NSA Doval calls on Putin in Moscow

NEW DELHI, FEB

(PTI): National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on Thursday held extensive bilateral talks with his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev in Moscow focusing on issues relating to bilateral cooperation and regional and international developments.

In a late night statement, the Ministry External Affairs (MEA) said that Doval also called on Russian President Vladimir Putin and agreed to continue work towards implementing the India-Russia special and privileged strategic partnership.

It said that the NSA also met Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov and discussed issues pertaining to bilateral defence and economic cooperation.

The MEA said Doval participated in the fifth multilateral meeting of secretaries of security councils/National Security Advisers on Afghanistan on Wednesday.

“NSA Ajit Doval also called on the President of the Russian Federation

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Agrees to continue work towards implementing India-Russia special, privileged strategic ties

Centre relaxes Covid travel norms for foreign passengers

MEA said. The Kremlin said President Putin met with heads of delegations taking part in the multilateral consultations on Afghanistan.

“We are also worried about attempts to use the situation in Afghanistan to allow extra-regional forces to expand or build their infrastructure,” Putin said, according to the Kremlin.

sify its relations with India.

NEW DELHI , FEB 9

NEW DELHI, FEB 9 (PTI): President Droupadi Murmu on Thursday said the mindset that bringing up children and managing home are the responsibility of women only has to change while noting that in spite of their increased participation they fail to make the cut above a certain level owing to family responsibilities.

Inaugurating a national convention on ‘Women as Foundation of Valuebased Society’ and launching an all India awareness campaign ‘Empowering the Family’ at the Om Shanti Retreat Centre of Brahmakumaris at Gurugram, she

Vladimir Putin and had wide-ranging discussions on bilateral and regional issues,” the MEA said.

“It was agreed to continue work towards implementing the India-Russia special and privileged strategic partnership,” it added.

The MEA further said: “On February 9, NSA Ajit Doval held a bilateral dialogue with Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, and discussed issues, including bilateral relations, regional and international developments.”

In his remarks at the security dialogue on Afghanistan, Doval stressed the need to ensure that the territory of Afghanistan does not become a source of radicalization and terrorism, regionally or globally, it said.

He also underlined the need to intensify intelligence and security cooperation to deal with terror outfits, including those designated under the UN Security Council resolution 1267.

“He also pointed out that the well-being and humanitarian needs of the Afghan people is India’s foremost priority,” the

“These countries will create this under the pretext of countering international terrorism, but they are not doing anything that is really necessary in the real counterterrorism struggle,” he said.

“Obviously, the situation in the country is not improving and we see this. The humanitarian situation is worsening,” Putin added.

Besides Russia and India, the meeting was attended by representatives from Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

On Monday, Russian Ambassador to New Delhi Denis Alipov said that Russia wants to further diver-

India to host tourism activities under SCO presidency

The NSA’s visit to Russia came three months after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar travelled to the country during which the two sides vowed to expand their economic engagement including India’s import of petroleum products from its “timetested” partner. Doval’s visit to Moscow also took place ahead of the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to travel to India to attend the meeting on March 1 and 2. The ties between India and Russia remained strong notwithstanding Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. India’s import of Russian crude oil has gone up significantly in the last few months despite increasing disquiet over it in many Western countries. India has not yet condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it has been maintaining that the crisis must be resolved through diplomacy and dialogue.

(IANS): Amid declining Covid cases in the country, the Center on Thursday relaxed the travel norms for passengers from China and other six countries. However, the random testing of 2 per cent travelers coming to India will continue.

Updating the ‘Guidelines for International Arrivals’, the Health Ministry has dropped the existing requirements of pre-departure Covid-19 testing and uploading of Self-Health Declaration for international travellers coming from/via China, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, and Japan.

In a letter to the Civil Aviation Ministry, the Health Ministry has said: “As has been witnessed in the last 4 weeks, these countries are witnessing a sustained and significant decline in trajectory of Covid-19 cases.

“Meanwhile, India has continued to witness a declining trajectory, with less than 100 new cases/ day are being reported. In view of the above, this

Rajesh Bhushan

Ministry is updating its ‘Guidelines for International Arrivals’, and dropping the existing requirements of pre-departure Covid-19 testing and uploading of Self-Health Declaration on Ministry of Civil Aviation’s ‘Air Suvidha’ portal applicable for international travellers coming from/via China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Republic of Korea, Thailand and Japan,” it said in the letter.

Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has said in the letter, “In order to monitor infections due to mutated variants of SARSCoV-2 among international travellers to India, the present exercise of random testing of 2 per cent travellers to India (irrespective of country of origin) upon arrival India shall continue.”

Oppn MPs slam budget; dismayed on lack of funds for key sectors

en’s participation is increasing in many fields. However, many of them are not able to reach the top position. It has been observed that in the middle level management of the private sector, there has been a decrease in women participation above a certain level,” a statement from Rashtrapati Bhavan said.

said women have played a very important role in shaping values and ethics in Indian society.

Lauding the Brahmakumaris organisation for reviving Indian values by keeping women at the centre, Murmu said this is the world’s largest spiritual institution run by women and more than 46,000 sisters of this organisation are carrying forward the tradition of spirituality and Indian culture in about 140 countries.

She said when women get equal opportunities, they perform on par with men and sometimes better than them in every field.

“She noted that wom-

Protest against recruitment exam paper leaks turns violent

DEHRADUN, FEB 9 (PTI): A protest by youths against recruitment examination paper leaks in Uttarakhand turned violent when the protestors clashed with police personnel and hurled stones at them here on Thursday.

The police resorted to a lathicharge to disperse the protestors. Some youths were injured in police action.

The clash between the protesters and the police caused a long traffic jam from Clock Tower to Rajpur Road.

Unemployed youths had staged a dharna here on Wednesday demanding a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in different recruitment examinations held by the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission.

Reacting to the police lathicharge on protesting youths, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said they were subjected to brutality for raising their genuine demands.

“The BJP government’s corruption in Uttarakhand is ruining the lives of youths. They were brutally lathicharged when they were staging a demonstration with their genuine demands against paper leak of recruitment examinations,” Gandhi said in a statement.

The youths were angry as police had allegedly forced them to lift their dharna on Wednesday. The Uttarakhand Congress too reacted sharply to the “coercive manner in which the voice of youths was being silenced” by the state government.

The party will hold demonstrations in every district on Friday in protest against the atrocity against the youths, PCC vice president Mathura Dutt Joshi said.

The president attributed family responsibilities as the main reason for the phenomenon behind women not able to participate above a certain level in the private sector. “Generally working women have to shoulder the responsibility of home too along with the office. We need to change the mindset that bringing up children and managing home are the responsibility of women only,” she said. Murmu said women should get more support from the family so that they can reach the highest position in their career without any hindrance. She said that families would be empowered only by the empowerment of women and empowered families would make an empowered society and empowered nation.

NEW DELHI, FEB 9 (PTI): A number of tourism-related activities will be held in India in the next few months under the country’s presidency of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), officials said on Thursday.

Uzbekistan, in September last year, had handed over the rotating presidency of the eight-member SCO to India in the historic city of Samarkand.

As part of the tourism track activities under India’s chairship, the Ministry of Tourism has planned various activities such as SCO Tourism Mart during SATTE (South Asia’s Travel and Tourism Exchange) from February 9-11, they said.

An SCO Expert Level Tourism Working Group Meeting and SCO Tourism Minister’s Meeting in Varanasi will be held from March 13-17 and SCO Food Festival in Mumbai from April 13-19, they said.

India has conceptualised an SCO Tourism Mart along with SATTE to promote the SCO brand of tourism.

NEW DEL HI, FEB 9

(IANS): Opposition members, cutting across party lines, in the Lok Sabha on Thursday expressed their disappointment that the Union Budget for 2023-24 has failed to provide adequate funds for significant components like education, health, and agriculture, with some terming it “antipeople” and “anti-poor”.

Participating in the discussion on the budget, Trinamool Congress member Sougata Roy criticised the budget, saying that it had no roadmap for tackling unemployment, inflation and inequality, and also described it as antipoor and anti-people.

NCP’s Supriya Sule said that topics such as unemployment, recession, poverty, inflation, growth versus inflation and imbalances in import and export were not touched upon in the budget.

BJD’s Bhartruhari

Mahtab observed that though the revised estimate of 2022-23 for the PM-KISAN scheme was reduced to Rs 60,000 crore, but in 2021-22, an external

Sougata Roy expenditure of Rs 68,825 crore, was incurred on it.

“The figure is there for all of us to see (of reduced allocation). Should we believe that people have moved from farming to some other avenues for better? Or, should we believe that they have been pauperised and have become daily wage earners?” he asked.

Referring to MGNREGA, Mahtab said that “this generated an all-time high of 389 crore person days of employment in 2021-22, and 363 crore person days in 2020-21. Even this fiscal’s projection of 290 to 300 person days will exceed the 265 crore plus generated in 2019-20 and 2018-19. It is a demanddriven scheme. Whenever we make this point, it is always said that ‘it is a demand-driven scheme.’

But here, the figure shows how it has met. The budgeted amount this year is Rs 60,000 crore. The question is how realistic is the assessment? If the next SouthWest monsoon is normal, and the non-farm economy recovers timely, the MGNREGA may not require any additional funding. Till then, do we have to keep our fingers crossed?”