The party leadership has been left red-faced following the ugly war of words between Tharoor and the IPL commissioner Lalit Modi with the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party demanding that the minister be sacked on charges of corruption and that a CBI probe be constituted into the entire IPL goings-on.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday hit back at IPL commissioner Lalit Modi alleging he had made attempts to pressure the winning consortium to abandon their bid for the Kerala outfit.
The Indian Premier League's new franchise Rendezvous Sports World (RSW) has threatened to sue IPL commissioner Lalit Modi for breaking the confidentiality terms.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor himself may not be a stakeholder but the lady he is reportedly planning to marry is part of the consortium which owns the Kochi franchise of the Indian Premier League, revealed IPL commissioner Lalit Modi.
Shortly after the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution asking the non-Non Proliferation Treaty countries to sign the NPT, India on Thursday ruled out signing the agreement saying, "It cannot support a discriminatory" pact.
After creating a controversy by his 'cattle class' remark, Union Minister Shashi Tharoor has now complained about his workload while tweeting about 'ridiculously full' engagements.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor was back on Twitter on Thursday, describing as "excellent" his meeting with senior minister S M Krishna, who had publicly ticked him off for questioning the new visa rules on the social networking site.
A day after he was publicly chided by his senior minister S M Krishna, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said on Monday that he has missed "brouhaha" on the issue but refused to add anything to his earlier comments.
Troops of India and China were locked in a 73-day-long standoff in Doklam from June 16 last year after the Indian side stopped the building of a road in the disputed tri-junction by the Chinese army.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday described Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor's tweet on new visa rules as 'callous' and said the government should clarify its position on the issue instead of "speaking in different voices". "Tharoor has made a callous remark (on 26/11 killers not needing visas). How can a person in his position make such statements even in jest," BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said.
The tourism ministry on Monday insisted that the new visa rules would not affect inflow of visitors and dismissed as a 'joke' the apprehension of Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor that India would become a less welcoming destination.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday landed in a fresh controversy for reportedly dubbing travel by economy class as "cattle class", a remark which has been strongly disapproved by the Congress.
'We are very grateful that the US takes the trouble to keep us informed and to consult with us as this situation is being managed by them,' Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor tells rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on Saturday defended India's decision to vote against Iran on the International Atomic Energy Agency resolution, claiming that it had been taken keeping in mind the fact that the Islamic nation was a signatory of the NPT. He was responding to a question on whether India had toed America's line over Iran's nuclear programme.
Union Minister of state for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on Thursday dismissed as "unfounded and misleading" the charges by Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan who had accused him of using public platforms to deride the Left Democratic Front government in the state.
The government, on Wednesday, said cooperation from Pakistan was lacking in bringing the perpetrators of the strikes to justice. Replying to a question in the Lok Sabha, Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for External Affairs, said, "Terrorism is a principal preoccupation in most of our international contacts. We seek to ensure that all countries show us support in the actions we need to undertake."
"I believe in all of them. I believe in the pain and trauma behind every single complainant," Maneka Gandhi said.
Saudi Arabia can be a 'valuable interlocutor' between India and Pakistan, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said on Sunday and subsequently clarified that he did not mean that Riyadh should be a mediator.
Refusing to join issue with China over Buddhist spiritual leader Dalai Lama's visit to Arunachal Pradesh, India on Tuesday expressed hope that Chinese 'rhetoric' will stop after the Tibetan leader's trip comes to an end. Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor also rejected as 'silly' -- the reminder about 1962 war by an anonymous Chinese scholar in a newspaper article there -- and underlined that India has come a long way since then.
With investigators trying to unravel the identity of those behind the Pune blast, the government "may not yet" point finger at any foreign country for the terror attack till more evidence was gathered, Union minister Shashi Tharoor said on Monday.
India does not wish to destabilise Pakistan in any manner and wants to maintain good relations with that country, Union Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said in Palakkad on Thursday.
India supports American efforts in Pakistan, but is concerned about the diversion of United States' aid and military equipment by Islamabad against it.
Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur, who was at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport when the body of Ranjodh Singh was brought back to the country, said something positive is expected from the investigations and issued a second advisory to Indian students discouraging them from going to Australia for studies.
India on Tuesday said Pakistan should do more in containing militancy as well as dismantling terror infrastructure in that country. "Frankly we have not seen enough action on either, though we acknowledge that the civilian government in Islamabad had apprehended seven persons in connection with the Mumbai terror attacks," Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for external affairs, said in New York.
"The speculation doing the rounds in media regarding China's protest over NSG membership to India is not true," he said on the sidelines of a function at Balia in Uttar Pradesh.
India has charged Pakistan of using 'jihadi' elements to "destabilise" it and Afghanistan and expressed willingness to normalise relations with Islamabad if it takes one step towards peace. "It (Pakistan) has been one of actually using jihadi militants as an instrument of destabilisation in both Afghanistan and India. And we think that's wrong," Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor told CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor recently made his first foray to the United Nations -- where he had served for more than two decades as Under Secretary General of Communications -- over two-and-a-half years after his unsuccessful bid for the position of UN Secretary General.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has learnt that humour has no place in Indian politics. George Joseph meets the newly-cautious Tharoor, and finds out why the satirical novelist enjoys being part of the Indian government.
"The action that is expected from Pakistan has to take place before we can engage once again in the kind of comprehensive dialogue process that we want," Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said.
Shashi Tharoor, who resigned as minister of state for external affairs after being in the eye of the IPL storm, on Saturday said "truth" should come out on the issue and asserted he doesn't need to quit public life as he has committed no irregularity.
After maintaining silence for days on Twitter, Shashi Tharoor was back, only to thank his supporters for all the "kind words" at this "time of trial".
India has conveyed its 'absolute displeasure and concern' to Australia over the unabated attacks on Indians there and asked the government to 'get its act together' to bring the perpetrators of the assaults to book. Stating this on Friday, Minister of State for External Affairs Praneet Kaur also termed the latest attack on a cab driver there and the incident of fire in a Gurudwara as unfortunate.
Indian Premier League (IPL) Commissioner Lalit Modi on Friday accused Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor of having an agenda in promoting the Kochi IPL fanchise, and asserted that he won't let that agenda succeed.
Kolkata Knight Riders co-owner Shah Rukh Khan has denied offering any role in the team to Dubai-based entrepreneur Sunanda Pushkar, who is at the centre of an ownership row involving the Kochi franchise.
Tharoor talked to Dr Singh over phone on Sunday morning and explained that the media had misinterpreted his comments, which he had made as chairman of a seminar at the Indian Council of World Affairs on Friday.
A day after his reported remarks at an academic seminar on international relations created a flutter in the Congress, Tharoor called a press conference in his office and said he was dismayed at the "inaccurate and tendentious reporting".
Continuing to 'tweet' his opinion despite receiving flak, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor now feels people should work rather than enjoy a holiday on Mahatma Gandhi's birthday.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has defended his tweets, saying they are 'interactive Akashvani', but has expressed regret over the distortion of his comments. "This is an extended and very informal conversation with a large number of people. I have over seven lakh people who are reading what I have to say, who react to what I have to say and who also put up questions to me," Tharoor said. "It's a kind of interactive Akashvani," he said.
Soon after his return from Liberia and Ghana where he was on an official visit, Tharoor met Gandhi amid demands for his resignation as Minister of State for External Affairs. Later he also met senior Congress leader and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
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.
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