India on Tuesday demanded a 'visible response' and undertaking from Pakistan on bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks to justice, as officials and leaders of the two countries prepare to meet in Sharm-el-Sheikh to review Islamabad's actions on its promises.
India on Friday handed over to Pakistan the replies to the 30 questions, about the terror attack on Mumbai in November last year, posed by that country. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee handed over India' reply to Pakistan High Commissioner Sahid Malik. Earlier, Home Minister P Chidambaram had handed over the document along with evidence to Mukherjee. He had added that each and every question posed by Islamabad had been answered adequately.
The two sides also discussed issues related to release of prisoners, trade, confidence-building measures and other matters listed under the composite dialogue process.
The Taliban forces operating out of Pakistan's Swat region pose a common threat to India and the United States, besides the host country, America's special envoy Richard Holbrooke suggested in New Delhi on Monday. The envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who met External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, said he had sought the Indian leadership's assessment of the situation.
Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, during the discussions he had with the Sri Lankan leaders including President Mahinda Rajapaksa as part of his two-day visit to Colombo, welcomed the Island nation's commitment for a devolution package in the embattled north. Menon, who concluded his visit on Saturday, 'urged early movement towards a peacefully negotiated political settlement in the island, including in the north', an Indian High Commission release said on Sunday.
Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon held a special briefing for the Ambassadors and High Commissioners of over a dozen countries, including the US, UK, Israel, France, Japan, Germany, Turkey and Canada here to apprise them about the details of investigation into the Mumbai attacks.
It will end India's nuclear isolation, he noted. Ahead of his visit here, Burns said last week that 90 per cent of the work has been completed and he would be making the "final effort".
Before going in for talks, Burns told media persons that the two countries had come a long way in the talks on the agreement since the negotiations began two years ago.
India hopes to wrap up a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency later this month in Vienna, before approaching the Nuclear Suppliers Group, for changes to permit international nuclear commerce. India needs to reach a safeguards agreement and then get the nod of the 45-member NSG for operationalising the India-United States civil nuclear agreement.
Former National Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon has stated that the political dynamics between India and Pakistan have resulted in a "controlled level of hostility" that benefits the ruling elites in both nations. Speaking at the Kerala Literature Festival, Menon described Pakistan as a "brand new state" still grappling with its national identity. He argued that India's foreign policy towards Pakistan is influenced by its domestic politics, resulting in an uneasy equilibrium characterized by a "controlled level of hostility." Menon also questioned the concept of a multipolar world, stating that the current global order is merely "confused." He emphasized that the United States remains the world's true military hegemon, while other nations, including China, are regional powers. Menon further argued that there is no binding international order, leading to a state of "between orders." He highlighted the absence of definitive international agreements on crucial issues in recent decades.
Amid a chill in Indo-Pak ties, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher arrives in New Delhi on Thursday from Pakistan to discuss the situation arising out of the Mumbai terror attacks. Boucher will meet Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and the two sides will deliberate on how Pakistan-based perpetrators of the Mumbai strikes can be brought to justice.
Pal, who succeeded Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, was among the seven new envoys of different countries who presented their credentials separately at a colourful ceremony at the Presidential office in Islamabad.
With the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam out of its way, Sri Lanka on Thursday assured India that it will implement a law for devolving powers to Tamil-dominated areas, as both the countries agreed on the need for a lasting political solution to the ethnic conflict. The assurance was contained in a joint statement issued after National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon met President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo.
India on Thursday said devolution of powers to Tamil-dominated areas in northern Sri Lanka is "really the way" to address the decades-old ethnic conflict in the island nation in a "credible fashion" without which the risk of alienation of the minorities will continue.
Keen to conclude the civil nuclear deal by the year-end, India and the US will hold another round of high level talks in July to sort out differences that have been nagging the negotiations for months.
shiv Shankar Menon said India had a very meaningful relationship with the US on counter terrorism.
India will open two new consulates in the United States this year, in the cities of Atlanta and Seattle. The decision to this effect was taken at the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George Bush in Washington, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said while briefing newsmen about the Singh-Bush meeting.Both the size of the community and its commercial interest was the criteria taken into consideration.
Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon left for Washington Saturday morning after the two-day Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting in Vienna ended inconclusively on Friday with another round scheduled early next month for considering India's case for an exemption to do nuclear commerce with other countries.
India has cancelled its briefing on the safeguards agreement for the members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was scheduled to be held in Vienna on July 18.The IAEA safeguards agreement is an essential step India has to take to integrate with international nuclear commerce before it secures a one-time waiver from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group.
"We'd like to get to the bottom of it," said Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon.
As the United States continues to nudge it to conclude the civil nuclear deal at the earliest, India on Thursday said it is aware of the time-table but negotiations take its own time.
Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon during his recent visit to the US made it clear to officials there that it was not India but Pakistan, which had mobilised troops along the border in the aftermath of Mumbai attacks, sources in New Delhi said on Thursday night.
The key negotiators of the two sides will aim at resolving differences on aspects like reprocessing right and continuity of civil nuclear cooperation if India were to conduct an atomic test in future.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had a hectic second day at the SAARC Summit in Thimphu, where he held meetings with various Heads od State.
The Cabinet Committee on Security today took stock of the situation arising out of the Pune bomb blast and is understood to have discussed issues related to the upcoming foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan.
Notwithstanding Pakistan's repeated insistence on resumption of composite dialogue, India today ruled it out, saying going back to the same process did "not make sense" as "we have to learn from history".
United States President Barack Obama on Monday began talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a wide range of bilateral and other issues. After a ceremonial reception at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Obama drove to the Hyderabad House from Rajghat to begin restricted talks with the prime minister, which would be followed by delegation-level talks. The two leaders are expected to issue a joint statement covering a number of issues ranging from security, trade and economy.
Dr Singh, who will be accompanied by External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon and Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai, would represent India at the high-level segment of the General Assembly on Saturday and deliver his address.
Rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya, who is also travelling with the prime minister, reports from Dhaka.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh leaves New Delhi on Wednesday on a 4-day visit to Maldives to attend the SAARC Summit on the margins of which he will meet his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Pakistan's polity does not have the capacity to sustain a normal relationship with India, former foreign secretary and national security advisor Shivshankar Menon has said as he characterized relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors as "managed hostility".
Pakistan on Wednesday informed India that its request for consular access to Sarabjit Singh, sentenced to death for his alleged involvement in bomb blasts in Pakistan, was being examined.
Former NSA Shivshankar Menon said the defence minister did not have a right to voice his personal opinion on nuclear policy in public, particularly when that opinion contradicted the country's official policy.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday held talks with US President Barack Obama, the first bilateral summit meeting after nearly three years.
The Prime Minister's Office on Thursday night rubbished as "mischievous" the reports that a statement on the killing of five Indian soldiers on the Line of Control was changed at its behest. "Such allegations being made are mischievous and have no basis," a PMO spokesman said.
India would have responded differently to "Pakistan-sponsored" Mumbai terror attacks had there been a different "mix of people" at the helm, according to former foreign secretary and national security advisor Shivshankar Menon.
In an open letter, they said, "We are witnessing a frenzy of hate filled destruction in the country where at the sacrificial altar are not just Muslims and members of the other minority communities but the Constitution itself."
As a leader, he was ambitious, not for himself but for India and its people. His was not the short-term election cycle calculation of individual political gain. His was a practical vision of how to better the lives of his fellow citizens, asserts Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, who served as foreign secretary and national security advisor when Dr Singh was prime minister.
Shivshankar Menon said the government's amendment to the Citizenship Act was a "self-inflicted goal".
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