India
India willing to stand by Afghan people as it did in the past: Jaishankar
India is willing to stand by the Afghan people just as it supported them in the past, said External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. Addressing the UN High Level Meeting on the Humanitarian Situation in Afghanistan, the Minister expressed support for a “central role” for the U.N. in dealing with the crisis, reports The Hindu.
“Today, I want to underline that in the face of a grave emerging situation India is willing to stand by the Afghan people, just as in the past,” said Mr. Jaishankar urging the international community to “come together” . India expressed its “understandable concern” about the situation two days after Mr. Jaishankar joined his Australian counterpart in highlighting the importance of the Security Counil Resolusion 2593 in dealing with the crisis.
Multilateral platform
Addressing the U.N. meeting chaired by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Mr. Jaishankar reiterated the importance of the Resolution and said, “India has consistently supported a central role of the United Nations on its [Afghanistan’s] future. A multilateral platform is always more effective than small groups in building global consensus and encouraging united actions.”
Read: India expresses concern over situation in Afghanistan
The negotiations to end U.S. military presence in Afghanistan was conducted through Special US Representative Zalmay Khalilzad and the political office of the Taliban based in Qatar.
Subsequently, the permanent members of the Security Council as well as Iran, Saudi Arabia and others used special envoys or other officials to engage the Taliban in either overt or covert ways. But Mr. Jaishankar’s firm call to give the “central role” to the U.N. has brought back the global organisation into the spotlight for initiatives on Afghanistan. This call is also reflective of India’s traditional Afghan policy going back to the beginning of the Soviet occupation in 1979-'80 when India championed the U.N.-led approach.
There are already early hints of the initiatives from the U.N. The Resolution 2593 has made a ‘demand’ that the emerging political system should not allow terror groups to use Afghan soil to either threaten or attack any country. This point is second among the issues listed in the resolution and appears even before the call for humanitarian assistance. This gives the impression that concern over export of terror from Afghanistan makes economic assistance conditional to its commitments on terrorism.
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan Deborah Lyons last week cautioned that freezing of billions of dollars of Afghan assets is likely to trigger a “severe economic downturn” in the country. The concern found an echo also in Mr. Jaishankar’s speech as he urged for “unimpeded, unrestricted and direct access to Afghanistan”. His focus was however on letting “humanitarian assistance providers” to help the people.
Read: Up to Pakistan to stop terror in Afghanistan, India tells Russia
Non-discriminatory distribution
“Once relief materials reach that country, the world will naturally expect a non-discriminatory distribution of humanitarian assistance across all sections of the Afghan society. Only the United Nations has the capacity to monitor such endeavours and reassure donors,” said Mr. Jaishankar highlighting the “legitimate concerns” over the emerging political set up.
Mr. Jaishankar reminded the U.N. that New Delhi has invested $3 billion in schemes in Afghanistan during the past two decades.
“We have undertaken 500 projects in critical areas of power, water supply, road connectivity, healthcare, education, agriculture and capacity building,” said Mr. Jaishankar. Indicating cautious position, Dr. Jaishankar did not name the Taliban during the speech.
India vaccinations cross 750 million
India on Monday delivered 6.7 million more doses of coronavirus vaccines till 6pm, administering more than 750 million doses in all, reports Hindustan Times.
At least 570 million people have received at least one dose, which means 60% of the eligible adult population has now received a shot.
“WHO (World Health Organization) congratulates India for scaling up Covid-19 vaccination at an unprecedented pace. While it took 85 days to administer the first 100 million doses, India reached 750 million doses from 650 million in just 13 days,” said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director, WHO South-East Asia region.
Read: India's cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage surpasses 73.82 Cr
The UN health body responded after Union minister for health and family welfare Mansukh Mandaviya announced the milestone achievement through a tweet, saying that the country’s vaccination drive continued was making new gains under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
‘Congratulations India! In the 75th year of independence, the country has crossed the figure of 75 crore vaccinations,” the health minister tweeted with hashtags #SabkoVaccineMuftVaccine and #AazadiKaAmritMahotsav.
So far, all eligible beneficiaries in six states and Union Territories -- Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Ladakh and Lakshadweep -- have received at least one dose.
In all, 180 million people have been fully vaccinated, according to the government’s Co-WIN dashboard.
Read: India to provide vaccines to Bangladesh if production goes up: Dr Hasan Mahmud
“The Union government is committed to accelerating the pace and expanding the scope of Covid-19 vaccination throughout the country. The country has also become home to more than 99% health care workers and frontline workers vaccinated with one shot of Covid vaccine,” said the health ministry in a statement.
On Monday, the member countries of WHO South-East Asia Region also resolved to work towards making ‘every school a health promoting school’, while also committing to safe school operations during the pandemic.
“Schools have an important role in promoting healthy lifestyles, life-long healthy behaviors and to nurture human capital for sustainable development of any society. We need a whole-of-government approach to ensure children from all socio-economic background, including those with special needs, benefit from healthy schools,” said Singh.
India's cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage surpasses 73.82 Cr
India's cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage surpassed 73.82 crores, (73,82,07,378) as per provisional reports, informed the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Sunday.
According to ANI news, with the administration of 72,86,883 vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, country's COVID-19 vaccination coverage surpassed the cumulative figure of 73.82 Cr (73,82,07,378) as per provisional reports till 7 am today. This has been achieved through 75,25,766 sessions, the ministry informed in a press statement.
Read:Vaccination Is The Medicine To Boost Economy, Says Nirmala Sitharaman
The ministry stated, "Over 72 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have been provided to states and Union Territories so far through the Government of India's free of cost channel.
As per an official release, mentioning the fact that the Union Government is committed to accelerating the pace and expanding the scope of COVID-19 vaccination throughout the country, the ministry stated, "More than 72.21 crores (72,21,17,085) vaccine doses have been provided to States/UTs so far through Government of India (free of cost channel) and through direct state procurement category."
"More than 57 lakh doses (57,56,240) are in the pipeline," it added.
Read: Indian PM discusses regional stability with Russian Security Council chief
The ministry further stated, "More than 5.16 crore (5,16,66,835) balance and unutilized COVID vaccine doses are still available with the States/UTs to be administered."
Vaccination Is The Medicine To Boost Economy, Says Nirmala Sitharaman
Holding that 73 crore people of the country's population have received their vaccination, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said vaccination was the only medicine to boost the economy as it allows people to conduct businesses regularly or farmers to carry out farming activity, reports NDTV.
"Vaccination programme has been going on smoothly in the country and so far 73 crore people have already received jabs free of charge. Today, through vaccination programme, people were able to conduct business, traders were able to procure products to run businesses, (thereby) boosting economy, or farmers were able to do farming...So, vaccination is the only medicine (to combat the virus, to boost economy)...," she said.
Read: India's cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage surpasses 73.82 Cr
Ms Sitharaman made those comments while delivering her address at the centenary celebrations of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank on Sunday.
On Sunday, the health ministry in Tamil Nadu eyeing to inoculate 20 lakh people is holding a ''Mega Vaccination Camp'' through 40,000 camps being conducted across the State.
"All our prayers are not for a third wave (of the Covid-19 virus). Suppose, if it occurs, then one has to think about the availability of hospitals, even if there is an hospital, does it have an ICU and even if there is an ICU, does it have an oxygen support? For all these questions, the Ministry announced a scheme allowing hospitals to ramp up expansion when there was huge impact in the country caused by the second wave (of Covid-19)," she said.
Ms Sitharaman said hospitals located in rural areas were able to take up expansion work by availing the schemes announced by the Ministry, including the "viability gap funding" scheme.
"Through the report by Tamilnad Mercantile Bank, we are able to see that they take the schemes announced by the Ministry to the beneficiaries (hospitals). It is a necessary (in today''s scenario). Not only public sector banks, private sector banks should follow suit," she said.
Earlier, paying rich encomiums to the Nadar community for establishing the bank in May 1921 in Tuticorin, the Minister said today Tamilnad Mercantile Bank has gained "universal acceptance" and has presence in all the 26 states and four union territories.
Read: Indian PM discusses regional stability with Russian Security Council chief
Even a famous Greek writer who has written a lot of global economic affairs has also mentioned about the Nadar community in his book, she said.
"So today it is no more a Nadar community bank nor a bank from Tuticorin, it has countrywide presence and has deposits of over Rs 41,000 crore.", she said.
Stating that the bank has been taking a cautious step in its approach to do business, Ms Sitharaman said "by strictly following the basic principles, the bank was able to tide over any kind of crisis situation and has managed to run for one hundred years."
Up to Pakistan to stop terror in Afghanistan, India tells Russia
The Indian government highlighted Pakistan ISI’s links with India-focused terror groups in Afghanistan, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, and stressed Islamabad’s ties with Taliban and other international terror groups during a high-level inter-government dialogue with Russia on the Afghan situation, reported Times of India.
Official sources said the meeting saw substantive exchanges, with both sides expressing similar views on most issues including terrorism and the need for Taliban to fulfil its commitments.
National security adviser Ajit Doval is learned to have told his counterpart Nikolay Patrushev that Pakistan has the “special responsibility” of ensuring that Afghanistan’s soil was not used to spread terrorism and carry out anti-India activities. India has repeatedly said in the past few weeks that its primary objective for now is to ensure that Pakistan-based terror groups don’t use Afghan territory to mount attacks against others.
Also read: Afghanistan, terrorism, Indo-Pacific, climate change on Modi's US trip agenda
According to Russia, the two sides discussed “humanitarian and migration problems” in Afghanistan, as well as prospects for Russian-Indian joint efforts aimed at creating conditions for launching a peaceful settlement process on the basis of an intra-Afghan dialogue. “In addition, they agreed to coordinate the approaches of Russia and India in multilateral formats on the Afghan settlement,” said the Russian statement.
The meeting on Afghanistan took place a day ahead of the BRICS summit, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is again expected to highlight concerns on terrorism, and also SCO summit next week where Pakistan PM Imran Khan will also be present.
When the British left the subcontinent in 1947, they didn’t just create a border separating India and Pakistan. They created a potential problem for Afghanistan too, with the Durand Line. Here’s how that is affecting Af-Pak ties today.
Despite the importance they attach to Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan, Russia and China are concerned about the presence of terrorist groups and India has been emphasising to Moscow and others that India-oriented and UN-proscribed LeT and JeM are as deadly as any other terror group, if not more.
Official sources said this was the first “detailed and extensive” review of the Afghanistan situation involving MEA, defence ministry and security agencies with Russia after the fall of Kabul to Taliban on August 15. India is also learnt to have expressed concern over security of minorities, including Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan.
After the delegation talks, Patrushev called on Modi and foreign minister S Jaishankar. In the meeting with Modi, according to a Russian press statement, the two sides reaffirmed the intention to strengthen coordination for enhancing regional stability, including in Afghanistan.
Also read: Pentagon chief: al-Qaida may seek comeback in Afghanistan
Amid much grinding of teeth over terrorists, euphemistically called extremists, seizing reins of power in Kabul, the United States on Tuesday guardedly said it was concerned about the “affiliations and track records” of some of the people named by Taliban to fill top posts in Afghanistan’s new
According to Indian government sources, there was a convergence of views on issues and threats related to Afghanistan and both sides expressed “deep concern” over the situation. They agreed on the need for Taliban to adhere to its commitments and on “presence of international terrorist groups in Afghanistan and threat from terrorism to central Asia and India”. The sides also expressed similar views on Islamic radicalisation and extremism, flow of weapons to terrorist groups and smuggling across Afghan borders and also “high chances of Afghanistan becoming hub of opium production and trafficking”.
“The two sides discussed concrete forms of future bilateral cooperation among security agencies, including close coordination, upgrading consultations and exchange of information,” said an official.
“The importance of defining parameters of the future state structure of Afghanistan by the Afghans themselves, as well as the need to prevent the escalation of violence, social, ethnic and confessional contradictions in the country, were emphasized,” said Russia.
In separate comments, India’s envoy to Russia Venkatesh Varma said neither the Doha talks nor the Troika Plus talks have yielded the right results. “India was not a direct participant in the Doha talks. India was also not part of the Troika Plus mechanism... I think one lesson is that it is better that India and Russia work together with respect to Afghanistan. That is the most important lesson for us.”
Speaking to RIA Novosti on the eve of Russian NSA Patrushev’s visit, Varma said, “There’s now a new situation in Afghanistan. All the foreign troops have left. The Taliban has taken over in Kabul, but instability continues.”
“There are very fast-moving developments in Afghanistan... Press reports say a number of slogans were raised against external interference in Afghanistan, particularly from Pakistan.”
Expanding on India’s recently articulated ‘Far East Policy’ which includes a $1billion credit line for Indian businesses to participate in the development of the Russian Far East, Varma said it would create “new connectivities and an Energy Bridge from Yamal to Vladivostok to Chennai. So energy is emerging as a very important pillar of our cooperation”.
India ferry tragedy: One dead, two missing, 87 rescued
Indian authorities on Thursday stepped up rescue operations to look for survivors in Wednesday's ferry tragedy in the Brahmaputra river in the northeastern state of Assam.
The Indian Army has been called out to help in the rescue operations. So far, 87 people have been rescued, but one person has died and two others are still missing, officials said.
The accident occurred on Wednesday evening when a single-motor passenger boat, carrying 90 people, collided with a government ferry in the Brahmaputra near Nimati Ghat in Jorhat district, 350km from Assam's capital Guwahati, and capsized.
Read: 60 'missing' in India ferry accident
"Over 200 people were on board both the boats. While those on the government ferry had a narrow escape, the single-motor boat with 90 people on board capsized after the collision," a disaster management official told the media.
"Some 87 people have been rescued so far. One woman has died while two others are still missing. The Indian Army is looking for survivors," he added.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter to say that "all possible efforts are being made to rescue the passengers".
"Saddened by the boat accident in Assam. All possible efforts are being made to rescue the passengers. I pray for everyone’s safety and well-being," the PM tweeted.
Read: Another Indian Oxygen Express arrives with 200 MT of medical oxygen
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, meanwhile, directed officials to act against all single-motor boats that often carry passengers beyond their seating capacity. "I am pained at the tragic boat accident near Nimati Ghat, Jorhat."
A probe has been ordered into the accident, the disaster management official said.
Another Indian Oxygen Express arrives with 200 MT of medical oxygen
Indian Railways’ fifteenth Oxygen Express arrived in Bangladesh carrying 200 MT of liquid medical oxygen on Wednesday.
The special train set out from India through the Petrapole port carrying 10 containers of liquid oxygen and reached Bangladesh in the afternoon, said Benapole immigration authority.
After customs formalities the train set out for Sirajganj west side of Bangabandhu Railway Bridge where the container will be unloaded, said Saiduzzaman, Benapole Railway station master.
Benapole port Deputy Director A. Jalil said the oxygen crisis in India’s medical sector began in April when the country’s Covid situation got critical. As a result on 21 April the Indian government stopped exporting oxygen to Bangladesh.
Read: India's fourth Oxygen Express arrives with 200 MT of medical oxygen
Later, as the infection and death rate in their country decreased, they allowed the export of oxygen to Bangladesh from June 21.
So far, in 15 consignments, the importer company Linde Bangladesh has brought in 3,017 MT of liquid oxygen, port authorities said.
Bangladesh is the first foreign country where the Oxygen Express has been put into operation to deliver the life-saving gas amid rising Covid infections.
60 'missing' in India ferry accident
At least 60 people are missing after two passenger boats crashed into each other in the Brahmaputra river of the northeastern state of Assam Wednesday, officials said.
The two boats carrying over a hundred passengers collided near Nimati Ghat in the state's Jorhat district, some 350km from Assam's capital Guwahati.
READ: Brahmanbaria trawler capsize: death toll climbs to 23
"So far, some 30 people have been rescued. One of the boats has capsized in the river. Rescue operations are on," a state disaster response force official told the media.
Local TV channels aired footage of the rescue operations by the disaster management personnel.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma tweeted to say that he had directed the Jorhat administration officials to help in the rescue operations.
READ: Couple drowns in boat capsize in Titas River, minor girl missing
"I am pained at the tragic boat accident near Nimati Ghat, Jorhat," he also tweeted.
India to give women permanent commission in armed forces
India has decided to give women permanent commission in the military, a landmark decision that could pave the way for female officers to head the armed forces in the future.
Currently, women are recruited in the three wings of the military -- the Army, the Navy and the Air Force -- only as short service commission officers.
The latest decision of the government to admit women into the National Defence Academy (NDA) for permanent commission into the armed forces was conveyed to the Supreme Court by a top state lawyer on Wednesday, prompting the judges to hail the move.
Also Read- Indian military admits wrongdoing in 3 Kashmir killings
"I have great news. The service chiefs and government have decided that girls will be given permanent commission through NDA and Naval academy. The decision was taken late last evening," Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati told the court.
"The policy and procedure are being worked out to enable women to get permanent commission in the three defence forces," he added.
Also read: Always stay ready to defend country: Hasina to Armed Forces
The apex court lauded the decision. “We have been judging this for a long time. On gender equality, the armed forces have to do more. I'm happy that the heads of the armed forces have taken the decision. Compliment goes to you for persuading them.”
"We are extremely glad to know that the armed forces themselves took the decision to induct women into the NDA. We know that reforms cannot happen in a day... The government will place timelines of the process and the course of action," the judges said.
"The armed forces play an important role... but need to do more for gender equality in the forces. We want them to take a proactive approach themselves in ensuring gender equality rather than waiting for courts to intervene," the court added.
The apex court was hearing a petition for allowing women to take NDA and Naval Academy examinations.
700 trucks headed to India stranded in Benapole
As many as 700 trucks carrying goods for the Indian market remain stranded on Bangladesh's side of the border at Benapole land port, due to lack of space apparently on the Indian side at Petrapole.
When contacted, Joint General Secretary of Benapole Import-Export Association A. Latif said, “Everyday around 400 good-laden trucks enter Benapole to export products to the other side. But Petrapole authorities are only allowing upto 200 across, citing inadequate space.”
“This has resulted in a long line of trucks in the Benapole port area waiting to be allowed across to deliver the goods in India. The tailback is increasing with each passing day,” he added.
Businessmen have pressed home their demand to the authorities in this regard to push their Indian counterparts to solve the problem as soon as possible stating that they are incurring great loss due to the status quo.
Benapole Customs House Additional Commissioner Neyamul Islam confirmed to UNB that as of today, as many as 700 trucks remain stranded at what is the busiest land port between India and Bangladesh
“We have contacted the Petrapole authorities. They assured us that the problem will be resolved within a week,” Neyamul added.