hindi-language family comedy-drama film directed by Raj Mehta and produced by Dharma Productions and Viacom18 Studios. The film stars Neetu Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Varun Dhawan, Kiara Advani, Manish Paul and debutante Prajakta Koli.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: "Jugjugg Jeeyo" was released on 24 June 2022 to mixed-to-positive reviews from critics. Upon release, it was a commercial success and became one of the highest-grossing Hindi films of 2022 with a worldwide gross of 135 crore.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: Kuldeep "Kukoo" Saini and Nainaa Sharma marry each other, having loved each other ever since they had gone to school together. The couple relocate to Toronto, Canada for Nainaa's job in a corporate company while Kukoo is employed as a bouncer in a nightclub. Within five years, the couple's marital life gets strained due to prolonged silences, unfinished conversations and resentful hearts while Nainaa is offered a new position as the vice-president of HR at New York City and Kukoo is frustrated with his job. On their wedding anniversary, Nainaa and Kukoo confess to each other about their stressed marital life and plan to divorce each other once Kukoo's sister Ginny is married. They fly to India for attending Ginny's wedding with Balwinder in their hometown Patiala, Punjab and are received by Kukoo's happy parents Bheem and Geeta and Ginny. Nainaa and Kukoo pretend to be happy, unwilling to disturb the vibes of Ginny's marriage while Ginny has conflicted feelings for her former boyfriend, Gaurav instead of Balwinder.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: As Nainaa's boss urges her to decide soon about her promotion, she insists Kukoo to reveal about their divorce plan to his parents. Kukoo parties with his father Bheem and tries to tell him about his plans to get separated from Nainaa but rather perceives that Bheem intends to divorce Geeta after Ginny's wedding. Puzzled, Kukoo attempts to confront Bheem and is informed of the latter's extra-marital affair with Kukoo's mathematics teacher in 12th grade: Meera. Meanwhile, Nainaa becomes frustrated when the women of house arrange for a small prayer for her to bear children and angrily discloses about her plans to get separated from Kukoo to her mother and Geeta. Next morning, a shocked Geeta confronts Kukoo and Nainaa and tries convincing them to sort their problems out. Frustrated when Bheem tries to do the same as Geeta, Kukoo reveals about Bheem's affair with Meera to Geeta and Nainaa shattering the former while Bheem fakes a heart stroke to earn sympathy and requests the doctor, their family friend to play along with his act.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: Meanwhile, Geeta plans to unite Bheem and Meera after Ginny's wedding and informs them, Nainaa and Kukoo of the same at a temple much to everyone's despair. Due to Geeta's act, Kukoo picks up an argument with her and Nainaa at home, leaves the house and drinks with Gurpreet, his best friend, confidant and Nainaa's elder brother. At night, Bheem leaves the house to live with Meera but the latter doesn't wish to be with him as she feels that she could never be like Geeta. When Kukoo meets Bheem on the road, the latter fakes an act telling Kukoo that he left Meera for good and realized that Geeta is his better half. Convinced of his act, Geeta forgives Bheem while Ginny, who is unbeknownst of all the drama taking place at her home, arranges for her parents to renew their wedding vows on the occassion of their wedding anniversary. On the day of Geeta and Bheem's re-wedding, Kukoo and Gurpreet call Meera to mock her as Bheem "kicked her out" in favour of Geeta but realize that it was Meera who rejected Bheem. Infuriated by his father, Kukoo discloses it all at the very same time publicly and insults Bheem, for which Geeta slaps Kukoo but ultimately decides to file for a divorce.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: Having learnt of Kukoo and Nainaa's plans of divorce and her parents' conflict, Ginny bursts out about her insecurity in getting married to Balwinder as she still loves someone else while she was all along ready to marry Balwinder as Geeta had once told her that everything would be right after marriage whereas it did not work out for both the couples: Nainaa-Kukoo and Bheem-Geeta. The divorce proceedings begin for both the couples. While Bheem and Geeta are given six months by the court to reconsider, Kukoo refuses to accept for divorce, apologizes Nainaa for not being part of her success all along and being jealous of it instead. They reconcile and set to leave for New York City while Bheem plans to reconcile with Geeta within these six months, having realized his selfishness and also thinks of getting Ginny married to Gaurav.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: Principal photography commenced on 16 November 2020 in Chandigarh. The shooting wrapped up in November 2021.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: "Jugjugg Jeeyo" was released in theatres on 24 June 2022 in 3,375 screens with 11,384 shows per day. It premiered digitally on 22 July 2022 on Amazon Prime Video.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: On 21 June 2022, Vishal Singh, a writer from Ranchi, India, accused Karan Johar of plagiarizing the plot for "Jugjugg Jeeyo". Singh claimed the story was copied from his story "Punny Rani", demanding Rs. 1.5 crores in compensation. As of 23 June 2022, the matter was before a local court.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: The music of the film is composed by Tanishk Bagchi, Kanishk Seth - Kavita Seth, Diesby, Pozy and Vishal Shelke with lyrics written by Tanishk Bagchi, Kumaar, Abrar-ul-Haq, Diesby, Shamsher Sandhu, Ginny Diwan, Dhruv Yogi and Ghulam Mohd. Khavar.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: The first song, titled "The Punjaabban Song", was recreated by Tanishk Bagchi from the 2002 Pakistani music album "Nach Punjaban" by Abrar-ul-Haq.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: The second song, "Rangisari", is a re-release of the song "Rangi Saari" by Kavita Seth - Kanishk Seth, recreated from the


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: The third song, "Duppata", was a recreated version of the 1994 hit Punjabi song "Dupatta Tera Satrang Da", composed by Atul Sharma, written by Shamsher Sandhu and sung by Surjit Bindrakhia. The remix version is sung by Diesby, Chapter 6 and Shreya Sharma, with Diesby writing and composing the remix.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: The fourth song, "Nain Ta Heere", is an original romantic number sung by Guru Randhawa and Asees Kaur with lyrics by Ghulam Mohd. Khavar translated by Kumaar. The song marks composer Vishal Shelke's debut, and replaced a song "Ik Mulaqaat" originally composed and written by Mithoon, which would have marked the composer's first collaboration with Dharma Productions. A version of the song, released only as Instagram reel audio, was sung by Advani.


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: "Jugjugg Jeeyo" received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hungama" rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and wrote ""Jugjugg Jeeyo" balances drama, humour and emotions seamlessly". Ronek Kotecha of "The Times Of India" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Just like its characters, "Jugjugg Jeeyo" too has its flaws but at the end of the day, it’s all in the family and this is just the kind of wholesome family entertainer". Tushar Joshi of "India Today" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote ""JugJugg Jeeyo"’s biggest strength lies in the fact that it is able to showcase the strength of its entire star cast in the best way possible". Zinia Bandyopadhyay of "News 18" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote ""Jugjugg Jeeyo" will make you laugh, cry and join the characters on the emotional roller coaster". Himesh Mankad of "Pinkvilla" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote ""Jug Jugg Jeeyo" marries comedy with drama and emotions and is a full on package that will entertain the audience". Sukanya Verna of "Rediff" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote ""JugJugg Jeeyo" is a David Dhawan comedy, not directed by David Dhawan".


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: Tina Das of "The Print" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "Comedy is often not a great tool to discuss tense topics, but Anil Kapoor and Neetu Singh's "Jugg Jugg Jeeyo" passes the test". Shubhra Gupta of "The Indian Express" rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote ""JugJugg Jeeyo" feels like a set-up for a modern-day dive into post-marriage shenanigans". Saibal Chatterjee of "NDTV" rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "Neetu Kapoor strides through the film with striking poise. Full marks to Varun and Kiara for trying to keep up with Anil Kapoor". Anna M. M. Vetticad of "Firstpost" rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote ""Jugjugg Jeeyo"'s apologetic feminism aims to cater to both feminists and conservatives. As a consequence, it is neither here nor there and may as well be nowhere." Monika Rawal Kukreja of "The Hindustan Times" stated "Varun Dhawan, Kira Advani, Anil Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor bring a fun family drama to life". Anuj Kumar of "The Hindu" stated "Director Raj Mehta’s family drama can evoke a few hearty laughs and some animated dinner table discussions, but the movie ends up only scratching the proverbial surface of male entitlement and chauvinism".


title: Jugjugg Jeeyo

text: It earned 9.28 crores at the domestic box office on its opening day. On the second day, the film collected 10.55 crore. On the third day, the film collected 12.10 crore, taking a total domestic opening weekend of 28.93 crore.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman (born 19 October 1946) is an English writer. His books include the fantasy trilogy "His Dark Materials" and "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ", a fictionalised biography of Jesus. In 2008, "The Times" named Pullman one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945". In a 2004 BBC poll, he was named the eleventh most influential person in British culture. He was knighted in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to literature.


title: Philip Pullman

text: "Northern Lights", the first volume in "His Dark Materials", won the 1995 Carnegie Medal of the Library Association as the year's outstanding English-language children's book. For the 70th anniversary it was named in the top ten by a panel composing the public election for an all-time favourite. It won the public vote from the shortlist and was named all-time "Carnegie of Carnegies" in June 2007. It was filmed under the book's US title, "The Golden Compass". In 2003, "His Dark Materials" trilogy ranked third in the BBC's The Big Read, a poll of 200 top novels voted by the British public.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Philip Pullman was born in Norwich, England, the son of Audrey Evelyn Pullman (née Merrifield) and Royal Air Force pilot Alfred Outram Pullman. The family travelled with his father's job, including to Southern Rhodesia, though most of his formative years were spent in Llanbedr in Ardudwy, Wales.


title: Philip Pullman

text: When Pullman was seven, his father, an RAF pilot, was killed in a plane crash in 1954 in Kenya, being posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC). In an exchange with a journalist in 2008, Pullman said that, as a boy, he saw his father as "a hero, steeped in glamour, killed in action defending his country", and who had been "training pilots". Pullman was then presented with a report from "The London Gazette" of 1954 "which carried the official RAF news of the day [and] said that the medal was given for 'gallant and distinguished service' during the Mau Mau uprising. 'The main task of the Harvards [the aircraft flown by his father's unit] had been bombing and machine-gunning Mau Mau and their hideouts in densely wooded and difficult country.' This included 'diving steeply into the gorges of [various] rivers, often in conditions of low cloud and driving rain.' Testing conditions, yes, but not much opposition from the enemy, the journalist in the exchange continued. Very few of the Mau Mau had guns that could land a blow on an aircraft."


title: Philip Pullman

text: Responding to that new information, Pullman wrote: "My father probably doesn't come out of this with very much credit, judged by the standards of modern liberal progressive thought", and he accepted the revelation as "a serious challenge to his childhood memory." In the 2017 BBC series documentary "Imagine", Pullman said that he has since become aware that his father could have crashed his plane deliberately, saying "There was something odd about the crash ... he just took his plane up and flew into the side of a hill", citing rumours of his father having debt troubles and a problematic love affair. His mother remarried the following year and, following a move to North Wales, Pullman discovered comic books, including "Superman" and "Batman", a medium which he continues to enjoy.


title: Philip Pullman

text: In his early years, Pullman attended Taverham Hall School and Eaton House and, from 1957, he was educated at Ysgol Ardudwy in Harlech, Gwynedd, spending time in Norfolk with his grandfather, a clergyman. Around that time, Pullman discovered John Milton's "Paradise Lost", which would become a major influence for "His Dark Materials".


title: Philip Pullman

text: From 1965, Pullman attended Exeter College, Oxford, receiving a Third-class BA in 1968. In an interview with the "Oxford Student", he noted that he "did not really enjoy the English course", and that "I thought I was doing quite well until I came out with my third class degree and then I realised that I wasn't – it was the year they stopped giving fourth class degrees otherwise I'd have got one of those". He discovered William Blake's illustrations around 1970, which would also influence him greatly.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Pullman married Judith Speller in 1970, they went on to have two sons together. At the time of his marriage he began teaching children aged 9 to 13 at Bishop Kirk Middle School in Summertown, North Oxford, as well as writing school plays.


title: Philip Pullman

text: His first published work was "The Haunted Storm", which was joint-winner of the New English Library's Young Writer's Award in 1972, but which he refuses to discuss. "Galatea", an adult fantasy-fiction novel, followed in 1978, but it was his school plays which inspired his first children's book, "Count Karlstein", in 1982. He stopped teaching shortly after the publication of his second children's book, "The Ruby in the Smoke" (1986), which has a Victorian setting.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Between 1988 and 1996, Pullman taught part-time at Westminster College, Oxford, continuing to write children's stories. He began "His Dark Materials" in about 1993. The first book, "Northern Lights", was published in 1995 (entitled "The Golden Compass" in the U.S., 1996). Pullman won both the annual Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a similar award that authors may not win twice.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Pullman has been writing full-time since 1996. He continues to deliver talks and writes occasionally for "The Guardian", including writing and lecturing about education, in which he is often critical of unimaginative education policies. He was awarded a CBE in the New Year's Honours list in 2004. He also co-judged the Christopher Tower Poetry Prize (awarded by Oxford University) in 2005 with Gillian Clarke. In 2004, he was elected President of the Blake Society. In 2004 Pullman also guest-edited "The Mays Anthology", a collection of new writing from students at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.


title: Philip Pullman

text: In 2005, Pullman won the annual Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council, recognising his career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense". According to the presentation, "Pullman radically injects new life into fantasy by introducing a variety of alternative worlds and by allowing good and evil to become ambiguous." In every genre, "he combines storytelling and psychological insight of the highest order."


title: Philip Pullman

text: In 2006, he was one of five finalists for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Medal, and he was the British nominee again in 2012.


title: Philip Pullman

text: In 2008, he started working on "The Book of Dust", a companion trilogy to his "His Dark Materials", and "The Adventures of John Blake", a story for the British children's comic "The DFC", with artist John Aggs.


title: Philip Pullman

text: On 23 November 2007, Pullman was made an honorary professor at Bangor University. In June 2008, he became a fellow supporting the MA in creative writing at Oxford Brookes University. In September 2008, he hosted "The Writer's Table" for Waterstone's bookshop chain, highlighting 40 books which have influenced his career. In October 2009, he became a patron of the Palestine Festival of Literature. He is also a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres


title: Philip Pullman

text: On 24 June 2009, Pullman was awarded the degree of D.Litt. (Doctor of Letters), "honoris causa", by the University of Oxford at the Encænia ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre.


title: Philip Pullman

text: In 2012, during a break from writing "The Book of Dust", Pullman was asked by Penguin Classics to curate 50 of Grimms' classic fairytales, from their compendium of over 200 stories. "They are not all of the same quality", said Pullman. "Some are easily much better than others. And some are obvious classics. You can't do a selected Grimms' without Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella and so on."


title: Philip Pullman

text: In 2013, Pullman was elected President of the Society of Authors – the "ultimate honour" awarded by the British writers' body, and a position first held by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.


title: Philip Pullman

text: On 19 October 2017, the first volume of "The Book of Dust" was published by Penguin Random House Children's and David Fickling in the UK and by Random House Children's in the US. The second title in "The Book of Dust", "The Secret Commonwealth", published in October 2019, includes a character named after Nur Huda el-Wahabi, a 16-year-old victim of London's Grenfell Tower fire. As part of the charity auction Authors for Grenfell Tower, Pullman offered the highest bidder a chance to name a character in the upcoming trilogy. Ultimately, he raised £32,400.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Pullman was named a Knight Bachelor in the 2019 New Year's Honours list. In March 2019, the charity Action for Children's Art presented Pullman with their annual J. M. Barrie Award to mark a "lifetime's achievement in delighting children".


title: Philip Pullman

text: A lifelong fan of Norwich City F.C., Pullman penned the foreword to the club's official history, published in 2020.


title: Philip Pullman

text: "His Dark Materials" is a trilogy consisting of "Northern Lights" (titled "The Golden Compass" in North America), "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber Spyglass". "Northern Lights" won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in the UK in 1995. "The Amber Spyglass" was awarded both 2001 Whitbread Prize for best children's book and the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in January 2002, the first children's book to receive that award. The series won popular acclaim in late 2003, taking third place in the BBC's Big Read poll. Pullman has written two companion pieces to the trilogy, "Lyra's Oxford" and "Once Upon a Time in the North". He refers to a third, which will expand his character Will Parry, as the "green book".


title: Philip Pullman

text: Another trilogy, "The Book of Dust", includes characters and events from the "His Dark Materials". Pullman has said that the new series is neither sequel, nor prequel, but an "equel". The first book, "La Belle Sauvage", was published in October 2017 and the second book, "The Secret Commonwealth", in October 2019.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Pullman has narrated unabridged audiobooks of the three novels in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy; the other parts are read by actors, including Jo Wyatt, Steven Webb, Peter England, Stephen Thorne and Douglas Blackwell.


title: Philip Pullman

text: In a discussion on fantasy as escapism, Pullman admitted he never reads fantasy as "it's not satisfying". He then went on to argue that he sees "His Dark Materials" as "stark realism", not fantasy.


title: Philip Pullman

text: In a lecture at the Sea of Faith conference, Pullman said that "the writers we call the greatest of all - Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Proust, George Eliot herself, are those who have created the most lifelike simulacra of real human beings in real human situations. In fact the more profound and powerful the imagination, the closer to reality are the forms it dreams up." He said he wanted to write fantasy realistically, or write fantastic characters with psychological depth: "Because when I thought about it, there was no reason why fantasy shouldn't be realistic, in a psychological sense - and it was the lack of that sort of realism that I objected to in the work of the big Tolkien and all the little Tolkiens." He says David Lindsay's "A Voyage to Arcturus" "shows that fantasy is capable of saying big and important things." He concludes that fantasy is "a great vehicle when it serves the purposes of realism, and a lot of old cobblers when it doesn't." He has praised fantasy authors like Alan Garner and Neil Gaiman.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Pullman believes that children deserve quality literature, and that there isn't a clear demarcation between children's and adult literature. In a talk at the Royal Society of Literature, he quoted C. S. Lewis in “On Three Ways of Writing for Children”: “I now like hock, which I am sure I should not have liked as a child. But I still like lemon-squash. I call this growth or development because I have been enriched: where I formerly had only one pleasure, I now have two.” He says that "It would be nice to think that normal human curiosity would let us open our minds to experience from every quarter, to listen to every storyteller in the marketplace. It would be nice too, occasionally, to read a review of an adult book that said, 'This book is so interesting, and so clearly and beautifully written, that children would enjoy it as well.'" He is an admirer of Philippa Pearce; when Pullman's "Northern Lights" won the Carnegie of Carnegies, Pearce's "Tom's Midnight Garden" was the runner-up. Pullman said "Personally, I feel they got the initials right but not the name. I don't know if the result would be the same in a hundred years' time; maybe Philippa Pearce would win then." In 2011, Pullman gave the Philippa Pearce lecture. He is also an admirer of Leon Garfield, "someone who put the best of his imagination into everything he wrote", particularly praising "The Pleasure Garden".


title: Philip Pullman

text: In 2002, to coincide with the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, Pullman was interviewed for a feature in "The Guardian" on notable republicans. According to Pullman, "The present system is unsustainable, because it is cruel. No individual and no family should be subject to the pressures of publicity and expectation that have beset the Windsors." Expressing sympathy for the young Prince William, Pullman added, "we can't have a quiet, sensible, unobtrusive sort of monarchy because of the mistakes the Windsors have made, and because of the disgusting and unredeemable nature of the tabloid press; so we shall have to have a republic. The one thing to avoid is a political president. Let's have a well-respected figure from some other walk of life, and leave politics to the prime minister and parliament." In 2010, "The Atlantic" described Pullman's Jesus in "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ" as "a proper republican in the Pullman sense of the word: instinctively fraternal and anti-institutional, spreading his rough-and-ready enlightenments across the horizontal axis."


title: Philip Pullman

text: In 2008, Pullman led a campaign against the introduction of age bands on the covers of children's books, saying: "It's based on a one-dimensional view of growth, which regards growing older as moving along a line like a monkey climbing a stick: now you're seven, so you read these books; and now you're nine so you read these." More than 1,200 authors, booksellers, illustrators, librarians and teachers joined the campaign; Pullman's own publisher, Scholastic, agreed to his request not to put the age bands on his book covers. Joel Rickett, deputy editor of "The Bookseller", said: "The steps taken by Mr Pullman and other authors have taken the industry by surprise and I think these proposals are now in the balance."


title: Philip Pullman

text: In 2014, Pullman supported the Let Books Be Books campaign to stop children's books being labelled as "for girls" or "for boys", saying: "I'm against anything, from age-ranging to pinking and blueing, whose effect is to shut the door in the face of children who might enjoy coming in. No publisher should announce on the cover of any book the sort of readers the book would prefer. Let the readers decide for themselves."


title: Philip Pullman

text: Pullman has a strong commitment to traditional British civil liberties and is noted for his criticism of growing state authority and government encroachment into everyday life. In February 2009, he was the keynote speaker at the Convention on Modern Liberty in London and wrote an extended piece in "The Times" condemning the Labour government for its attacks on basic civil rights. Later, he and other authors threatened to stop visiting schools in protest at new laws requiring them to be vetted to work with youngsters—though officials claimed that the laws had been misinterpreted.


title: Philip Pullman

text: In July 2011, Pullman was one of the lead campaigners signing a declaration that called for a 1,000-strong "public jury", selected at random, to draw up a "public interest first" test to ensure that power was taken away from "remote interest groups". The declaration was also signed by 56 academics, writers, trade unionists and politicians from the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party.


title: Philip Pullman

text: In October 2011, Pullman backed a campaign to stop 600 library closures in England, calling it a "war against stupidity". London Borough of Brent claimed that it was closing half of its libraries to fulfil its "exciting plans" to improve its library service. Pullman said: "All the time, you see, the council had been longing to improve the library service, and the only thing standing in the way was – the libraries."


title: Philip Pullman

text: Speaking at a conference organised by The Library Campaign and Voices for the Library, he added: The book is second only to the wheel as the best piece of technology human beings have ever invented. A book symbolises the whole intellectual history of mankind; it's the greatest weapon ever devised in the war against stupidity. Beware of anyone who tries to make books harder to get at. And that is exactly what these closures are going to do – oh, not intentionally, except in a few cases; very few people are stupid intentionally; but that will be the effect. Books will be harder to get at. Stupidity will gain a little ground.


title: Philip Pullman

text: In advance of becoming president of the Society of Authors in August 2013, Pullman led a call for authors to be fairly paid for ebook library loans. Under arrangements in force at the time, authors were paid 6p per library loan by the government for physical books, but nothing for ebook loans. In addition, the Society found that publishers had possibly been inadvertently underpaying authors for ebook loans. Altogether, this may have resulted in authors losing up to two-thirds of the income they would have received on the sale and loan of a physical book. Addressing this issue, Pullman said: New media and new forms of buying and lending are all very interesting, for all kinds of reasons, but one principle remains unchanged: authors must be paid fairly for their work. Any arrangement that doesn't acknowledge that principle is a bad one, and needs to be changed. That is our whole argument.


title: Philip Pullman

text: As a long-time enthusiast of William Blake, and president of the Blake Society, Pullman led a campaign in 2014 to buy the Sussex cottage where the poet lived between 1800 and 1803, saying: Surely it isn't beyond the resources of a nation that can spend enormous amounts of money on acts of folly and unnecessary warfare, a nation that likes to boast about its literary heritage, to find the money to pay for a proper memorial and a centre for the study of this great poet and artist. Not least because this is the place where he wrote the words now often sung as an alternative (and better) national anthem, the poem known as Jerusalem: "And did those feet in ancient time". Blake's feet walked in Felpham. Let's not let this opportunity pass by.


title: Philip Pullman

text: As president of the Blake Society, on 11 August 2018, Pullman inaugurated Blake's new memorial gravestone on the site of his grave in Bunhill Fields, following a long campaign by the society.


title: Philip Pullman

text: In January 2016, Pullman resigned as patron of the Oxford Literary Festival after five years, saying that its continued refusal to pay authors fees for appearing as guest speakers at the event placed him in an "awkward position" because it conflicted with his presidency of the Society of Authors, which campaigns for authors to be paid for appearing at book festivals. He made the announcement on Twitter, saying that he had made lengthy attempts to persuade the Festival to pay authors, "but they won't. Time to go". Reporting Pullman's decision, UK daily newspaper "The Independent" noted: "The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society found in 2014 that the average earnings of a professional full-time author is just £11,000."


title: Philip Pullman

text: In January 2020, Pullman called for literate people to boycott the newly minted Brexit 50p coin due to the omission of the Oxford comma in its slogan "Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations". The viewpoint was supported by some, while lexicographer Susie Dent indicated it was optional and Baroness Bakewell said she had been "taught that it was wrong to use the comma in such circumstances".


title: Philip Pullman

text: Although Pullman has stated he is "a Church of England atheist, and a 1662 Book of Common Prayer atheist, because that's the tradition I was brought up in", he has also said he is technically an agnostic. He has singled out elements of Christianity for criticism: "if there is a God, and he is as the Christians describe him, then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against." He has also acknowledged that the same could be said of all religions.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Pullman has also referred to himself as knowingly "of the Devil's party", a reference to William Blake's revisionist view of Milton in "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell".


title: Philip Pullman

text: Pullman is a supporter of Humanists UK and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. In 2011, he was given a services to Humanism award by the British Humanist Association for his contribution as a longstanding supporter.


title: Philip Pullman

text: On 15 September 2010, Pullman, along with 54 other public figures (including Stephen Fry, Professor Richard Dawkins, Terry Pratchett, Jonathan Miller and Ken Follett), signed an open letter published in "The Guardian" stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI being given "the honour of a state visit" to the UK; the letter argued that the Pope had led and condoned global abuses of human rights, leading a state which has "resisted signing many major human rights treaties and has formed its own treaties ("concordats") with many states which negatively affect the human rights of citizens of those states".


title: Philip Pullman

text: "New Yorker" journalist Laura Miller described Pullman as one of England's most outspoken atheists. He has characterised atheist totalitarian regimes as religions.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Alan Jacobs (of Wheaton College) said that in "His Dark Materials" Pullman replaced the theist world-view of John Milton's "Paradise Lost" with a Rousseauist one.


title: Philip Pullman

text: The books in the series have been criticised for their attitude to religion, especially Catholicism, by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and Focus on the Family. Writing in the "Catholic Herald" in 1999, Leonie Caldecott cited Pullman's work as an example of fiction "far more worthy of the bonfire than Harry [Potter]" on the grounds that "[by] co-opting Catholic terminology and playing with Judaeo-Christian theological concepts, Pullman is effectively removing, among a mass audience of a highly impressionable age, some of the building blocks for future evangelisation". Pullman was flattered and asked his publisher to include quotes from Caldecott's article in his next book. In 2002, the "Catholic Herald" published an article by Sarah Johnson that compared Pullman to a "playground bully" whose work "attacks a religious minority". The following year, after Benedict Allen's reference to the criticism during the BBC TV series "The Big Read", the "Catholic Herald" republished both articles and Caldecott claimed her "bonfire" comment was a joke and accused Pullman and his supporters of quoting her out of context. In a longer article for "Touchstone" magazine earlier in 2003, Caldecott had also described Pullman's work as "axe-grinding" and "a kind of Luciferian enterprise".


title: Philip Pullman

text: Columnist Peter Hitchens, in a 2002 article for "The Mail on Sunday", accused Pullman of "killing god" and described him as "the most dangerous author in Britain" because he said in an interview: "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief." Pullman responded by posting Hitchens' article on his study wall. In that interview, which was for a February 2001 article in "The Washington Post", Pullman acknowledged that a controversy would be likely to boost sales, but continued: "I'm not in the business of offending people. I find the books upholding certain values that I think are important, such as life is immensely valuable and this world is an extraordinarily beautiful place. We should do what we can to increase the amount of wisdom in the world." Hitchens also views the "His Dark Materials" series as a direct rebuttal of C. S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia"; Pullman has criticised the Narnia books as religious propaganda. Hitchens' brother Christopher Hitchens, author of "God Is Not Great", praised "His Dark Materials" as a fresh alternative to Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling, describing the author as one "whose books have begun to dissolve the frontier between adult and juvenile fiction". However, he was more critical of "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ", accusing Pullman of being a "Protestant atheist" for supporting the teachings of Christ but being critical of organised religion.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Pullman has found support from some Christians, most notably Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who argued that Pullman's attacks focus on the constraints and dangers of dogmatism and the use of religion to oppress, not on Christianity itself. Williams recommended "His Dark Materials" for discussion in Religious Education classes, and said that "to see large school-parties in the audience of the Pullman plays at the National Theatre is vastly encouraging". Pullman and Williams took part in a National Theatre platform debate a few days later to discuss myth, religious experience and its representation in the arts.


title: Philip Pullman

text: Donna Freitas, professor of religion at Boston University, argued that challenges to traditional images of God should be welcomed as part of a "lively dialogue about faith". The Christian writers Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware "also uncover spiritual themes within the books". Pullman's contribution to the "Canongate Myth" series, "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ", was described by Mike Collett-White as "a far more direct exploration of the foundations of Christianity and the church as well as an examination of the fascination and power of storytelling".


title: Philip Pullman

text: In a 2017 interview with "The Times Magazine", Pullman said: "The place religion has in our lives is a permanent one." He concluded that there was "no point in condemning [religion]", and mused that it is part of the human mind to ask philosophical questions such as the purpose of life. He reiterated that it was useless to "become censorious about [religion], to say there is no God". He also mentioned that his novel, "The Book of Dust", is based on the "extreme danger of putting power into the hands of those who believe in some absolute creed, whether that is Christianity or Islam or Marxism".


title: Jason Bourne

text: Jason Bourne () is the title character and the protagonist in a series of novels and subsequent film adaptations. The character was created by novelist Robert Ludlum. He first appeared in the novel "The Bourne Identity" (1980), which was adapted for television in 1988. The novel was adapted into a feature film of the same name in 2002 and starred Matt Damon in the lead role.


title: Jason Bourne

text: The character originally featured in three novels by Ludlum, released between 1980 and 1990, followed by eleven novels written by Eric Van Lustbader since 2004. Along with the first feature film, Jason Bourne also appears in three sequel films "The Bourne Supremacy" (2004), "The Bourne Ultimatum" (2007), and "Jason Bourne" (2016), with Damon again in the lead role. Jeremy Renner stars in the fourth film of the franchise, "The Bourne Legacy", released in August 2012. Damon stated in interviews that he would not do another "Bourne" film without Paul Greengrass, who had directed the second and third installments. Greengrass agreed to direct Damon in the fifth installment in the franchise. Greengrass jointly wrote the screenplay with editor Christopher Rouse.


title: Jason Bourne

text: Jason Bourne is but one of many aliases used by David Webb, a career Foreign Service Officer, and a specialist in Far Eastern affairs. Before the events in "The Bourne Identity", Webb had a Thai wife named Dao and two children named Joshua and Alyssa in Phnom Penh. Webb's wife and children were killed during the Vietnam War when a fighter plane strayed into Cambodia, dropped two bombs, and strafed a spot near the Mekong River. However, unknown to Webb, Joshua survived. Due to Cambodia's neutrality in the war, every nation disclaimed the plane, and, therefore, no one took responsibility for the incident. Enraged by both the injustice and randomness of his loss, Webb went to Saigon and, under the careful guidance of friend and CIA officer Alexander Conklin, ended up training for an elite top secret Special Forces unit called "Medusa". Within that select organization Webb was known only by his code name, "Delta One".


title: Jason Bourne

text: An assassination team or death squad, Medusa, was created to infiltrate Northern Vietnam and assassinate members of the Viet Cong and its collaborators. Its members were criminals; its leader, a man called Delta, ran Medusa with an iron fist. He became well known for his ruthlessness, his disregard for orders, and his disturbing success rate on missions, resulting in the kidnapping of Webb's brother, U.S. Army Lieutenant Gordon Webb, during his tour of duty in Saigon.


title: Jason Bourne

text: During the mission to save Gordon Webb, an original "Medusa" team member named Jason Charles Bourne was discovered to be a double agent who alerted a large number of North Vietnamese soldiers to their whereabouts. When Delta found Bourne after killing his way through the North Vietnamese, he simply killed Bourne in the jungles of Tam Quan. Bourne's execution was never exposed due to the top secret status of Medusa.


title: Jason Bourne

text: Years later, a black ops arm of the CIA, called "Treadstone Seventy-One" after a building on New York's Seventy-First Street, was formed to eliminate the notorious Carlos the Jackal. Webb was called up by David Abbott, nicknamed "The Monk", to be its principal agent. At this point, Webb (Delta) takes the identity of Jason Bourne, due to the actual Bourne's status as MIA in the war, as well as the fact that Bourne was in reality a brutal killer with a long criminal record. The point was to turn "Jason Bourne" into an elite, ruthlessly efficient assassin who would be feared by terrorists and criminals worldwide. The assassin's alias was "Cain". The reasoning for creating such a myth was to create competition for the well-known assassin named "Carlos", or "Carlos the Jackal" (real name Ilich Ramírez Sánchez) who at that time was considered the world's best and most famous assassin. By creating this myth, Cain was to drive the reclusive Carlos out into the open "long enough to put a bullet in his head".


title: Jason Bourne

text: In the film series, Jason Bourne is revealed to have been born David Webb on September 13, 1970 (or June 4, 1978 in "Jason Bourne") in Nixa, Missouri (although in "Ultimatum", he is given a false date of April 15, 1971, as a coded reference to a specific site). In flashbacks, he joins the United States Army and is eventually selected for CIA Treadstone program in 1997. His father, Richard Webb, a senior CIA analyst, is responsible for creating the Treadstone, a black ops project intended to train and deploy elite assassins. The CIA murders his father with a false flag car bomb in Beirut in a bid to recruit Webb.


title: Jason Bourne

text: The ploy is shown to have worked; Webb approaches the CIA and is brought into the program by Neil Daniels, a supervisor in the Treadstone program, while being monitored by Dr. Albert Hirsch, who supervises the medical assessment of Treadstone agents. He is brought into a secret recruitment center in New York City, where Hirsch orders him tortured for days — via waterboarding and sleep deprivation — to break his spirit and allow him to be molded into an assassin. He is officially accepted when he murders an unidentified man (implied to be the real Jason Bourne) without question. After that, he is given a new identity as Jason Bourne, and his true identity becomes a classified secret.


title: Jason Bourne

text: After heavy training, in which he learns several languages and masters a wide array of martial arts skills, Bourne is placed in the Treadstone program, whose missions are run by Conklin. His first assignment, an unofficial one, is revealed to have happened in Berlin, Germany: the assassination of Vladimir Neski, a Russian politician who was intending to expose the theft of $20 million in secret funds stolen from the CIA by Treadstone's Director, Ward Abbott, and a Russian oligarch, Yuri Gretkov. Under Conklin's orders, Bourne murders Neski and his wife and makes it look like a murder-suicide.


title: Jason Bourne

text: Bourne works in the program as its top agent for three years, stationed in Paris, France, maintaining a secluded life while performing assassinations, mostly around Europe. His official handler is logistics agent Nicky Parsons, also stationed in Paris, who is implied to have feelings for Bourne that she keeps hidden from Treadstone employers.


title: Jason Bourne

text: The turning point in his life comes after an order to murder Nykwana Wombosi, an exiled African warlord who was blackmailing the CIA into reinstating him as head of state, lest he expose several CIA secrets. Using an alias, John Michael Kane, Bourne gathers information on Wombosi. He infiltrates the warlord's yacht and hides inside it for five days, surfacing on a cold night in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, intending to arrange the murder to look like he was killed by a crew member to avoid suspicion. However, Wombosi is surrounded by his children, and Bourne is unable to bring himself to kill him. He tries to abandon the mission by leaving the boat, but an unknown shooter shoots him twice in the back, sending him off the yacht into the sea and triggering amnesia, causing Webb / Bourne to forget his identity.


title: Jason Bourne

text: The series has included fifteen novels which have been written by two authors, Robert Ludlum and Eric Van Lustbader. Ludlum's series include the first three books, dubbed the Bourne trilogy. After Ludlum's death in 2001, Lustbader took over the character in his own series of novels, which span eleven books as of 2020. A twelfth novel, "The Bourne Nemesis", was scheduled to be released in 2019, but as of July 2020 is no longer expected to be published.


title: Jason Bourne

text: A man is found floating unconscious in the Mediterranean Sea near Marseille by Italian fishermen with two gunshot wounds in his back. He wakes and discovers he has extreme memory loss. Film negative embedded in his hip leads him to a bank in Zurich where he learns he is known by the name Jason Bourne. As he tries to reclaim his memory, Bourne attracts the attention of hostile people for reasons unknown to him. At a hotel, while cornered, Bourne takes a young woman, Marie St. Jacques, hostage to escape. Marie is an employee of the Government of Canada. Bourne and Marie discover that "Jason Bourne" is the cover identity of a contract assassin, and that both the CIA and another contract killer known as Carlos the Jackal have an interest in him. Marie is convinced that this man she has come to know cannot be the ruthless killer that all their discoveries seem to imply. She compels Bourne to continue searching for his true identity and, in the end, he finds the truth. Through this time, Bourne has the phrase "Cain is for Charlie, and Delta is for Cain" continually flash through his mind, propelling him in the direction of his mission.


title: Jason Bourne

text: Having recovered his memory and retired from the CIA, David Webb now teaches Asian Studies at a university in Maine and lives with Marie. She is taken captive seemingly by a powerful Chinese drug lord, but in reality, by the United States government using the fictitious drug lord as cover. The scheme is an attempt to turn Webb back into his former self, the mythical Jason Bourne, to go after a Bourne impostor in China. The phony Bourne has been credited with a Far East political assassination that could, in a worst-case scenario, cause a Chinese civil war over the ownership of Hong Kong.


title: Jason Bourne

text: As an aging Carlos the Jackal's infamy fades, he decides that he will do two things before he dies: kill Jason Bourne and destroy the KGB facility of Novgorod, where the Jackal was trained and later turned away. Webb's family is forced to hide in the Caribbean while Webb himself works with Conklin to hunt down and kill the Jackal. Webb poses as an important member of Medusa, now a nearly omnipotent economic force that controls the commander of NATO, leading figures in the Defense Department, and large NYSE firms. The plan is to use Medusa's resources to contact the Jackal. Webb just misses the Jackal several times before Webb fakes his own death to draw him out. Following this, the Jackal turns to his second goal. Webb tracks the Jackal down with the help of Conklin and a KGB agent as the Jackal begins destroying the KGB compound. In a final confrontation, the Jackal is led into a dam lock in which he drowns, and Webb returns to his family.


title: Jason Bourne

text: With the climactic events of "The Bourne Ultimatum" behind him, Jason Bourne is able to once again become David Webb, now professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. However, this serenity does not last for long. When a silenced gunshot narrowly misses Webb's head, the Bourne persona reawakens in him. His first objective is to reach Conklin. However, unknown to Bourne, a Hungarian by the name of Stepan Spalko has now led him into a trap—one which he cannot escape as easily as his professional façade. And the man who nearly killed him in Georgetown continues his deadly, intensely personal pursuit.


title: Jason Bourne

text: Jason Bourne takes a mission to rescue his only friend in the CIA, Martin Lindros, who disappeared in Africa while tracking shipments of uranium. Once safely back in America, Lindros persuades Bourne to help track the money trail of terrorists buying the nuclear material in Odessa. But once there, Bourne is hampered by confusing flashbacks of unfamiliar places and events and he wonders if someone is brainwashing him in order to throw him off the trail, or worse, if the man he saved in Africa is really Martin Lindros. Now, Bourne must gather evidence while trying to stay one step ahead of the terrorists who won't let anyone stand in their way.


title: Jason Bourne

text: Jason Bourne returns to Georgetown University, and the mild world of his alter ego, David Webb, hoping for normality. But, after so many adrenaline-soaked years of risking his life, Bourne finds himself chafing under the quiet life of a linguistics professor. Aware of his frustrations, his academic mentor, Professor Spector, asks for help investigating the murder of a former student. The young man died carrying information about a group's terrorist activities, including an immediate plan to attack the United States. The organization, the Black Legion, and its plot have also popped up on the radar of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose new director Veronica Hart is struggling to assert her authority. Sensing an opportunity to take control of the CIA by showing Hart's incompetence, National Security Agency operatives attempt to accomplish what the CIA never could do, hunt down and kill Jason Bourne. In Europe, Bourne's investigation into the Black Legion turns into one of the deadliest and most tangled operations of his double life—while an assassin is getting closer by the minute.


title: Jason Bourne

text: Bourne's nemesis, Arkadin, is still hot on his trail, and the two continue their struggle, reversing roles of hunter and hunted. When Bourne is ambushed and badly wounded, he fakes his death and goes into hiding. In safety, he takes on a new identity, and begins a mission to find out who tried to assassinate him. Jason begins to question who he really is, how much of him is tied up in the Bourne identity, and what he would become if that was suddenly taken away from him. Meanwhile, an American passenger airliner is shot down over Egypt by what seems to be an Iranian missile. A massive global investigative team is assembled to get at the truth of the situation before it can escalate into an international scandal. Bourne's search for the man who shot him intersects with the search for the people who brought down the airliner, leading Bourne into one of the most deadly and challenging situations he has ever encountered. With the threat of a new world war brewing, Bourne finds himself in a race against time to uncover the truth and find the person behind his assault, all the while being stalked by his unknown nemesis.


title: Jason Bourne

text: "The Bourne Objective" is the eighth novel in the Bourne series, and the fifth written by Eric Van Lustbader. The book was released in 2010, sequel to "The Bourne Deception".


title: Jason Bourne

text: The killing of an art dealer dredges up snatches of Jason Bourne's impaired memory, in particular the murder of a young woman who entrusted him with a strangely engraved ring. Now he's determined to find its owner and purpose. But Bourne never knows what terrible acts he'll discover he committed when he digs into the past. The trail will lead him to a vicious Russian mercenary, Leonid Arkadin, also a graduate of the Central Intelligence training program Treadstone. The covert course was shuttered by Congress for corruption, but not before it produced Bourne and Arkadin, giving them equal skills, equal force, and equal cunning. As Bourne's destiny circles closer to Arkadin's, it becomes clear that someone else has been watching and manipulating them.