Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly contained strong allegations of
human rights violations by India, and on “Kashmir Day” this month, he referred to the State as the “jugular vein” of Pakistan. In contrast to previous elections in J&K, Pakistan issued a statement in December calling the recent elections a “sham.”
What these denote are drawing of new, harder lines between India and Pakistan over J&K. Just as the Modi government indicated last July that Pakistan should not have engaged with the Hurriyat ahead of talks, Pakistan now seems to indicate that it will no longer engage with anyone but the Hurriyat.
The External Affairs Ministry did not comment on the denial of visa, but it remains to be seen if the new move by Pakistan will have any impact on the fledgling attempt at restarting Foreign Secretary-level talks.
Mr. Akhtar was due to visit Pakistan to attend a “Track-II” conference organised by the Jinnah Institute in Islamabad and the Centre for Dialogue and Resolution in Delhi on February 25. “It means Pakistan is going back on its earlier stand, so they must explain if their earlier decisions in inviting mainstream Kashmiri leaders like Mr. Omar Abdullah or Mr. [Saifuddin] Soz or other Ministers flawed,” Mr. Akthar said.
In the past few years, Pakistan has allowed visits by several J&K leaders from the PDP, the National Conference, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress. They include PDP leaders Mehbooba Mufti, former Minister Tariq Hamid Karra and Ifthikar Ansari and Nirmal Singh of the BJP.
The outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) has called a ‘Dandakaranya Bandh’ for Friday in protest against the Polavaram dam project and the “all-out war” by the Government of India to “flush out Maoists from Bastar.”
“The Polavaram project will displace 2.5 lakh Dorla tribals from Bastar and Telangana. To oppose this project, our Central Regional Bureau has called a Dandakaranya bandh on Friday. We appeal to the people of Telangana, Odisha and Dandakaranya to observe the bandh,” said Ganesh Uike, secretary of the South Regional Committee of the CPI (Maoist) in a statement sent to The Hindu .
Ahead of the bandh, the rebels damaged the rail track near the Kamalur station of Dantewada district on Thursday, leading to the derailment of a goods train engine. The driver and helper of the engine suffered minor injuries.
Accusing the State police and the Central Reserve Police Force of “oppressing and harassing” the tribals of Bastar in the name of “anti-Maoist operations,” the Maoist leader claimed that the police arrested three “workers” of the CPI (Maoist) on February 5 from Kotrapal of Bijapur district.
“Government criticised for being too fast”Virtually rebutting the criticism by leading banker Deepak Parekh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said the government was being criticised for being ‘too fast’.
While Mr. Jaitley parried a question on Mr. Parekh’s criticism on Wednesday that impatience had begun to creep in among businessmen as nothing had changed on the ground in the first nine months of the Narendra Modi government, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said: “I think the Finance Minister has spoken in a way about it.”
Launching the e-biz portal of the government, Mr. Jaitley said: “In the first instance, what is the credibility of this government? What is the decisiveness of our decision making process? What is the process by which government treats business? And it’s an irony that after having seen lethargic governments, you today have a government which is criticised for being too fast.”
He made no direct reference to Mr. Parekh’s comments, but said that government had to choose the ordinance route to expedite legislative changes to promote businesses.
Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal also dismissed the industrialist’s criticism saying share prices of Mr. Parekh’s own group companies HDFC and HDFC Bank had gone up and the stock market only reflected improvement in economy. – PTI
Modi to visit Sri Lanka next monthPM and Sirisena likely to discuss Indian investment in infrastructure
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Sri Lanka between March 13 and 15, Cabinet spokesperson Rajitha Senaratne said.
Mr. Modi is likely to go to Jaffna in the Tamil-majority Northern Province, Trincomalee in the Eastern Province — where India is partnering Sri Lanka to build a 500-MW capacity coal-fired power plant — and the ancient town of Anuradhapura, considered a centre of Buddhism, in the country’s North Central Province, it is reliably learnt from official sources in New Delhi.
Addressing media persons on Thursday, Health Minister Senaratne said Mr. Modi was aware of the problems caused by Indian trawling and said fishermen from both sides should resume talks soon. “He gave a patient hearing to my presentation on the impact Indian trawlers had on northern Sri Lankan fishermen,” said Mr. Senaratne, who held the Fisheries portfolio when he was part of the former President, Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Cabinet. The Fisheries Ministries of both countries were in the process of scheduling the next round of talks, he said.
The Minister, who accompanied President Maithripala Sirisena to New Delhi recently, said that in addition to the civil nuclear agreement signed by the two countries, New Delhi and Colombo discussed possible Indian investment in different areas, including health.
“We have already signed an agreement with Russian state-owned ROSATOM,” he told presspersons on Thursday. The island nation was also exploring possible collaboration with France and the United States.
However, the Minister ruled out a nuclear power plant project with the countries.
The agreement with India pertained to basic and applied research on peaceful uses of nuclear technology, production of radioactive isotopes in industry, agriculture and water management, he said.
Prithvi-II proves its mettleStrategic Forces Command personnel test-fired the nuclear-weapons-capable Prithvi-II missile from Chandipur in Balasore district of Odisha on Thursday for a range of 250 km as against its full strike range of 350 km.
The missile regiment unit of the Command picked up a missile randomly from the production lot and launched it from a road mobile launcher around 9.15 a.m. for regular user training.
After a nearly seven-minute flight, the surface-to-surface missile splashed into the Bay of Bengal within less than 20 metres of the target point, said DRDO scientists.
Academic governance vulnerable to politics: SenSays no for second term as Nalanda varsity Chancellor
Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen on Thursday said academic governance in the country remained “deeply vulnerable to the opinions of the ruling government,” where it chose to make political use of special provisions in a university’s statute.
Declaring his decision not to be considered any longer for another term as Chancellor of Nalanda University in Bihar, Professor Sen said even though the Act governing the institution did not envisage political interference in academic matters, given the legal provisions, the government could turn an academic issue into a “matter of political dispensation.”
“As a proud and concerned citizen of India, I take this particular occasion to communicate my general disquiet in public, which is why I am openly sharing this letter,” he said in a communication to fellow members on the university’s Governing Board.
More than a month had passed since the Board made the unanimous choice that he should serve as Chancellor of the university for a second term.
But the President, who was the Visitor, had been unable to provide his assent to the decision of January 13-14, in the absence of the government’s approval. The Board had not got a reply to its request, either from the President’s office or the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
Dr. Sen said President Pranab Mukherjee had always taken a “deep personal interest in the speedy progress” of the university’s work, and it could be assumed that something was making it difficult or impossible for him to act quickly in the matter.
“Non-action is a time-wasting way of reversing a Board decision, when the government has, in principle, the power to act or not act,” he said.
A similar situation was encountered on the issue of revised statutes passed by the Board unanimously, including one relating to the Chancellor’s term of office. They never received formal acceptance or rejection from the MEA, which had the responsibility to coordinate with the Visitor’s office.
“It is hard for me not to conclude that the government wants me to cease being the Chancellor of Nalanda University after this July, and technically it has the power to do so,” Dr. Sen said, adding that he was writing the letter with a heavy heart, since re-establishing Nalanda had been a life-long commitment for him.
Pak. seeks U.S. military assistancePakistan has briefed the U.S. on the progress it made during military operations against militants in North Waziristan costing $1.3 billion and sought America’s help in defraying part of it.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday met Senator Jack Reed. He said the costs of the ongoing offensive have reached $400 million and could go as high as $1.3 billion, the Express Tribune reported. He “sought Washington’s help in defraying some of the costs.”
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday met Senator Jack Reed. He said the costs of the ongoing offensive have reached $400 million and could go as high as $1.3 billion, the Express Tribune reported. He “sought Washington’s help in defraying some of the costs.”
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