Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Russia today for the first bilateral meeting since 2019. Ties between India and China had taken a severe hit since the military stand-off in Ladakh as a result of Beijing’s “unilateral” actions of violating the Line of Actual Control, the de-facto boundary between the two countries. The bilateral talks between PM Modi and Xi Jinping took place on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in the city of Kazan in Russia. It happened less than 72 hours after a breakthrough in talks – both at diplomatic and military levels – ensuring that the status quo returns to what it was before May 2020, when the stand off in Ladakh began with the military clash in Galwan. The breakthrough in the patrolling arrangement comes four years after the Galwan Valley clash and signals a move towards de-escalation in a region where both countries stationed tens of thousands of troops. The meeting underscored the upturn in the India-China relation following a consensus on patrolling arrangement along the Line of Actual Control that had faced multiple hiccups over the last few years.