The Indian government has stated that direct flights between India and China will resume this month, marking another step towards the gradual normalization of relations between the two countries.
Non-stop services were suspended between the neighboring countries since 2020, following deadly troop clashes along their disputed frontier in the Himalayas.
However over the last twelve months, Delhi and Beijing have been working towards improving diplomatic connections, including taking measures to reduce hostilities.
On Thursday, India's biggest budget airline announced that it would reinitiate direct flights between the cities of the capital of West Bengal and a major Chinese hub from 26 October.
In a statement published on the same day, the Indian external affairs office stated that the resumption of flights would "promote cultural and personal exchanges" between the two countries and contribute towards "step-by-step restoration of bilateral exchanges."
India and China share an unclear frontier that is more than 2,100 miles long and have overlapping territorial claims.
In the year 2020, soldiers from both sides clashed at the Galwan Valley, leaving at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese military personnel killed.
It was the first fatal confrontation between the both nations since the mid-1970s and led to a halt in diplomatic engagement.
But over the last several quarters, Beijing and Delhi have been taking steps to slowly mend the damaged ties.
Senior diplomats from the both countries have held several rounds of talks and engagements.
In the previous October, India and China agreed on border monitoring protocols to ease hostilities along the disputed Himalayan border.
This year, China began authorizing Indian pilgrims to visit some places of religious importance in what it calls the Tibet Autonomous Region, while the Indian authorities restarted visa services to Chinese tourists and agreed to restart negotiations to open border trade through specific routes.
The Indian government's deteriorating rapport with the United States over trade restrictions has also given a boost to India-China relations.
In August, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Delhi, where he said that India and China should see each other as "collaborators" rather than "adversaries."
Later the same month, Beijing's envoy to New Delhi called the United States a "aggressor" for imposing steep tariffs on multiple nations.
In the same month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the People's Republic for the first time in seven years for the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), where he also met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit, and the two re-iterated their commitment towards restoring bilateral relations.
