Junior Digest

Geneva:India today said it has formally ratified the WTO’s trade facilitation agreement, which aims at easing customs procedures to boost commerce.

Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the move would supplement India’s ongoing reforms to bring in simplification and enhanced transparency in cross border trade in goods.

India’s WTO ambassador Anjali Prasad has handed over the instrument of acceptance to WTO Director-General Roberto Azev do.

“I am very pleased to receive India’s instrument of ratification,” Azev do said.

He said that India is one of the most dynamic economies in the world today and has become a top recipient of foreign investment.

“Ratifying the WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) will help India further boost economic growth by reducing trade costs and supporting its integration into the global economy,” he added.

Concluded at the WTO’s 2013 Bali Ministerial Conference, the TFA contains provisions for expediting the movement, release and clearance of goods, including goods in transit.

It also sets out measures for effective cooperation between customs and other appropriate authorities on trade facilitation and customs compliance issues.

It further contains provisions for technical assistance and capacity building in this area.

The TFA will come into force once two-thirds of WTO members formally accept the Agreement.

India is the 76th WTO member to accept the TFA.

The WTO in a statement said that on March 18, India submitted its “Category A notification” to the WTO indicating which provisions of the TFA it intends to implement upon entry into force of the Agreement.

According to a WTO report, implementation of the TFA has the potential to increase global merchandise exports by up to USD 1 trillion per annum.

@ Agency report.

Kabul, Apr 19 ,2016: At least 28 people were killed and hundreds wounded when a Taliban truck bomb tore through central Kabul today, triggering a fierce firefight, a week after the insurgents launched their annual spring offensive.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a densely crowded neighbourhood, which sent clouds of acrid smoke billowing into the sky and rattled windows several kilometres away.

The brazen assault near the defence ministry marks the first major Taliban attack in the Afghan capital since the insurgents announced the start of this year’s fighting season.

“One of the suicide attackers blew up an explosives-laden truck in a public parking lot next to a government building,” Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi told reporters.

“As a result 28 people were killed, most of them civilians. The second attacker engaged security forces in a gunbattle before being gunned down.”

Rahimi said the attack also left 183 people wounded but the health ministry said that figure was almost 330, with many battling for their lives in hospital.

The gunfight appeared to die down several hours after the powerful explosion, but some security officials expressed concern that other bombers may still be on the loose.

The interior ministry denounced the attack as a “war crime” and pledged to track down the perpetrators.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed their fighters had managed to enter the offices of the National Directorate of Security, the main spy agency.

Afghan officials denied that, saying the target of the attack was a government office responsible for providing security to government VIPs.

The Taliban are generally known to exaggerate battlefield claims.

Pitched gunbattles were ongoing near the building, which was cordoned off by security officials as ambulances rushed to the scene.

“(We) condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attack in Puli Mahmood Khan neighbourhood of Kabul, as a result of which many of our countrymen were martyred and wounded,” President Ashraf Ghani said in a statement.

“Such cowardly terrorist attacks will not weaken the will and determination of Afghan security forces to fight against terrorism.”

The Taliban Tuesday last week announced the start of their “spring offensive” even as the government seeks to bring them back to the negotiating table to end the drawn-out conflict.

Panama City : Panamanian prosecutors have visited the offices of the Mossack Fonseca law firm to look into its allegations that a computer hacker was behind the leak of a trove of financial documents about tax havens the firm set up to benefit influential people around the globe.

Public ministry spokeswoman Sandra Sotillo said the visit to the offices of Mossack Fonseca yesterday was made by investigators from the intellectual property prosecutor’s office.

The firm filed a complaint charging the security breach shortly before media reports appeared last week using the documents to detail how politicians, celebrities and companies around the globe were hiding assets in offshore bank accounts and anonymous shell companies.

“Finally the real criminals are being investigated,” firm co-founder Ramon Fonseca said in a message to The Associated Press.

Fonseca has maintained that the only crime which can be taken from the leak was the computer hack itself. He has said he suspects the hack originated outside Panama, possibly in Europe, but has not given any details.

Panama’s government has said it will cooperate with any judicial investigation arising from the documents.

Some critics of the government have called for a rapid investigation of the law firm, which is one of the most important in the world for creating overseas front companies.

Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela has defended the country’s financial sector, which is considered of strategic importance for the economy. But Varela has also promised the international community that he is willing to make reforms to make the sector more transparent.

@Agency report.

Beijing: President Xi Jinping has assumed a new title of “Commander in Chief” of China’s new joint forces battle command centre, in his latest move to exert greater control over the world’s largest army and consolidate his status as China’s most powerful leader in decades.

62-year-old Xi is already General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, which manages the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Xi is now Commander in Chief of the military’s Joint Operations Command Centre, state media reported, showing him visiting the centre wearing camouflage fatigues.

The Xinhua news agency and the state broadcaster CCTV both carried reports referring to Xi by the description for the first time after he visited the command centre on Wednesday.

“The current situation requires battle command to be highly strategic, coordinated, timely, professional and accurate,” Xi said, urging staff at joint battle command centers at both CMC and theater command levels to bear in mind a sense of crisis and adapt to the strategic demands of national security.

Xi told the officers to closely follow the trends of global military revolution and strive to build a joint battle command system that meets the need of fighting and winning an informationised war.

“All must be done with the ultimate goal of improving battle command capacities and measured by the standards of being able to fight and win wars,” Xi said, urging a focus on solving conflicts and problems limiting joint battle command.

Xi also called for “extraordinary methods” to foster joint battle command talent, stressing that “a major breakthrough should be achieved as soon as possible.”

The command centre was set up as part of a major revamp of China’s military structure, which also included the creation of a strategic rocket force to operate its missiles.

China’s foreign policy has become increasingly assertive in recent years, especially on its claims to disputed territories in the resource-rich and strategic South China Sea.

However, analysts say his new title indicates he wants to be seen as a leader capable of commanding the military directly.

During his visit to the centre on Wednesday, which was widely publicised in state media, he said the armed forces should be “absolutely loyal” and “capable of winning wars”.

Experts say his appearance in military fatigues may also be a display of strength aimed at China’s rivals.

China and several of its neighbours are locked in a territorial dispute over the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety.

The PLA is the world’s largest military force, with a strength of approximately 2,285,000 personnel.

@ Agency report.

Islamabad: Air forces of Pakistan and China today began their fifth joint exercise, signalling increasing military cooperation between the two all-weather allies.

Code-named as Shaheen-V, the exercise started at an operational base in Pakistan, which was not disclosed by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF).

“A contingent of People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) comprising combat pilots, air defence controllers and technical ground crew besides a PAF contingent are participating in the exercises,” said a PAF spokesman.

He said the last such exercise called Shaheen- IV was conducted in Beijing in October 2015.

The ongoing exercise saw participation of three different types of frontline fighter aircraft belonging to various PAF squadrons for the first time.

It will enhance bilateral relationship and capability of the air forces of the two friendly neighbours, he said.

The PAF spokesman said Pakistan and China enjoy very close relationship spanning over six decades.

Their partnership has been strengthened through the USD 46-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor linking China with a Pakistani deep seaport through a network of roads, railways and investment parks.

@ Agency report.

Manila : The US today disclosed for the first time that American ships have started conducting joint patrols with the Philippines in the South China Sea, a somewhat rare move not done with many other partners in the region.

At the same time, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced at a joint news conference with Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmi that the United States will be keeping nearly 300 troops, including Air Force commandos armed with combat aircraft and helicopters, in the Philippines through the end of the month.

It’s part of a military build-up sure to inflame tensions with Beijing in the South China Sea.

The US will also begin sending forces on increased rotations into the Philippines, it was disclosed, to beef up training and to support increased military operations in the region.

The increase in military support comes just days after a Philippine diplomat asked that the US help convince China not to build in the nearby Scarborough Shoal, which is viewed as important to Filipino fishermen.

Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Cuisia Jr said the Philippines is not capable of stopping China from constructing there. China has built man-made islands in other contested spots in the South China Sea.

According to the Pentagon, the US forces that will remain here are already in the Philippines participating in the Balikatan or shoulder-to-shoulder combat exercises which will end tomorrow.

About 200 airmen, including special operations forces will remain at Clark Air Base, along with three of their Pave Hawk attack helicopters, an MC-130H Combat Talon II special mission aircraft and five A-10 combat aircraft.

This initial contingent will provide training to increase the two militaries’ ability to work together, laying the groundwork for forces to do joint air patrols as well as the ship movements.

Also, up to 75 Marines will stay at Camp Aguinaldo to support increased US and Philippine combined military operations in the region.

The troops and aircraft are expected to leave at the end of the month, but other US forces and aircraft would do similar rotations into the Philippines in the future.

A defence official would not say how frequently those rotations would happen, but said the size schedule and makeup would fluctuate. The official was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity.

@ Agency report.

Colombo: Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party TNA- controlled northern provincial council today adopted a resolution seeking a federal solution to the long-pending issue of political independence for the counry’s minority Tamil community.
The resolution adopted by Tamil National Alliance (TNA) aims to have the federal solution included in the current constitution-making process.

The government headed by President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has already launched a process to formulate a new Constitution for the country replacing the 1978 statute.

The Tamil demand for a federal solution dates back to the days when Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, came to be granted independence by the British in 1948.

Later, the campaign was extended to a separate state demand when the LTTE fought a decades-old war with the government to carve out a separate Tamil homeland.

With the defeat of the LTTE in 2009, the Tamil leadership has adopted a softer approach to give up on the separatist demand.

@ Agency report.

Rescuers pulled survivors from rubble Sunday after the strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades flattened buildings and buckled highways along its Pacific coast. At least 246 people were killed — including two Canadians — and another 2,500 injured.

The magnitude-7.8 quake, the strongest to hit the country since 1979, was centred on Ecuador’s sparsely populated fishing ports and tourist beaches, about 170 kilometres northwest of the capital of Quito.

A sombre Vice-President Jorge Glas told a news conference that the death toll was likely to rise. Much of the damage occurred in the cities of Manta, Portoviejo and Guayaquil — all several hundred kilometres from the centre of the quake, which struck shortly after nightfall Saturday.

He said accessing the disaster zone was difficult due to landslides. “The entire public force is in a state of maximum alert to protect the lives of citizens,” Glas said in a televised address.

A Quebec woman and her 12-year-old son were among those killed, a family friend told Radio-Canada.

Jennifer Mawn and Arthur Laflamme — part of a family of four who had moved to Ecuador last fall — were at home inside their apartment when the shaking began and ultimately caused the ceiling to collapse.

Mawn’s husband, Pierre Laflamme, and the couple’s second child, Laurie-Ann, had minor injuries.

Global Affairs Canada confirmed the deaths of two Canadians in an email to CBC News but declined to release further details due to privacy reasons.

“To date, we are working with the families of two Canadian citizens who were tragically killed during this earthquake,”  spokeswoman Rachna Mishra said in an email. “Consular officials in Ottawa are in contact with the family‎ and have offered their support and consular assistance.”

President Rafael Correa signed a decree declaring a national emergency and urged citizens to stay strong while authorities handle the disaster.

“Everything can be rebuilt, but what can’t be rebuilt are human lives, and that’s the most painful,” he said in a telephone call to state TV before departing for Manta.

Police, soldiers dispatched

More than 14,000 police and soldiers were sent to towns near the epicentre.

Searchers scrambled through ruins in Portoviejo, digging with their hands trying to find survivors. As officials set up shelters and field hospitals, residents said they felt like the entire town had been flattened.

“For god’s sake, help me find my family,” pleaded 27-year-old Manuel Quijije. He said his older brother, Junior, was trapped under a pile of twisted steel and concrete with two relatives.

“We managed to see his arms and legs. They’re his, they’re buried, but the police kicked us out because they say there’s a risk the rest of the building will collapse,” Quijije said angrily. “We’re not afraid. We’re desperate. We want to pull out our family.”

More than 3,000 packages of food and nearly 8,000 sleeping kits were being delivered. Electricity mostly remained out in Manabi province, the hardest-hit region, as authorities focused on finding survivors.

“Compatriots: Unity, strength and prayer,” Glas told a throng of people in Manta as he instructed them on how to look for survivors. “We need to be quiet so we can hear. We can’t use heavy machinery because it can be very tragic for those who are injured.”

Baby rescued, prisoners escape

On social media, Ecuadorians celebrated a video of a baby girl being pulled from beneath a collapsed home in Manta.

But the prospect of another night in the streets grew more worrisome for many people after authorities announced that 180 prisoners from a jail near Portoviejo escaped amid the tumult after the quake.

Shantytowns and cheaply constructed brick and concrete homes were reduced to rubble along the quake’s path. In the coastal town of La Esmeralda, authorities estimated than 90 per cent of homes had damage, while in Guayaquil a shopping centre’s roof fell down and a collapsed highway overpass crushed a car, killing the driver.

In the capital, Quito, terrified people fled into the streets as the quake shook buildings. One resident shot a video of his lamps and hanging houseplants swinging wildly for more than 30 seconds as the building rocked back and forth. The quake knocked out electricity in several neighbourhoods and a few homes collapsed, but after a few hours power was being restored.

Hydroelectric dams and oil pipelines in the OPEC-member nation were shut down as a precautionary measure but there were no reports of damage to them.

Ecuador’s ally, Venezuela, and neighbouring Colombia, where the quake was also felt, organized airlifts of humanitarian aid. The European Union, Spain, Peru and Mexico also pledged aid, while Pope Francis from the Vatican, where Correa on Friday had been attending a papal conference, asked the world’s Roman Catholics to pray for victims. The government would draw on $600 million in emergency funding from multilateral banks to rebuild, Correa said.

The USGS originally put the quake at a magnitude of 7.4 then raised it to 7.8. It had a depth of 19 kilometres. At least 135 aftershocks followed, one as strong as 6 on the Richter scale. Authorities urged residents to brace for even stronger ones in the coming hours and days.

The quake comes on the heels of two deadly earthquakes across the Pacific, in the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands. A magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck Thursday near Kumamoto, followed by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake just 28 hours later. The quakes have killed 41 people and injured about 1,500, flattened houses and triggered major landslides.

On Sunday, thousands of rescue workers searched a debris-strewn village in southern Japan for about a half-dozen missing people as U.S. military aircraft rushed to join the relief mission.

Ecuador’s earthquake was about six times stronger and released more energy than the one in Japan a day before.

@Agency report.

Washington : Apr 14, 2016 : US President Barack Obama has appointed Indian-American MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga to a key administration post as a member of the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity.

Banga is one of the nine members of the commission appointed by Obama, a White House announcement said on Wednesday.

“I have charged the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity with the critically-important task of identifying the steps that our nation must take to ensure our cybersecurity in an increasingly digital world,” Obama said. “These dedicated individuals bring a wealth of experience and talent to this important role, and I look forward to receiving the Commission’s recommendations,” he said.

Banga has been the president and the CEO of MasterCard since 2010.  Prior to joining MasterCard, he held various senior management roles .

An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Banga is also a member of the board of directors of the Dow Chemical Company, the board of governors of the American Red Cross, the Council of Foreign Relations, and serves as chairman of the Financial Services Roundtable and co-chair of the American India Foundation.

@ Agency report.

Manta (Ecuador), Apr 18 ,2016: The desperation driving survivors of Ecuador’s powerful earthquake to find loved ones trapped under rubble could be seen in the tools many used in their amateur rescue attempts: none.

A small crowd of residents in Manta, a popular beach town in the disaster zone on Ecuador’s Pacific coast, clawed away yesterday at big blocks of broken cement and scraps of twisted metal with their bare hands.

“My husband is under there,” said Veronica Paladines, a tiny woman tearing at a mound of debris that used to be a hotel and throwing what she could aside, with fury and tears in her eyes.

Her 25-year-old spouse, Javier Sangucho, the father of their two young children, worked at the property.

“He did the painting. He had just gone down to rest a bit when it happened,” the 24-year-old woman told AFP.

“It” was the earthquake, a 7.8-magnitude monster that late Saturday toppled buildings along the coast and a ways inland, killing by last count more than 270 people and injuring at least 2,500.

The toll, authorities say, is certain to rise in the next days.

A dozen men, friends and relatives, helped Paladines pick away at the rubble.

The group had been at it for more than a day, ever since the earth shook and brought down the hotel and many other buildings along the town’s main road.

A helmeted fireman finally turned up with a jackhammer to chip apart the concrete floor that had collapsed on Paladines’ husband.

Energised by the mechanical aid, Paladines redoubled her own manual efforts. Tears flooded down her cheeks as she hurled debris aside.

The captain of the fire brigade, Javier Carpo, said he had just 30 men and women under his command to help in a town ravaged from end to end. The team has more pleas for help than they could handle.

“Yesterday, we brought out the bodies of three children from a hotel,” he said.

The quake destroyed and damaged homes, shops and hotels across this coastal town of some 200,000.

Cracks on buildings left standing hint that the structures may be too fragile to withstand the dozens of aftershocks rattling the region.

Some earthmovers and trucks arrived in Manta late Sunday to help remove debris.

“Throughout the town there are a lot of people trapped,” Carpo said, with a resigned air. “We don’t know how many.”

He left to inspect a set of ruins that had attracted the attention of several hungry cats.

Qatar: A meeting of oil-rich countries in Qatar that had been expected to boost crude prices by freezing production fell apart Sunday as Iran stayed home and vowed to increase its output despite threats by Saudi Arabia.

Oil prices, which hit a 12-year low in January by dipping under $30 a barrel, had risen above $40 in recent days, buoyed by the bullish talks surrounding the Doha summit.

But instead of a quick approval of a production freeze, the meeting of 18 oil-producing nations saw hours of debate and resembled the dysfunction of an unsuccessful meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in December that sent oil prices tumbling.

The fact that producers couldn’t agree to a freeze, let alone a production cut, likely means oil prices will drop again as markets open Monday.

“Prices will trade lower. Maybe sharply lower,” said Robert Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities USA, noting the failure to reach agreement in Doha.

He noted that other factors were negatively impacting prices: U.S. crude oil storage remaining at all -time highs, Iran increasing production, and Libya looming on the horizon to boost output.

Speaking to journalists after the summit, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, Qatar’s energy and industry minister, tried to say the lack of a decision showed officials believed “the fundamentals of the market are generally improving.”

However, he largely dodged the questions about whether another special summit will be called before OPEC’s next meeting in June and whether Iran had anything to do with the breakdown of the talks.

“We of course respect their position and … we still don’t know how the future will unroll but it was a sovereign decision by Iran,” said al-Sada, who is serving as OPEC’s president. “The freeze could be more effective definitely if major producers, be it from OPEC members like Iran and others, as well as non-OPEC members, are included in the freeze.”

Sunday’s gathering grew out of a surprise Doha meeting in February between Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, in which they pledged to cap their crude output at January levels if other producers did the same.

The idea of a freeze and not a cut initially looked more palatable to producers already suffering after oil’s dramatic fall since the summer of 2014, when prices were above $100 a barrel.

Production continues to rise as countries try to make up the difference. Ahead of Sunday’s meeting, Iraq boosted its production to record territory of over 4 million barrels a day in March, and Kuwait pumped 3 million barrels a day with hopes of reaching 4 million a day by 2020.

And while car owners and airlines have enjoyed the low oil prices, the plunging oil revenues have wreaked havoc on countries like Nigeria and Venezuela, both of which attended Sunday’s meeting along with non-OPEC member Russia.

The biggest wild card of the talks, however, wasn’t even in the room. Iran decided to stay home late Saturday after saying the day before it would send an emissary to the meeting. Speaking to Iranian state television, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said it didn’t make sense to send any representative from the Islamic Republic “as we are not part of the decision to freeze output.”

“We can’t cooperate with them to freeze our own output, and in other words impose sanctions on ourselves,” Zangeneh said.

With many international sanctions lifted under its nuclear deal with the U.S. and other world powers, Iran began exporting oil into the European market again and is eager to claw back market share. It produces 3.2 million barrels of oil a day now, with hopes of increasing to 4 million by April 2017.

Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia had said it wouldn’t back any freeze if Iran, its Shiite rival, didn’t agree to it, throwing the deal into question before the meeting. The kingdom seems determined to ride out the low prices that could squeeze Tehran.

The enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran has spiked in recent months.

In January, Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shiite cleric, a move that sparked protests in Iran that saw demonstrators attack two of the kingdom’s diplomatic posts there. That broke the conflict between the two countries into the open, amid them backing opposing sides in both Syria’s civil war and the war in Yemen.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi repeatedly declined to speak to journalists during the meeting.

The dispute underscores the level of discord inside OPEC as it faces arguably its biggest challenge since the oil glut of the 1980s. Though more-costly U.S. shale oil production has dropped, it could re-enter the market if oil prices rise. And a large amount of crude already building up provides a major damper on prices, as does a generally weakened global economy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The immediate effect of the summit’s collapse likely will be seen in crude prices. Western markets were closed Sunday and not immediately affected. Stock exchanges in Saudi Arabia and Dubai closed in negative territory Sunday, with the Saudi Tadawul down 1.48 percent.

@ Agency report.

Hiroshima, Japan,April 11, 2016 :  US Secretary of State John Kerry and G7 foreign ministers today called for a “world without nuclear weapons”, citing North Korea’s sabre-rattling as a key challenge to achieving that goal.

“We reaffirm our commitment to seeking a safer world for all and to creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons in a way that promotes international stability,” the group said in their “Hiroshima Declaration”, after a landmark visit to the Japanese city’s atomic bomb memorial.

“This task is made more complex by the deteriorating security environment in a number of regions, such as Syria and Ukraine, and, in particular by North Korea’s repeated provocations,” it added.
On Saturday, Pyongyang said it had successfully tested an engine designed for an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) that would “guarantee” an eventual nuclear strike on the US mainland.
It was the latest in a series of claims by North Korea of significant breakthroughs in both its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.

The G7 statement came as ministers wrap up their final day of meetings with discussions focused on global hotspot issues including terrorism and other security threats as well as instability in the Middle East, and the refugee crisis.

@ Agency report.

KUALA LUMPUR ,April 11,2016 :  More than 250 Malaysian schools were closed on Monday due to a heat wave brought on by the El Nino weather phenomenon which is severely affecting food production and causing chronic water shortages in many countries.

Authorities ordered schools in the states of Perlis and Pahang to shut after temperatures soared above 37 degrees Celsius over a 72-hour period, according to local reports.

The education ministry said the decision was made to protect the health of some 100,000 students, the official news agency Bernama reported.

The sweltering heat in Malaysia has reportedly slowed vegetable production, leading to price hikes.

Paddy fields and rubber plantations have been also been affected by the severe temperature rise.

January and February 2016 smashed global temperature records, the World Meteorological Organization said in March, attributing the highs to the “unprecedented” advance of climate change.

Many parts of Asia have been affected by the strong El Nino dry spell which has also hit agriculture in Thailand and the Philippines.

El Nino is triggered by a warming in sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. It can cause unusually heavy rains in some parts of the world and drought in others.

But Malaysia’s Meteorological Department said the current heat wave was expected to ease soon.

“The worst is over because the inter-monsoon season started last week and more rain is expected,” director-general Che Gayah Ismail said.

@ Agency report.

New Delhi, Apr 12 , 2016 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi today hosted British royal couple Prince William and Kate Middleton for lunch to the accompaniment of classical music.

The Prime Minister received the couple on the steps of the Hyderabad House located next to the India Gate. While Kate wore a knee-length gauze green dress, William donned a dark-coloured suit and a tie.

A four-course Indian meal, both vegetarian and non- vegetarian, was served at the lunch hosted at the historic mansion here which before Independence served as the grand residence of the Nizam of Hyderabad.

The event was marked by santoor recital by classical musician Rahul Sharma. One of the highlights of the performance was the rendition of Beatles’ famous number ‘Let It Be’.

Among those who attended the event included External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.

Bharti Group chief Sunil Bharti Mittal, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Chanda Kochhar, actor Anupam Kher and former badminton player Pullela Gopichand were among some of the noted personalities who also attended.

The royal couple are on a week-long tour of India and Bhutan that began on Sunday.
Their India visit began in Mumbai where they paid homage to the victims of the 26/11 terror attacks. In Delhi, they yesterday visited Gandhi Smriti, Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial at Tees January Marg, and paid tribute to the Father of the Nation.

The couple also paid homage to Indian soldiers at the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate and attended a reception at the British High Commissioner’s residence last evening to commemorate the 90th birthday of William’s grandmother Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

@ Agency report.

New Delhi, Apr 12 ,2016 : The government is considering the demand of Jews for minority status, Union Minister Najma Heptulla said today.

Heptulla said her ministry had received a proposal from the members of the community recently and it has been forwarded to other departments, including the Law Ministry, seeking their opinion.

“Jews have demanded minority status. The proposal has been moved to other departments for their opinion,” the Minority Affairs Minister told reporters.

There are around 5,000 Jews living the country, she said.

There are currently six minority communities in the country – Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains.

Jains, with a population of about 50 lakh people, were the last to get the status in January, 2014.

@ Agency report.

Spain’s industry minister became the latest casualty of the widening scandal triggered by the Panama Papers data leak when he resigned all his political offices after incorrectly denying any links to tax havens.

José Manuel Soria resigned both his parliamentary seat and his post as minister of industry, energy and tourism in the country’s caretaker government on Friday. He also gave up his role as regional president of the ruling centre-right Popular party in the Canary Islands, which he represented in parliament.

“No one who’s operated in tax havens can be in the government,” Spain’s acting finance minister, Cristóbal Montoro, said in a press conference several hours after Mr Soria’s resignation.

Spanish media revealed this week that Mr Soria had been named in the Panama Papers, the leak of more than 11m documents from Mossack Fonseca, a secretive law firm that specialises in setting up offshore companies in tax havens.

The data release, perhaps the biggest such leak in history, has already led to the departure from office of Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, Iceland’s prime minister, who has sought to depict his move as temporary.

It has also heaped political pressure on David Cameron, Britain’s premier, whose father was named in the papers, and has revealed that a member of the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin was connected to a network of companies that transferred at least $2bn.

In a resignation letter Mr Soria said he had taken his decision to quit “considering the obvious damage that this situation is causing the government of Spain, the Popular party, my fellow activists and voters”.

His name emerged as a director of a Panama-based shell company, albeit briefly and more than two decades ago.

Mr Soria denied the allegation, and went on to state that he had never had “any links with a company based in Panama or other tax havens”. Later in the week, the El Mundo daily published a document appearing to show Mr Soria had served as a director of a Jersey-based company as recently as 2002.

The minister’s resignation letter acknowledged what Mr Soria described as a “succession of errors made over the past few days regarding my explanations of my business activities” preceding his entry into politics in 1995.

He blamed those inaccuracies on “the lack of precise information about events that occurred more than 20 years ago”. He added that the business interests at issue were not “connected or linked in any way with the exercise of any political responsibilities”.

Mr Soria’s resignation comes at a particularly awkward time for Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s acting prime minister and the Popular party leader.

The country has been in political limbo since December, when an inconclusive general election left Spain with a deeply fragmented parliament and no obvious government majority.

Party leaders have struggled to form a workable coalition government this year, but have made little progress so far. If parliament fails to elect a new prime minister by May 2, the king will have to dissolve the chamber and call a repeat general election. Most officials and analyst believe a new vote is now all but certain — meaning Mr Rajoy will have to face an already disgruntled electorate with the additional baggage of the scandal whipped up by Mr Soria’s resignation.

@ Agency report.

Hiroshima (Japan), Apr 11 ,2016 : US Secretary of State John Kerry visited the revered memorial to Hiroshima’s atomic bombing today, delivering a message of peace and hope for a nuclear-free world seven decades after the US used the weapon for the first time in history and killed 140,000 Japanese.

Kerry became the most senior American official to travel to city, touring its peace museum with other foreign ministers of the Group of Seven industrialised nations and laying a wreath at the adjoining park’s stone-arched monument, the exposed steel beams of Hiroshima’s iconic A-Bomb Dome in the distance.

The otherwise somber occasion was lifted by the presence of about 800 Japanese waving flags of the G7 nations, including that of the US.

Kerry didn’t speak publicly at the ceremony, though could be seen with his arm around Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, a Hiroshima native, and whispering in his ear. The ministers departed with origami cranes in their respective national colours around their neck, Kerry draped in red, white and blue.

“Everyone in the world should see and feel the power of this memorial,” Kerry wrote in the museum’s guest book. “It is a stark, harsh, compelling reminder not only of our obligation to end the threat of nuclear weapons, but to rededicate all our effort to avoid war itself.”

“War must be the last resort never the first choice,” he added. “This memorial compels us all to redouble our efforts to change the world, to find peace and build the future so yearned for by citizens everywhere.”

Kerry’s appearance, just footsteps away from Ground Zero, completed an evolution for the United States, whose leaders avoided the city for many years because of political sensitivities.

No serving US president has visited the site, and it took 65 years for a US ambassador to attend Hiroshima’s annual memorial service.

Many Americans believe the dropping of atomic bombs here on August 6, 1945, and on the Japanese city of Nagasaki three days later were justified and hastened the end of the war.

Nevertheless, Japanese survivors’ groups have campaigned for decades to bring leaders from the US and other nuclear powers to see Hiroshima’s scars as part of a grassroots movement to abolish nuclear weapons.

As Kerry expressed interest, neither Japanese government officials nor survivor groups pressed for the US to say sorry.

And a senior American official travelling with Kerry said no apology would occur.

Shortly before the ceremony, Kerry called it “a moment that I hope will underscore to the world the importance of peace and the importance of strong allies working together to make the world safer and, ultimately, we hope to be able to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction.

@ Agency report.

France’s prime minister says he’d favor a ban on Muslim headscarves in universities, prompting criticism from within his own government. In an interview with the daily Liberation, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France should “protect” French Muslims from extremist ideology. He said the headscarf, when worn for political reasons, oppresses women and is not “an object of fashion or consumption like any other.”

Citing secular traditions, France banned the face-covering Muslim veil and forbids headscarves and other religious symbols in schools and public buildings. Asked whether to outlaw headscarves in universities, Valls is quoted as saying “it should be done, but there are constitutional rules that make this ban difficult.” Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem and the junior minister for higher education, Thierry Mandon, say they are opposed to a ban.

@ Agency report.

LONDON : Britain’s Queen Elizabeth turns 90 on Thursday with beacons and gun salutes heralding the birthday of the world’s oldest monarch, who still performs hundreds of engagements a year and shows no signs of losing her appetite for the job.

Usually her birthday passes with little ceremony but to mark Thursday’s landmark Elizabeth will greet well-wishers near her Windsor Castle home, west of London, and later light a beacon, the first of 1,000 to be lit across the country and worldwide to mark the occasion.

There will also be artillery gun salutes in the British capital at Hyde Park and the Tower of London, while parliament will be illuminated red, white and blue.

“It’s really sinking in now … just how much of a major milestone it is to have the queen celebrating her 90th, and after everything she’s achieved it’s quite a moment for the family,” her grandson and future king Prince William said in a Sky News interview broadcast on Wednesday.

Close aides say Elizabeth, who has been on the throne for 64 years, was far more interested in events to mark her 90th birthday than she had been about overtaking her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria last September as Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

In May, there will be a four-day pageant at Windsor Castle, while in June there will be further events to mark her official birthday, including the Patron’s Lunch, a street party for 10,000 guests on the Mall, the grand avenue leading to Buckingham Palace.

Born on April 21, 1926 in Bruton Street in central London when Calvin Coolidge was U.S. President and Joseph Stalin had just taken control in the Soviet Union, Elizabeth shows no signs of retiring, and two surveys last week suggested the public do not want her to give up either.

An Ipsos MORI poll found 70 percent wanted her to stay queen compared to 21 percent who thought she should abdicate or retire, while a BMG survey for the London Evening Standard newspaper showed 66 percent of Britons had a favourable view of her compared to 10 percent with a negative opinion.

“You can’t put your feet up. There is no pension plan in this job,” the queen’s youngest son Prince Edward told Sky.

Prime Minister David Cameron is due to lead political tributes in a “humble address” in parliament, an occasion which could prove awkward for opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, an ardent republican.

“She has served our nation with such dignity, with such ability for so many years. I know the whole country and the whole House (of Commons) will want to join me in saying ‘long may she reign over us’,” Cameron said on Wednesday.

On Friday, the queen will be back to her usual official duties hosting a lunch at Windsor for U.S. President Barack Obama who described her as “a source of strength and inspiration not only for the people of Britain but for millions of people around the world” in a British TV documentary aired last month.

@ Agency report.

The United Nations took a historic step Tuesday to open up the usually secret process of selecting the next secretary-general, giving all countries the chance to question candidates on such issues as how they would resist pressure from powerful nations, tackle sex abuse by UN peacekeepers, and improve efforts to achieve peace. Montenegro’s Foreign Minister Igor Luksic was the first of eight candidates to face members of the UN General Assembly, citing his small Balkan nation’s multiethnic and multicultural diversity as well as his experience as a former prime minister and defense minister in seeking the UN’s top diplomatic post. General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft called it “a historic moment … without precedent at the United Nations.”

“As the United Nations grapples with multiple crises and the organization deals with some fundamental questions regarding its own role and performance, finding the best possible candidates to succeed Ban Ki-moon is absolutely crucial,” Lykketoft said. “For the first time since this organization started 70 years ago, the process for selecting and appointing the next secretary-general is being generally guided by the principles of transparency and inclusivity.” Under the UN Charter, the secretary-general is chosen by the 193-member General Assembly on the recommendation of the 15-member Security Council. In practice, this has meant that the council’s five permanent members — the US, Russia, China, Britain and France — have veto power over the candidates. That will not change in deciding whom to recommend to succeed Ban, whose second five-year term ends on Dec. 31. But Lykketoft told the assembly Tuesday that he views the question-and-answer sessions, which will continue through Thursday, “as a potential game-changer for the United Nations.” “If there is a critical mass of countries supporting one single candidate, I don’t think the Security Council will be coming up with quite a different name,” he said. But “if there are many, many candidates and no clear favorite, it could very well be that the absolute final word will be from the Security Council.”

By tradition, the job of secretary-general has rotated among regions and Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe have all held the top UN post. East European nations, including Russia, argue that they have never had a secretary-general and it is their turn. There has also never been a woman secretary-general and a group of 56 nations are campaigning for the first female UN chief. There are currently four women and four men who have thrown their hats in the ring — six from Eastern Europe, one from Western Europe and one from the Asia-Pacific region. In addition to Luksic, they are: former Macedonian Foreign Minister Srgjan Kerim; former Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pucic; former Slovenian President Danilo Turk; UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova from Bulgaria; former Moldovan Foreign Minister Natalia Gherman; former U.N. refugee chief and ex-Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres; and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who heads the U.N. Development Program.

While Tuesday’s session was under way, another candidate announced his entry into the race: former Serbian foreign minister and General Assembly president Vuk Jeremic said in Belgrade that the government will be nominating him. In his lead-off presentation, Luksic spoke in both English and French — the two working languages of the United Nations — and said thank you in the four other working languages as well, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Chinese. He stressed the importance of promoting women in top UN posts and said if the secretary-general is from a country in the developed north, the deputy secretary-general should be from the developing south. And he proposed that the deputy secretary-general be based in Nairobi to focus on implementing the new UN goals for 2030 to tackle poverty and preserve the environment as well as key regional issues. In response to Algeria, representing the Non-Aligned Movement of more than 100 developing countries, who asked how he would resist pressure from the major powers, Luksic suggested that the question be asked after a first five-year term saying “the only way to measure it is by results.”

@ AGENCY REPORT.

New Delhi, Apr 20,2016: Government  made a U-turn on the Kohinoor issue saying it will make all efforts to bring back the valued diamond it had said in the Supreme Court was “neither stolen nor forcibly” taken by British rulers but given to it by erstwhile rulers of Punjab.
In a statement, the government claimed it has not yet conveyed its views to the court “contrary to what is being misrepresented” in the media.

In the last week ,there was report that the government  submitted in the Supreme Court that the Kohinoor was not stolen but gifted by the then Punjab government to the British government.

@ Agency report.