India | Pakistan

ROME: Adviser to the Prime Minister Dr Syed Tauqir Hussain Shah has strongly cautioned against the unilateral manipulation of shared water resources, accusing India of undermining a critical water-sharing treaty and posing a threat to regional peace and development. Speaking at the Rome Water Dialogue convened by the Food and Agric­ulture Organisation, he warned that any nation attempting to control transboundary water flows violates international law. “Any attempt to unilaterally alter transboundary water flows or weaponise water access is not only dangerous but contrary to international norms and sustainable development goals,” Mr Shah said. Representing Pakistan at the global forum, Mr Shah raised serious concerns about India’s conduct regarding the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), long seen as a successful example of bilateral cooperation. “The Indus Waters Treaty has long been considered a model of cooperation, even during times of conflict between Pakistan and India,” he said. “However, India’s recent unilate...

India has halved its purchases of Russian oil, a White House official said, but Indian sources said no immediate reduction had been seen, as President Donald Trump’s administration presses New Delhi and other nations to buy less Russian crude. Russian oil is a main irritant for Trump in prolonged trade talks with India — half of his 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods are in retaliation for those purchases. His administration says Moscow is using petroleum revenue to fund its war in Ukraine. The White House official told Reuters on Thursday that talks with an Indian delegation in Washington this week have been productive and that Indian refiners were already cutting Russian oil imports by 50%. But Indian industry sources said on Friday that New Delhi had not informed refiners of any request to cut Russian imports. Trump says Modi pledged to halt Russian oil purchases Refiners have already placed orders for November loading, including some cargoes for December arrival, so any cut could be visible in December o...

India said on Thursday that its energy priority was the interest of its citizens, after United States President Donald Trump said New Delhi had promised it will stop buying Russian oil. New Delhi neither confirmed nor denied it was shifting policy towards Russia. “It has been our consistent priority to safeguard the interests of the Indian consumer in a volatile energy scenario,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement. “Our import policies are guided entirely by this objective.” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has previously defended buying oil from Russia, a historic partner of India, despite Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump in August raised tariffs on Indian exports to the US to 50 per cent, with Trump’s aides accusing India of fueling Russia’s war in Ukraine. “Ensuring stable energy prices and secured supplies have been the twin goals of our energy policy,” Jaiswal added. “This includes broad-basing our energy sourcing and diversifying as appropriate to meet market con...

Apple is lobbying India’s government to modify its income tax law to ensure the company is not taxed for ownership of high-end iPhone machinery it provides to its contract manufacturers, an issue seen as a hurdle to its future expansion, sources say. The push coincides with Apple’s growing India presence as it diversifies beyond China. Counterpoint Research says iPhone’s share in the Indian market has doubled to 8 per cent since 2022. And while China still accounts for 75pc of global iPhone shipments, India’s share has quadrupled to 25pc since 2022. India is the world’s second-largest mobile market. Apple’s contract manufacturers Foxconn and Tata have pumped in billions of dollars to open five plants, but millions of those expenses go into acquiring pricey machines for iPhone assembly. Experts say Apple potentially faces billions of dollars in additional taxes if it changes its business practices without convincing New Delhi to change a 1961 law covering foreign ownership of equipment used in India. In China,...

The military on Wednesday said that India was attempting to “mould history to its liking by inventing outlandish, Bollywood-style scripts” in the aftermath of the May conflict between the two countries. The May conflict between Pakistan and India was sparked by an attack on tourists in occupied Kashmir, which New Delhi, without evidence, linked with Pakistan. Islamabad strongly denied responsibility while calling for a neutral investigation. After New Delhi launched deadly air strikes in Punjab and Azad Kashmir on May 7, Pakistan said it downed five Indian planes in air-to-air combat, later raising the tally to seven. 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. Islamabad has denied any losses of its planes and said it hit 26 Indian targets after its three air bases were targeted. However, Indian political and military leadership have continued to make aggressive statements, repeating terrorism allegations that Pakista...

Pakistan has strongly condemned India’s “lies and recycled distortions” over Jammu and Kashmir, calling on the United Nations to take decisive action to resolve the long-standing dispute in line with Security Council resolutions.

Google on Tuesday said it would invest $15 billion in India over the next five years as it announced a giant data centre and artificial intelligence base in the country’s south. “It is the largest AI hub that we are investing in anywhere outside of the US,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, at a ceremony in New Delhi. He announced “capital investment of $15bn” over the five years and a “gigawatt-scale AI hub in Visakhapatnam”, a city in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Google has plans for the centre to eventually “scale to multiple gigawatts”, Kurian added. Demand for AI tools and solutions has surged in India — projected to have more than 900 million internet users by year’s end — driven by growing adoption by businesses and individuals. India’s Information Technology Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, thanked Google for the investment. “This digital infrastructure will go a long way in meeting the goals of our India AI vision,” he said. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu called it a “very...

India and Canada agreed on Monday on a new roadmap for their relations after talks between their foreign ministers in New Delhi, as both countries seek to mend ties strained over the killing of a Canadian Sikh separatist. The two countries, both of which are looking to diversify trade away from the United States due to tariff announcements, agreed to collaborate on areas such as critical minerals, trade and agricultural value chains, a joint statement said. “Reviving this partnership will not only create opportunities for enhanced economic cooperation but also help mitigate vulnerabilities arising from shifting global alliances,” it said. Almost two years of strained relations The statement came after Canada’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and her counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Monday. “Both of our governments agree on the importance of elevating the relationship,” Anand said in her opening remarks at the meeting with Jaishankar. Relations between New Delhi and O...

India’s aviation regulator said on Monday it has asked Air India to inspect the emergency power system, known as the Ram Air Turbine (RAT), on some of its 787 jets. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has also asked Boeing, the maker of these aircraft, to submit a report providing details, including preventive measures at the time of a RAT deployment incident, the regulator said. This comes after the crew of an Air India 787 Dreamliner — which was flying from the northern Indian city of Amritsar to Birmingham, UK — detected deployment of the power system during the final approach, Air India had said in a statement on Sunday. Boeing and Air India did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. In July, Indian investigators had said the RAT had also been deployed during the initial climb before the Air India Boeing 787 crash, which killed 260 people in June.

Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi provided a clarification on Sunday after furore over the absence of women journalists from a press conference he addressed in New Delhi on Friday. The criticism had notably come from India’s opposition Congress party, which rebuked the Narendra Modi government. There were calls for the Indian government to clarify its position on the matter and questioned its silence on the “discrimination”. Subsequently, Indian news agency ANI posted a video of Muttaqi on X today, in which he was seen clarifying the matter in Pashto. The Afghan foreign minister said, “Our teams had contacted a limited number of journalists for the press conference, and only those journalists were invited … It later emerged that some journalists were not on the list. It was nothing more than that. “Our colleagues thought that those who had been on the list should be invited. So, the participants were limited. It was just this decision and no other.” While there has been no official comment from the go...

New Delhi: India’s opposition Congress party criticised the Narendra Modi government on Saturday over the absence of women journalists from a press conference addressed by visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, with Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra asking the prime minister to clarify his position on the matter. “Mr Modi, when you allow the exclusion of women journalists from a public forum, you are telling every woman in India that you are too weak to stand up for them. In our country, women have the right to equal participation in every space. “Your silence in the face of such discrimination exposes the emptiness of your slogans on Nari Shakti,” Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said in a post on X. Mr Gandhi’s post followed Priyanka Vadra’s earlier message, in which she asked whether the prime minister’s recognition of women’s rights was “just convenient posturing from one election to another”, and questioned how such an “insult to some of India’s most co...

India upgrades ties with Afghanistan

India will reopen its embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul that was shut four years ago, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Friday. India had closed its embassy in Kabul after the Taliban seized power following the withdrawal of US-led Nato forces in 2021, but opened a small mission a year later to facilitate trade, medical support, and humanitarian aid. About a dozen countries including China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Turkiye have embassies operating in Kabul, although Russia is the only country to have formally recognised the Taliban administration. New Delhi’s announcement came as Afghan Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi began talks with Jaishankar on what is the first visit to India by a Taliban leader since 2021. “India is fully committed to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Afghanistan,” Jaishankar told Muttaqi in his opening remarks. “Closer cooperation between us contributes to your national development, as well as regional stability and resilien...

Afghanistan’s foreign minister arrived in India on Thursday for talks aiming to foster economic ties with New Delhi in the first such visit by a leader of the group since it seized power in 2021. The six-day trip by Amir Khan Muttaqi highlights the Taliban’s efforts to spur engagement with regional powers to secure eventual diplomatic recognition. He is set to meet Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and other officials to discuss a range of political, economic and trade matters. “We look forward to engaging discussions with him on bilateral relations and regional issues,” foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X welcoming the minister. Muttaqi is also expected to speak with Indian business representatives, visit the ancient monument to love, the Taj Mahal, and a historic Islamic seminary, media said. He arrives in New Delhi after talks in Moscow with diplomats from Afghanistan’s neighbours, who appeared to unite against US President Donald Trump’s stated aim of taking over the...

Britain said on Thursday it had signed a £350 million ($468m) contract to supply the Indian army with UK-manufactured lightweight missiles, as part of a deepening weapons and defence partnership between the two countries. The announcement came as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was visiting Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in Mumbai, where the pair hailed the potential of the commercial links from their months-old trade deal. In its statement on the defence deal, the British government said the new contract for Lightweight Multirole Missiles made by Thales in Northern Ireland would secure 700 jobs at a factory which currently makes the same weapons for Ukraine. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, deliver a statement to the press at Raj Bhavan, in Mumbai, India, on October 9. — Reuters “The deal paves the way for a broader complex weapons partnership between the UK and India, currently under negotiation between the two governments,” it said. Starmer has, ...

The military’s top brass warned India on Wednesday that any “imaginary new normal” its leadership might be entertaining about bilateral dynamics would be met with a “new normal of swift retributive response”. The statement from the army brass, released after the 272nd Corps Commanders’ Conference (CCC) held at General Headquarters (GHQ), comes in the wake of last week’s provocative remarks by top Indian civil-military leadership. Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi had warned Pakistan that it must stop state-sponsored terrorism if it wanted to retain its place on the map. He had said that Indian forces would “not show any restraint this time”, potentially hinting at another military incursion. The Pakistan military had issued a strong response to the remarks and wanred that any future conflict with India could lead to “cataclysmic devastation” and the country would “resolutely respond, without any qualms or restraint”. It had said that “those seeking to establish a new normal must know that Pakistan has...

The water level in the Sutlej River continues to rise after India released additional water into the river, officials confirmed on Wednesday.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived in India on Wednesday, months after London and New Delhi signed a landmark free trade agreement, capping years of intense negotiations. Starmer’s first official trip to India, which he hopes will boost economic ties between the two nations, sees him accompanied by a 125-member delegation that includes top business leaders including British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle. The two-day visit follows his July meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in London, where the pair signed the trade accord. Starmer is due to meet Modi tomorrow, and address a fintech conference in Mumbai alongside him. “With India set to be the third biggest economy in the world by 2028, and trade with them about to become quicker and cheaper, the opportunities waiting to be seized are unparalleled,” Starmer said in a statement. India and its former colonial ruler are the world’s fifth- and sixth-largest economies, with bilateral trade worth around $54.8 billion and investments suppo...

SHIKARPUR: Four bog­ies of the Jaffar Expr­ess derailed following an explosion on the track near the town of Huma­yoon, in the Shikarpur district, injuring seven passengers on Tuesday morning. Railways Minister Ha­nif Abbasi alleged foreign involvement, stating that India was behind the repeated attacks on the Jaffar Express. He affir­med that railway operations would continue desp­ite the incident. The train was en route from Peshawar to Quetta when the blast occurred at around 8:15am, said Shik­a­rpur Deputy Commis­sioner Shakeel Ahmed Abro while speaking to the media on the scene soon after the incident. He said there were no fatalities, and the seven injured passengers were promptly transported to Shikarpur Civil Hospital. The injured included Muh­ammad Shafique, son of Abdul Azziz, a railway official, Muhammad You­nis, Hawaldar Javed, constable Abdul Rahman, con­­­s­table Azhar Jameel, besides two unidentified passengers. Four of the more seriously injured were later shifted to the military hospital for ...

Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry has said that Chinese weapon systems deployed during Pakistan’s four-day military conflict with India in May performed “exceptionally well”. During the conflict, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar reportedly said the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) used Chinese J-10C jets in its response to India’s May 7 attack. A report by The Guardian had noted that Pakistan deploying J-10Cs would “mark the first time the Chinese planes — and the PL-15 missiles they were carrying — have been used in combat anywhere in the world”. In May, China had expressed ignorance about the use of its jets, saying it was “not familiar with the matter”. In July, however, the Chinese air chief commended the PAF’s “exemplary performance” in the May conflict. In an interview with Bloomberg, which was held last week and published yesterday, Lt Gen Chaudhry said: “Of course lately, recent Chinese platforms, they’ve demonstrated exceptionally well.” “We are open to all s...