The United Nations Security Council on Thursday condemned the Syrian government's violent crackdown on civilians demanding democratic reforms and widespread human rights violations, saying those responsible for the atrocities should be held "accountable."
Armed intervention should be a "measure of last resort" in any conflict-plagued nation, India has said, stressing that the responsibility to protect should primarily focus on political engagement with all parties and should not be pursued with an objective of regime change.
India has demanded that the principle of "protection of civilians" must be applied in a uniform manner to all parties to a conflict, pointing out that the UNSC failure to enforce accountability of armed groups has served to exacerbate the situation in several instances.
Several Union ministers, including Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar resigned.
As per the May 19 order of the state government extending the coronavirus-induced lockdown to May 31, all domestic and international air travel of passengers, except for domestic medical services, domestic air ambulance and for security purposes as permitted by ministry of home affairs, will continue to remain prohibited across the state.
India on Wednesday said that mere "cosmetic changes" to the United Nations Security Council will not improve its effectiveness, asking its five permanent members to realise that the reform of the powerful body, including its expansion, is necessary to reflect contemporary realities.
Pointing out that the proliferation of weapons in a post-conflict Libya poses serious threat to stability in the troubled nation and in the larger middle-east region, India called on the international community to assist the nation to achieve stability and socio-economic development.
India on Friday called for the full implementations of United Nations Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions against Iran without harming its legitimate economic activities, as New Delhi underlined the need to resolve the row over Tehran's nuclear programme peacefully.
As violence in Syria worsens, India has called on all parties within and outside the troubled country to fully cooperate with international envoy Kofi Annan to bring an end to the crisis.
India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri said a military approach to tackle the Syrian crisis would result in "havoc" as it would lead to aiding and abetting of terrorism which would have serious consequences for the entire region.
India has said the 15-nation United Nations Security Council should be expanded to include 10 more members, cautioning that delay in reforming the powerful world body will be at the international community's "own peril". Participating in the 8th round of intergovernmental negotiations on UN Security Council reforms, India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri said India is of the view that reform and expansion of the Security Council are essential
India's permanent representative to the United Nations Hardeep Singh Puri explains New Delhi's stand on Syria to Suman Guha Mozumder.
Among the new entrants to the Union cabinet, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been given the agriculture and rural development portfolios, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda the health portfolio and former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar the power portfolio.
All scheduled commercial passenger flights have been suspended in India since March 25 when the Modi government imposed a lockdown to contain the novel cornavirus pandemic.
India has said that the United Nations Security Council was persistently 'encroaching' and 'undermining' the work of the General Assembly as it asked for it's revitalisation as the representative organ of the world body.
Air India pilot unions IPG and ICPA on Monday sought Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri's intervention on the wage cut issue and also requested for an "urgent" meeting with him on several other issues. "In our meetings in September, you had given us an assurance to look into our grievances positively. "While other airlines are rolling back the austerity pay cuts for their pilots, the wage cut for Air India pilots further increased from October.
The Indian envoy to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri asked the Security Council to devise clear and achievable goals for missions serving in post-conflict areas around the world and provide greater resources for their implementation.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the decisions of airlines banning stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra for his alleged heckling television journalist Arnab Goswami aboard a flight on Tuesday.
Despite a strong call for establishing a no-fly zone in Libya by Britain, deliberations on the measure were still "very preliminary", according to a top Indian envoy in United Nations, who stressed that key questions like "objective" and "assets" remain unanswered.
The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party have united in their demands, calling for the immediate resignation and arrest of P P Divya, a Communist Party of India-Marxist leader and district panchayat president, who leveled graft accusations against ADM Naveen Babu at his send-off function organised by colleagues at the Kannur district collectorate.
Among the states having fewer than 100 urban local bodies, Tripura has bagged the top rank, according to the survey results.
Bengaluru topped the list of 111 cities in the government's 'Ease of Living Index' on Thursday, followed by Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Surat, Navi Mumbai, Coimbatore and Vadodara.
Voicing its opposition to the use of force to resolve the crisis in Syria, India on Wednesday asked all sides to cooperate with the Arab League and start a political process that should respect Damascus' sovereignty.
Hardeep Singh Puri, India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and the architect of India's stunning diplomatic victory this week, speaks to Aziz Haniffa.
We may not be a super military power like the US, but we are the superpower in compassion, love and human values as taught to us by the Bhagavad Gita and the Guru Granth Sahib, says former BJP MP Tarun Vijay.
Both ministers on Thursday greeted each other warmly and made inquiries about their stay in New York so far, Indian envoy to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri said. Krishna then asked Qureshi about the flood situation in Pakistan and how the relief efforts were coming along. Qureshi, in turn, spoke about the steps his government was taking and also thanked India for its aid of USD 20 million routed through the UN
India on Friday handed over a cheque of Rs 90 crore to United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon for relief and rehabilitation of flood-affected in Pakistan, after Islamabad's insistence that the aid be routed through the world body.
"A stable and settled Afghanistan, where the rank and file of the Taliban has given up violence against the government, and the people, cut all links with terrorism, subscribe to the values of the Afghan Constitution and its laws, and where development is the hard rationale, is what we seek and quest for," Permanent Representative to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri said.
At a brief ceremony at India's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York on Wednesday, Indian Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri handed the check for $5 million and documentation relating to the transfer of money to Ambassador Leo Merores, permanent representative of Haiti to the UN.
Osama bin Laden's killing did not mean the end of the war against terrorism, India has said, underlining the need to root out the "syndicate of terrorism", which includes elements of the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. "Without the elimination of terrorist safe heavens and sanctuaries, there can be no end to the global war on terror," India's envoy to the United Nations Hardeep Singh Puri said at a UN counter-terrorism meeting, without referring to Pakistan.
"You cannot have a fight against international terrorism which is compartmentalised. The snakes that bite us wherever come from the same pit," Indian Ambassador to the United Nations, Hardeep Singh Puri told CNN; wherein he along with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts to the world body had a rare combined appearance on a TV show.
Presently, women comprise only 8 per cent of UN police officers and about 2 per cent of the military personnel deployed in peacekeeping operations.
India has underlined the need for the United Nations to focus on humanitarian works in Haiti, saying the world body shouldn't get too deeply embroiled in the country's internal politics.
In the morning, he offered prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and the Kaal Bhairav temple in Varanasi.
In his hard-hitting maiden address to an informal session of the 192-member Assembly on reform of the 15-member Council, Indian ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri lambasted a 'small group' of countries for trying to derail the process by insisting that expansion be limited to non-permanent category.
India was elected to the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member with a thumping majority of votes, including that of Pakistan, in what was quickly described by New Delhi as significant.
India has strongly protested the inclusion of the Naxal issue under the realm of 'armed conflict' in a United Nations report, saying the violence being perpetrated by these groups does not make it a zone of armed conflict, as defined by international law.
The BJP could ask at least a dozen of its 92 Rajya Sabha MPs, particularly those who have served more than one term, to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Thackeray also said it was wrong to impose the lockdown suddenly and now it cannot be lifted all at once.
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