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Natwar Singh to visit US

     New Delhi: Just on the heels of the Bush administration announcing a series of measures for closer US- India ties, External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh is paying a visit to America from April 12. A high level delegation including Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Dr. M.S. Ahluwalia, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, Director of the Strategic Planning Group in the Department of Atomic Energy Dr. R.B. Grover, Scientific Secretary of the ISRO Dr. V Sundararamaiah and Joint Secretary (America) Dr. S. Jaishankar are accompanying the minister. An external affairs ministry spokesman said the three-day visit is "at the invitation of the US Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice." Singh is expected to discuss the recent offers made by the Bush Administration on high technology cooperation including the setting up of a Joint Working Group on Space Cooperation. The United States had in a dramatic announcement late last month had offered to sell F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan and simultaneously offered the same or higher version of the fighter planes to India. Besides it had also offered civilian nuclear energy and nuclear safety cooperation to India.

Kashmiris united by bus meet relatives in Pakistan (Go To Top)

     Muzaffarabad: Kashmiris wept and hugged each other on Thursday as a new bus service across their beautiful but blighted land reunited families split up by politics and war for nearly 60 years. Nineteen Indian Kashmiris defied separatist rebel threats and crossed into Pakistani-controlled Kashmir to meet their relatives after 31 Pakistani Kashmiris walked across a bridge the other way, into India, to find their kin. Frail-looking Mohammad Saleem Khan sat surrounded by his extended family, beaming at his nieces and grandchildren. "I am happy at his coming," said Khan's niece, Ranaab Zafar. "My father died yearning (to see his relatives). He was here since fifty years. His entire family is there (Indian Kashmir); his brothers, sisters , everyone," she added. Family members handed Khan letters from those who could not come to greet him. "We heard about Kashmir from our mother," said Tanweer Khan, cousin of another newly-arrived Indian Kashmiri, Mohammad Nasiruddin. "Today our dream has come true. You asked how I was feeling; well, if your brother comes, you naturally feel happy," he smiled.

     The bus service between the Indian and Pakistani sectors of Kashmir is the most concrete sign of progress in a cautious peace process relaunched last year. The service will only link the main cities of Indian and Pakistani Kashmir every two weeks but many Kashmiris hope it will be the first step to a lasting resolution of the dispute despite attacks by the Muslim rebels who see it as a sell-out. But politics and fighting were far from the thoughts of relatives hugging and being showered with rose petals by wellwishers on Thursday. "We all are feeling so good about it because we are seeing all of them for the first time and we have not seen them in all our life," said eighteen year old Beenish Farooq. "So its nice to see them. Yeah, we are feeling so good and so happy," she added The region has been the cause of two of the three wars between India and Pakistan and nearly sparked another in 2002. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in a vicious insurgency against Indian rule in its part of Kashmir and Indian and Pakistani troops regularly exchanged fire across forested mountain slopes until a 2003 ceasefire. "This is simply giving oxygen to a dying patient. There should be a permanent medicine for we Kashmiris living on both the sides of LOC," said Mohammad Nasiruddin, who had come home after fifty years.

Left expresses satisfaction with UPA functioning (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: Leaders of the Left Front on Friday expressed satsfaction with the functioning of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi during a breakfast meeting at the Prime Minister's 7 Race Course Road residence. The government's foreign policy came in for particular praise during the meeting, which comes just ahead of the visits of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (April 9 to 12) and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf (April 16 to 18). External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh briefed the Left leaders on the high-profile visits during the hour-long meeting. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, CPI(M) leaders Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Sitaram Yechury, CPI leaders A B Bardhan and D Raja, RSP leader Abani Roy and Forward Bloc's Debabrata Biswas were also present during the meeting. Later, Yechury told reporters that the Left parties were happy with the government's foreign policy direction.

     "On the foreign policy sphere, the government is going according to our understanding in the Commom Minimum Programme. The direction is good," he said. Yechury said the government was absolutely on the right track and that border disputes with China could be solved only through talks. He added that after Jiabao's visit, the understanding between India and China would be "better". The Left parties also congratulated the government for successfully running the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus. "This was a good confidence-building measure and efforts to foster peace between India and Pakistan should continue," he added. Natwar Singh told reporters that the meeting today was 'exclusively' to brief the Left parties about the visits by the Chinese and Pakistani leaders. "We will do the same exercise with opposition leaders also. They are all with us on this," he said.