'India have a good bunch of fast bowlers.' 'Umesh is doing really well and so are Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant.'
Ties with Pakistan and China which were on the centre stage of Indian diplomacy saw a "deterioration" in the year gone by, according to foreign policy experts who feel that the relationships are unlikely to see any forward movement in the new year.
There is no sign of war in the border regions, a top Indian army officer said on Monday. "I see no war cloud in the Indo-Pak border regions," General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Army's Central Command Lt Gen J K Mohanty said in Bhubaneshwar. Ever since terrorists of Pakistani origin launched an attack at the heart of Mumbai, there has been fears of India going to war with Pakistan.
Pakistan's Punjab government has said that the involvement of a "foreign hand" could not be ruled out in the Wagah Border suicide bombing, even after three homegrown militant factions separately claimed responsibility for the attack that killed at least 61 people.
One of the addresses which have been dropped by the UN Security Council's Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee was found similar to that of a residence of Islamabad's envoy to the UN Maleeha Lodhi.
Entrepreneurs would be able to apply online for 26 services.
Dr. Ere Shesiah, chief consultant pathologist of the Jamaican government, told an inquest that Bob Woolmer "died of asphyxia due to manual strangulation associated with Cypermethrinide poisoning".
In a fresh twist to the decades-old Kashmir dispute, the "president" of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has said that talks can be held with India on any proposal for an independent state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The US wants India to be converted into a military base to facilitate refuelling for its planes and recreation for the soldiers engaged in the Iraq war, Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member and Rajya Sabha MP Brinda Karat said.
Pakistan on Thursday said India's stand that the Simla Agreement of 1972 supersedes earlier United Nations resolutions on Kashmir is not legally tenable even as it sought "serious negotiations" on all outstanding disputes.
Delegates of a bilateral peace delegation urge the prime ministers of Pakistan and India to resume dialogue for peace and full normalisation of relations.
India has missed yet another meeting on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline last weekend as officials from Iran and Pakistan met in Teheran to discuss the revised project cost and a new pricing formula.
Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad Gautam Bambawale met Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua in connection with the case of Jadhav, who has been given death sentence by a Pakistani military court for alleged spying.
The question really is whether the US can be persuaded to embark on a path of calibrated and stronger sanctions on Pakistan.
Murli Deora, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, will be leaving for Pakistan on Tuesday. India and Pakistan's relation will get unprecedented boost if talks on Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India natural gas project proceeds on a fast track, said a high-level source in the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The biggest issue in realising the TAPI pipeline project is the issue of security through Afghanistan.
Deora's visit assumes importance in view of Musharraf's proposals to China and China's quest for shorter, safer and commercially viable routes for importing gas and oil.
India on Monday said it will meet Pakistan next week to resolve issues, such as transit fee, impeding progress on the over $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, even as it gets formally inducted in a rival line from Turkmenistan.
India is keen to partner the proposed multi-billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project and has promised to resist "all external pressures on the issue", Iranian oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said.India's petroleum minister Murli Deora is set to arrive in Pakistan on April 21 to hold talks on transit fee to be paid to Islamabad on the $7 billion IPI project.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have used a mix of charm and roguish coercion to let India know that he expected the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline proposal to become a reality in 45 days. But India is in no hurry to take a decision, a top Cabinet minister in the United Progressive Alliance government said. The volatile political environment in Iran and Pakistan has as much weightage now and the UPA government is becoming more reluctant.
Iran, Pakistan and India are expected to hold a meeting in Tehran later this month to push the $7.4-billion IPI gas pipeline project that had been delayed after being caught in wrangling over transit fee.
Projects worth over $20 billion, ranging from the decade-long Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline to various oil and gas exploration and production projects, are being re-considered, said officials in the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Iran's proposal to transform the $7.4 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project to an Iran-Pakistan-China (IPC) project is nothing more than an "empty threat", according to Indian officials, who say the move is fraught with technical and financial challenges.
A day after a handshake with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Friday that talks with India should not be at the cost of his country's 'dignity, self-respect and reputation'.
India and Pakistan will soon finalise the bilateral tariff and transit fee issues for the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project. Technical teams of both countries will meet in Islamabad during April 16-18 to firm up recommendations to be discussed by the petroleum ministers of Pakistan and India at their meeting in Islamabad on April 23.
The regular membership of India and Pakistan, who are observers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, has been approved and they will be inducted formally next year.
Pakistan and Iran have finalised a gas purchase agreement while India is yet to complete modalities for joining the project mainly due to differences with Pakistan over the transit fee to be paid for the gas transported through Pakistani territory. Iran had been asked by Pakistan earlier this month to finalise the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project by April because of its rising gas requirements. Iran said it was holding final talks with India to persuade it to join.
"We are worried over it," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told media persons when asked to comment on the situation in Pakistan in the wake of latest blasts. Pranab also hoped that the fight against terror launched by the Pakistan government would be further strengthened.
India on Friday expressed confidence that the work on the proposed $7-billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project would start by March next year as it is hopeful of finalising a transit fee agreement with Islamabad before that. India is confident of starting the 2775 km long IPI project by end of March 2008, M S Srinivasan, secretary, ministry of petroleum and natural gas, told reporters in Coimbatore.
Iran on Tuesday denied existence of any contract for export of liquefied natural gas to India while stating that it cannot wait endlessly for New Delhi to join the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project.
Pakistan on Thursday said it was committed to the ambitious $7.5 billion gas pipeline project with Iran despite the venture running into rough weather over financing.
India, Australia and Pakistan have been placed in the same group for the 2008 Champions trophy.
Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the leading buyers of weapons in 2006 while the United States was the topmost supplier of arms to the developing world, a Congressional study has revealed. The report said Russia and Britain followed the US.
India captain Anil Kumble put the onus on the batting line-up to notch up a rare series win against Australia.
Supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and representatives of some Kashmiri separatist groups were on Saturday involved in a war of words outside the UN headquarters.
Union ministries are in the midst of a row because of uncleared IAF bills, which were incurred when Pakistan's ex-minister Jadoon had used an IAF plane, during his visit to India.
Pakistan says it will go with the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline despite skepticism over the project from the United States.
Antony on the security scenario in the immediate neighbourhood and beyond.
While declining to give a time-frame for the implementation of the much-delayed IPI pipeline, Iran has said it could not wait much longer for India and Pakistan to agree on the tariffs payable by India to its neighbour for the gas passing through the pipeline.
In his statement, Hosseini said, "Expedite the decision-making process to finalise the gas deal." The spokesperson for the first time showed Iran's urgency in the matter, saying, "We don't have a lot of time".
In a veiled reference to Pakistan, India said perpetrators of violence in Afghanistan must not be allowed safe havens in its neighbourhood, as it slammed the United Nations Security Council's sanctions regime for not designating the leader of Taliban as terrorist, calling such an approach a "mystery."
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