'We had doctors from Syria who could not go home as the situation in their country is even worse. We are fortunate we have a safe home to come back to while they don't have that luxury.'
Modi knew in his heart that India does not have the financial muscle to support the new bank with offers of co-financing international projects, something China can do from the bank's base in Shanghai. If established in Mumbai, it may have employed a few Indian bankers and satisfied the national ego but there was little financial value to be drawn from it.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in New York on Friday on a five-day US visit, he was greeted with 'Har Har Modi' slogan.
'Could this be a random attack? Well, yes it could. It could be a whole range of scenarios... and we are considering all of them.'
Several hundred Indian nationals may be stranded in the Najaf province of Iraq, unable to return home because their employer refuses to return their passports, Amnesty International said on Saturday.
The ground situation in Iraq is so bad that there is no scope for any non-conventional action or any kind of bravery. Patience, slow movement, and full backing to Indian negotiators would help in a big way, says Sheela Bhatt.
The decision was taken during the annual 19th round of boundary talks in Beijing between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.
'That the Indian nationals have been sighted, they are unharmed, they are in captivity, and we know their captors. This is the sort of information I think everybody has the right to know and we would share it. Information beyond that we feel would be detrimental to the safety of those who are in captivity and it is not at all in the interest of our countrymen to share that information,' says MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin.
Several people, including an Indian techie, were taken hostage by an armed man at a popular caf in Sydney and forced to display an Islamic flag, triggering a security alert in Australia and leading to evacuation of key buildings, including the Indian Consulate.
Modi presented Obama with a richly silk-covered special edition of Mahatma Gandhi's interpretation of the Bhagvad Gita, and recordings of Dr Martin Luther King's speech when he visited India in 1959 and also a specially framed photograph of Dr King when he visited Rajghat. Modi had scrupulously researched and selected these gifts for Obama and more gifts would be presented on Tuesday during their summit for both the President and the First Family.
Indians in countries like the United States, China, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Egypt, Israel and South Africa celebrated the day with hoisting of the national flag and singing of patriotic songs.
'Soon enough, we were out shouted. The journalist had a multiple agenda -- he berated the Government, the bureaucracy in general and the UPSC system that selected them.'
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