Narendra Modi will be the first prime minister to attend Statehood Day of Arunachal Pradesh on February 20. 

Modi will be in the state for just a couple of hours and will also use the opportunity to inaugurate the Arunachal Festival, flag-off the fully air-conditioned Arunachal-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and also inaugurate a comprehensive power transmission line project and the Itanagar water supply project.

PM's Arunachal visit comes at a time when he is scheduled to undertake his maiden official visit to China in May this year and five months after Chinese President Xi Jinping paid his maiden state visit to India.

The Chinese reaction to Modi's brief visit to Itanagar will be crucial as Beijing has reacted sharply each time whenever any Indian leader visits Arunachal Pradesh, the Indian state which China claims in entirety and describes as "southern Tibet', reports FirstPost. 

China accuses India of possessing some 90,000 sq km of "Chinese' territory, mostly in Arunachal Pradesh, a contention that has been disdainfully dismissed by Indian leadership for decades, cutting across the party lines.

Read the full report here