India | Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi rejected backdoor diplomacy with India, declaring that no secret discussions are ongoing between the two nations, ARY News reported. In a casual discussion with journalists, Mohsin Naqvi discussed the openness in Pakistan’s foreign policy and highlighted the country’s moral stand on regional matters. Addressing domestic affairs, Mohsin Naqvi said […]

Pakistan on Friday beat India 3-0 in the Asian Men’s U-16 Volleyball Championship semi-final being held in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand. “Team Pakistan U-16 Men’s Volleyball continues its dream run at the 2nd Asian Men’s U-16 Volleyball Championship 2025 in Thailand by defeating arch-rivals India in the semi-final,” the Pakistan Volleyball Association announced in a post on Instagram. Pakistan beat India with a clean sweep by winning three straight sets (25-16, 25-19, 25-12). View this post on Instagram “Stellar performances from Junaid, Faizan, Irfan, and Talha powered the Green Shirts into the Final and one step closer to glory,” the association said. With this victory, Pakistan qualifies for the final, where they will face Iran on July 19 at 3:30pm PKT. On Wednesday, Pakistan secured a place in the semi-finals of the Asian U-16 Volleyball Championship and booked their berth in next year’s FIVB U-17 World Championship after defeating Indonesia in straight sets in the quarter-final. The national side had register...

Lightning strikes during monsoon storms in eastern India this week killed at least 33 people and injured dozens, officials said on Friday. The deaths in Bihar occurred during fierce storms between Wednesday and Thursday, a state disaster management department statement said, with the victims mostly farmers and labourers working in the open. More heavy rain and lightning are forecast for parts of the state. Bihar state’s disaster management minister, Vijay Kumar Mandal, told AFP that officials in vulnerable districts had been directed to “create awareness to take precautionary steps following an alert on lightning”. The state government announced compensation of 4 million Indian rupees ($4,600) to the families of those killed by lightning. India’s eastern region, including Bihar, is prone to annual floods that kill dozens and displace hundreds of thousands of people during the peak monsoon season. South Asia’s annual monsoon season from June to September offers respite from the intense summer heat and is cruci...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday that Beijing and New Delhi should work towards mutual trust and “win-win” cooperation, after talks with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, state news agency Xinhua reported. China and India should “adhere to the direction of good-neighbourliness and friendship” and “find a way for mutual respect and trust, peaceful coexistence, common development and win-win cooperation”, Wang said, according to Xinhua. The two foreign ministers met in Beijing on Monday as the two rivals seek to repair ties following a 2020 clash on their border. The world’s two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia, and their 3,500-kilometre frontier has been a perennial source of tension. The 2020 clash between their troops led to a four-year military standoff, but they agreed in October on patrols in disputed areas. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping met for the first time in five years late...

Tesla unveiled its first showroom in India on Tuesday, marking its entry into the world’s most populous country, as Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company seeks new customers amid sagging sales in the United States and Europe. The store opened its doors to select visitors after its inauguration by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in India’s financial capital Mumbai. Tesla has for years signalled its interest in India but held back due to the country’s steep tariffs on electric vehicles. Musk, who once described India as having “more promise than any large country”, has also criticised its import duties, calling them among the “highest in the world”. New Delhi has offered to cut import taxes on electric vehicles for global automakers only if they commit to investing hundreds of millions of dollars and make cars locally. Tesla has yet to announce plans to set up a plant in India. For now, local media reports say, the company will likely sell cars imported from China, with deliveries projected to start...

England beat India by 22 runs to win a thrilling third Test at Lord’s on Monday as they went 2-1 up in a five-match series. India were on the brink of defeat at 147-9, still needing a further 46 runs to reach a victory target of 193, when last man Mohammed Siraj joined Ravindra Jadeja in the middle. Nevertheless, the pair batted on until after tea on the final day to give India hope of an improbable win. But with India in sight of just their fourth win in 20 Tests at Lord’s, Siraj played on to off-spinner Shoaib Bashir — off the field for much of the match with a finger injury — with the ball just dislodging the leg bail to the batsman’s visible despair. Jadeja was left stranded on 61 not out — the all-rounder’s fourth consecutive fifty this series — after taking India to within sight of what would have been a stunning success before they were all out for 170. England captain Ben Stokes bowled two lengthy spells today on his way to an innings return of 3-48, with fast bowler Jofra Archer — in his first Test a...

India on Monday ordered its airlines to examine fuel switches on several Boeing models, while South Korea said it would order a similar measure, as scrutiny intensified of fuel switch locks at the centre of an investigation into a deadly Air India crash involving a Boeing 787. The moves by India and South Korea came despite the planemaker and the US Federal Aviation Administration telling airlines and regulators in recent days that the fuel switch locks on Boeing jets are safe. The locks have come under scrutiny following last month’s crash of an Air India jet, which killed 260 people. A preliminary report found that the switches had almost simultaneously flipped from run position to cutoff shortly after takeoff. The report noted a 2018 advisory from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which recommended, but did not mandate, operators of several Boeing models, including the 787, to inspect the locking feature of fuel cutoff switches to ensure they could not be moved accidentally. India’s Directorate...

India and China must resolve friction along their border, pull back troops and avoid “restrictive trade measures” to normalise their relationship, India’s foreign minister told his Chinese counterpart in Beijing on Monday. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met Wang Yi in Beijing during his first trip to the country since 2020, when a deadly border clash between their troops led to a four-year military standoff and damaged ties until a thaw began in October, when they agreed to step back. “Good progress” made by the countries in the past nine months for normalisation of relations is a result of the resolution of friction along their border, Jaishankar told Wang. India and China share a 3,800-kilometre border that is poorly demarcated and has been disputed since the 1950s. They fought a brief but brutal border war in 1962, and talks over the decades to settle the border dispute have made slow progress. Last month, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told his Chinese counterpart that the two countries should seek a “per...

Separatist militants in northeastern India said the Indian army carried out cross-border drone strikes on the group’s camps in neighbouring Myanmar on Sunday, killing three of its leaders. Some separatist groups in northeastern India have ethnic, linguistic and cultural ties with minorities across the border in Myanmar and maintain a presence there. Three commanders of the United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) were killed and 19 others wounded in a drone attack in Myanmar near the border, the separatist group said in a series of statements. According to Indian outlet The Hindustan Times, the ULFA-I claimed that three of its members were killed in the attack that used over 150 Israeli-made drones. In a statement, the ULFA-I claimed that the attack by “Indian occupational forces” took place at several camps from the border with Myanmar near Longwa in Nagaland till Pangsai Pass in Arunachal Pradesh between 2am (1:30am PKT) and 4am (3:30am PKT) on Sunday. The outfit claimed that nearly 150-plus dro...

The succession of Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is a thorn in China-India relations, the Chinese embassy in New Delhi said on Sunday, as India’s foreign minister prepares to visit China for the first time since deadly border clashes in 2020. Ahead of celebrations this month for his 90th birthday that were attended by senior Indian ministers, the head of Tibetan Buddhists riled China again by saying it had no role in his succession. Tibetans believe the soul of any senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated after his death, but China says the Dalai Lama’s succession will also have to be approved by its leaders. The Dalai Lama has been living in exile in India since 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet, and Indian foreign relations experts say his presence gives New Delhi leverage against China. Yu Jing, a Chinese embassy spokesperson, said on X that some people from strategic and academic communities in India had made “improper remarks” on the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. Yu...

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has said that former US President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate the Kashmir dispute opened a window for peace, but India shut it by refusing to engage.

Tailender Carse frustrates India with 56; Archer strikes

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Friday that the defeat inflicted by Pakistan has been difficult for the Indian political leadership to digest, state-run Radio Pakistan reported. As New Delhi launched deadly air strikes on Pakistan in early May over allegations about the Pahalgam attack, which Islamabad denied, PAF downed six Indian jets in its response. After tit-for-tat strikes on each other’s airbases, it took American intervention on May 10 for both sides to finally reach a ceasefire. According to the Foreign Office, Deputy PM Dar is leading the Pakistan delegation at the 32nd ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Regional Forum (ARF), being held today in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Addressing the Pakistani community in Kuala Lumpur, Dar said on the military side of matters, there was no issue between Pakistan and India as the armed forces had gone back to the mutually decided positions. However, he added that the defeat inflicted by Pakistan has...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday said that India’s political leadership is struggling to come to terms with its defeat during the recent military escalation with Pakistan.

Tesla will open its first India showroom in Mumbai next week, having imported $1 million worth of cars and merchandise, marking its entry into the world’s third-largest car market despite CEO Elon Musk’s complaints about high import tariffs. In an invitation to the media on Thursday, the carmaker said the July 15 event was the “launch of Tesla in India through the opening of the Tesla experience centre at Bandra Kurla Complex,” located in the city’s leading commercial business district. Grappling with excess manufacturing capacity at its other factories and falling sales, Tesla has pivoted to selling imported cars in India, on which it will need to pay about 70 per cent import duty and other levies. Commercially available custom records from January to June showed Tesla imported vehicles, chargers and accessories into India worth close to $1m, mainly from China and the United States. The vehicles included six of Tesla’s best-selling Model Y at a shipment value of $32,500 each for five cars, and $46,000 for th...

Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir said on Thursday that India was doubling down on its “nefarious agenda” against Pakistan through the use of proxies after facing a “manifest defeat” in the recent military conflict between the two countries. India blamed Pakistan for the April 22 Pahalgam attack without evidence, triggering a military escalation. On May 6–7, New Delhi launched air strikes that killed civilians, followed by a week-long missile exchange. A US-brokered ceasefire ended the war. A day earlier, Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry accused Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval of masterminding terrorism in Pakistan, alleging Indian support for terrorist groups. Echoing similar sentiments, Field Marshal Munir said, while chairing the 271st Corps Commanders’ Conference (CCC) at the General Headquarters (GHQ), said today: “Following its manifest defeat in direct aggression against Pakistan, post-Pahalgam incident, India is now doubling do...

Indian election officials have given voters in Bihar state just weeks to prove their citizenship, requiring documents that few possess in a registration revamp set to be applied nationwide, triggering disenfranchisement fears. The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the revision of the voter rolls in June ahead of upcoming polls in the eastern state. It said the exercise will later be replicated across the nation of 1.4 billion people. According to the ECI, the “intensive revision” was needed in part to avoid the “inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants”. Members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have long claimed that large numbers of undocumented Muslim migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh have fraudulently entered India’s electoral rolls. Critics say the overhaul could render vast numbers of Indian citizens unable to vote. “You are being asked to produce documents that very few people have,” said Asaduddin Owaisi, a prominent Muslim lawm...

Pakistan has issued a stern warning against the weaponisation of water by India, cautioning that turning water into a tool of political conflict could have grave regional and global implications.

India’s space regulator on Wednesday granted Starlink a licence to launch commercial operations in the country, clearing the only remaining regulatory hurdle for the satellite provider to enter the market. The Elon Musk-led firm has been waiting since 2022 for licences to operate commercially in India. Last month, it received a key licence from India’s telecom ministry to launch, but has been waiting for a go-ahead from India’s space regulator. Starlink’s licence is valid for five years, the country’s space regulator Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) said. Reuters reported earlier in the day, citing sources, that Starlink had secured the licence from IN-SPACe. Starlink would be the third company to receive India’s nod to enter the space, with India previously approving applications by Eutelsat’s OneWeb and Reliance Jio to provide services in the country. Starlink will now need to secure spectrum from the government, set up ground infrastructure and also demonstrate through te...

PAF, PLAAF chiefs discuss regional security dynamics Lt-Gen Wang Gang describes PAF performance during recent conflict with India as textbook example Pakistan and China enjoy historic and time-tested ties: Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu.