Kashmir

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi began a two-day visit to Israel on Wednesday in what both governments billed as an opportunity to build closer relations by making common cause against terrorism – and which some observers viewed as a ticking clock on potential American action against Iran, since a strike would not be likely until Modi leaves Israel.

Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday condemned the murder of two young Israeli diplomats in Washington, DC, “in the strongest terms” and said that “the perpetrators must be brought to justice.”

A senior Pakistani security official said on Tuesday that India and Pakistan have agreed to withdraw the troop reinforcements they rushed to the border during their week-long conflict this month.

China sought to claim some of the credit for the ceasefire between India and Pakistan brokered by President Donald Trump on Saturday, playing up phone calls made to both sides by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as the conflict escalated to the brink of war.

After a night of steadily escalating hostilities between India and Pakistan, including each side launching attacks on the other’s military bases, President Donald Trump announced on Saturday morning that his administration was able to mediate a “full and immediate ceasefire” in the conflict.

Indian and Pakistani forces traded artillery and small-arms fire across the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed province of Kashmir on Thursday night.

Pakistani officials vowed to retaliate for India’s “Operation Sindoor” strikes against alleged terrorist camps on Tuesday night, while India insisted its actions were “measured, non-escalatory, proportionate, and responsible.”

India’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Monday ordered several states, including the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region and areas close to the Pakistani border, to conduct civilian defense drills amid rising tensions with Pakistan.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday that the “perpetrators, backers, and planners” of last week’s brutal terrorist attack in Kashmir “must be brought to justice.”

The U.S. State Department on Sunday urged India and Pakistan to remain calm and seek a “responsible solution” for their tensions as border security forces from both countries traded small arms fire for the fourth night in a row.

A video that spread like wildfire across Indian social media on Monday showed a happy tourist enjoying a zipline ride down the side of a mountain in the Himalayas – unaware that he was soaring above the brutal terrorist attack that claimed 26 lives last Tuesday.

Pakistani security forces on Monday claim they killed dozens of unidentified “militants” who were attempting to cross into Pakistan from Afghanistan.

Gen. Upendra Dwivedi, four-star general of the Indian army, arrived in Kashmir on Friday to assess the security situation after Tuesday’s deadly terrorist attack. India has accused Pakistan of facilitating the attack, moving the two nuclear-armed nations to the brink of conflict.

A devastating terrorist attack on a tourist haven in Kashmir on Tuesday killed 26 people and put new strain on the uneasy relationship between India and Pakistan.

India’s Mines Secretary V.L. Kantha Rao said on Thursday that Indian mining companies are exploring possible investments in Zambia, Australia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Wednesday that India is the world leader in shutting down Internet access, coming in ahead of heavyweight access-blockers like Iran, Libya, and Sudan with 84 regional shutdowns in 2022.

Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, the caretaker prime minister of Pakistan, told a state television audience on Friday that President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 unleashed a wave of terrorist attacks in the Pakistani border region – and some of those terrorists used American equipment abandoned by Biden.

Mining authorities in India announced on Thursday that they had discovered potentially as much as 5.9 million tonnes of lithium deposits in northern Jammu and Kashmir, a potential gamechanger in the race to dominate the electric vehicle battery industry.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that China supports “Islamic countries using Islamic wisdom to solve contemporary hotspot issues” during a meeting in Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad on Thursday.

India said Tuesday it has deployed 5,000 extra troops to Kashmir — an already heavily militarized region — in an effort to quell ongoing violence in the disputed territory, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Indian official Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister for the state of Uttar Pradesh, warned on Monday that India would launch airstrikes against the Taliban if it makes a move against Indian territory.

Global terrorist organization al-Qaeda, a close ally of the Taliban/Haqqani Network regime, celebrated “victory” in Afghanistan on Thursday and listed Kashmir, the province contested between India and Pakistan, as the next target to be “liberated.”

The Taliban terror group recently promised to support Pakistan in its efforts to “conquer” Kashmir, a disputed Western Himalayan region, the leader of Pakistan’s ruling party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), claimed Tuesday.

Pakistani President Arif Alvi claimed Monday that the government of India is training and financially supporting terrorists in Afghanistan so they can carry out attacks in Pakistan.

A coalition of Indian Sikh leaders demanded the Indian federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir enact laws against “love jihad,” or the alleged forced conversion of non-Muslim women to Islam by Muslim men, this week after unconfirmed reports emerged that Muslim men had “forced” Sikh women to convert to Islam, the Quint reported on Wednesday.

A Hindu group filed a police complaint against social media platform Twitter on Tuesday over a map that showed India’s Ladakh region as part of China, a year after the two countries fought a deadly battle there.

Police in India on Sunday accused an Indian Army officer and two of his associates of planting weapons on the bodies of three laborers killed in Kashmir in July to stage a fake gun battle.

Pakistan accused the Indian military on Friday of shooting at a vehicle carrying two officers from the United Nations Military Observer Group.

Protests against alleged vote-rigging in a recent legislative election continued on Wednesday for the third straight day in Pakistan-administered Gilgit Baltistan, a northern region in the disputed Kashmir territory bordering China.

Pakistan has stepped up its support for cross-border terrorist factions while the world continues to fight the Chinese coronavirus, Indian officials asserted in a Monday statement to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

Pakistan’s University of Health Sciences (UHS) in Lahore, one of the most important medical research universities in the country, announced on Thursday that it will boycott French research and academic institutions due to comments made by French President Emmanuel Macron after a Muslim immigrant beheaded a French teacher on October 16. 

India’s permanent representative to the United Nations (U.N.), T. S. Tirumurti, on Wednesday condemned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) in which he called for a multilateral resolution to India’s border dispute with Pakistan in Kashmir, labelling Erdogan’s remarks as “gross interference” and “completely unacceptable.”

Video footage surfaced on Sunday depicting soldiers of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) crying on a bus while allegedly en route to the Indian border territory of Ladakh, a disputed area which has seen several recent clashes between the militaries of the two countries, Taiwan News reports.

India has provided the latest setback for the “China Pakistan Economic Corridor” (CPEC) by blocking the venture’s planned projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the Times of India (TOI) reported on Monday.

Both the Indian and Chinese militaries have sent “artillery guns and combat vehicles” to their rear bases along a disputed border area in Ladakh, India’s northernmost state, as the nearly month-long standoff between the two armies continues to escalate, Indian military sources told the Times of India on Sunday.