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Bloomberg
08-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
US Trade Team Said to Extend India Stay as Talks Gather Momentum
A US trade team that's currently in India for negotiations has extended its stay, according to people familiar with the matter, in a sign talks are progressing ahead of a July deadline. The team, which was initially scheduled to hold talks with Indian officials on June 5-6, will now be staying till Tuesday to continue discussions, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn't public. Most of the issues may get finalized within a week, the people estimated.
BBC News
04-06-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Assam: 'I was pushed across the border into Bangladesh at gunpoint'
Shona Banu still shudders when she thinks of the past few 58-year-old, a resident of Barpeta district in India's north-eastern state of Assam, says that she was called to the local police station on 25 May and later taken to a point at the border with neighbouring Bangladesh. From there, she says, she and around 13 other people were forced to cross over to Bangladesh. She says she was not told why. But it was a scenario she had been dreading - Ms Banu says she has lived in Assam all her life but for the past few years, she has been desperately trying to prove that she is an Indian citizen and not an "illegal immigrant" from Bangladesh."They pushed me over at gunpoint. I spent two days without food or water in the middle of a field in knee-deep water teeming with mosquitoes and leeches," Ms Banu said, wiping away tears. After those two days in no man's land - between India and Bangladesh - she says she was taken to what appeared to be an old prison on the Bangladeshi two days there, she and a few others - she is not sure if all of them were from the same group sent with her - were escorted by Bangladeshi officials across the border, where Indian officials allegedly met them and sent them not clear why Ms Banu was abruptly sent to Bangladesh and then brought back. But her case is among a spate of recent instances where officials in Assam have rounded up people declared foreigners by tribunals in the past - on suspicion of being "illegal Bangladeshis" - and sent them across the border. The BBC found at least six cases where people said their family members had been picked up, taken to border towns and just "pushed across".Officials from India's Border Security Force, the Assam police and the state government did not respond to questions from the on alleged illegal immigrants from Bangladesh are not new in India - the countries are divided by a 4,096km (2,545 miles) long porous border which can make it relatively easy to cross over, even though many of the sensitive areas are heavily it's still rare, lawyers working on these cases say, for people to be picked up from their homes abruptly and forced into another country without due process. These efforts seem to have intensified over the past few weeks. The Indian government has not officially said how many people were sent across in the latest exercise. But top sources in the Bangladesh administration claim that India "illegally pushed in" more than 1,200 people into the country in May alone, not just from Assam but also other states. Out of this, they said on condition of anonymity, Bangladesh identified 100 people as Indian citizens and sent them a statement, the Border Guard Bangladesh said it had increased patrolling along the border to curb these attempts. India has not commented on these media reports indicate that the recent crackdown includes Rohingya Muslims living in other states too, the situation is particularly tense and complex in Assam, where issues of citizenship and ethnic identity have long dominated politics. The state, which shares a nearly 300km-long border with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, has seen waves of migration from the neighbouring country as people moved in search of opportunities or fled religious has sparked the anxieties of Assamese people, many of whom fear this is bringing in demographic change and taking away resources from Bharatiya Janata Party - in power in Assam and nationally - has repeatedly promised to end the problem of illegal immigration, making the state's National Register of Citizens (NRC) a priority in recent register is a list of people who can prove they came to Assam by 24 March 1971, the day before neighbouring Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan. The list went through several iterations, with people whose names were missing given chances to prove their Indian citizenship by showing official documents to quasi-judicial forums called Foreigners a chaotic process, the final draft published in 2019 excluded nearly two million residents of Assam - many of them were put in detention camps while others have appealed in higher courts against their exclusion. Ms Banu said her case is pending in the Supreme Court but that authorities still forced her to BBC heard similar stories from at least six others in Assam - all Muslims - who say their family members were sent to Bangladesh around the same time as Ms Banu, despite having necessary documents and living in India for generations. At least four of them have now come back home, with no answers still about why they were picked up.A third of Assam's 32 million residents are Muslims and many of them are descendants of immigrants who settled there during British Khatun, a 67-year-old from Assam's Barpeta who is still in Bangladesh, says she has temporarily been given shelter by a local family."I have no-one here," she laments. Her family has managed to speak to her but don't know if and when she can return. She lost her case in the foreigners' tribunal and in the state's high court and hadn't appealed in the Supreme after the recent round of action began, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma cited a February Supreme Court direction which ordered the government to start deportation proceedings for people who had been "declared foreigners" but were still held in detention centres."The people who are declared foreigners but haven't even appealed in court, we are pushing them back," Sarma said. He also claimed that people with pending court appeals were not being "troubled".But Abdur Razzaque Bhuyan, a lawyer working on many citizenship cases in Assam, alleged that in many of the recent instances, due process - which would, among other things, require India and Bangladesh to cooperate on the action - was not followed."What is happening is a wilful and deliberate misinterpretation of the court order," he Bhuyan recently filed a petition on behalf of a student organisation seeking the Supreme Court's intervention in stopping what they said was a "forceful and illegal pushback policy" but was asked to first approach the Assam high court. In Morigaon, around 167km from Barpeta, Rita Khatun sat near a table which had a pile of papers on husband Khairul Islam, a 51-year-old school teacher, was in the same group as Ms Banu that was allegedly picked up by authorities.A tribunal had declared him a foreigner in 2016, after which he spent two years in a detention centre before being released. Like Ms Banu, his case is also being heard in the Supreme Court."Every document is proof that my husband is Indian," Ms Khatun said, leafing through what she said was Mr Islam's high school graduation certificate and some land records. "But that wasn't enough to prove his nationality to authorities." She says her husband, his father and grandfather were all born in on 23 May, she says that policemen arrived at their home and took Mr Islam away without any was only a few days later - when a viral video surfaced of a Bangladeshi journalist interviewing Mr Islam in no man's land - that the family learnt where he Ms Banu, Mr Islam has now been sent back to India. While his family confirmed his return, the police told the BBC they had "no information" about his Begum says she is sure her father was declared a foreigner due to a case of mistaken identity - he was also taken on the same night as Mr Islam. "My father's name is Abdul Latif, my grandfather was Abdul Subhan. The notice that came [years ago, from the foreigners' tribunal] said Abdul Latif, son of Shukur Ali. That's not my grandfather, I don't even know him," Ms Begum said, adding that she had all the necessary documents to prove her father's family has now heard that Mr Latif is back in Assam, but he hasn't reached home some of these people are back home now, they fear they might be picked up again abruptly."We are not playthings," Ms Begum said. "These are human beings, you can't toss them around as per your whims."Additional reporting by Aamir Peerzada and Pritam Roy
Wall Street Journal
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Are India and Pakistan at Risk of War? Here's What We Know
India and Pakistan agreed to a full and immediate cease-fire on Saturday, but Indian officials accused Islamabad of violating the agreement hours later. In comments to a local broadcaster, Pakistan's information minister Attaullah Tarar denied any violation of the cease-fire.
The Sun
09-05-2025
- Climate
- The Sun
Ten explosions heard near airport in Kashmir as tensions hit boiling point
AT least 10 explosions have been heard near Srinagar International Airport in India-controlled Kashmir, according to Indian officials. The blasts come just hours after blackouts were issued and sirens were heard in the entire region amid reports of drone attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. 2 2 More to follow... For the latest news on this story, keep checking back at The U.S. Sun, your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, sports news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures, and must-see videos.
Asharq Al-Awsat
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Pakistan Shoots Down Indian Drone Near Naval Base in the City of Lahore, Officials Say
Pakistan's air defense system shot down an Indian drone early Thursday near a naval air base in the eastern city of Lahore, Pakistani police and security officials said, as India evacuated thousands of people villages near the two countries' highly militarized frontier in the disputed region of Kashmir. The incident comes a day after India launched strikes in Pakistan's Punjab province and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir that killed 31 civilians, including women and children, according to Pakistani officials. Tensions have escalated since April 22, when gunmen killed 26 people, mostly Indian Hindu tourists, in India-controlled Kashmir. India accused Pakistan of backing militants who carried out the attack, something Islamabad has denied. Local police official Mohammad Rizwan said only that a drone was downed near Waltan airport, a small airfield in a residential area of Lahore that also contains military installations, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) east of the border with India. Local media reported that two additional drones were shot down in other cities in Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital. Two security officials say a small Indian drone was taken down by Pakistan's air defense system, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. It was not immediately clear whether the drone was armed. The incident could not be independently verified, and Indian officials did not immediately comment. India said its strikes Wednesday targeted at least nine sites in Pakistan linked to planning terrorist attacks against India. In response, Pakistan's air force shot down five Indian fighter jets, its military said. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed overnight to avenge the killings but gave no details, raising fears of a broader conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Across the de-facto border in Indian-controlled Kashmir, tens of thousands of people slept in shelters overnight, officials and residents said Thursday. Indian authorities evacuated civilians from dozens of villages living close to the highly militarized Line of Control overnight while some living in border towns like Uri and Poonch left their homes on their own, three police and civil officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with departmental regulations.
