India's top envoy in Australia has assured Indians that the government was 'very closely monitoring' their well-being in this country, as she asked them to not allow 'a few bad elements' to sour the otherwise warm Indo-Australian relationship. Indian High Commissioner Sujatha Singh, who traveled to Melbourne, assured the Indian Sikh community that the perpetrators of the incident of arson on a local gurdwara will be brought to justice by the authorities.
In a sharp reaction, India on Monday conveyed to Pakistan its "strong concern" at the lack of effective action by it in the case of Mumbai attack mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, saying there seems to be no end in sight to that country remaining a safe haven for well-known terror groups.
Under pressure to check the attacks on Indians in Australia, Victorian Premier John Brumby met Indian High Commissioner to Australia Sujatha Singh and briefed her on the measures put in place to improve law and order and the safety of foreign students in the state.
The Indian government on Wednesday called on the Australian government to take stern action against the perpetrators of alleged racial assaults on Indians in Melbourne, Victoria.
Concerned over a series of attacks on its nationals, India has sought "credible answers" from Australia so that it could send a clear message to worried parents of more than 1.2 lakh Indian students in Australia.
Indian diplomats are expected to meet Australian officials in a bid to diffuse diplomatic tension between Canberra and New Delhi after the murder of 21-year-old Indian migrant in Melbourne.
Anxious parents of the more than 120,000 Indian students in Australia are asking for clear answers to certain questions. A clear message needs to be sent back to them, writes Sujatha Singh, India's high commissioner to Australia.
Indian High Commissioner to Australia has reportedly met the Australian governor-general warning of long-term consequences unless more action was taken to prevent attacks against the Indians and pointed that the Victoria was in "a state of denial".
India has called off foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan next week sending a blunt message that it was interfering in India's internal affairs by holding talks with Kashmiri separatists.
In a sudden development, S Jaishankar, India's Ambassador to the United States, was on Wednesday night appointed Foreign Secretary, replacing Sujatha Singh whose tenure has been abruptly 'curtailed" by nearly 8 months.
Acting tough, India on Monday called off foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan next week and conveyed a blunt message that it was interfering in India's internal affairs by holding talks with Kashmiri separatists which was "unacceptable".
The ex-foreign secy was the government's pointsman for China and the US.
In a late night development, S Jaishankar, India's Ambassador to the United States, was appointed foreign secretary on Wednesday, replacing Sujatha Singh whose tenure has been abruptly 'curtailed" by nearly 8 months.
Sujatha Singh stands for the right values and quite simply, she's a "good person" who understands complex economic issues thoroughly, say her friends.
Sushma Swaraj arrived in Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Wednesday night on her first official visit abroad after becoming External Affairs Minister during which she will hold talks with the top leadership on key bilateral issues including land boundary agreement, proposed Teesta river pact and illegal immigration.
India will raise the issue of illegal immigration, a "major cause of concern" for the country. Nayanima Basu reports
Lashkar-e-Tayiba operations commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermindwill stay in jail, Pakistan's supreme court has ordered.
Jaishankar is the first foreign secretary to head the Ministry of External Affairs as minister.
'Given his stint in Beijing, as India's longest serving ambassador there and that too through some challenging and interesting times, Jaishankar ought to have been appointed as foreign secretary in 2013 itself,' says Sanjaya Baru.
'Kashmir is the main issue between the two countries.' 'We have not been able to resolve it bilaterally.' 'As the two major countries in South Asia, we have to go back to the drawing board and start engaging.'
All those peaceniks and bleeding-heart liberals spewing nonsense about 'uninterrupted and uninterruptible' dialogue with Pakistan should pause to ponder the futility of talking to someone who is unwilling and unready to resile an inch from its unacceptable and unreasonable stand, says Virendra Kapoor.
Breaking his silence, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday came out in strong defence of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in the 'Modigate' saying she acted "bona fide" and with "good intentions" and the entire government and party were one on the issue.
The frosty Indo-Pak ties briefly gave way to some warmth when a smiling Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on Thursday shook hands and exchanged pleasantries, but India cautioned against reading too much into such "courtesies".
'Despite Modi's high-flown rhetoric about good-neighbourly relationships in South Asia, he lacks a road map how to proceed -- be it with Bangladesh or with Sri Lanka and Pakistan... But a deeper question arises here: Did he duck on his own accord or under the diktat from the RSS, asks Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'New Delhi showed itself willing -- at least for a period -- to tolerate the risk of conflict and to withstand Beijing's implicit and explicit threats.' 'But it also continued to try to cut some kind of deal with China to reduce tensions.'
A group of retired civil servants also called upon the PM to reach out to the families of the victims in Unnao and Kathua and "seek their forgiveness on behalf of all of us".
