India | Pakistan

NEW DELHI: Top Indian and Iranian security officials met in New Delhi on Monday, the foreign ministry said, as security chiefs gathered for a BRICS meeting that also included China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi. India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval met Iranian official Ghadir Nezamipour, a senior member of Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council, and discussed the “ongoing situation” in the Middle East, as well as India-Iran ties, the foreign ministry said. India has long maintained cordial ties with Iran but has had to carefully balance its relationship with the United States, especially during the recent weeks of conflict in the Middle East. India is heavily dependent on imported energy and its fuel supplies were hit hard during the US-Iran war. Russia, South Africa, Brazil round out summit presence Iran’s embassy in New Delhi said in a post on X that Nezamipour also met Wang, with whom he discussed the “implementation of the peace agreement” and expressed Tehran’s “appreciation for China’s politica...

India, once the world’s second-largest sugar exporter, is expected to have little surplus for export for at least three more seasons as El Niño weather conditions threaten cane production and rising ethanol demand squeezes supply. The twin pressures are poised to keep millions of tonnes of sugar off the world market, tightening supplies for importers across Asia, Africa and the Middle East and supporting benchmark prices in London and New York. A prolonged absence by India from export markets would remove a key balancing supplier as weather risks and biofuel policies reshape global sugar trade flows. Interviews with over a dozen trade and industry executives, government sources and farmers show that lower cane availability and rising ethanol demand will leave little for exports for several years, prompting dealers at global houses to warn head offices of shrinking opportunities in India, trade sources said. Government expected to curb imports season by season Sugar is politically sensitive in global top consu...

The Indian government is in talks with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to sell some of its flagship defence systems, including the supersonic cruise missile BrahMos, four Indian sources said, as the Gulf nation steps up arms procurement following the war in the Middle East. The discussions, which have not been previously reported, include the potential sale of India’s air defence system Akashteer, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. “The UAE has shown interest for a number of our weapon systems, including BrahMos and Akashteer. The talks between India and the UAE are at initial stages and are progressing fast,” said a third source with direct knowledge of the matter. Indian officials and the UAE foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment. BrahMos, jointly developed by India and Russia, is among the world’s fastest cruise missiles and can be launched from land, sea and air platforms, while Akashteer is a fully automated air defence system developed by India’s state-run Bh...

UNITED NATIONS - Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad handed over a letter from the Deputy Prime Minister & Foreign Minister, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, to Ambassador Leonor Zalabata Torres of Columbia, president of the Security Council for June, concerning India’s continued “illegal actions and.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has accused India of engaging in “water politics” by allegedly violating the provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty.

India blocked access to the Telegram messenger app on Tuesday ahead of a retest of a nationwide medical college entrance examination, following a scandal last month over a question paper leak. The failure of the hugely competitive exam, along with a separate marking fiasco in high school tests, sparked outrage and fuelled youth protests demanding the education minister’s resignation. The electronics ministry issued the order restricting access to Telegram until Monday, the day of the retest. Message-editing features, which allow users to alter existing posts, will remain restricted until June 30. “Both measures have been taken in the interest of public order, in response to the organised use of the platform by cheating rackets to defraud candidates,” India’s National Testing Agency (NTA) said in a statement. The National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) is one of the country’s most competitive exams, attracting more than two million aspiring doctors. The NEET exam was scrapped in May following allegations tha...

India made the perfect start to their women’s Twenty 20 World Cup campaign with a 64-run win against Pakistan on Sunday. Harmanpreet Kaur’s side dominated from start to finish in their opening group game of the tournament at Edgbaston. After India elected to bat first, opener Smriti Mandhana was the catalyst for the victory as she survived two drops to hit 68 from 44 balls. Mandhana blasted nine fours and two sixes, while Kaur notched four fours in her innings of 36. Wicket-keeper Richa Ghosh kept the pressure on Pakistan’s overwhelmed bowlers with a quick-fire 34 featuring five fours and a six. Pakistan’s run chase looked a daunting task and so it proved as they crumbled against India’s spinners. All-rounder Deepti Sharma finished with impressive figures of 5-10. She pushed Pakistan towards defeat by running out opener Muneeba Ali, who top-scored for Pakistan with 41. Sharma also dismissed Gull Feroza and Ayesha Zafar to leave Pakistan in disarray before leg-spinner Sree Charani tightened the screws with thr...

Bangladesh and India have agreed to deepen ​cooperation along their shared border with improved intelligence sharing and coordinated patrols, according ‌to a joint statement released on Friday, amid strained relations over alleged undocumented migration. Dhaka has accused Indian authorities of attempting to force migrants across the border without due process, complicating efforts to stabilise ties following the 2024 ousting of Sheikh ​Hasina and India’s broader effort to identify and deport undocumented migrants. Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and India’s ​Border Security Force (BSF) described the discussions as “cordial, positive and forward-looking”, according to the statement ⁠released at the end of a four-day meeting of top border officials in New Delhi. ​The regular talks also covered “illegal, inadvertent and forcible crossing at border areas,” an increasingly contentious issue in ​recent months. Bangladesh and India share a more than 4,000-kilometre border, one of the world’s longest. India’s ruling Bh...

FO warns of fallout if India blocks water

Pakistan on Thursday expressed concern over reports that India has begun deploying nuclear warheads with operational forces, warning that such developments could have implications beyond South Asia and pose risks to international peace and security.

ISLAMABAD - Experts yesterday warned against weaponisation of water as India’s Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) stance was criticised.

India has designated senior diplomat Satyanjal Pandey as its next chargé d’affaires in Pakistan as part of a routine diplomatic transition at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

Alphabet’s Google Cloud said that some customers in India experienced intermittent network disruptions on Wednesday after a fire at a third-party data centre triggered an emergency shutdown of networking equipment. The cloud-computing unit said the fire led to an emergency power shutdown at the facility, isolating a local point of presence in Delhi and reducing network capacity across the metropolitan area. Google Cloud did not say when the fire occurred or whether it caused property damage or injuries. Such disruptions can cascade across businesses and users, slowing apps, websites, and internal company systems. The incident affected network traffic from Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and nearby regions, causing periods of elevated latency, the company said on its status page. Google Cloud, one of the world’s largest cloud providers, competes with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure and is widely used to process large data volumes and run artificial intelligence tools. There was no workaround while restoration e...

Indian engineers broke through the final rock section in the strategic Zojila tunnel through a Himalayan mountain on Tuesday, a milestone in providing all-weather access to the frontier Ladakh region with China. India and China, the world’s two most populous nations, are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia. Ties have thawed since a 2020 border clash, but their 3,500-kilometre frontier has been a perennial source of tension. The tunnel forms part of a broader infrastructure push, creating a link with roads and railways that will allow trade, troops and supplies to move year-round from India’s sweltering lowland plains to the soaring icy border zones. People ride a car through the Zojila tunnel, India’s longest road tunnel project connecting Jammu and Kashmir with the Ladakh region, in Minamarg on June 9, 2026. —AFP “This is not just a tunnel but a lifeline,” said India’s minister of roads, Nitin Gadkari, during a breakthrough ceremony on Tuesday at the high-altitude tunnel, which...

India has deported nearly 5,000 Bangladeshi citizens since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist party swept to power in West Bengal last month, according to official statistics. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a sweeping victory in elections in the eastern border state of more than 100 million people, promising to “detect, delete and deport” illegal migrants. India shares a long and porous border with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, where migration has historically been driven by economic hardship and longstanding family links. On taking power, the new West Bengal government ordered the establishment of detention centres for undocumented Bangladeshis and Rohingya refugees, a mainly Muslim people who fled persecution in Myanmar. State Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, speaking in the capital Kolkata on Sunday, said nearly 5,000 Bangladeshi citizens had been deported across the border. “We have started the work of deporting Bangladeshi infiltrators who do not fall under the purview of the Citizen...

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan on Friday strongly rejected India’s criticism of the upcoming elections in Gilgit-Baltistan, describing New Delhi’s statements as “baseless” and politically motivated.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday “categorically rejected” India’s remarks regarding upcoming elections in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), calling them “baseless” and part of a “carefully choreographed attempt to conflate fact with fiction”. General elections in GB are scheduled for Sunday (June 7), after a four-month delay attributed to harsh winter weather. The PPP and other political parties have staged a series of rallies across the region and ramped up efforts to garner support ahead of the polls. In a statement, Foreign Office (FO) Spokesperson Tahir Andarabi said India remained in “illegal occupation of the internationally recognised disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir,” and termed New Delhi a “global leader in propagating fake narratives and tendentious propaganda”. “We unequivocally reject this latest Indian rhetoric with the contempt it deserves,” the statement said. New Delhi, in a statement issued by its foreign ministry earlier on Friday, objected to the upcoming elections in GB, claiming that “the entire...

NEW DELHI: Pakistan has decided not to send its team for the Asian Senior Fencing Championships to be held in New Delhi from June 19 despite the local organisers sending an invite to the neighbouring country to take part in the continental event, Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported on Thursday. India is hosting the championships for the first time. Fencers from more than 30 countries across Asia and Oceania will be seen in action. Nearly 100 delegates and technical officials will oversee the event. “We sent an invite to Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan, to participate in the championships but they chose not to send their fencers. The deadline for sending entries is long over and we are now in the process of procuring visas for the athletes and officials,” the Fencing Association of India (FAI) secretary general Rajeev Mehta told PTI. Last month, the Indian Sports Ministry had reiterated that the blanket ban on bilateral sporting ties with Pakistan that was imposed last year will remain in force, b...

NEW DELHI: India is likely to order more than $2 billion worth of military drones from domestic firms this year in its biggest such purchase, an industry body working with the government said, as global and regional conflicts boost demand. The plans are in advanced stages with deliveries expected over 18 to 24 months, for a jump in value from recent government orders worth 30 billion rupees ($313 million) for tactical-class drones, said Smit Shah, president of the body. “In the next phase, tactical drone procurements in India may exceed 200 billion rupees, or more than $2 billion,” said Shah, whose Drone Federation India represents more than 550 companies and works closely with the government. Shah said the new orders may follow a fast-track procurement route designed to meet urgent operational needs, with deliveries probably needed within 24 months. The country has 600 firms making drones, with more than 100 focused on defence applications Drones in spotlight India’s push follows clashes with arch-rival Paki...

India and the United States are “about 99 per cent” done with the first tranche of a trade deal, the commerce minister said, as a US delegation began talks in New Delhi on Tuesday. The delegation, led by Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch, is holding three days of talks with Indian trade officials, as the two sides seek to close negotiations. “About 99 per cent of the issues have been settled,” Indian commerce minister Piyush Goyal told reporters in Delhi late on Monday. The two countries reached an initial understanding for the trade deal in February, but negotiations slowed after President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff measures were struck down by the US Supreme Court. After the court order, the Trump administration launched investigations into unfair trade practices against several countries, including India, while imposing a blanket 10pc tariff. Goyal said negotiators were examining how recent legal changes in the United States should be reflected in the final text...