All-party delegation meets Qatari minister, conveys India's stand on Pahalgam attack, Operation Sindoor
Live Events
(You can now subscribe to our
(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel
An all-party parliamentary delegation on Monday met Qatar's MoS for Foreign Affairs Mohamed bin Abdulaziz bin Saleh Al Khulaifi and conveyed India's perspectives on the Pahalgam terrorist attack, Operation Sindoor and the country's national consensus for zero-tolerance against terrorism. The all-party delegation led by NCP-SP leader Supriya Sule arrived in Qatar late Saturday as part of the government's outreach to the international community on the fight against terror and the significance of Operation Sindoor."Today morning the multi-party delegation met HE Dr. Mohamed bin Abdulaziz bin Saleh Al Khulaifi, MoS for Foreign Affairs and conveyed India's perspectives on the Pahalgam terrorist attack, Operation Sindoor and India's national consensus for zero-tolerance against terrorism," the Indian Embassy in Qatar posted on X."MoS Dr Al Khulaifi conveyed Qatar's solidarity with India and policy of zero tolerance against terrorism for regional stability and prosperity," it said in another post.The delegation on Sunday met the Deputy Speaker of the Qatar Shura Council Dr Hamda Al Sulaiti and other Qatari MPs and conveyed India's national outrage over the April 22 Pahalgam attack that left 26 people dead.The delegation highlighted the visit reflected India's united stance on cross-border terrorism.Apart from Sule, the working president of the NCP-SP, the delegation comprises BJP leaders Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Anurag Thakur and V Muraleedharan, Congress leaders Manish Tewari and Anand Sharma, TDP leader Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu, AAP leader Vikramjeet Singh Sawhney, and former diplomat Syed Akbaruddin.It will also travel to South Africa Ethiopia and Egypt Qatar is considered to wield influence in the West Asian region and has a role as a mediator in regional conflicts.The Sule-led group will then travel to South Africa, which holds the current G-20 Presidency and then head to Ethiopia, which is also the home to the African Union. The delegation will visit Egypt, an influential country in the Arab world.The delegation is one of the seven multi-party delegations India has tasked to visit 33 global capitals to reach out to the international community to emphasise Pakistan's links to terrorism and assert that the recent conflict was triggered by the Pahalgam terror strike and not Operation Sindoor as alleged by Islamabad.Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after the Pahalgam terror attack, with India carrying out precision strikes on terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the early hours of May 7.Pakistan attempted to attack Indian military bases on May 8, 9, and 10. The Indian side responded strongly to the Pakistani actions.The on-ground hostilities ended with an understanding of stopping the military actions following talks between the directors general of military operations of both sides on May 10.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
India Today
19 minutes ago
- India Today
Crops hit, dams at dead level: Pak water crisis deepens after India's Indus move
Pakistan is facing a severe water crisis, with the agricultural industry looking at deeper impacts, in the aftermath of India suspending the Indus Waters Treaty in retaliation to the April 22 Pahalgam massacre in which Islamabad-backed terrorists gunned down 26 people, mostly Indus River System Authority (IRSA) reported discharging 11,180 cusecs of additional water than it received on Wednesday, worsening the water crisis. Furthermore, the water levels at the two major reservoirs in Pakistan - Tarbela on the Indus and Mangla on the Jhelum - have dropped to dead storage, thereby indicating the crisis will reservoir water reaching its dead storage levels also means that it cannot be drained out by gravity, thus limiting its use for irrigation or drinking. The water crisis is even stronger in the Punjab province, where the kharif season has started. The kharif farming has witnessed a dip of more than 20 per cent owing to receiving 1.14 lakh cusecs of water as opposed to 1.43 lakh cusecs a day last year. The production of kharif crops - cotton and maize - has declined by over 30 per cent and 15 per cent in Pakistan, respectively. The production of wheat - a rabi crop - has also dropped by around 9 per cent owing to the water shortage in the the agricultural industry, especially the kharif outputs impacted, its overall share in Pakistan's GDP dipped to 23.54 per cent in fiscal 2025 from 24.03 per cent the previous financial situation is expected to deteriorate in the upcoming weeks, especially as India undertakes regular desilting and flushing its dams in Jammu and Kashmir to enhance its own storage capacity. Additionally, with the monsoon still weeks away, IRSA has warned of a 21 per cent water shortage in the early kharif season and 7 per cent towards the has been relentless in its efforts to convince India to reinstate the Indus treaty. Last week, India Today reported that Islamabad wrote as many as four letters to Delhi, urging the latter to reconsider its decision to stop the treaty before Operation Sindoor. Sources told India Today TV that Pakistan also requested the World Bank, which brokered the deal, to intervene in the matter. However, the global body refused to mediate in the Indus Waters Treaty allocates the eastern rivers - Ravi, Beas and Sutlej - to India and the western ones, such as Jhelum, Chenab and Indus, to Pakistan. Responding to the water move last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi firmly said that water and blood cannot flow is also strengthening its water infrastructure, aimed at bettering its domestic storage and strategic hold over the shared waters. This includes new canal projects connecting Beas to Ganga and Indus to Reel IN THIS STORY#Operation Sindoor#India-Pakistan
The Print
39 minutes ago
- The Print
India slips to 131st position in Global Gender Gap Index 2025
With a parity score of just 64.1 per cent, India is among the lowest-ranked countries in South Asia, according to the report released on Thursday. New Delhi, Jun 12 (PTI) India has ranked 131 out of 148 countries in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2025, slipping two places from its position last year. The Global Gender Gap Index measures gender parity across four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. The Indian economy's overall performance improved in absolute terms by +0.3 points. 'One of the dimensions where India increases parity is in Economic Participation and Opportunity, where its score improves by +.9 percentage points to 40.7 per cent. While most indicator values remain the same, parity in estimated earned income rises from 28.6 per cent to 29.9 per cent, positively impacting the subindex score,' the report said. Scores in labour force participation rate remained the same (45.9 per cent) as last year — India's highest achieved to date. In educational attainment, the report said, India scored 97.1 per cent, reflecting positive shifts in female shares for literacy and tertiary education enrolment, which result in positive score improvements for the subindex as a whole. 'India also records higher parity in health and survival, driven by improved scores in sex ratio at birth and in healthy life expectancy,' it said. However, similar to other countries, parity in healthy life expectancy is obtained despite an overall reduction in the life expectancy of men and women, the report said. 'Where India records a slight drop in parity (-0.6 points) since the last edition is in Political Empowerment. Female representation in Parliament falls from 14.7 per cent to 13.8 per cent in 2025, lowering the indicator score for the second year in a row below 2023 levels,' it said. Similarly, the share of women in ministerial roles falls from 6.5 per cent to 5.6 per cent, moving the indicator score (5.9 per cent) further away this year from its highest level (30 per cent in 2019), it said. With notable gains in political empowerment and economic participation, Bangladesh emerged as the best performer in South Asia, jumping 75 ranks to rank 24 globally. Nepal ranked 125, Sri Lanka 130, Bhutan 119, Maldives 138 and Pakistan 148. The report said the global gender gap has closed to 68.8 per cent, marking the strongest annual advancement since the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet full parity remains 123 years away at current rates, according to the report. Iceland leads the rankings for the 16th year running, followed by Finland, Norway, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. The 19th edition of the report, which covers 148 economies, revealed both encouraging momentum and persistent structural barriers facing women worldwide. The progress made in this edition was driven primarily by significant strides in political empowerment and economic participation while educational attainment and health and survival maintained near-parity levels above 95 per cent. However, despite women representing 41.2 per cent of the global workforce, a stark leadership gap persists with women holding only 28.8 per cent of top leadership positions, the report said. 'At a time of heightened global economic uncertainty and a low growth outlook combined with technological and demographic change, advancing gender parity represents a key force for economic renewal,' said Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World Economic Forum. 'The evidence is clear. Economies that have made decisive progress towards parity are positioning themselves for stronger, more innovative and more resilient economic progress,' Zahidi said. PTI UZM DIV DIV This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
India Today
40 minutes ago
- India Today
Chief Justice's judicial terrorism caution amid government's overreach charge
Chief Justice of India BR Gavai said that while judicial activism remains an enduring aspect of India's democracy, it must not cross the line into 'judicial terrorism.'Speaking during an informal interaction with Indian students at Trinity College, Oxford Union, Chief Justice Gavai addressed the ongoing debate surrounding the judiciary's 'intrusion' into the legislative domain."Judicial activism is bound to stay. At the same time, judicial activism should not be turned into judicial terrorism. So, at times, you try to exceed the limits and try to enter into an area where, normally, the judiciary should not enter," he said in response to a The Chief Justice's remarks come at a time when the government has accused the judiciary of overreach. Gavai clarified that the judiciary would intervene if the legislature or executive failed in their duty to safeguard fundamental rights, but that judicial review should be used sparingly."This power has to be exercised in a very limited area in very exception cases, like, say, a statute, is violative of the basic structure of the Constitution, or it is in direct conflict with any of the fundamental rights of the Constitution, or if the statute is so patently arbitrary, discriminatory," he stated. "The courts can exercise it, and the courts have done so."Gavai's comments echoed the note of caution sounded by Justice Surya Kant during his keynote address at the 'Envision India Conclave' in San Francisco earlier this week. Kant had stressed that courts must not supplant the role of the legislature or override the will of the they must act as facilitators of democratic dialogue - strengthening participatory governance, protecting the vulnerable, and ensuring rule of law prevails even in moments of political uncertainty," Kant had said. "Judicial overreach risks unsettling the delicate balance of power."Chief Justice Gavai, who is the second Dalit and first Buddhist to hold India's highest judicial office, characterised the Constitution as a "quiet revolution etched in ink." He described it as a transformative force that not only guarantees rights but actively uplifts the historically Chief Justice also urged Indian students studying at British universities to return and contribute to nation-building."The only appeal to you is that after you complete your studies, you do not remain here. Come back to India. Give your services to make our Bharat strong and one of the most important powers in the entire globe," he said. "So, Bharat needs you, respond to that need."With PTI inputs
