US says it is "fully prepared" to move forward on N deal

Washington, Mar 28 : The US has said it was "fully prepared" to move forward on the civilian nuclear agreement with India once New Delhi takes a decision on domestic political issues related to it.
".... They had a discussion about where we stand. We made it clear that we are fully prepared once the Indian Government has taken certain steps to submit the agreements to the Congress so that they can be passed," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said when asked about the talks between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Minister of External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee earlier this week.

Mukherjee wrapped up his two-day visit on Tuesday during which he held talks with President George W Bush and Rice. The Minister said the government was trying to build consensus on the deal as there were reservations from the Left and the BJP.

Though US lawmakers had been pressing on a July timeline, the White House said after the parleys that the deal had not reached a "now or never" stage.

"The Indian Government has some decisions to make and with respect to the agreement and its own domestic politics and those are decisions only the Indian Government can take and solely for them," McCormack said.

He said the US was "still committed to doing what we can to move the agreement forward, but again the Indian Government is going to have to make some decisions for itself." The spokesman also said that Afghanistan did not come up in the discussions between Rice and Mukherjee.

"... In the meetings that I attended, the issue of Afghanistan did not come up. Now, generally speaking we have encouraged all the countries in the region to do what they can to improve relations with one another, but also within the region.

McCormack said: "There are some real possibilities there if you look at a at the very least a North-South access running from India up through Central Asia opportunities for trade and energy cooperation...."

Dharamsala, Mar 28 : Spiritual leader Dalai Lama today renewed his appeal to China to hold a "meaningful dialogue" with Tibetans to resolve the Tibet crisis and also urged the Chinese leadership to "exercise wisdom".
"I urge the Chinese leadership to exercise wisdom and to initiate a meaningful dialogue with the Tibetan people," the Dalai Lama said in an appeal addressed to "Chinese brothers and sisters" across the globe.

The spiritual leader also made it clear through the appeal that he neither had any desire to seek Tibet's separation nor any wish to drive a wedge between the people of Tibet.

Asking the Chinese leadership to understand his position, the Dalai Lama urged them to work to resolve all the problems related to Tibet by "seeking truth from facts".

The appeal was released by the Tibetan government-in- exile here today.

"I also appeal to them (Chinese leadership) to make sincere efforts to contribute to the stability and harmony of PRC and to avoid creating rifts between the nationalities.

"The state media's portrayal of the recent events in Tibet using deceit and distorted images could sow the seeds of racial tension with unpredictable long-term consequences," he said, adding "this is of grave concern to me".

The spiritual leader also reiterated his support for the 2008 Olympics to be held in Chinese capital Beijing this August.

We have to balance between inflation and growth: Chidambaram

Mumbai, Mar 28 : Concerned over rising prices, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today sought to strike a balance between economic growth and inflation, which he described as a 'regressive tax'.
"It (inflation) is a regressive tax and we have to balance between inflation and growth," he said at the Indian Merchants' Chamber function here.

Chidambaram attributed the reason for present level of inflation (6.68 per cent) to high global crude, food and commodity prices.

He said the government had no control over prices of crude oil, now at around USD 108 per barrel. "We have no control over crude oil prices which are at USD 108 per barrel.

"If we import something, we import inflation also." On prices of foodgrain, he said prices of rice, wheat and maize had doubled or tripled in the last four years.

New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) The Delhi High Court today gave a green signal to the Enforcement Directorate to proceed against former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh for alleged foreign exchange violations in the Iraqi oil-for-food scam, holding that the procedure followed by the ED was right.
"The procedure followed by the adjudicating authority (ED) did not suffer any infirmity to call for our interference," a bench comprising Justice T S Thakur and Justice Kailash Gambhir said while dismissing the father-son duo's petitions.

Vacating the stay imposed by it against ED's proceedings against Natwar and his son, the Court directed them to appear before the ED on April 24 to defend themselves in alleged FEMA violation cases.

The Court passed the judgement on petitions filed by them challenging ED's proceeding against them as copies of all the documents related to the scam were not provided to them.

The suspended senior Congress leader and his son approached the court when the ED refused to provide all the 83 documents brought by India's special envoy Virender Dayal from the US on the oil-for-food scam.

The government had only supplied 22 documents to Singh which were relied upon to proceed against them in FEMA violation case.

Justifying the governments decision, the Bench said, "The adjudicating authority was correct in declining its request for supply of documents not relied upon." The Bench also turned down their plea that they should be given personal hearing before initiating any procedure against them under the FEMA Act and said their demands were "unsupported by law".

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Rezaul H Laskar
Islamabad, Mar 28 : Pakistan will move forward to resolve the Kashmir issue with India through a peaceful dialogue and the nation's new government will continue confidence-building measures initiated by the previous regime, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari said today.

"We are totally (involved) with Kashmir. We intend to solve the problem and not just to (do) shadow-boxing for it," Zardari told reporters after a meeting with People's Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti.

Asked if the new coalition government led by his Pakistan People's Party will continue the CBMs initiated by the previous administration, Zardari said, "We want not only CBMs but action. We want to move forward and to solve this issue.

"The PPP and the democratic forces of Pakistan have always said that democracies do not fight wars. Our message is of peace and we want peace. We want peace in the region and along all our borders," he said.

"We want the guns to rust and our future generations should not have to make the sacrifices that the current and past generations have made." Further progress could be made towards resolving the issue if Kashmiris from both sides of the border could freely meet their kin. The true potential of the youth on both sides could be achieved if they were given a pen or a business instead of the guns they are wielding, he said.

The PPP's Kashmir policy and the existing CBMs will be taken to parliament after discussions with the party's "senior partners", Zardari said..

Santosh K Joy
Raichur, Mar 28 (PTI) Calling for treating agriculture as a core sector, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi today opposed a blanket waiver on farm loans.

Interacting with farmers in Gadak district of Karnataka, Gandhi opposed the idea of a blanket loan waiver for farmers, saying it could prove "destructive for the system." When a delegate at the meeting persisted with the issue, he asked, "What about those poor farmers who have paid their loans on time?" He called for strengthening micro-finance and credit lending systems as a remedy to farmers' problems.

"Agriculture is central to the country's future," Gandhi told the farmers.

"His interactions centered around the need for the country's planning to be made agriculture-centric and to be treated as a core sector," one of the participants in the closed-door interaction at the Krishi Vigyan Kendra told PTI.

All through the speech, Gandhi stressed that rural excellence and indigenous knowledge can only guide the country to a better agrarian situation.

Attacking the previous NDA government for "neglect of the farm sector", Gandhi said, "Earlier, there was a sense that agriculture is a thing of the past. It was no longer respected. Things have changed during the UPA rule."

India may miss torch relay over Tibet tiff