India has expressed its reservations about making an 'unqualified endorsement' on the findings and recommendations of the Goldstone report at a special session of the United Nations General Assembly. "We have reservations in making unqualified endorsement of the various recommendations as well as some of the procedures adopted by the Goldstone report, including the involvement of the International Criminal Court and that of the Security Council," MP B K Hariprasad said.
Unlike any other region in the world, because of 'persistent and deep inequalities' in South Asia, children in the region are trapped in an unrelenting cycle of discrimination at several levels, Unicef regional director for South Asia Daniel Toole said.
An Indian national charged with attempting to provide material support to Lebanon's Hezbollah, a US designated foreign terrorist group, and illegally possessing fire arms and ammunition has pleaded not guilty.
India is not intimidated by China and the border dispute between the two countries could be settled by talks, Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur has said, noting that the media was overplaying the recent tensions between the neighbours."We are not intimidated by China. I think we are very confident of our own strength but certainly we are very confident that this issue can be settled by talks," said Kaur. "There has been a lot of media hype," she added.
If convicted all of them face imprisonment of up to 20 years, according to the indictment, which reads that the defendants "routinely received inside information directly or indirectly from insiders and provided it to each other for the purpose of trading based on the information", filed in the US court.
"The action that is expected from Pakistan has to take place before we can engage once again in the kind of comprehensive dialogue process that we want," Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said.
India has no role in insurgency in Pakistan's Balochistan province and unlike 'certain other countries' it does not follow the policy of destabilising its neighbours, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said on Thursday.
A joint study by the World Health organisation and UNICEF 'Diarrhoea: Why Children Are Still Dying and What Can Be Done', also pointed out that India has the largest number of persons that defecate in the open worldwide.
"The image of the US is in the finest shape it's been in a very long time, and that's because the rest of the world believes in the kind of leadership President Obama is bringing to his task," the former UN Under Secretary General said at the Colbert Report news show. "He has given us hope," Tharoor said.
Noting that the economic crisis had underlined an urgent need for reform in the international financial structure, member of parliament Saifuddin Soz called for a greater role for developing nations in norm-setting and decision-making bodies like the International Monetary Fund.
United Nations chief Ban Ki Moon on Friday came out strongly in support of the Nobel Peace Prize for United States President Barack Obama and termed the Norwegian Committee's decision 'a very wise' one. "The Nobel Peace Committee has made their decision, and this should be respected, and I wholeheartedly support it," he told journalists. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, "He has done nothing for peace in Afghanistan. We condemn the award."
Presently, women comprise only 8 per cent of UN police officers and about 2 per cent of the military personnel deployed in peacekeeping operations.
Announcing a partnership between the UN World Food Programme and the Millenia Villages Project, WFP chief Josette Sheeran said, "Hunger is on the march and is right now the most threatening Millennium Development Goal".
The United States on Saturday said India's position on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will not impact the nuclear agreement between the two countries and expressed hope about moving forward with the landmark agreement."We've said before that the resolution that was passed on Thursday unanimously by the United Nations Security Council does not have any bearing on our bilateral civil nuclear cooperation," said an US official.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna has said that the country has taken a 'principled' stand on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and there is no scope for change in its position unless a number of other developments take place to address the concerns.This comes after a high-level conference on disarmament in the United Nations on Thursday, addressed by UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon, asked India and eight other countries to ratify the agreement.
With the United States Senate voting to triple the non-military aid to Pakistan at $1.5 billion, India on Friday once again expressed concern over such funds being diverted by Islamabad to support hostile operations against it. External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, who is in New York to participate in the opening session of the United Nation General Assembly, said New Delhi was concerned as former Pakistan President Parvez Musharraf had himself disclosed startling facts.
Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi has opposed the expansion of the United Nations Security Council by including countries like India which would spur a 'competition' with nations like Pakistan wanting to get in.
The United Nations Security Council on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution asking all non-Non Proliferation Treaty states to join the treaty at an unprecedented summit chaired by United States President Barack Obama who signalled that these countries, which include India, must come on board.
US President Barack Obama, on Friday, sought a new era of engagement with the world where power is no longer a "zero-sum game" as he asked them to share responsibility for tackling key challenges of security and prosperity.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna met his Sri Lankan counterpart Rohitha Bogollagama in New York and discussed the issue of the resettlement of over 280,000 IDPs in the island nation. "The discussion covered the settlement of displaced persons primarily," Krishna said, adding, "They have told us that the process of de-mining is going on. Simultaneously the resettlement also is being done." Colombo has come under strong international criticism for human rights violations