India slams China for renaming places in Arunachal Pradesh

NEW DELHI -- India on Wednesday rejected China's "vain and preposterous attempts" to rename places in northeastern Arunachal Pradesh state, calling the Indian region bordering the communist nation its "integral and inalienable."

The statement from India's Ministry of External Affairs follows Beijing's latest move as part of its repeated practice to announce its own names for places in the state, which China claims as its own territory and refers to it as Zangnan, or South Tibet. Beijing also often takes exception to visits to Arunachal Pradesh by Indian leaders and opposes infrastructure development projects in the region.