Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor recently made his first foray to the United Nations -- where he had served for more than two decades as Under Secretary General of Communications -- over two-and-a-half years after his unsuccessful bid for the position of UN Secretary General.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has learnt that humour has no place in Indian politics. George Joseph meets the newly-cautious Tharoor, and finds out why the satirical novelist enjoys being part of the Indian government.
"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.
Will Indian democracy benefit from the potential that Shashi Tharoor stores in his mind, spirit and intellect? Or will it be the saga of another leader who promised much but delivered too little, asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Continuing to 'tweet' his opinion despite receiving flak, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor now feels people should work rather than enjoy a holiday on Mahatma Gandhi's birthday.
Saudi Arabia can be a 'valuable interlocutor' between India and Pakistan, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said on Sunday and subsequently clarified that he did not mean that Riyadh should be a mediator.
Soon after his return from Liberia and Ghana where he was on an official visit, Tharoor met Gandhi amid demands for his resignation as Minister of State for External Affairs. Later he also met senior Congress leader and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sought to downplay the comments of Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on austerity on Twitter saying "it was a joke".
Tharoor has nearly 175,000 followers on Twitter. An account that he started when he launched his election campaign now may now cost him dear as voices urging him to log off Twitter keep getting louder by the day.
Perhaps chastised by the recent criticism from his party high command and the general public, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has apologised for his recent comment that he was prepared to travel in the "cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows".
India on Monday said it was not surprised over former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's admission -- of use of United States' military aid against it during his tenure -- and asked countries providing such help to be 'extremely responsible'. "It doesn't come as a surprise. We have been arguing for some years now that the only problem we have with the US military aid to Pakistan is its misuse against us," Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said.
With investigators trying to unravel the identity of those behind the Pune blast, the government "may not yet" point finger at any foreign country for the terror attack till more evidence was gathered, Union minister Shashi Tharoor said on Monday.
Speaking to media persons outside his South Block office in New Delhi, Tharoor said: "We know Pakistan has been misusing US aid for years. I am not surprised by former President Musharraf's statement. This confirms India's stand on the misuse of aid. The United States should monitor aid given to Pakistan more carefully."
Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur, who was at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport when the body of Ranjodh Singh was brought back to the country, said something positive is expected from the investigations and issued a second advisory to Indian students discouraging them from going to Australia for studies.
"Any country shouldn't be giving military aid to Pakistan until it works effectively in a demonstrative manner to dismantle the terror infrastructure," Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma told media-persons in New Delhi.
India has conveyed its 'absolute displeasure and concern' to Australia over the unabated attacks on Indians there and asked the government to 'get its act together' to bring the perpetrators of the assaults to book. Stating this on Friday, Minister of State for External Affairs Praneet Kaur also termed the latest attack on a cab driver there and the incident of fire in a Gurudwara as unfortunate.
Complaints to NCM fall down sharply...4,000 Indian women deserted by NRI husbands since 2016...79 districts in India still don't have blood banks...
Expect the unexpected when it comes to Test cricket says Indian batting ace Sachin Tendulkar, who recalled how Wasim Akram peppered him with bouncers even as he expected yorkers in his maiden Test series in Pakistan. Tendulkar was speaking in Mumbai on Friday at the launch of a book Shadows across the playing field, authored by India's Minister of state for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor and former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman and diplomat Shaharyar Khan.
Tharoor talked to Dr Singh over phone on Sunday morning and explained that the media had misinterpreted his comments, which he had made as chairman of a seminar at the Indian Council of World Affairs on Friday.
A day after his reported remarks at an academic seminar on international relations created a flutter in the Congress, Tharoor called a press conference in his office and said he was dismayed at the "inaccurate and tendentious reporting".
"It is not a sign of mounting tension....it is a sign that your government is determined to protect the borders of India and takes its responsibilities seriously," Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said in Thiruvananthpuram while reacting to media reports on the matter.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on Thursday defended Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on the joint statement issued after his meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Egypt.However, his statement had few takers, and most experts feel that the reference to Baluchistan in the joint statement would prove to be a costly blunder.The Bharatiya Janata Party has also criticised Dr Singh.
India on Wednesday said Pakistan has not responded to its consistent demand for handing over underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and others fugitives."We have consistently asked Pakistan to hand over Ibrahim and others to us. The demand has been made in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.... But, unfortunately there has been no response from Pakistan so far," Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur said in the Lok Sabha.
Author and politician Shashi Tharoor chats with Sumita Vaid Dixit about writing, tweeting and world affairs.
Seeking to explain the absence of the terror activities directed against India, in the United State's new Af-Pak strategy, India has said the Barack Obama administration was 'looking at' terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad 'off-camera'.Welcoming the Af-Pak policy unveiled on Tuesday, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said the pressure maintained by the US on the Taliban and the Al Qaeda there is in the interest of India.
India on Saturday said it wishes to see that 'exemplary punishment' is given to the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, who have been charge-sheeted in a Pakistani anti-terror court.
Shashi Tharoor, who resigned as minister of state for external affairs after being in the eye of the IPL storm, on Saturday said "truth" should come out on the issue and asserted he doesn't need to quit public life as he has committed no irregularity.
After maintaining silence for days on Twitter, Shashi Tharoor was back, only to thank his supporters for all the "kind words" at this "time of trial".
Indian Premier League (IPL) Commissioner Lalit Modi on Friday accused Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor of having an agenda in promoting the Kochi IPL fanchise, and asserted that he won't let that agenda succeed.
Kolkata Knight Riders co-owner Shah Rukh Khan has denied offering any role in the team to Dubai-based entrepreneur Sunanda Pushkar, who is at the centre of an ownership row involving the Kochi franchise.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has defended his tweets, saying they are 'interactive Akashvani', but has expressed regret over the distortion of his comments. "This is an extended and very informal conversation with a large number of people. I have over seven lakh people who are reading what I have to say, who react to what I have to say and who also put up questions to me," Tharoor said. "It's a kind of interactive Akashvani," he said.
"Indian democracy provides for both kinds (elected and nominated). Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, if he had chosen to contest this year, would have certainly won from anywhere in the country," Tharoor said.
Often surrounded with controversies over his use of words, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has said he has been "brought down" as there were "elements in our society who rather revel in bringing down people as well".
On his maiden visit to the city, minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor conceded that the short-coming in the current visa regulations had led to the inflow of blue-collared workers on business visas, especially from China.
Around 350 stranded Indians were evacuated on Wednesday from strife-torn Yemen's Aden city on an Indian Naval ship that will now take them to Djibouti, a country neighbouring Yemen and across the Red Sea.
President Pratibha Patil allocated the additional charge to Sharma on the advice of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a Rashtrapati Bhavan statement said late Saturday night.
Having drawn flak for staying in a five-star hotel for the last three months, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor described the controversy as "silly seasoned" that prompted invitation by many of his friends to stay with them.
India on Monday condemned the deadly terror attack on a police training centre in Lahore and asked Pakistan to continue dismantling the terror infrastructure on its soil.
Union Minister of State for External Affairs Sashi Tharoor on Sunday said that it was not proper to ban the book authored by Jaswant Singh for his references on Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Talking to reporters, Tharoor said that in a democratic country like India, people have the right and freedom to speak and write. "If a person is not interested in reading the book, let him not read it," he said.
India has a 'fundamentally healthy' relationship with China that goes beyond the boundary issue, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor stated on Tuesday."The relationship should not be seen only in the context of the problems, it should also be seen in the context of the opportunity," he said when asked about the India-China border talks last week. Tharoor said, "We are very pleased to say that, by and large, the relationship remains healthy."
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