The 13,000-strong UNRWA staff in Gaza includes teachers, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, warehouse workers, logisticians, technicians and drivers.
India will continue to be a strategic partner for the United States despite concerns over its ties with Russia, the Biden Administration has said.
Both the surging food prices in 2007 and 2008 and their subsequent drop in some areas are a result of large-scale speculation by financial investors, a new report by the United Nations trade body says, calling for greater regulation to protect millions of poor people worldwide.
A local court in Ajmer has issued notices to the dargah committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Archaeological Survey of India on a plea seeking to declare the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti a temple. The petition, filed in September, has sparked a heated debate, with politicians and community leaders weighing in on the potentially volatile issue. The dargah committee has declined to comment, but the Anjuman Syed Zadgan, a body representing the caretakers of the dargah, described the petition as a deliberate attempt to fracture society along communal lines. The petition comes just days after four people were killed in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, following a local court ordering survey of a Mughal-era shrine. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which fixed August 15, 1947, as the cut-off date for status quo on the character of religious places, is at the centre of much of the debate. Several politicians, including Union minister Giriraj Singh and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, have weighed in on the issue. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called the civil court's decision to entertain the petition unwarranted and has asked the Supreme Court to immediately intervene.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged CEOs of US majors to take advantage of India's growth story as the country is making all efforts to become the third largest economy of the world in his third term. India is currently the fifth largest economy of the world after the US, China, Germany and Japan with a GDP of around $3.9 trillion. India has been the fastest growing large economies of the world with GDP growth rate of over 7 per cent for the last three consecutive years.
Prime Minister Modi held separate talks with world leaders including his Nepalese counterpart K P Sharma Oli, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, discussing various facets of bilateral ties and reaffirmed India's support for the Palestinian people.
Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun has filed a civil lawsuit against the Government of India and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, with a US court issuing summons in the case.
"We should not have a repeat of what happened in Mumbai. That there was a terror attack and there was no response," Jaishankar told reporters in Mumbai.
'At least we had an asteroid. What's your excuse?'
It will be for the first time in nearly nine years India's external affairs minister will travel to Pakistan even as the ties between the two neighbours remained frosty over the Kashmir issue and cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
'We condemn recent illicit missile launches in the region that violate UN Security Council resolutions. We express serious concern over recent dangerous and aggressive actions in the maritime domain. We seek a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated one where all countries are free from coercion, and can exercise their agency to determine their futures,' the declaration said.
India has been stoutly defending its "special and privileged strategic partnership" with Russia and maintained the momentum in the ties notwithstanding the Ukraine conflict.
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
The United Nations has invited Iran to attend crucial Syria peace talks after it pledged to play a "positive and constructive role" but the surprise move provoked a pull-out threat from the Syrian opposition and caution from the US.
'PM Modi would have swept the elections in Kashmir after notebandi but then he scrapped Article 370 so all his good work went down the drain.'
Stating that an investigation team will work under the full supervision of the United Nations to ensure complete transparency and impartiality, he said, "None of the outgoing government involved in the murder will be exempted."
Life has come full circle for Nobel laureate Professor Mohammad Yunus, who faced persecution during Sheikh Hasina's regime for embezzlement, is now all set to head of the interim government in Bangladesh after she resigned and fled the country.
The United Nations General Assembly, heeding to a call by Prime Minister Modi, had made a declaration in December 2014 to observe June 21 every year as IDY.
India needs to recognise and address challenges posed by its dependence on China for critical minerals and examine the implications of phasing down coal on bank balance sheets as it accelerates its green transition, the government's Economic Survey 2023-24 tabled in Parliament on Monday said. As part of its national plan to contribute to meeting the global goal of limiting the average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, India has committed to reducing emissions by 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, achieving 50 per cent cumulative electric installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources, and creating a carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 gigatons of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover.
Delhi's appeasement strategy may now translate as more mega arms deals with the US, generating substantial business and job creation in the American economy. Make no mistake, Americans will use it to pressure India, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Foreign Direct Investment flows to India in 2021 were 26 per cent lower, mainly because large M&A deals recorded in 2020 were not repeated, the UN trade body has said.
Ambassador Pankaj Sharma, Permanent Representative of India to the Conference on Disarmament (CD), Geneva, said India has been drawing the attention of the world towards these threats and the need to strengthen international cooperation to address them through its annual consensus UNGA resolution titled 'Measures to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction'.
In the historic ruling on Friday, the US Supreme Court decided by six votes to three to overturn the 50-year-old Roe v Wade judgement that guaranteed access to abortion across the country.
'I have faced 18 hours of darkness daily all my life.'
'The struggle of insurgents and pro-independence political activists is fuelled by a deep conviction that not only is a free Balochistan possible, but they also believe that Pakistan will inevitably break apart, leading to Balochistan's independence.'
Approximately 70 percent of the population lacks access to adequate water supplies, while 80 percent does not have effective sanitation.
Strongly hitting out at Pakistan for again raking up the Kashmir issue at the United Nations, India has said a constructive contribution cannot be expected from a country that has an established practice of hosting terrorists and is the "epicentre" of global terrorism, and the biggest destabilising force in the world.
India is a great power that determines its national interests and chooses its partners, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, describing as "completely unjustified" the "enormous pressure" on New Delhi due to its energy cooperation with Moscow.
Khan, 71, has been lodged at the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi on account of multiple cases against him.
Nothing is more promising than countries putting aside hubris and ideological differences to invest in our shared future, observes Durga Sreenivasan, a delegate at COP28.
The race for the UN secretary-general for 2022-2027 is already over and another term for Antonio Guterres is a foregone conclusion, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The unexpected missile attack on a second India-bound ship carrying Russian crude, just three weeks after the first, has complicated matters for domestic refiners. India now counts the Vladimir Putin-led nation as its biggest oil supplier, according to Paris-based market intelligence agency Kpler, and these attacks come on top of US sanctions since December, where vessels that bring crude to India are facing heightened scrutiny. Panama-registered Pollux, which loaded crude at the Sheshkaris oil terminal in the Russian port of Novorossiysk on January 24, was scheduled to deliver the medium, sour Urals grade to Paradip port on February 28.
Russia's unprecedented rapprochement with North Korea has raised concerns about the re-emergence of a Russia-China-North Korea alliance which could increase the probability of conflict on the Korean Peninsula, explains Dr Rajaram Panda.
Over a hundred world leaders including the Indian prime minister will be at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio.
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is a functional commission of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The 54-member ECOSOC, holding the first plenary meeting of its 2021 session in the General Assembly Hall on Monday, held elections for two seats in the Asia-Pacific States category with Afghanistan, India and China in the fray.
'Every Indian knows why the BJP is targeting Hamid Ansari.'
The crises of the 21st century, 9/11, the economic meltdown, COVID-19, Russia-Iran war and the Hamas-Israel war seem to be never ending. In this situation, Iran might be contemplating a nuclear deterrent to defend itself, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, the distinguished long-time Rediff contributor who turns 80 on June 17..
A key UN climate change summit that will be attended by nearly 150 world leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicks off on Monday under the shadow of the deadly Paris terror attack to try to craft a long-term deal to limit carbon emissions.
Taking the floor immediately after his election, Ashe, who is Antigua and Barbuda's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, said that in 18 months, the world body would launch an agenda for sustainable development for all
"The two sides note that the relationship between Russia and China has progressed to a more advanced interstate cooperation compared to the military-political unions of the Cold War era as it is not bloc or confrontational in nature, nor does it target any third countries," Russia's new agency Tass quoted the document as saying.