"The government's position for bilateral redressal of all India-Pakistan issues in an environment free of terror and violence hasn't changed."
Mukherjee conferred with the Jordanian monarch on a wide variety of subjects, including terrorism, UN Security Council reforms, enhancement of bilateral trade.
The United Nations General Assembly today elected Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain and Venezuela as the new non-permanent members of the Security Council for a two-year term beginning in January next year.
Sitharaman's nomination is a surprise because since long many RS vacancies from Gujarat are filled by non-Gujaratis like Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu. A senior Congress leader from Gujarat told rediff.com, "Considering that Narendra Modi is one of the strongest chief ministers that Gujarat has ever seen, the frequent nomination of non-Gujaratis to the Rajya Sabha shows that even in the BJP the party high command of New Delhi dominates in certain issues."
The Chinese technical hold was set to lapse on Monday, and had China not raised further objection, the resolution designating Azhar as a terrorist could stand passed automatically. The hold has been extended for another six months.
'New Delhi feels that given the internal dynamics in Pakistan and the overwhelming powers wielded by the army, one will have to wait for better times to see any meaningful progress in the India-Pakistan relationship,' says Ambassador G Parthasarthy.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned "in the strongest terms" the reported ceasefire violation by Hamas and demanded that an Israeli soldier captured in Gaza be released immediately.
"The world, which includes our brotherly friends (China and Saudi Arabia) whom the foreign minister (Khawaja Asif) thanked in a prematurely triumphant tweet on Tuesday, is not impressed with what they see as this country's continued intransigence," the Dawn said in a stinging editorial, criticising the policies of the government, especially the powerful military.
This was not Sharad Pawar or Prithviraj Chavan speaking. It was Uddhav Thackeray, the undisputed chief of the Shiv Sena!
On the border dispute, officials on both sides say the protracted boundary talks made progress, while both sides made attempts to avert tensions along the 3,488-kilometre-long Line of Actual Control, which remains undefined.
'Internal security of India has become a joke. The country's security is 'Ram-bharose'
'Of course, Maldives is chicken feed for the Indian armed forces. And an intervention in the Maldives may serve the purpose of creating jingoism in an election year.' 'But from the foreign policy perspective, any such move will be a flagrant violation of international law and the UN Charter,' warns Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Mukherjee extended an invitation to Xi to visit India which he accepted.
After holding meetings with senior leaders of the Congress on Monday morning, party president Sonia Gandhi has decided to convene a meeting of the Congress Working Committee on Tuesday at 9 am to discuss the difficulties before the United Progressive Alliance government headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Amongst those who met Gandhi on Monday was Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.
Armed intervention should be a "measure of last resort" in any conflict-plagued nation, India has said, stressing that the responsibility to protect should primarily focus on political engagement with all parties and should not be pursued with an objective of regime change.
The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting to discuss the deadly Israeli attack on Gaza, with India expressing hope that Israel and Palestine will pay heed to the Council's message that the two should exercise restraint and violence must stop.
The BRICS also called upon all nations to adopt a comprehensive approach in combating terrorism including countering radicalisation and blocking terror financing sources.
The cyber attack affected the internet-connected televisions at the media centres and also shut down the official Winter Olympics website for around 20 minutes.
Andrabi, the founder of the Dukhtaran-e-Millat, an Islamist separatist organisation is also a member of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.
Imagine being a part of a country, but being discriminated against by the majority community and atrocities being committed against you by the state. This is the deplorable conditions that the Rohingyas of Myanmar live in where they are cut off from their livelihoods and sources of income, unable to access markets, hospitals and schools, and have little or no access to relief aid. In order to understand the situation and the genesis of the tragedy unfolding, Rediff.com's Archana Masih speaks to Ambassador Vijay Nambiar, the United Nations' Chef de Cabinet (Chief of Staff), who had served a long stint with the UN in New York on the issue.
India has demanded that the principle of "protection of civilians" must be applied in a uniform manner to all parties to a conflict, pointing out that the UNSC failure to enforce accountability of armed groups has served to exacerbate the situation in several instances.
'There are reports of political dissent mounting on Xi Jinping's handling of the Wuhan fallout.'
The Interior Ministry has compiled a list of 13 senior government officers, which include former Director General of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen (Retd) Hamid Gul, former Chief of Intelligence Bureau (IB) Brig (Retd) Ijaz Shah, former federal Interior Secretary Kamal Shah and a senior bureaucrat of Punjab Government Ashfaq Anwar, The Nation reports.
A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com attends Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's presser in Chennai to tom-tom the government's achievements in its first 100 days in office.
'These protests are not just about the CAA. It is against allowing fascism and religious discrimination to creep into our legal system.'
'The sanctions are biting him.' 'He also has a chance to come out into the world and reshape his nation.'
Neither Biden nor his successors can any longer ignore the threat China has come to pose to the US in both economic and military fields, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'The election has to be fought on perennial issues and not on a tragedy of one moment'
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's youngest son, Kim Jong-un, has been promoted as a military general, the clearest sign yet that he is in line to succeed his father as the country's leader.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has sought an un-conditional apology from the Congress for misleading the country on the facts of Bhopal gas tragedy. Worse, the party said, the Congress is dubbing anyone who spoke against former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi as "anti-national and unpatriotic.
In his opening remarks at a ministerial meeting in Tokyo of the Quadrilateral coalition, also known as 'Quad', External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said India remained committed to a rules-based world order, respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, and peaceful resolution of disputes.
"Both India and China are victims of terrorism and the region was suffering from the menace. The prime minister said no country is immune from terrorism and on this issue, we cannot afford to have any differences," MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup told reporters after the meeting.
Jaishankar was among the first ministers to arrive for the SAARC ministerial meeting. He was in the meeting for over 45 minutes and then left.
'You cannot suppress a section of society permanently.' 'The spark of revolt will catch fire sooner or later.'
The Centre, he said, will soon make a 'big' announcement on Jammu and Kashmir.
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi will meet in Hyderabad in November first week for informal dialogue on the state of bilateral relations
The widening gap between rich and poor continues to pose a challenge to stability in China, with the latest figures showing that the Gini coefficient reached 0.438 in 2010, which exceeds UN warning levels, the International Institute for Urban Development said in its report in Beijing.
With the matter snowballing into a political controversy, both the Janaat Dal-United and the BJP tried to play down the issue.
The Volcker panel had named Natwar Singh, who was divested of External Affairs Ministry, and the Congress party among the non-contractual beneficiaries of the oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
Pakistan's polity does not have the capacity to sustain a normal relationship with India, former foreign secretary and national security advisor Shivshankar Menon has said as he characterized relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors as "managed hostility".
