Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has agreed to come here and India is looking forward to the visit during which the two sides will try to reduce differences, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said in New Delhi on Tuesday. The minister said India has been trying to build cordial relations with Pakistan and hoped for "reciprocity" of these efforts.
The Pakistan government has trashed former president Pervez Musharraf's four-point formula to resolve Kashmir issue, saying it was "his thinking" which did not have the endorsement of Pakistan Parliament or Cabinet and suggested a fresh approach to address the vexed problem.
India on Thursday underlined the need for Sri Lanka to devolve powers to Tamil-dominated provinces envisaged under a key constitutional amendment in a "very visible manner" to fulfill the political aspirations of the minority ethnic community.
War-displaced Tamil civilians in northern Sri Lanka can now hope to have better dwelling facilities, with India and Sri Lanka on Tuesday signing a memorandum of understanding for construction of 49,000 houses at a cost of $260 million (about Rs 1,352 crore).
Keen to see the decades-old ethnic crisis resolved, India on Tuesday told Sri Lanka that the "most important" issue before it was to come out with a political solution that fulfills the aspirations of the minority Tamils.
Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh, who is on a death row for alleged involvement in a string of bombings in Pakistani cities in 1990, has signed a fresh mercy petition to be sent to President Asif Ali Zardari.
India on Wednesday inked an agreement with China to set up a hotline between Prime Ministers of the two countries as it conveyed its serious concerns to the Chinese leadership over Beijing's issuance of stapled visas to Kashmiris and plans to undertake projects in Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
In the backdrop of External Affairs Minister SM Krishna's visit to China, The two countries have signed an agreement on Wednesday to establish a hot line facility between the two prime ministers.
India on Tuesday said it did not expect Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to rake up the Kashmir issue at the United Nations General Assembly, affirming that the state is its integral part.
Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt, who is travelling with External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on his three-day tour of Pakistan, compares the new visa agreement to the old one
A move by India and Pakistan to ease their decades-old visa regime to benefit tourists, senior citizens and businessmen was hailed on Saturday as a milestone in a "nascent" peace process, with the media in Islamabad calling it the first major outcome of the dialogue that resumed last year.
Bringing some hope to the family of Sarabjit Singh, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday assured India that he will consider the case of the Indian prisoner who has been on death row in the country for over 20 years.
The government on Friday said that the G-8 resolution -- on curbing the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology to non-Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty signatory countries -- was 'not a legally binding document' and hoped individual nations will implement civil nuclear agreements with India on bilateral basis. External Affairs Minister S M Krishna also allayed concerns over the End-User Monitoring Agreement (EUMA) with the United States.
Pakistan on Thursday accused India of adopting an 'untenable, illegal and amoral' position on the issue of Kashmir and said New Delhi should come forward for meaningful and result-oriented talks aimed at resolving the decades-old issue.
Pakistan cannot impart lessons to us on democracy and human rights, said External Affairs Minister SM Krishna at the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday.
Raising the pitch for concerted and joint fight against terrorism, India on Wednesday pressed for 'cooperative regional approaches' to defeat the scourge and early adoption by the United Nations of an international convention against terror.
India is 'very cautiously and responsibly' evaluating the conflicting signals emanating from Pakistan on punishing the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks and is waiting for its 'visible and credible' actions against them. Voicing his disapproval over the release of Lashkar-e-Tayiba founder Hafeez Saeed, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Sunday said India has not yet received any official communication about Pakistan government's appeal.
Condemning the assassination of chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council Burhanudin Rabbani, India on Tuesday said that the forces of terror and hatred have silenced "another powerful voice of peace" there. Expressing shock at the death of Rabbani, also former president of Afghanistan, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna "unreservedly" condemned the act of "great brutality." "I fondly recall my meetings with him in Kabul and again in New Delhi last July," he said.
India has sought an assurance from the United States over the safety of the Indian community there in the wake of the shooting at a Wisconsin gurudwara that left seven people, including the gunman, dead.
Appreciating India's track record on the non-proliferation front, Japan on Friday expressed keenness to conclude the civil nuclear agreement with it at the earliest, but made it clear that such cooperation would be suspended if New Delhi conducted an atomic test.With one round of negotiations on nuclear cooperation already having been concluded, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his Japanese counterpart Katsuya Okada discussed the issue.
Doubts about the Obama administration's commitment to a strategic partnership with India were raised by the likes of Lalit Mansingh, former Indian ambassador to the US and former Indian foreign secretary, and Kanwal Sibal, former Indian foreign secretary and former deputy chief of mission in Washington, DC, in two separate panels titled 'American and Indian Strategic Interests in Asia' and 'Where is the US-India Strategic Relationship Headed in the Coming Year?'
India and other key world powers on Sunday vowed never to allow Afghanistan to become a sanctuary for global terrorism again, as major donors pledged $16 billion (about Rs 89,600 crore) in aid to the war-torn country to prevent it from sliding back into turmoil after foreign forces leave in 2014.
India on Tuesday rubbished Pakistan's allegations that it was fomenting trouble in the neighbouring country, saying it has nothing to do with their internal developments which are of 'their own making.'
The international community should ensure that there is no selectivity in dealing with terrorism, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said in a statement at the international conference on Afghanistan, where he supported the peace process which, he added, should be "inclusive and transparent."
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said India considers Taliban as a dreaded terror outfit, and wants Pakistan to take action against it along with other groups like Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD).
The Centre on Wednesday washed its hands off the decision to stop work along the Sino-Indian border in Jammu and Kashmir after the Chinese' protest, saying it had no role in either starting or halting the project and that it was entirely the state government's affair.
The United States on Thursday said its partnership with India is the 'real key' to global order and the invitation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the first state visit to Washington during Obama administration reflects the very high priority accorded to the country.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and External Affairs Minister S M Krishna will lead their respective delegations in the Second US-India Strategic Dialogue that will be held in Delhi on Tuesday.
The Obama administration has declared that the Indian American community has always been and will continue to be indispensable to the United States-India Strategic Dialogue. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake, who will be by Secretary Hillary Clinton's side as she co-chairs the talks with External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, explained how integral the Indian American community has been to this dialogue.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will arrive in New Delhi on Monday to attend the second round of Indo-US strategic dialogue on Tuesday during which a host of key bilateral, regional and international issues including situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and security cooperation in the backdrop of recent Mumbai blasts will be discussed.
Senior diplomatic sources, while conceding that there have been regular discussions of the Sri Lanka situation between Delhi and Washington, and that both countries were on the same page in terms of its policy regarding the repatriation of Tamil refugees and that the rights of the Tamil minority needs to be respected, reiterated that this issue would not figure in the discussion Clinton has while in Chennai
Gandhi's decision to fly economy class followed a similar act by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and an announcement by External Affairs Minister S M Krishna that he would be undertaking official trips to Belarus and Turkmenistan.
India has issued an ultimatum to Canada, which has denied visa to several serving and retired military personnel, pointing out that these people were not part of any vigilante or illegal group.
India on Monday sought comprehensive reform of international financial institutions to enable enhanced capital flows and infrastructure investment in developing markets, which it said will strengthen recovery from the worst global economic crisis since 1945.
India and the United States on Monday night reached an End-Use Monitoring pact on defence equipment and technology, as they vowed to push their strategic ties with Washington giving an assurance that its policy on enrichment and reprocessing technology will not affect New Delhi.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt on Thursday.Sources indicate that while Dr Singh will seek a firmer commitment on tackling terror from his Pakistani counterpart, Gilani might rake up the contentious issue of Kashmir during the talks. The composite dialogue between India and Pakistan had come to a standstill after the terror attack on Mumbai in November
As external affairs minister S M Krishna travels to Beijing on Tuesday for talks till April 8 with his counterpart, Yang Jiechi, highly placed sources in the establishment confirmed that India and China have been in talks for some time to ban Masood Azhar of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, Abdul Rehman Makki of the Jamaat-ud Dawa and Azam Cheema of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, under the UNSC resolutions.
Dr Ramamurthy Kosanam was reportedly abducted by Islamic State terrorists in Libya nearly 18 months ago.
The ministers, including Krishna, also reaffirmed their commitment to multilateralism and to increased participation of developing countries in the decision-making bodies of multilateral organizations and institutions.
"The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun the process of adjusting the status and transfer of eligible students on a case by case basis," External Affairs Minister S M Krishna told the Lok Sabha during the Question Hour.