Asserting that there is no role for politics in disaster response, the Obama administration has said it expects Pakistan to accept the $ 5 million aid offer from India for its flood relief work.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Thursday said the "time-tested" relationship with Russia will remain India's top foreign policy priority as he held wide-ranging parleys on bilateral and international issues, including Afghanistan, with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow.
Pakistan is yet to decide on India's offer of $5 million as aid for providing relief to victims of the country's worst floods, with diplomatic sources saying that the proposal is being considered by the foreign office.
After writing to his Pakistani counterpart last week condoling deaths in the floods, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Friday called up S M Qureshi and offered aid of $5 million in "this hour of need".
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh could meet his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting scheduled to be held in November in Trinidad, sources said.However, when asked about the meeting, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, who met his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi in New York on Sunday, said,: "We have just come out of one (meeting). So, give us some time."
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday met Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, who had also met Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi earlier. Pakistani officials said that during the 30-minute meeting, Farooq briefed Zardari about the All Parties Hurriyat Conference's perspective of the ground realities in Kashmir.Earlier, the Pakistan foreign minister met Farooq, ahead of his meeting with his Indian counterpart S M Krishna on Monday.
India on Sunday rejected any back-channel talks with Pakistan and said no meaningful bilateral dialogue can take place unless that country took action against the Mumbai attack suspects. External Affairs Minister S M Krishna articulated India's position during his talks with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the first highest-level contact between the countries since their Prime Ministers met at the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh in July.
India has taken up with Turkey the issue of its exclusion from the recent Istanbul conference on Afghanistan, government informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
India today welcomed the renewed global push for achieving a world free of atomic weapons but underlined that the international nuclear order cannot be "discriminatory".
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Tuesday said the Indian government will be contacting the government of Bangladesh to seek the extradition of suspected Kandahar hijack accused and top Jaish-e Mohammed militant Nannu Mia alias Belal Mandol.
When External Affairs Minister S M Krishna underscored the folly of making a distinction 'between good Taliban and bad Taliban' at the Afghanistan Conference in London earlier this year, he was completely out of sync with the larger mood at the conference. As a result, Indian diplomacy faced a major setback when Indian concerns were summarily ignored.
Were External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, right, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, centre, and Hardip Singh Puri, India's Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, left, perturbed by Libyan dictator Muammmar Gadhafi's demand that Kashmir be made an independent country, an observation embedded in his 96-minute diatribe.
At the roundtable Two, one of the four simultaneous meetings at the conference, a strongly worded statement by Minister of External Affairs S M Krishna said that the talks should focus on the developed countries who are reluctant to meet their commitments on emission reduction, let alone provide technological and financial support to developing countries.
A special aircraft will leave on Friday night for Kabul to bring back the bodies of Indians killed in the attack in Kabul earlier in the day.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has met Home Secretary G K Pillai against the backdrop of apparent differences between the ministry of external affairs and the ministry of home affairs in connection with the Indo-Pak talks held recently. Rao met Pillai on Thursday and is understood to have briefed him about the recent talks between External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
The Centre said on Friday that the foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan represented an "encouraging step" towards restoring dialogue and better communication, but made it clear that the engagement would depend on Paksitan's response to India's core concern on terrorism.
Disapproving the comments made by Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on the eve of Indo-Pak talks, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Wednesday said his whole visit to Islamabad was 'under-pinned' by the remarks, the timing of which was 'very unfortunate.'
Pakistan wanted to evolve a roadmap to discuss bilateral issues with India during the recent foreign minister-level talks but the other side was not prepared to do so, its Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said on Sunday.
The foreign ministers' talks failed just when progress seemed on the horizon, says Sheela Bhatt
Krishna was with Dr Singh for about 30 minutes during which he gave a detailed account of his talks with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani.
The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan on Thursday may have sought to project before a global audience and their respective media that their much awaited talks were positive, constructive and meaningful it was anything but that. Going by the body language of both S M Krishna and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and the pointed, at times, aggressive questions asked by the media, it was plain and simple -- disastrous and awful.
The Pakistan foreign office has expressed concern over the remarks of Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna about next week's foreign secretary-level talks in New Delhi, and insisted that the outcome of the meeting should not be prejudged nor its scope circumscribed.
The strongest argument for the creation of Pakistan was that Hindustan, the undivided India, could not be trusted to take care of the Muslims of the subcontinent. If trust breaks out between them, the whole rationale for the existence of Pakistan will be called into question, says T P Sreenivasan.
In a first trip by an External Affairs Minister to Pakistan since 26/11 terror attacks, S M Krishna on Wednesday arrived in Islamabad on a mission to restore trust and increase confidence in the relationship, bogged down by terrorism over which he will convey India's concerns.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's decision to go ahead with the scheduled Indo-Pak meeting after the blast at Pune's German Bakery that has so far claimed 10 lives, is not an easy one for him, with two key ministers of his government opposing the move.
Rediff.com takes a look at how the ice between the two estranged neighbours melted after months of diplomatic and political antagonism.
Terrorism that continues to emanate from Pakistani soil will be high on the agenda of External Affairs Minister S M Krishna as he embarks on a mission to Pakistan on Wednesday, in an effort to bridge the trust deficit that has bedeviled the ties between the two countries.
If you spot a politician or civil servant seen to be violating the austerity guidelines, why don't you shoot a photograph and/or video and send it to us? We shall post the best images and videos on rediff.com
Days after Pakistan said it would raise the alleged human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir in upcoming Indo-Pak talks, India on Tuesday made it clear that law and order cannot be questioned in the name of rights and that terrorism will be the focus of the parleys.
In the first high-level bilateral visit since Mumbai terror attacks, Home Minister P Chidambaram will travel to Pakistan on February 26 for a SAARC meeting on a two-day visit that is expected to break the deadlock in Indo-Pak dialogue.
Indian students are being 'singled out' and attacked in Australia and this aspect needs some introspection by the government of that country, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said in New Delhi on Tuesday. Pointing out that over one lakh Indian students pursue higher studies in the US, the minister said "we do not have such complaints from the US".
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Thursday shook hands on the sidelines of an international conference on Afghanistan, but there was no meeting between the two.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown underlined the need to turn the tide in the fight against insurgency in Afghanistan as he opened a crucial conference of major world powers on Thursday in a bid to end the grinding conflict in the restive country.
In the midst of current chill in Indo-Pak relations, a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation home ministers' conference is scheduled next month in Islamabad to which Union Home Minister P Chidambaram plans to go subject to Foreign Office's approval.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Wednesday said he would be "delighted" to meet his Pakistani counterpart "if an occasion arises," as the two leaders share space at a global conference on Afghanistan in London.
Under pressure from India, Australia on Wednesday set up a high-level working group to study the spate of attacks on Indians in that country.
A day after India gave "additional information" to Pakistan on the Mumbai terror attacks, Union External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Saturday said that New Delhi will keep providing more evidence to Islamabad "as and when" it is collected.
The Australian government has handed over to India a police dossier of high-profile attacks on Indians over the past year, which reveals that nearly half of the attackers were juveniles. The dossier, prepared by the Victoria police, was handed over in recent weeks, after Foreign Minister Stephen Smith telephoned his Indian counterpart S M Krishna on January 11 to express his condolences over the murder of Indian student Nitin Garg in Yarraville.
Having major stakes in peace and development of Afghanistan, India is expected to press the world not to think about exit from there at a multilateral conference on the war-ravaged nation to be held in London on Thursday.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has described the attacks on Indians in his country as regrettable, but added that such incidents should be kept in context.Responding to Foreign Minister S M Krishna's warning on Wednesday that the latest in a series of attacks on Indians in Australia did not 'augur well' for bilateral ties, The Age quoted Rudd as saying, "Obviously these are difficult matters in India, they are difficult matters in Australia."
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