All posts by webadmin

Simran Sodhi Tribune News Service New Delhi, June 23 India’s hope of getting through to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) this year virtually came to an end today with China reiterating its opposition to India’s bid. This comes in the backdrop of the ongoing NSG plenary session in the Swiss capital Bern that concludes today. India had kept its outreach to the NSG members in the run up to the Bern session low key, keeping in view the negative backlash it endured last year after the Seoul fiasco. Sources said the government pushed forward India’s case with various NSG members, but in a quieter way. The problem, however, seems to be that with China not budging from its position, and the NSG working on the basis of a consensus, India’s chances have hardly moved forward. Smaller countries like Turkey and New Zealand also continue to hold on to their reservations about India’s entry into the group. “As for non-NPT countries being admitted to the group, I can tell you there is no change to China’s position,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said today. “I want to point out that the NSG has clear rules on expansion and the Seoul plenary made clear mandates on how to deal with this issue. With these rules and mandates, we need to act as they dictate.” “As for the criteria regarding admitting new members,” Geng added, “as far as I know this plenary meeting in Switzerland will follow the mandate of the Seoul plenary and uphold the principle of decision upon consensus, and continue to discuss various dimensions like technology, law, legal and political aspects of non-NPT countries admission to the group”. China has further complicated the situation by holding talks in Islamabad on Pakistan’s entry into the NSG. Pakistan also followed India’s example and has been pushing for a berth, citing the fact that if India, a non-signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) can be considered, then why not other non-NPT states. India has been arguing that its case needs to be de-hyphenated from Pakistan’s, but China seems to have other thoughts.

Kulbhushan Jadhav. AFP file

Islamabad, June 22

Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court, has filed a mercy petition to Pakistan Army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, the Army said here on Thursday.The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), in a statement, claimed that in his plea, Jadhav has “admitted his involvement in espionage, terrorist and subversive activities” in Pakistan and “expressed remorse” at the resultant loss of lives and extensive damage to property.”Seeking forgiveness for his actions he has requested the Chief of Army Staff to spare his life on compassionate grounds,” the ISPR said.The statement said that Jadhav, a retired Indian Navy officer, had earlier appealed to the Military Appellate Court which was rejected.Under the law he is eligible to appeal for clemency to the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and if rejected, subsequently to the Pakistan President.The military also released a “second confessional video”, in which purportedly Jadhav can be seen “accepting his acts of terrorism and espionage”.Video posted by Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, DG ISPR, on his Facebook pageThe Army said it released the video “so that the world should know what India has done and continues to do against Pakistan.”India moved the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the death penalty handed down to Jadhav on May 8.In a hearing of the case on May 18, a 10-member bench of the ICJ restrained Pakistan from executing Jadhav.Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy. — PTI

President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said that in the rapidly changing environment, the nation’s faith in the armed forces has remained intact. “In the rapidly changing environment, one factor which has not changed is the faith reposed in the armed forces by the entire nation,” Mukherjee said while addressing the convocation ceremony of the College of Military Engineering (CME) here. In all, seventy one M.Tech and B.Tech students passed out from the premier technical and tactical training institution of the Indian Army, established in 1943.Mukherjee said that the Indian Army engineers had traditionally left their mark on prestigious national projects, “be it oil pipeline at Siachen, prestigious naval bases and airfields in the North East or roads cutting through the Himalayan ranges”. “I am sure that each and every one of you will follow the footsteps of your illustrious predecessors and shall live up to the high standards expected of you,” he said.

AN APPEAL TO CHIEFS BY VETERANS ::DONOT MAKE RESPECTABLE RANKS AS ACTING RANKS FOR ADVERTISEMENTS BY ACTORS WITH NO CONCERN FOR FORCES

REGISTRATION DATE EXTENDED UPTO 25 JUN 2017 FOR “GUARDIANS OF GOVERNANCE” A PUNJAB GOVT PROJECT OF ESM EMPLOYMENT TO ACT AS EYES AND EARS OF CM

FOR A MULTI-PRONGED, PRAGMATIC K-STRATEGY LT GEN VIJAY OBEROI (RETD)

THE SOUTH KASHMIR RAGE: WHAT WENT WRONG? BY LT GEN SYED ATA HUSNAIN (RETD)

THE OLIVE GREEN BLOOD GROUP

BJP FOR APOLOGY, RAHUL SAYS STAY OFF ARMY CHIEF

AFP file photo

NOTWITHSTANDING our media’s predictable preoccupation with levels of PM Modi’s diplomatic civility with Nawaz Sharif and Xi Jinping, what took place on Friday in Astana was seminal. After a five-year wait, India and Pakistan were admitted to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), till then a six-member club of Russia, China and four Central Asian nations. Cast a look at any world map and this grouping’s geo-political footprint becomes obvious. All the countries straddle an arc of instability that has brought violent extremism in its wake for the past three decades. It is these countries rather than the extra-regional actors who know where the shoe pinches. They have been at the receiving end of radicalised, gun-toting militants and are now facing the spectre of the ISIS.India and Pakistan complete the lineup to fight ISIS-inspired militancy that seeks the destruction of all states not measuring up to its standards of piety and fervour. None of the SCO states make the grade. On the commerce side, Central and South Asia remains the least interconnected region. The various sinews of the famed Silk Road are now just memories. Even if India ignores the Pakistan portion of the OBOR, there are endless possibilities for connecting with these areas, especially North India that has endured the inconvenience of post-Independence borders sealing off millennia-old trading routes. Once the routes open up, oil and gas pipelines would follow.Sceptics claim India and Pakistan will bring their disputes to the SCO table and render it as dysfunctional as SAARC. The assumption is predicated on the belief that members do not launder their bilateral disputes at the SCO. In fact, the SCO’s founding purpose was to sort out disputes among its members. With a considerate Russia and sympathetic Central Asian states, India will get ample hearing at the SCO which could help sort out some of the crinkles in its relations with China and Pakistan. As Turkey and Iran wait on the sidelines for admission, the SCO is a work in progress. But it would not be without its uses for India even in the current format.

Geeta Devi, wife of martyr Ravi Paul, along with her children at Sarwah village in Samba district. Tribune Photo: Inderjeet Singh

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Sarwah (Samba), June 10

The patience of Geeta Devi, 35, wife of Uri martyr Havildar Ravi Pal, is running out as for the last six months she has been moving from one office to another to get ex gratia and other compensation to which a martyr’s family is entitled to. She has been facing official apathy and the apathetic attitude of local politicians. Geeta says, “I have two young children. How can I regularly visit government offices for ex gratia and compensation?” Her elder son Vansh is in Class VII and the younger one Sudhanash is in Class V. “The state government has not sanctioned even a single penny for our family,” says a sobbing Geeta. She said except “photo sessions”, politicians had failed to do anything. Geeta had submitted a job application before the tehsildar concerned in December 2016. When her husband was martyred in September last year, she was promised a job by the authorities. “It appears that my application is gathering dust as there is no progress in 

my case,” she said.

Of the 18 soldiers who were killed in the Uri terror attack on September 18, 2016, Havildar Ravi Pal of Sarwah village in Samba district and Subedar Karnail Singh of Shibu Chack village in Bishnah belonged to the Jammu region. All other state governments had instantly announced compensation to the next of kin of the bravehearts.On January 18 this year, the state government had announced in the Assembly that the ex gratia cases of the next of kin of the Uri attack victims of 2016 had not been received by the Home Department so far.The BJP had announced an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh each to the two martyrs on its own but the party ministers in the coalition have so far failed to get the compensation sanctioned from the government. Meanwhile, no official was ready to come on record over the inordinate delay in releasing the ex gratia to the Uri martyrs. While the Ramgarh tehsildar has recently taken over, other senior officials preferred to maintain silence.Despite repeated attempts, local BJP MLA Chander Prakash Ganga, who is also a Cabinet minister in the coalition, was not available for comment. His personal staff claimed that the “minister is busy in a meeting”. 

Relief released

• UP Rs 20 lakh
• Jharkhand Rs 11 lakh
• Orrisa Rs 10 lakhplus pension
• Maharashtra Rs 15 lakh
• Bihar Rs 15 lakh
• J&K Nothing so far

Policemen block the road to Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s residence at Hyderpora in Srinagar on Monday. Tribune Photo: Amin War

The police detain JKLF chairman Yasin Malik while he was going for a separatist meeting in Srinagar on Monday. PTI

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, June 5

Three key separatist leaders, whose close associates have come under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) radar, called for protests later this week as their meeting to discuss the raids by the agency was foiled by the police.Separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik in their joint statement called for protests later on Friday against the NIA raids on residences of separatists and several high-profile businessmen. The trio described the raids as “witch-hunt, coercion and intimidation”.The separatists, who refer to themselves as the “joint resistance leadership”, said peaceful protests would be held after Friday prayers against the raids and the “high-decibel vilification campaign”.The separatist camp has been under intense pressure following a series of raids which targeted close associates of Geelani, Mirwaiz and Malik.During the past two days, the NIA raided 33 locations in the state, New Delhi and Haryana. The NIA has been probing the funding to separatists to fuel unrest in the Valley.Rattled by the unrelenting raids, the separatists had attempted to meet today but their meeting was foiled by the police. Geelani’s residence, where the meeting was scheduled to take place, was sealed off by the police while Mirwaiz was detained at his house and Yasin was arrested from his residence.“We had a meeting at Geelani’s residence but the situation is such that we are not allowed to meet. This is the state’s bankruptcy and its oppression,” Yasin told reporters outside his Maisuma residence. He was arrested moments later and shifted to a nearby police station.Yasin Malik said the NIA’s “fear will not weaken this movement”.The separatist leaders under the NIA lens include Geelani’s son-in-law and Hurriyat leader Altaf Shah, close associate Mehraj Kalwal and spokesman Ayaz Akbar, and Mirwaiz’s close associate Shahid-ul-Islam.Hoteliers turn to govt over ‘false reporting’Srinagar: The J&K Hoteliers Club (JKHC) on Monday urged the government to take note of the “false reporting” during the recent raids conducted by the NIA. JKHC secretary general Tariq Rashid Ghani said the club held a meeting where it condemned a false news item on one of the news channels that stated that the residence of JKHC chairman Mushtaq Ahmad Chaya had been raided by the NIA. Urging the government to take notice, the JKHC said the NIA did not conduct raids at Mushtaq Chaya’s residence and the particular news story appeared to have been flashed at the “behest of certain vested interests”. Geelani’s residence sealed off

• Rattled by the unrelenting raids, the separatists had attempted to meet on Monday but their meeting was foiled by the police
• Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Geelani’s residence, where the meeting was scheduled to take place, was sealed off by the police while Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was detained at his house and Yasin Malik was arrested from his residence