Manmohan Singh, Vladimir Putin lash out at states backing terror
An exceptionally forthright joint
statement issued after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's meeting with Russian
President Vladimir Putin noted that "states that provide aid, abetment
and shelter for such terrorist activities are themselves as guilty as the
actual perpetrators of terrorism".
In a clear reference to Pakistan, the statement said states supporting terror "need to irreversibly shut down terrorist networks, organizations and infrastructure, and show tangible movement in investigating and bringing quickly to justice those responsible for acts of terrorism".
The statement went further and said "terrorist acts perpetrated under misleading slogans" were aimed at undermining territorial integrity of India and Russia, a reference to secessionists who justify the use of terrorism by invoking the once-fashionable theme of self-determination.
The statement is a much firmer and focused denunciation of support to terrorism than joint statements with other powers like the US or China in the past. "This is the strongest statement on terrorism in recent times that can recall," said an Indian diplomat.
The tough references are a step up for India as well as for Russia which faces its own challenge of terrorism and secessionism in Chechnya.
The two leaders spoke of Mumbai attacks as acts of terror whose perpetrators must be brought to book, a significant reference given Pakistan's foot-dragging on acting against top leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed even as the trial of those held so far progresses as a snail's pace.
In a clear reference to Pakistan, the statement said states supporting terror "need to irreversibly shut down terrorist networks, organizations and infrastructure, and show tangible movement in investigating and bringing quickly to justice those responsible for acts of terrorism".
The statement went further and said "terrorist acts perpetrated under misleading slogans" were aimed at undermining territorial integrity of India and Russia, a reference to secessionists who justify the use of terrorism by invoking the once-fashionable theme of self-determination.
The statement is a much firmer and focused denunciation of support to terrorism than joint statements with other powers like the US or China in the past. "This is the strongest statement on terrorism in recent times that can recall," said an Indian diplomat.
The tough references are a step up for India as well as for Russia which faces its own challenge of terrorism and secessionism in Chechnya.
The two leaders spoke of Mumbai attacks as acts of terror whose perpetrators must be brought to book, a significant reference given Pakistan's foot-dragging on acting against top leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed even as the trial of those held so far progresses as a snail's pace.
Russia and India also made it clear that they would not brook Pakistan's attempt to rehabilitate Taliban - unless the group agreed to abide by the Afghan constitution and gave up arms - as they asked for the extension of sanctions on Taliban as the cornerstone of combating terrorism.
With the Hamid Karzai government also not averse to a dialogue with Taliban, the statement does not outright rule accommodation with the Quetta Shura, but sources said Putin remains highly sceptical about the viability of engaging with Mullah Omar's outfit or its offsh
Monday's engagement, said sources,
comes against signs of Russia's bold desire to play as a power than build a
significant coalition against mainline western powers while being on the right
side of history.
Russia's ability to build an effective coalition is significant in context of Afghanistan where Putin has indicated clearly etched red lines with regard to the US withdrawal, making it evident that he expects the Americans to leave behind a workable arrangement that does not fall to terrorism. The assertiveness should be welcome to India which has its own concerns about what might unfold in Afghanistan after the Americans pull out in 2014.
In his statement after the meeting, Putin said, "We will do everything to combat terrorism and punish criminals." And Singh reciprocated, saying, "We share perceptions on a peaceful transition in Afghanistan."
India and Russia made it apparent that they were acutely conscious of Afghanistan's security scenario in the context of the "expected drawdown of international forces in 2014, in order to combat terrorism" and very vehemently ruled out a likely role for Taliban.
"The sides considered it necessary extend the sanctions regime introduced by the UN Security Council against Taliban as one of the most important tools of fighting terrorism," the joint statement said.
Although the Singh-Putin meeting did not yield much by way of signed agreements, and signing contracts for units 3 and 4 of Kudankulam will await scrutiny of legal fine print, the "strategic convergence" on issues like Afghanistan, Syria and Iran was significant.
Russia's ability to build an effective coalition is significant in context of Afghanistan where Putin has indicated clearly etched red lines with regard to the US withdrawal, making it evident that he expects the Americans to leave behind a workable arrangement that does not fall to terrorism. The assertiveness should be welcome to India which has its own concerns about what might unfold in Afghanistan after the Americans pull out in 2014.
In his statement after the meeting, Putin said, "We will do everything to combat terrorism and punish criminals." And Singh reciprocated, saying, "We share perceptions on a peaceful transition in Afghanistan."
India and Russia made it apparent that they were acutely conscious of Afghanistan's security scenario in the context of the "expected drawdown of international forces in 2014, in order to combat terrorism" and very vehemently ruled out a likely role for Taliban.
"The sides considered it necessary extend the sanctions regime introduced by the UN Security Council against Taliban as one of the most important tools of fighting terrorism," the joint statement said.
Although the Singh-Putin meeting did not yield much by way of signed agreements, and signing contracts for units 3 and 4 of Kudankulam will await scrutiny of legal fine print, the "strategic convergence" on issues like Afghanistan, Syria and Iran was significant.
Singh had no hesitation in acknowledging Putin's role in influencing policy outcomes in India's near and extended neighbourhood. He backed Putin's intervention in preventing a military intervention in Syria, acknowledging Russia's capacity to block impact developments in an arc that stretches from Iraq to Japan.
The confluence on terrorism saw the two sides reaffirm the UN role in tackling international terror while also declaring that there cannot be any ideological, religious, political, racial and ethnic or any other justification to acts of terrorism.
Ceasefire violations: Shinde in J&K, to meet BSF personnel in Samba sector
Meanwhile, Shinde has reached Samba sector and will soon visit the forward India posts, which have been under unprovoked firing from the Pakistan Army.
The Home Minister reached J&K at around 9:30 AM.
"They have sufficient information that there has been an infiltration. This might be the result of decisions taken by the Indian Government against militants in the past few years," Shinde said to media yesterday.
Shinde’s visit comes after J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah ,
The Centre to explore other options if Pakistan continues to violate ceasefire.
Omar said ceasefire along the LoC and International Border was one of the major steps that was mutually agreed by both the countries.
A total of 136 ceasefire violations have been reported in 2013, the highest in the past 8 years.
Syria crisis: Damascus blast 'kills 16 soldiers'
At least 16 Syrian
soldiers have been killed in a suicide bombing and fighting that
followed in a Damascus subur.
The blast triggered clashes at a checkpoint near the
mainly-Christian area of Jaramana, the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights said.
State media blamed "terrorists" for the explosion but did not give details.
Earlier, the US urged the Syrian government to allow aid to reach starving civilians in Damascus.
Washington said the army's months-long siege left many people in rebel-held areas in desperate need of food, water and medicine.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which
relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said the suicide car
bombing by the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front triggered heavy fighting at a
key checkpoint between Jaramana and the rebel-held town of Mleha.
The rebels fired rockets into Jaramana during the
fighting and Syrian fighter jets retaliated by striking nearby
opposition-held areas
The BBC's Jim Muir in neighbouring Lebanon says the use of
suicide bombers to open an offensive is a tactic that has been used
increasingly by the rebels in recent months.
Rebels control much of the countryside around Damascus but
Jaramana - a Christian and Druze area mostly loyal to President Bashar
al-Assad - is still held by the government.
In August a car bomb in the suburb killed 18 people.
Syria's embattled President Assad has drawn support from
Syria's ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians and
members of his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam.
The rebel movement is dominated by Sunni Muslims, who are a majority in Syria.
In a statement on Friday, US State Department spokeswoman Jen
Psaki said: "We call on the Syrian regime to immediately approve relief
convoys."
Paul Wood reports on the struggle to survive in rebel-held areas of Syria
At least three of Damascus's suburbs - Yarmouk, Eastern
Ghouta and Moudamiyah - have been besieged by government forces for
several months.
The situation has become so desperate that earlier this week
Muslim clerics issued a religious ruling allowing people to eat cats,
dogs and donkeys just to survive.
Those animals are usually considered unfit for human consumption in Islam.
More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria's
conflict, now in its third year. It began with popular protests against
President Assad before degenerating into civil war.
Maldives police stop presidential revote
Maldives
sank further into political disarray on Saturday when police blocked
officials from conducting a presidential revote, saying that holding the
election would violate a Supreme Court order.
The Indian Ocean
archipelago nation has only about three weeks before the end of the
current president's term, and if his replacement is not elected by then
it will spark a constitutional crisis. The high court annulled the
results of the September 7 presidential election, agreeing with a losing
candidate that the voters' registry included fictitious names and dead
people, but it set conditions for a revote that officials appear to have
been unable to meet.
Elections Commissioner Fuwad Thowfeek
attempted to hold the election as scheduled, the ground floor of his building was full of policemen
stopping his staff from carrying election material outside. He then
called the election off.
The election was
stopped because the commissioner has not complied with a court order to
have the voters' list endorsed by the candidates. He spoke on condition
of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to reporters.
Two candidates did not sign the voters list Friday, saying it needed to
be verified for any irregularities, but Thowfeek had said their demands
for double-checking the list were impossible to meet in time for the
election.
The Supreme Court said in its ruling annulling the
September election that a revote must take place before Sunday. It
likely will need to issue a new ruling in order for an election to be
held before President Mohamed Waheed Hassan's term ends on November 11.
Thowfeek had announced earlier Saturday that he would hold the election
on the court's advice, despite the fact that not all candidates had
endorsed the list of voters. However, he said later the court did not
specifically advise that he conduct the election, but instead asked him
to follow the original guidelines, which is open to interpretation.
The Maldives became a democracy five years ago after 30 years of autocratic rule and has had a difficult transition.
Its first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, was forced
to resign last year midway through his term after he ordered the arrest
of a senior judge he perceived as corrupt and partial. Nasheed says he
was forced out of power by a coup, though an inquiry commission has
dismissed his claim.
Nasheed, who finished first in the
September balloting but did not win the majority of votes needed to
avoid a runoff, had endorsed the voter list. The other candidates,
Yaamin Abdul Gayoom, a brother of the country's longtime autocratic
leader, and businessman Qasim Ibrahim, who challenged the first-round
result in court, did not approve it.
Indian economy to turn around in coming quarters: Montek Singh Ahluwalia
New Delhi:
India’s GDP will see a turnaround in the coming quarters on account of various
steps taken by the government to spur growth as well as good agricultural
production, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
“Taking all these things together, They expect to see recovery in the coming quarters. Exactly how much it will produce is difficult to predict right now. But we are definitely on a turnaround path,” .
He was speaking on the sidelines of ‘Infrastructure Conclave 2013: Fast–Tracking Stalled Projects’, organised by industry body PHD Chamber.
Ahluwalia said the government has taken steps to push the infrastructure sector and there are signs of improvement in the core sector production performance of steel, power, coal and cement during July and August. He also said that India is going to have a good growth in agriculture this year which will help thrust the demand.
“We are going to have a good agriculture year. Good year agriculturally will not only directly contribute to the GDP, it will also generate income in rural areas that will stimulate non-agricultural GDP,”
India’s GDP growth had slipped to the lowest in four years at 4.4 per cent in the first quarter (April-June) of 2013-14, because of contraction in manufacturing activities and mining. In 2012-13, the economic growth had slumped to decade low at 5 per cent.
“We did believe that the deceleration in growth which has occurred, is a short term phenomenon. I was hoping that you would see the turnaround as early as may be the last quarter of previous fiscal year. That hasn’t happened. It didn’t happen in the first quarter… But we are definitely on a turnaround path,”
Justice will be done to the people of Andhra, vows Shinde
1.00 pm: Justice will be done to the
people of Andhra, says Shinde
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has
said that the GoM on Andhra Pradesh which will hold their first meeting
tomorrow, will listen to all the stakeholders in the division of Andhra Pradesh
and report back to cabinet.
“All points will be taken into consideration and justice will be done to the people of Andhra Pradesh”, Shinde said.
“All points will be taken into consideration and justice will be done to the people of Andhra Pradesh”, Shinde said.
He added however that the
recommendations of the GoM would take time to implement, given that it had to
first submit its report to the cabinet, which would then be forwarded to the
President who would send it back to cabinet after which it would be tabled in
Parliament.
He added that there was no question
of the decision on Telangana being rolled back.
12.20 pm: How Andhra agitations are
hitting TN’s economy
Across the border from the on-the-boil
Seemandhra region, the matchstick industry in Tamil Nadu is facing a daily loss
of Rs 1.25 crore.
There are about 1,154 match
factories in Tamil Nadu. Eight to ten loads of match consignments are unable to
make it to their destinations owing to the agitations in Seemandhra,. Industry
body president Noor Mohammed was quoted as saying Andhra Pradesh, and
specifically Hyderabad, are important transit routes for the consignments.
“Another issue is non-availability
of trucks. The trucks are stuck in Punjab, West Bengal, Haryana, Bihar and
Delhi and we are not able to load the consignments,”
Home Minister
Sushilkumar Shinde has said that the GoM on Andhra Pradesh which will
hold their first meeting tomorrow, will listen to all the stakeholders
in the division of Andhra Pradesh and report back to cabinet.
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/live-justice-will-be-done-to-the-people-of-andhra-vows-shinde-1150673.html?utm_source=ref_article
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/live-justice-will-be-done-to-the-people-of-andhra-vows-shinde-1150673.html?utm_source=ref_article
Home Minister
Sushilkumar Shinde has said that the GoM on Andhra Pradesh which will
hold their first meeting tomorrow, will listen to all the stakeholders
in the division of Andhra Pradesh and report back to cabinet.
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/live-justice-will-be-done-to-the-people-of-andhra-vows-shinde-1150673.html?utm_source=ref_article
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/live-justice-will-be-done-to-the-people-of-andhra-vows-shinde-1150673.html?utm_source=ref_article
Home Minister
Sushilkumar Shinde has said that the GoM on Andhra Pradesh which will
hold their first meeting tomorrow, will listen to all the stakeholders
in the division of Andhra Pradesh and report back to cabinet.
“All points will be taken into consideration and justice will be done to
the people of Andhra Pradesh”, Shinde said.
He added however that the recommendations of the GoM would take time to
implement, given that it had to first submit its report to the cabinet,
which would then be forwarded to the President who would send it back to
cabinet after which it would be tabled in Parliament.
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/live-justice-will-be-done-to-the-people-of-andhra-vows-shinde-1150673.html?utm_source=ref_article
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/live-justice-will-be-done-to-the-people-of-andhra-vows-shinde-1150673.html?utm_source=ref_article
1.00 pm: Justice will
be done to the people of Andhra, says Shinde
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has said that the GoM on Andhra Pradesh
which will hold their first meeting tomorrow, will listen to all the
stakeholders in the division of Andhra Pradesh and report back to
cabinet.
“All points will be taken into consideration and justice will be done to
the people of Andhra Pradesh”, Shinde said.
He added however that the recommendations of the GoM would take time to
implement, given that it had to first submit its report to the cabinet,
which would then be forwarded to the President who would send it back to
cabinet after which it would be tabled in Parliament.
He added that there was no question of the decision on Telangana being
rolled back.
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/live-justice-will-be-done-to-the-people-of-andhra-vows-shinde-1150673.html?utm_source=ref_article
1.00 pm: Justice will
be done to the people of Andhra, says Shinde
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has said that the GoM on Andhra Pradesh
which will hold their first meeting tomorrow, will listen to all the
stakeholders in the division of Andhra Pradesh and report back to
cabinet.
“All points will be taken into consideration and justice will be done to
the people of Andhra Pradesh”, Shinde said.
He added however that the recommendations of the GoM would take time to
implement, given that it had to first submit its report to the cabinet,
which would then be forwarded to the President who would send it back to
cabinet after which it would be tabled in Parliament.
He added that there was no question of the decision on Telangana being
rolled back.Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/live-justice-will-be-done-to-the-people-of-andhra-vows-shinde-1150673.html?utm_source=ref_article
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/live-justice-will-be-done-to-the-people-of-andhra-vows-shinde-1150673.html?utm_source=ref_article
1.00 pm: Justice will
be done to the people of Andhra, says Shinde
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has said that the GoM on Andhra Pradesh
which will hold their first meeting tomorrow, will listen to all the
stakeholders in the division of Andhra Pradesh and report back to
cabinet.
“All points will be taken into consideration and justice will be done to
the people of Andhra Pradesh”, Shinde said.
He added however that the recommendations of the GoM would take time to
implement, given that it had to first submit its report to the cabinet,
which would then be forwarded to the President who would send it back to
cabinet after which it would be tabled in Parliament.
He added that there was no question of the decision on Telangana being
rolled back.
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/live-justice-will-be-done-to-the-people-of-andhra-vows-shinde-1150673.html?utm_source=ref_article
Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/live-justice-will-be-done-to-the-people-of-andhra-vows-shinde-1150673.html?utm_source=ref_article
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