Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for constructive engagement with Pakistan, sources confirmed on Monday. In a letter to his newly sworn-in Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan, Mr. Modi has called for building good neighbourly ties for security and prosperity in the South Asian region. “PM expressed India’s commitment to build …
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Ghani offers Taliban a new ceasefire
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani declared a provisional three-month ceasefire with the Taliban in a televised broadcast on Sunday, but said the truce would hold only if the insurgents reciprocated. The announcement followed a bloody week of fighting across Afghanistan which saw the Taliban launch a massive assault against the provincial …
Read More »Rajapaksa keen on a third term
Among other things, the 19th Amendment to Sri Lanka’s Constitution, passed three months after Mr. Rajapaksa was unseated in January 2015, revived a clause in the 1978 Constitution that said: “No person who has been twice elected to the office of President by the People, shall be qualified thereafter to …
Read More »50,000 mt of foodgrain released
The Centre has released 50,000 metric tonnes of rice and wheat to help Kerala tackle the flood situation, with a promise to release additional quantities soon. It has also made arrangements to airlift 100 metric tonnes of pulses by Monday with additional quantities to be sent by train. An official …
Read More »‘Give Perarivalan remission data’
The Central Information Commission has directed the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to provide copies of all orders passed by the Union Government from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2015, granting remission to various prisoners across the country to A.G. Perarivalan, one of the convicts undergoing life imprisonment in …
Read More »A ‘takeaway’ with a social message
Here’s some food for thought served in a pocket-friendly manner. The Tamil Nadu Hotels Association has announced a 5% discount on the bill if customers bring their own utensils and bags for food parcels. The association, with over 10,000 members, has passed a resolution to this effect. “On an average, …
Read More »No home for Britain’s poorest
For a visitor to the U.K., men and women sleeping rough on the streets, both in city centres and in suburban areas, have sadly become an all-too-familiar sight, but figures have shown that the situation has been getting consistently worse. Government figures published earlier this year revealed that the number …
Read More »Militants’ war on education in Afghanistan
“Education is increasingly a casualty in Afghanistan,” a briefing note by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) recently observed. The note was in reaction to a larger, comprehensive report by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), titled ‘Education Under Attack’, which studies the impact of conflict on education …
Read More »From the ruins of Operation Storm
The air was still and the streets of Zagreb bore little sign of life on Sunday, August 5, a public holiday marking the Homeland Thanksgiving Day and Operation Storm of 1995. The capital was bereft of pompous celebrations but Croatian flags hanging over nearly every shop, bar and house marked …
Read More »Is America afraid of socialists?
Reconciling the U.S.’s current economic model with its democracy is a challenging task for Americans but to come up with a name to call what they want appears to be even more challenging. The crisis is more evident for the Democrats, as opposed to Republicans who generally think the only …
Read More »Trade war brings old rivals closer together
China’s escalating trade war with the U.S. is drawing Beijing and Moscow closer to each other. China’s decision to curb soya bean imports from the U.S. as part of a tit-for-tat tariff spiral between the two countries is bringing Russia, especially its less developed but resource-rich ‘Far East’, into the …
Read More »No peace till occupation ends: Taliban
The leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban said on Saturday there will be no peace in Afghanistan as long as the foreign “occupation” continues, reiterating the group’s position that the 17-year war can only be brought to an end through direct talks with the United States. In a message released in honour …
Read More »North Korea urges Trump to be ‘bold’ to break deadlock
North Korean state media blamed U.S. President Donald Trump’s political opponents for the “deadlock” over denuclearisation on Saturday, urging him to act boldly to make progress on the thorny issue. Mr. Trump and Kim Jong-un held a summit in Singapore in June, which the U.S. leader touted as a historic …
Read More »Dropout rate soaring after school mergers in tribal belts
Research by the Centre for Adivasi Research and Development has revealed that following the NITI Aayog recommendations in Jharkhand, 1,300 primary and middle schools were merged or closed and the government was targeting another 4,600 schools this year. In Karnataka, both government and aided schools located within 1 km from …
Read More »Cong. to seek JPC on Rafale deal
In an attempt to turn the alleged scam in the Rafale deal into the focal point of its campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the Congress has decided to hold demonstrations from the district to State levels demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation. This was decided at a meeting …
Read More »‘Multiple PANs still a menace’
All the attention over the privacy aspects of Aadhaar has diverted the conversation from the legitimate uses of a biometric ID, such as weeding out multiple PAN cards linked to the same person, according to a number of lenders. The issue, they said, is that many unscrupulous people run up …
Read More »Revise trade laws, tariffs: U.S. Ambassador
Kenneth Juster says you can’t attract investment and build industry by creating higher duties or more regulation Calling upon India to rethink trade barriers, tariffs and regulations in order to become a “hub” for innovation and production, U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Juster says that India and the U.S. need to see …
Read More »NSCN-K purges ‘Indian’ elements
The Myanmar-based Shangnyu Shangwang Khaplang faction of the extremist National Socialist Council of Nagaland, or NSCN-K, has ousted the last of its ‘Indian’ leaders. Mr. Konyak, 70, is a Naga of Indian origin. A China-trained rebel, he had taken over as chairman of the NSCN-K after Khaplang died in June …
Read More »N Korea leader lambasts ‘brigandish’ sanctions: KCNA
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attacked “hostile forces” over “brigandish” sanctions, state media reported on Friday, as Washington seeks to maintain pressure on Pyongyang over its nuclear programme. According to a report by the Korean Central News Agency, Mr. Kim did not name the U.S. but rebuked what he called …
Read More »Nepal crime reform sparks press freedom concerns
Nepal introduced a new criminal code on Friday that makes sharing confidential information a jailable offence, sparking concerns among journalists that the laws could be used to muzzle the press. Media have warned that the Communist-led government, which has shown an increasing intolerance for dissent, could use the vaguely worded …
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