No reservation on China, Japan joining SAARC as observers: PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Pakistan to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit likely to be held in September 2016.
Strengthening of police cooperation will be high on agenda of the upcoming South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Home Ministers' conference during which India is expected to press for visible collaboration by member countries in the fight against terrorism.
Saeed accused Rajnath Singh of being "responsible for the killings of innocent Kashmiris".
Sing is expected to bluntly ask Pakistan to stop sponsoring acts of terror in India.
A three-day meet on 'Science-based agricultural transformation towards alleviation of hunger and poverty in the SAARC countries' will discuss the regional agrarian situation, encompassing food insecurity and poverty and suggest necessary policy and programme shifts to meet the Millennium Development Goals.
It is time the political leaderships in this country arrived at a common ground over issues of foreign and security policy concerns. There has to be a greater communication between the government and the Opposition leaderships for the nation to present a unified face against the rest of the world, advises N Sathiya Moorthy.
They shared the dais but other than a formal handshake, there was no exchange of courtesies between prime ministers of India and Pakistan during the nearly three-hour South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Summit in Kathmandu on Wednesday.
'The performance of any government is benchmarked on five parameters -- India's external security, the state of the economy, social cohesion, internal security, and India's relations with the world or its foreign policy. On each of the benchmarks in the past nine years, the NDA-BJP government has come up completely short'
In her maiden Independence Day address as Chief Minister, Mehbooba made an emotional appeal to the youth indulging in violence, telling them not to be misled by the "vested interests" who want to keep Kashmir burning, and prevent the beautiful valley from turning into another Syria or Afghanistan.
'One cannot escape the conclusion that Pakistan has won the Paris-Bangkok-Islamabad round. To be able to resume the composite dialogue without making any progress on the Mumbai attack trials is a dream come true for Pakistan.'
Although Afghanistan will be formally inducted as the eighth member of SAARC on Tuesday, Afghan Foreign Minister Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta also attended the meet.
More than 2,000 activists of various religious and jihadi outfits in Pakistan on Wednesday protested against the visit of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, accusing him for the unrest in Kashmir.
"It was a formal courtesy call, nothing else," an official said.
During his terse speech, Singh launched a veiled attack on Pakistan, saying mere condemnation of terrorism and individual acts by terrorists was not enough.
He did not mention the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.
Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan is located across the river Ravi, about four kilometres from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Punjab's Gurdaspur district.
'Pakistan's negativism should be seen as the reason for India losing interest in SAARC.'
The external affairs minister also made it clear that with Pakistan, the issue is not Article 370, the issue is cross-border terrorism and the first thing that has to come to table for any talks with Pakistan has to be the terrorism issue.
A verbal duel between Indian and Pakistani MPs was witnessed at the meet on Sunday over the draft declaration, which suggested that people of Jammu and Kashmir be involved in resolving the issue.
India's soft power diplomacy came into play during this cataclysm affecting the world as the pandemic defies barriers and borders, notes Rup Narayan Das.
India has asked Pakistan to handover voice samples of the handlers of the Mumbai attackers, speed up the trial against 26/11 terror accused, including LeT Commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, and to stop cross-border terrorism.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his visit to Pakistan to attend 7th conference of Internal Ministers of SAARC countries immediately on his return from Islamabad.
India will press for handing over of Lashkar-e-Tayiba founder and 26/11 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed during the visit of Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik beginning December 14.
Singh is expected to bluntly ask Pakistan to stop sponsoring acts of terror in India and also raise the issue of slow pace of probe into the Pathankot airbase terror attack
The meeting, held on the sidelines of the SAARC Foreign Ministers' conference, lasted for about half-an-hour.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday met his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani in Maldives to give a push to normalisation of bilateral relations marked by "shrinking" trust deficit.
Home Minister P Chidambaram had briefed the Cabinet Committee on Security, where External Affairs Minister S M Krishna was present, on the interrogation report of LeT operative David Headley before visiting Pakistan for the SAARC Interior Minister's conference last month.
'Terrorism continues to be the overwhelming threat to security and stability in the SCO region and therefore Dr Jaishankar strongly pitched for 'collective action',' observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
The four Pakistani prisoners, lodged in a Gujarat jail, will be repatriated from the Attari border on June 30, 2010 and handed over to Pakistan Rangers.
India supports "a fresh SAARC position on Climate Change for COP (Conference of Parties) 16 in accordance with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Chnage principles and the Bali Action Plan," External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said, addressing the SAARC Council of Ministers.
Pakistan has sought to put the ball in India's court for talks between the prime ministers of the two countries amidst strong indications of an interaction on the sidelines of the SAARC Summit.
'From the very start, PM Modi was insistent that visiting foreign leaders should be exposed to an India beyond its capital.' 'Through these experiences, he felt that the full Indian narrative would be much better understood across the world,' explains External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. A riveting excerpt from Bluekraft Digital Foundation's Modi@20: Dreams Meet Delivery.
US refrained to make any comment on India's decision to not to attend the SAARC Summit in Islamabad.
In an apparent move to counter India's offensive over Pakistan's non implementation of SAFTA, Islamabad has charged New Delhi with not reducing tariffs on 350 items for itself and other nations falling under the Not Least Developed Countries.
Let them act on these," he said, referring to New Delhi's demand that Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim be handed over and Lashker-e-Tayiba chief Hafiz Mohd Sayeed be arrested.
Within the SAARC framework, says Rajeev Sharma, Nepal's strategic importance cannot be overestimated as Nepal is a key member of the sub-SAARC group India has created to bypass Pakistan.
"There is no use of these stop-start talks. We know the outcome, it's futile. The people of this country have been bored with such moves by the government," Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said.
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