Sri Lanka's Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday imposed emergency giving him sweeping powers ahead of the key election on July 20 to pick a new President as he urged the political parties to put aside differences and form an all-party government, with the Opposition dubbing his decision as an 'undemocratic draconian act'.
"India has been deeply concerned over the rapidly deteriorating situation in Ukraine and the ensuing humanitarian crisis," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti said.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, along with his wife and family, fled his official residence -- Temple Trees -- and took shelter at the naval base in Trincomalee.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday assured Prime Minister Narendra Modi that his forces are doing everything to evacuate the stranded Indian citizens, mostly students, from the war-torn eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, according to his office.
The Yuan Wang 5 can easily monitor the Indian coast while operating in international waters. She does not have to enter a port in Sri Lanka to fulfill this mission, points out Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
'Instead of fighting over whatever will be left of the present world, the permanent members of the UN security council should have raised a little finger to arrest the death and devastation around us,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Nikhat, Lovlina on course for CWG berth
The Supreme Court Tuesday asked the Centre and West Bengal government to respond to a plea seeking directions to prevent the alleged exodus due to 'state-sponsored' violence after the assembly polls, constituting a Special Investigating Team to probe the issue and take action against culprits.
Jaishankar said all members would agree that India's approach should be guided by its national beliefs and values, national interest and by its national strategy.
'Today, I am taking new actions to restrict Iran's nuclear, ballistic missile, and conventional weapons pursuits. My Administration will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, nor will we allow Iran to endanger the rest of the world with a fresh supply of ballistic missiles and conventional arms,' Trump said in a statement.
Xi Jinping's recent actions in South Asia have amply demonstrated the disastrous impact of China's embrace, observes Jayadeva Ranade, the retired senior RA&W officer and China expert.
When corruption eats into the vitals of a nation, the State structures decompose and collapse. And when the leadership loses respect of the people, the war is lost, asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, who played a stellar role in beginning India's systemic dealings in Afghanistan in 1994.
Significantly, these 12 officers would form a major part of the team that the new army chief will inherit, observes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W, India's external intelligence agency.
The IAF transport aircraft landed in Jamnagar, Gujarat with over 120 people including officials and security personnel from the embassy.
Expressing concern over the situation in Afghanistan, a group of eminent persons, including former ministers K Natwar Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Mani Shankar Aiyar, on Wednesday urged the government to continue engaging with the Taliban and not allow any political party to use the developments in that country to communally polarise Indian society for electoral gains.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, during his telephonic conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday, discussed the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan amidst chaotic airlifts of Afghan civilians and diplomats by the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries before the August 31 deadline.
Deputy director for the People's Liberation Army Office for International Military Cooperation Major General Huang Xueping held a video conference with his US counterpart Michael Chase last week.
In his penultimate State of the Union address, Barack Obama said that the economy is improving.
The Indian Navy has a big role to play in support of our strategic objectives in the Indian Ocean. The increasing Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean is a matter of concern and need to be factored. Hence, the requirement of an Aircraft Carrier is a foregone conclusion, asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
The use of RDX in the explosion was confirmed by experts after samples from the scene were sent for examination. While one of the bombs was laced with 1.5 kg of RDX, the other contained nearly 1 kg of RDX, the officials said.
The sanctioned individuals and their immediate family members are prohibited from entering the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao of China. They and companies and institutions associated with them are also restricted from doing business with China, according to the statement by the Chinese foreign ministry.
'We have leaders who would rather that we cohabit with the Indian Mujahedeen than fight terror, as long as the payoffs are there in the next polls... Obviously, we are not headed down the best route to keep terror at bay,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
The two sides are also expected to explore ways to deepen defence collaboration, including exercises, defence transfers and technologies ahead of the next edition of the 2+2 defence and foreign ministerial dialogue to be held in the US later this year, they said.
Officials said this was another example of Pakistan misusing higher studies as bait for recruitment in terror groups.
Blinkin said the US will engage with the Taliban not on the basis of what a Taliban-led government says, but what it does to live up to its commitments.
'It is a testing time for our foreign policy which may involve a certain element of taking risks, assessing costs, and expecting failures,' asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
11 BSF troops have so far been killed in cross-border firing incidents along the IBr in J&K this year.
The United States has announced the end of its 20-year-old war in Afghanistan as the last American military flight flew out of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul shortly before the August 31 deadline.
India is struggling with a second wave of the pandemic with more than 3,00,000 daily new coronavirus cases being reported in the past few days, and hospitals in several states are reeling under a shortage of medical oxygen and beds.
The Biden Administration on Monday said it was now focused on completing its evacuation mission from Afghanistan by August 31, the deadline for removing all American troops from the country.
'The war of 1962 exposed the hollow intellectual foundations of Nehruvian foreign policy, especially vis-a-vis China and that is why it was such a shock.'
Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant claimed that they had executed 1,700 Iraqi Shia air force recruits in Tikrit, posting some gruesome photos online to support their claim.
'Many said his visit was very risky. But mercifully, Air Force One has taken off from Delhi without Mr Trump stepping on anybody's toes,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'The aim of Russian policy is to reform European security, stop NATO expansion and in a more general sense -- set up the new rules of relations between the great powers.' 'From this perspective. the invasion of Ukraine is quite pointless.'
President Barack Obama has said that the United States will reduce its troops to 9,800 in Afghanistan by the end of this year before a complete withdrawal takes place by the end of 2016.
He said the US has been very clear to Pakistan on ending support to terrorist safe havens.
The BSF troops were carrying out border domination along the IB, when snipers of Pakistan Rangers opened fire on them around 1050 hours in Hiranagar-Samba sector of Kathua district, said a senior BSF officer.
The International Olympic Committee expects to bear costs of up to $800 million for its part in the organisation of the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, now due to be staged next year, IOC president Thomas Bach said on Thursday. In March, the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government decided to delay the Games, which were due to start this July, for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed 300,000 people worldwide.
The aid will directly benefit 25,000 people from some of the worst hit areas of the state, adding a humanitarian expert from the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Operations has also been deployed to assess the situation in the state.
If New Delhi finds itself out in the cold in Afghanistan, both the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA have only themselves to blame. Each has been in power for a full decade from 2001, without reaching out to the Taliban, points out Ajai Shukla.
