Now, as before, India's vote at the UN was dictated by paramount national interests. Though the Indian vote was 'neutral', its explanation was explicit in its criticism of the Russian actions. India took back with the left hand what it had given with the right, explains Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Sharif raises Kashmir issue at UNGA, renews plebiscite demand.
Iqbal Hossain was arrested from Cox's Bazar sea beach area on Thursday night and is suspected to be the one who allegedly placed a copy of the Quran at a Durga Puja venue in Cumilla, bdnews24.com reported.
A group of envoys including those from several Europe Union countries and a few Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) member states began a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday to take a first-hand account of the situation in newly-carved union territory, especially after the recently-concluded local body elections.
Peace and reconciliation cannot go forward in an atmosphere of terror, India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said in the United Nations on Tuesday.
Massive Israeli shelling killed at least 50 people in the Hamas-ruled Gaza following the collapse of a 72-hour ceasefire shortly after it began on Friday, while two of its soldiers were killed and another was abducted by Palestinian militant groups.
In its 'Right of Reply', India also rejected the 'fanciful and misleading' remarks by the Pakistani envoy to the United Nations.
Today when we see the man behaving in a controlled, almost genteel fashion, creating a government with Prussian efficiency, colonising Delhi with a strange silence of expectation, one must ask is this Modi? Or is Modi all the trails he has left behind?'
India has not only been decked in tricolour hues in the lead up to the 76th Independence Day celebrations, but also put under a heavy security blanket, right from Delhi, the epicentre of the mega celebrations, to Jammu and Kashmir.
A genuine attempt was made to reset relations in a positive way, signalling a stepping back from the brink of conflict, much to the relief of the world, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved 'Mission Karmayogi', dubbed as the biggest bureaucratic reform initiative, aimed at capacity building of government employees to make them more "creative, proactive, professional and technology-enabled". The core guiding principles of the competency-driven programme will be to support a transition from "rules based to roles based" HR management to prepare the Indian civil servant for the future, according to a government statement.
The International Cricket Council joined the world in mourning the death of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, saying that the former South African President was a "towering symbol of resistance" who would inspire generations to come.
Invoking Mahatma Gandhi in his address at the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that 'one must care about the world one will not see', adding that the top-most priority must be the eradication of poverty from the world.
The US election campaign has provided plenty of ammunition for the CCP to make its case that its political system is superior.
Bloodbath in Gaza continued unabated today with Israel and Hamas refusing to back down in the conflict that has killed over 660 Palestinians and 31 Israelis, even as US Secretary of State John Kerry said his ceasefire negotiations in Jerusalem were making progress.
In a frontal attack on the Narendra Modi government, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday said there has been an "alarming increase" in communal incidents since it came to power and asked party men to resist its "authoritarian and sectarian" tendencies.
More than 600,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar's Rakhine state have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, creating one of the world's most dire refugee crisis.
'Previous governments in India had reservations about working with Israel.' 'Modi has shed this tag.' 'Disengaging itself from its traditional and ideological foreign policy approach in the Middle East shall serve India's long-term interests.' Rajaram Panda explains why the significance of Modi's visit to the Jewish nation goes beyond markers like the first-ever visit to Israel by an Indian PM and 25 years of diplomatic ties.
Narendra Modi's positive engagement with Barack Obama has well and truly washed away the doubts and slights of the past.
Prasanna D Zore discovered an electrifying atmosphere as the Yatra passed through Balapur in Maharashtra's Akola district.
AAP candidates from Mumbai, Medha Patkar and Meera Sanyal, are poised to play a crucial and complementary role. While Patkar gives voice to the suffering of people at the grassroots, Sanyal is articulating the key principles that could build a more just and equitable society or economy, says Rajni Bakshi.
India hit out at China for its remarks that there was no consensus over the United States' proposal to ban Pathankot attack mastermind and Jaish-e-Mohammed is chief Masood Azhar at the United Nations
The French president said that peace should be maintained in the region and peoples' rights should be protected.
'It is a testing time for our foreign policy which may involve a certain element of taking risks, assessing costs, and expecting failures,' asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
'Antonio Guterres takes over as the UN secretary-general with tremendous goodwill as the process of his election was without the usual horse trading and compromises.' 'We have every reason to believe that he will be sensitive to Indian positions,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
One priority for Delhi (for the new foreign secretary in particular) is to have an in-depth discussion with Dharamsala as soon as possible, suggests Claude Arpi.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has liberalised the procedure for facilitating the import of rough diamonds (termed roughs in the trade).
'Washington appears to be playing the long game, and making the argument to India that over the longer term, Russia -- sanctioned, cash-strapped, isolated by the West -- will no longer be a viable defence partner for India'
'India would not like to see Pakistani domination and tutelage of Afghanistan against Indian security and economic interests.'
Exploiting the killings to ratchet up the tension in the region and harden negotiating positions with the central government serves nobody, least of all the people of Nagaland. The peace process must not be stalled because of this incident or distracted by calls to repeal the AFSPA, argues Vivek Gumaste.
The Al Qaeda, the Islamic State or Daesh, as it is also called, will continue to exploit the fault lines and the many contradictions in the approaches of different countries, says Hardeep Puri.
Sandeep Pandey salutes women who have contributed to social transformation in India after 1980.
The Security Council as it is today is unable to bring peace and security in the world and so there is reason for countries like India to become members of the Council, Ambassador Asoke Kumar Mukerji tells Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
We have our own problems for sure and they are not trivial, but for now, our economy is in not too bad a shape, our politics is as personality-driven and authoritarian as that of most countries in the world. We must make the best of what we have and not be excessively unhappy looking at the grass on the other side of the septic tank which may not be greener after all!, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
'Many said his visit was very risky. But mercifully, Air Force One has taken off from Delhi without Mr Trump stepping on anybody's toes,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
About 90 per cent of the workers at this delivery service facility are said to be Indian-Americans, mostly from the Sikh community.
The Russians had appealed their exclusion from the Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over the doping scandal from the 2014 Sochi Games.
'If the US intention was to use the FATF platform to isolate Pakistan and impose sanctions against it, that is not going to work when influential countries such as Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia will not lend support to the US campaign,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Do Modi's foreign visits actually serve India or they nothing more than expensive tools for domestic positioning and image-building, asks Shehzad Poonawalla.
"South Asian studies" academics in the US would do well to introspect how they wittingly or unwittingly become part of Pakistan's proxy war in wielding influence over academics and policy, says Sankrant Sanu.
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