Re: My job is done if India-Pakistan ties normalise: Indian PM
I think its a political gimmick similar to what India has been undertaking during the past 60 years, nothing will come out of it. With India’s attitude “baghal main churi moonh main Ram Ram” nothing positive will come out, Pakistan has many issues which are far more important than being part of this old and tested failed program.
CHENNAI: After a meeting with India’s National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan in August 2009, American Ambassador Timothy Roemer was driven to the conclusion that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was isolated within his own government in his “great belief” in talks and negotiations with Pakistan.
During the interaction, Mr. Narayanan, who had been described by the Embassy in a January 12, 2005 cable (25259: confidential) as a long-time Gandhi family loyalist “who is seen as part of the traditional ‘coterie’ around Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi,” came through as a hardliner on Pakistan, never afraid to voice his differences with Prime Minister Singh.
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s senior cabinet colleagues and ranking officials are opposed to a bilateral political visit by him to Pakistan and would prefer to mask it as part of cricket diplomacy among other ruses, a local report said on Tuesday.
Without naming its sources, The Mail Today said that higher echelons of the government, including senior ministers, do not favour a stand-alone visit by the prime minister to Pakistan.
“It is understood that his senior colleagues, including Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, have advised the PM that his visit should coincide either with the Indian cricket team’s trip to Pakistan or any multilateral event there,” the paper said.
The report appeared to be of a piece with US diplomatic assessment that Dr Singh’s quest to improve ties with Pakistan was stymied by internal resistance from his party as well as by political rivals such as the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP says it does not believe in progress on peace talks without first resolving the issue of terrorism with Islamabad.
“The PM has been a longstanding votary of better ties with Pakistan. But Mukherjee and the others are said to be of the view that the government must be more pragmatic and adopt a cautious approach, given the past experiences in dealing with Islamabad, sources said.”
With no international meeting scheduled in Islamabad in near future, a cricket tour would be the perfect opportunity, the paper quoted the sources as saying.
It said the Indian cricket team might undertake a short trip for a one-day series this winter or early next year. The “general view”, according to the paper, was that a stand-alone visit could have domestic political consequences that the government and the Congress would find difficult to handle. The Sharm el-Sheikh summit in 2009 was listed as a failure.
According to the sources, Mr Mukherjee feels the official interaction launched at Thimphu in February would help keep Islamabad engaged to deter any terror attack from across the border.
Re: My job is done if India-Pakistan ties normalise: Indian PM
that’s just crazy, you’re taking an extreme right conservative brainwashed vhp or rss girl and saying she represents all of india, it’s like taking some extremist mullah’s words or zaid hamid and saying he speaks for all of pakistan. i keep seeing that same video every time any indo-pak issues are brought up. it’s like the token video against indo-pak peace…she definitely got what she wanted and that’s fame for her extreme words.
Re: My job is done if India-Pakistan ties normalise: Indian PM
You call it a 'Kashmir dream', I think it's a necessary obligation to save them from hindu terror. By the way, Kashmir is not the only reason ;) And the key to peace is for india to move beyond Pakistan.
Can you spell out the other reasons ?
Lets get real here. India is doing quite well even with the heavy defence expenditure on account of not having peaceful relations with Pak. Pak on the other hand is struggling with the war on its western borders, the internal strife and also strained relations with India. Peace with India will allow it to focus more on its domestic problems. So you can either keep harping about Kashmir and continue the stalemate, or get real and move beyond Kashmir to issues that really affect the masses of both countries. The ball is squarely in Pak's court.
Re: My job is done if India-Pakistan ties normalise: Indian PM
I think its a political gimmick similar to what India has been undertaking during the past 60 years, nothing will come out of it. With India's attitude "baghal main churi moonh main Ram Ram" nothing positive will come out, Pakistan has many issues which are far more important than being part of this old and tested failed program..
when is this old old partition times way of thinking going to stop....this saying was said during those ancient times, will south asians ever move on? moohn mein ram baghal mein churi, it's like get with the times ali ji, it's the year 2011!! Dont' get pissy with me b/c i made fun of that saying but seriously it's like even after 60+ years we keep harping on the same tired old issues or thoughts.
Re: My job is done if India-Pakistan ties normalise: Indian PM
that's just crazy, you're taking an extreme right conservative brainwashed vhp or rss girl and saying she represents all of india, it's like taking some extremist mullah's words or zaid hamid and saying he speaks for all of pakistan. i keep seeing that same video every time any indo-pak issues are brought up. it's like the token video against indo-pak peace....she definitely got what she wanted and that's fame for her extreme words.
Am I generalizing now? She represents hindu zionism, maybe not all of india.
Watch a random video about Pakistan (pro-Pakistani) on youtube, and please read the comments from indians. It's clear to me, hate makes people blind.
There will never be PEACE between Pakistan and india. We gained independence in 1947 from india, more than 60 years ago. Enough time to 'get along', but still no peace. There wasn't peace yesterday, there is no peace today, and tomorrow..... still no peace.
I don't believe in that nonsense, I only want people to stop interfering in my country. That's it. I can't see my people suffering because of dirty politics.
Re: My job is done if India-Pakistan ties normalise: Indian PM
to an average indian, pakistan is just a time pass, and the hatred posted in various blogs doesn't matter in day to day life, everyone is struggling to get his/her life in order. Mr Prime Minister, i really care for mosquito problem in delhi, because here we lose more lives in a fortnight than army loses in six month, i am not implying that your cause is not worthy but not of prime importance, since you mr economist has started ruling inflation has remained high and few months ago, onion was 86 rupees/ kilogram. various scams got unearhted but you remained passive and told us it is compulsion of coalition process. so stop worrying about pakistan, please worry about immediate problems because indians die more because of mosquito then communal violence. and as far normalizing tension is concerned, leaders on the opposite side of LOC are as incompetent as you are. please reconsider your priorities.
India opposes Pakistan over EU trade concessions
Aditi Phadnis / New Delhi April 23, 2011, 0:13 IST The ‘Mohali spirit’ was hailed but India’s outlook on Pakistan regarding multilateral trade bodies continues to be dogged by a traditional mindset.
Not only is India opposing a trade-concession package offered by the European Union to Pakistan, but is also blocking a move by the neighbouring country to be counted as a Least Developed Country at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), circumventing the stipulation that it must have a population of 50 million or less.
Pakistan says it is an LDC because of the setback to its economy on account of natural calamities and the war on terror in 2010. As an LDC, it would be eligible for EU concessions (subject to WTO rules). India disapproves of the political redefinition of the LDC category.
After the devastating floods in Pakistan in 2010, the EU at its summit meeting in September 2010 offered Pakistan unilateral tariff concessions for the export of some products. The package, covering 75 products, was assessed at ¤200 m (just under $300 m), largely from increased textile exports but also due to a rise in the export of cotton and ethanol among other products. It was in fact a trade concession but the money Pakistan would have saved was considered as aid by the EU.
Floods in Pakistan affected 20 million people causing, an estimated two per cent reduction in Pakistan’s 2010-11 GDP, a 10 per cent rise in unemployment and the loss of $2bn in export revenues.
India, however, continues to be in the forefront of a group of nations opposing the move which needs not just approval of the European Parliament but also the WTO. India cites principles of trade for its position on this issue.
To be fair, textile-producing members of the EU including Italy, France and Portugal, are also opposing the trade-concession-as-aid for protectionist reasons. But among Pakistan’s neighbours, India and Bangladesh lead the opposition, while Sri Lanka is ambivalent on it.
Pakistani officials on the negotiating team said as India and Bangladesh had their own preferential trade deals with the EU, the plan could be derailed at the WTO. For the move to go ahead, a WTO waiver was needed. The matter might come up at the India-Pakistan Commerce Secretaries meeting on April 27-28 in Islamabad.
Recently, Pakistani newspapers quoted Commerce Secretary Zafar Mehmood telling a meeting of the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries that the country will try and address the misgivings of India and other countries.
India’s argument is straightforward and no secret: If the EU wants to give aid to Pakistan, India would be happy to go along with that. But it should not represent tariff or trade concessions as aid. An Indian negotiator told Business Standard that this could create a dangerous precedent and undermine the principles of free trade. “This is trade diversion, not concession. What about Sri Lanka or Bangladesh’s textile industry? Should they suffer because the Pakistani economy is in trouble?”
However, Sri Lanka is unimpressed at India taking up cudgels on its behalf and scoffs at this. “What we are seeing is something that we’ve been seeing all these years: An India-Pakistan battle by means other than war” a top Sri Lankan trade negotiator based in Brussels said.
India has concerns other than fostering India-Pakistan friendship. The EU-India free trade agreement which is under negotiation could be undermined by such unilateral trade concessions. The political gains from such unilateral trade-as-aid moves are paltry.
And the Mohali spirit ? “That’s another issue,” officials said.
