Holding Pakistan responsible for South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation's 'underperformance', India has said the bloc was nowhere near achieving its potential.
Viewing terrorism as a 'serious threat' to South Asia's peace and development, members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation on Thursday decided to have regular exchange of information to combat the menace and push efforts for establishing a convention for mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.
On the first day of the three-day SAARC Home Ministers' meet, the police chiefs of these countries agreed on sharing information among police organisations to check various trans-border crimes, Home Ministry sources said. They said the delegates spoke of the need for having a better institutional mechanism so that coordinated action could be taken to meet the common challenges.
Bangladesh will ask the Indian government to extradite Bangladeshi criminals hiding in India at the second annual South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation meeting of home ministers to be held in New Delhi.
Under the shadow of the serial blasts in India, foreign ministers of the eight-member South Asian association for Regional Cooperation met on Thursday in Colombo to set the agenda for the weekend summit aimed at boosting trade ties and combating the food and energy crisis.
The external affairs ministry was authorised on Thursday by the Union Cabinet to negotiate and finalise the text of the Convention for cooperation on criminal matters, so that it can be signed during the SAARC Summit in August, to be attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Addressing a public meeting in Mahore town of Reasi district on Sunday, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party patron said: "Jammu and Kashmir should become a model among the SAARC countries by allowing both Indian and Pakistani currency to operate in the state." Mufti defended his proposal by quoting the example of European Union, where he said "free travel was possible among 40 countries without any visa restrictions."
He emphasised the need for fully opening up the state to the fast economic activities shaping up in the region so that the people of the state could also reap the benefits of economic liberalisation, it said.
The summit will be held in the picturesque city of Kandy, with Colombo planning 'foolproof' security arrangements to ward off any attack from the LTTE as it battles the rebel forces in the north.
He has written a letter to the Pakistan PM in this regard.
India on Tuesday said the inclusion of Afghanistan in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation would go a long way in establishing lasting peace and stability in the region.
India's envoy to Austria, Sheel Kant Sharma, will be next secretary general of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced on Friday.
Afghanistan's bonds with India were deeper and closer than those with any of the countries with which it shared a border, and there were no exceptions.
Musharraf attended the SAARC summit in 2002 at Kathmandu where he grabbed headlines with his famous handshake with the then Indian Prime Minister A B Vajpayee in a bid to reduce the mounting military tensions.
Voicing concern over Pakistan's non-implementation of South Asian Free Trade Area, the government said on Tuesday the effect of Islamabad's notification was limited to tariff concessions for India on items in the positive list.
Senior IPS official Ashwani Kumar took charge as the new director of the Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday. "My top priority would be to reduce the trail time of our cases," the new CBI director said. He added, "the CBI is under tremendous pressure to nab Dawood Ibrahim."
India and Bangladesh have recently agreed to provide consular access to arrested insurgents and criminals on reciprocal basis, besides sharing information about their actvities.
We must fight this global challenge confronting humanity together, Khan said on Twitter.
The government is working for the success of the Indo-US nuclear deal mechanism to address the concerns raised by the Left parties, Minister for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee said on Saturday.
Smartphones are full-featured mobile phones with personal computer like functionality with camera and email capabilities with a complete personal organiser. "We are working with our OEMs to bring to market smartphones with full in-built HSDPA (advance version of 3G mobile functions) next year," Qualcomm India and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation President Kanwalinder Singh told PTI.
Indian Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed on Tuesday met Bangladesh Foreign Minister M Morshed Khan to discuss bilateral and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation matters.
Pakistan's support for the proposal of establishing the main campus of SAF would be conditional till all issues pertaining to free movement of students, teachers, visiting professors and faculty members are resolved.
"We see signs of hope. Governments of the region are addressing bilateral political issues. We should break with the past and join hands to overcome the challenges," Dr Singh said.
He called for initiating tangible projects to realise the objective of progress and development of the entire region and proposed strengthening the role of the SAARC Secretariat.
The national capital, which will host the summit on April 3 and 4, will be dotted by crack commandos of Delhi Police and the paramilitary forces.
In reality SAARC is largely a name board with annual rituals, not always regularly observed.
The India-Pakistan thaw has resulted in major trade gains for both the countries.
Volcker said while some countries responded well to his findings, many others, particularly smaller nations, have not taken steps to deal with corruption.
Editors of the regional grouping met to discuss issues relating to the region.
Afghanistan became a SAARC member in 2006.
Soon after the Union Ministry of Culture decided on refusing US dollar payments for entry tickets to monuments in Agra due to the falling value of dollar against the Indian rupee, the Archaeological Survey of India is planning to lower the entry ticket cost for tourists belonging to the South Asian Association for Regional cooperation (Saarc) countries, bringing it down from Rs 750 to Rs 20.
China and the United States have already been admitted as Observers by SAARC and Iran too has evinced interest to join.
On the eve of the 15th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to be held in Colombo August 2-3, the US has said it does not believe SAARC is ineffectual and irrelevant and a farce as some in the West and in the region itself contend--who dismiss it as nothing but a group photo-op every few years--and is confident it can grow to be as powerful and influential as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a $1 million ad-hoc grant for the operational budget for the BIMSTEC secretariat and another $3 million assistance to revive the grouping's centre for weather and climate.
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