Senior Indian Foreign Service officials Sharat Sabharwal and Meera Shankar will be the next envoys to Pakistan and the United States respectively. Sabharwal, Special Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, will succeed High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal, who reaches superannuation on February 28. Shankar, India's Ambassador to Germany, will succeed Ronen Sen in Washington.
'What we need to watch is how Saudi Arabia's financial assistance will be used by Pakistan. If the funds go to build their military hardware and operations, it should worry us.'
A 1975-batch IFS officer, Sabharwal's extension has been approved by the Prime Minister's Office. The High Commissioner was to retire this month end.
India's old Pakistan-hand T C A Raghavan, currently country's top envoy in Singapore, has been appointed as the new high commissioner in Islamabad.
India on Friday said it would try to ensure that maximum number of Pakistani fans travel across the border to watch matches when the two countries resume cricket ties next month after a gap of four years.
Unfurling of the national tricolour, cultural programmes and festivities marked the 60th Republic Day celebrations by the Indian community all over the world with patriotic fervour and enthusiasm.
Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal on Saturday met Interior Minister Rehman Malik and discussed Pakistan's probe into the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
Pakistan is committed to bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice and India should co-operate with it in the probe into the terrorist assault, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told Indian envoy Sharat Sabharwal on Saturday.
Pakistan's foreign office on Friday called Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal to lodge a protest over the death of a Pakistani soldier in an incident of firing along the Line of Control, which has witnessed a string of clashes since the weekend.
Pakistan should fully implement the roadmap for normalising economic cooperation with India, including granting it the Most Favoured Nation-status, Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal has said.
A Pakistani judicial commission will visit India during February 3-6 to interview officials who were involved in the investigation of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Friday. Malik announced the dates for the commission's visit during a meeting with Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal at the interior ministry, official sources said.
India and Pakistan are expected to sign a revised visa agreement making liberalised provisions for businessmen when the Home and Interior Secretaries of the two countries meet for talks in Islamabad later this month, Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal said.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Tuesday expressed hope that the positive trends seen in Indo-Pak relations in 2011 would continue this year to boost the agenda of development and prosperity in the region.
India has sought a meeting between External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, diplomatic sources said.
Pakistan is in contact with India to address certain technical issues related to the trial of seven suspects linked to the Mumbai attacks, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Tuesday.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Saturday asked India to provide access to Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, to facilitate the trial in the country of seven suspects charged with involvement in the terrorist carnage.
Newly-wed sports couple Sania Mirza and Shoaib Malik met Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal, following which the Pakistani cricketer was granted one-year visa extension.
India described Pakistan's allegations of stealing water as "preposterous and completely unwarranted". Pakistan has alleged that India is stealing its share of river waters and waging a water war, saying it is "scrupulously" providing Pakistan its share of water in line with the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty.
The India-Pakistan dialogue process should be "uninterrupted and uninterruptible" and help in building trust between the two countries, Pakistan's minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar said on Tuesday.
The strained relations between Pakistan and India could seriously affect efforts in the war against terror, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief and former premier Nawaz Sharif said on Thursday.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik -- who had a meeting with Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal here this morning -- contended that the trial of the Pakistani suspects has run into problems over the issue of Indian witnesses testifying via video-conferencing as this is not allowed under Pakistani laws.
Pakistan has asked India to send its police officers and magistrates who recorded the statement of Ajmal Kasab, the terrorist sentenced to death for his role in the 26/11 attacks, to testify in a local court.
Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal said on Saturday that reduced flow of river waters into Pakistan are not the result of any "violation of Indus Waters Treaty by India or any action on our part to divert such flows or to use more than our assigned share of water from Western Rivers".
High Commissioner Sabharwal and the ISI DG were tight-lipped about the developments. When this scribe told Lt Gen Pasha that Pakistan was doing a lot to improve relations with India but the response from India was not very encouraging, he said, "Let's hope for the best, things will definitely improve."
India's new High Commissioner to Pakistan, T C A Raghavan, on Monday said measures should be taken to address the menace of terrorism.
Former Intelligence Bureau chief Rajiv Mathur on Thursday took over as the new chief information commissioner in the Central Information Commission.
The new Bench will start hearing the matter from August 16.
Over 40,000 complaints and appeals are pending in the Central Information Commission which is working without its chief for more than nine months.
Former Central Board of Direct Taxes chief K V Chowdary and Information Commissioner Vijai Sharma were on Monday appointed Central Vigilance Commissioner and Chief Information Commissioner, posts which have remained vacant for over nine months on which the government drew some flak.
Senior most Information Commissioner Vijai Sharma is tipped to be new Chief Information Commissioner, while former Central Board of Direct Taxes chief K V Chowdary is understood to be in the running for the Central Vigilance Commissioner's post.
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