The 125-strong Indian Formed Police Unit along with 12 Indian personnel of the UN Police serving in the UN Mission in Liberia were awarded medals during a parade ceremony held recently in Congo Town in Montserrado County.
India has hit back at Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's remarks that the Uri terror attack could be the result of a "reaction" of the people to the situation in Kashmir, saying the "use of alibis" by him is not going to work anymore.
India and five Central Asian countries on Thursday decided to establish a joint working group on Afghanistan at the senior officials' level, ministry of external affairs secretary (West) Reenat Sandhu said.
India has been maintaining that China has no locus standi in commenting on Jammu and Kashmir.
Sadly, for hundreds of millions in India, that inequality from their birth and the utterly inadequate schooling and health care they receive thereafter mean that the lottery is stacked against them.
Sri Lankan President Mahindra Rajapaksa on Tuesday told the United Nations General Assembly that Colombo is concerned over the growing trend of international interference in the internal affairs of developing countries in the guise of concern for security and human rights.
'The use of nuclear/biological/chemical weapons by Islamic terrorists is just a matter of time.' 'It must be clearly understood what the world faces is a global level insurgency against the world order.' 'Terrorism is merely a tactic and Islamic State its most brutal face, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
It is important to approach the belief of people in ancient India's achievements with a sense of proportion, balance and empathy, argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
The deported Rohingyas would face persecution in Myanmar but also, possibly, elimination.
India maintains that the Kashmir issue is a bilateral one and no third party has any role in it.
India has strongly hit back at Pakistan, saying the "sell-by date" of the country's "anachronistic approach" is long over and there is absolutely no support in the world body for claims on Kashmir by a nation that established itself as a "global epicenter" of terrorism.
Swaraj is expected to give a stinging response to Sharif's UN General Assembly speech, in which he had focused elaborately on Kashmir.
Australian foreign minister Marise Payne and defence minister Peter Dutton will visit India from September 10 to 12 to take part in the dialogue with their Indian counterparts.
Without naming Pakistan, he said there are some who are trying to project an 'alarmist approach' to the situation in Kashmir, which is far from the ground realities.
'It is high time that we act instead of just talking about how and why the climate is changing.'
Taking a dig at China, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said 'some irresponsible nations' with their narrow partisan interests and hegemonic tendencies are coming up with wrong definitions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
'New Delhi and Washington are now on the same page, on dealing with growing Chinese assertiveness, across the entire Indo-Pacific region,' notes Ambassador G Parthasarathy, Chancellor, Central University of Jammu.
"If we have to recognise a government, the first thing is that we will need to wait until the government is formed," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.
The pressure on India to take a hostile attitude towards Russia and China was not subtle, but it was guarded, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan after Monday's 2+2 ministerial meeting in Washington, DC.
Embarking on a high-profile visit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday described the United States as India's "vital partner" and said that he was confident that his trip will bridge "many divisions" and mark a "new chapter" in the strategic ties.
With climate change impacts worsening and affecting the poor and most vulnerable, governments urgently need to scale up adaptation
The omission of historical responsibilities, implying the build-up in the atmosphere of 165 years of greenhouse gas emissions from industrialised countries, is a body blow to the notion of climate justice, sums up Darryl D'Monte, reporting exclusively for Rediff.com from COP21.
'The response to savagery and mass injustice is never a persistent howl.' 'There will be, among the victims, those who choose to forget the scars, those who go on living, those who challenge the overall environment of sentimentality.' 'And the more effort you put into including these other voices, into assimilating these spoilsports, the more balanced your depiction of the tragedy in question will be,' observes Sreehari Nair.
A confrontation with the Taliban in Kabul in this fading light of a twilight zone would have been sheer madness, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Saudi Arabia on Sunday came under attack globally a day after it carried out mass execution of 47 people, including Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr who was a vocal critic of the government and the Saudi monarchy.
COVID-19 has accomplished what the UN failed to do in the last 75 years by making mankind rally around a mask of unity, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Amid deepening concerns in China over the regrouping of the ETIM, blamed by Beijing for all the violent attacks in its volatile Xinjiang province and elsewhere in the country, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Mullah Baradar at Tianjin and sought to prevail on him to build a 'positive image and establish a broad and inclusive political structure that suits Afghanistan's national realities'.
'Clearly, Washington has all but given up hope following US Acting Assistant Secretary of State Alice Wells's stormy visit to Colombo last month where she read the riot act to Sri Lankan leaders to sign the pending status of forces agreement allowing American troops to use Sri Lanka as a hub for operations in the Indian Ocean,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
A release issued by the MEA said the meeting was attended by the heads of delegations of Fiji, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Nauru, Republic of Palau, Independent State of Papua New Guinea, The Independent State of Samoa, Solomon Islands, Kingdom of Tonga, Tuvalu and Republic of Vanuatu.
The PM said there was a need to tackle the problem of terrorism in an organised manner.
Poland, which currently holds the council's rotating presidency, has listed the matter for discussion at 10 am on Friday, the diplomats were quoted as saying.
'I hope that the incoming Biden-Harris Administration works with India to address some of the most profound geopolitical transboundary challenges.'
There are a number of vaccine candidates already in clinical trial and a few out of those candidates have completed phase 1/2 status, he said, adding that there are trials that will be going into phase three sometime at the end of July and then others will follow in the months of August, September and October.
Zakaria, while talking about the unrest in Kashmir, claimed that 'genocide and crimes against humanity committed by India in Kashmir' were going on unabated.
India has said the current crisis in Gaza can be resolved through a negotiated political settlement and dialogue remains the "only viable option" to effectively address issues confronting the region and its people.
On the occasion of International Museum Day Monday, two studies by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation and the International Council of Museums said that museums have been especially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with nearly 90 per cent of them, or more than 85,000 institutions, having closed their doors for varying lengths of time during the crisis.
Democracies avoid serious political turbulence only so long as they ensure that the relative level of inequality between the rich and the poor does not become excessively large, says Vice President M Hamid Ansari.
According to the report, floods (43.4 per cent) and storms (28.2 per cent) are the two most frequently occurring disasters.
'India would not like to see Pakistani domination and tutelage of Afghanistan against Indian security and economic interests.'
The United Nations has commemorated the centenary of World War I, lauding the courage and sacrifice of soldiers including over a million from India, and underscored the importance of reconciliation through diplomacy.
