India on Saturday said it was deeply concerned over the “evolving escalation” in West Asia and urged all sides to exercise restraint and return to the path of dialogue and diplomacy.
“Our Missions in the region are in contact with the Indian community,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.
This comes after Israel carried out strikes on military sites in Iran on Saturday further fuelling fears of a full-blown war between the two heavily armed countries.
Israel said the targeted facilities were used to make missiles fired at it, according to reports.
“We are deeply concerned by the evolving escalation in West Asia and its ramifications for peace and stability in the region and beyond,” the MEA said.
“We reiterate our call to all concerned to exercise restraint and return to the path of dialogue and diplomacy. The ongoing hostilities are to nobody’s benefit, even as innocent hostages and civilian populations continue to suffer,” it said.
The West Asia conflict was discussed in “considerable details” during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in New Delhi on Friday.
Israel kills two Iranian soldiers in pre-dawn airstrikes, warns Iran against retaliation
Israel bombed military targets in Iran on Saturday, killing at least two soldiers, fulfilling a vow to avenge a missile barrage and stirring fears of a full-scale West Asia war.
Israel warned Iran would “pay a heavy price” if it responded to the strikes, and the United States and Britain both demanded Tehran not escalate the conflict further.
The Islamic republic insisted it had the “right and the duty” to defend itself, while its Lebanese ally Hezbollah said it had targeted a southern Israeli airbase and a northern intelligence base.
Confirming the strikes after explosions and anti-aircraft fire echoed around Tehran, the Israel military said it had hit Iranian missile factories and military facilities in several regions.
The “retaliatory strike has been completed and the mission was fulfilled”, while Israeli aircraft “returned safely”, a military spokesman added.
Iran confirmed an Israeli attack had targeted military sites in Tehran province around the capital and other parts of the country, saying the raids caused “limited damage” but killed two soldiers.
“Iran has the right and the duty to defend itself against foreign acts of aggression,” the Foreign Ministry said, citing Article 51 of the U.N. Charter.
Israel had vowed to retaliate after October 1, when Iran fired about 200 missiles in only the second ever direct attack against its arch-foe. Most of those missiles were intercepted but one person was killed.
The Israeli retaliation drew condemnation from Hamas, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Saudi Arabia, which warned against further escalation. Jordan stated that Israeli jets had not used its airspace.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese movement backed by Iran, said it had fired rockets at Israeli soldiers near the village of Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, and launched drones against Israel’s Tel Nof air base.
Tel Nof is south of Tel Aviv and, if confirmed, the drone mission would be the militia’s first attempt to hit it in this round of fighting.
Maharashtra Assembly polls: BJP, Congress release their second list of candidates
The BJP on Saturday released its second list of candidates for the Maharashtra Assembly elections. The elections to the 288-member Assembly are scheduled for November 20, with vote counting scheduled on October 23.
Approved by the party’s Central Election Committee, the list includes nominees for 22 constituencies, including Ram Bhadane from Dhule Rural constituency and Chainsukh Madanlal Sancheti from Malkapur. Vijay Kamalkishor Agrawal has been selected for the Akola West seat, and Shyam Ramcharanji Khode for Washim (SC).
Kewalram Tulshiram Kale has been nominated to contest from Melghat (ST), Dr. Milind Ramji Narote from Gadchiroli (ST) and Deorao Vithoba Bhongle from Rajura. In Brahmapuri, Krishnalal Bajirao Sahare is pitted against Congress’s Vijay Wadettiwar.
Devayani Suhas Pharande has been fielded from Nashik Central and Harischandra Sakharam Bhoye from Vikramgad (ST).
Kumar Uttamchand Ailani is the nominee from Ulhasnagar, Ravindra Dagdu Patil from Pen, Bhimrao Tapkir from Khadakwasala and Sunil Dnyandev Kamble from Pune Cantonment (SC).
In Pune’s Kasba Peth, the BJP has fielded Hemant Narayan Rasane, while Ramesh Kashiram Karad will contest from Latur Rural.
Dheeraj Rajesh Kothe is the candidate from Solapur City Central constituency, Samadhan Mahadev Autade from Pandharpur, Satyajit Deshmukh from Shirala and Gopichand Kundalik Padalkar from Jat.
The party has also nominated Karan Deotale from Warora and Prakash Gunvanth Rao Bharsakala from Akot.
The Congress too released its second list of 23 candidates for the Maharashtra Assembly elections. It has retained Kailash Gorantyal from Jalna constituency and nominated Anuja Kedar, wife of party leader Sunil Kedar, to contest from Saoner. Kedar remains disqualified from contesting polls for six years following his conviction in December 2023 in the Nagpur District Central Cooperative Bank (NDCCB) scam.
After announcing 48 candidates in its first list, the Congress has now confirmed a total of 71 nominees for the elections. The party has fielded senior leader Vasant Purke, who lost in 2019, from Ralegaon (Yavatmal). Shivajirao Moghe has stepped aside for his son Jitendra to run from Arni (Yavatmal).
In Mumbai, the party has nominated Kalu Badheliya for the Kandivali East seat, Ganesh Yadav for Sion Koliwada, and Yashwant Singh for Charkop. Suresh Bhoyar will challenge state BJP chief Chandrashekar Bawankule in Kampti, and in Wardha, Shekhar Shende, son of former Assembly speaker Pramod Shende, has been nominated.
IND vs NZ second Test: Mitchell Santner does it again as New Zealand creates history in seven decades
For the second time in three days – and the third time in four innings this series – India’s batters surrendered against a clinical New Zealand as the visiting side created history by taking an unassailable lead in the three-match series, mauling India by 113 runs.
Twenty-six minutes into the last hour of the third day at the Maharashtra Cricket Association stadium, with some of the 28,895 spectators who had turned up hoping against hope of an India turnaround, Tim Southee at long-on completed a clean catch to dismiss Ravindra Jadeja off Ajaz Patel and the New Zealand bunch burst into a prolonged bout of celebration.
After setting India a stiff target of 359, all it took for the Kiwi bowlers — led by the bespectacled Mitchell Santner — was 257 minutes and a little over 60 overs to wind up India’s second essay for 245.
Barring Yashasvi Jaiswal, who adopted an ultra-aggressive approach before being drawn forward and undone in flight by Santner, and Jadeja who prolonged the inevitable, no India batter could occupy the crease on a pitch that continued to aid the tweakers.
The Kiwi spinners - especially Santner – persisted with making India’s batters play by employing a stump-to-stump line. It paid dividend yet again as the Indian batters continued to be beaten on either side of the edge.
Santner - introduced into the attack in the fourth over - bowled unchanged for 29 overs. He first tossed one up to captain Rohit Sharma who was undone in flight to be caught at forward short-leg. But Jaiswal, who opened India’s run-chase with a heave off Southee into the stands at wide long-on, swept the spinners with aplomb. Thanks to Jaiswal’s onslaught, on the back of India picking the last five wickets for 57 runs in the morning, meant the morning session was the first one that was in India’s favour.
Even with India heading to lunch at 81 for one off just 12 overs, stretching the match into the penultimate day was a distant dream. Soon after lunch, Santner pegged Gill on the backfoot and he edged to Southee at slip. Six overs later, the Southee-Santner combine was back in action, with Jaiswal being drawn forward.
In the next over, miscommunication between Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant resulted in the latter being short of his crease to be dismissed for a blob. From thereon, it was always an uphill task. Kohli (missing a quicker one that was hitting the outer half of the leg-stump) and Sarfaraz (bowled after playing for turn and the ball turning just a little bit to hit the off-stump) were dismissed by Santner in quick succession to give himself his second five-wicket haul of the match, and his Test career.
Washington Sundar and Jadeja did manage to prolong the innings and the end came when Southee completed the catch on the boundary.
Earlier in the morning, New Zealand ensured the target crossed the 350-run landmark. Jadeja – preferred over Washington – did get into the wickets column but it was always going to be too little too late.
Hoax bomb threats: IT Ministry issues advisory warning to social media platforms
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Saturday informed social media companies that it was their duty to curb threats to flights operating from India. “[T]he scale of spread of such hoax bomb threats has been observed to be dangerously unrestrained due to the availability of the option of ‘forwarding/re-sharing/ re-posting/ re-tweeting’ on the social media platforms,” the Ministry said in its advisory.
Earlier this week, Ministry officials reportedly met with social media platforms, with an official criticising X, formerly Twitter, in particular for “abetting” these threats. The social media company said in a statement later that it was working to prevent these threats on its platform.
These threats, which are ongoing and have so far disrupted over 100 flights, leading many domestic and international flights to be diverted or delayed, have strained the aviation sector, which is otherwise gearing up for a busy festival season.
The advisory doubles down on the Ministry’s developing strategy for regulating social media companies: insisting that existing legal provisions are sufficient to force platforms to act. In this advisory, for instance, the Ministry wrote that “social media intermediaries have a due diligence obligation under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 to promptly remove such misinformation that affects public order and security of the state.”
This approach was also reflected earlier this year, when deepfake videos of celebrities such as Rashmika Mandanna spread widely. In that case, after initially mulling amendments to tackle that issue, the Ministry chose instead to leverage a broader interpretation of the IT Rules, 2021. That advisory cited Rule 3(1)(b), which required social media platforms to prevent any post that “impersonates another person”.
The consequences for social media platforms if they find themselves noncompliant with the IT Rules are that they lose protection against intermediary liability. This would enable them to be sued as publishers of such posts, as opposed to neutral platforms. In Friday’s advisory, the Ministry said that platforms that do not perform the “due diligence” in this view of the law could face legal action under the IT Act, and under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
Jaishankar hails military and democracy for India-China LAC patrolling agreement
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday credited the breakthrough agreement with China on patrolling along the Line of Actual Control to the military which worked in “very very unimaginable” conditions and deft diplomacy.
Responding to a question during an interaction with students in Pune, Jaishankar said it is still a bit early for normalisation of relations which will naturally take time to rebuild a degree of trust and willingness to work together.
He said that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Xi Jinping at Kazan in Russia for the BRICS summit, it was decided that the foreign ministers and National Security Advisors of the two countries would meet and see how to move forward.
“If today we have reached where we have...One is because of the very determined effort on our part to stand our ground and make our point. The military was there (at LAC) in very very unimaginable conditions to defend the country, and the military did its part and diplomacy did its part,” Jaishankar said.
“Over the decade, India improved its infrastructure. Part of the problem is that in the earlier years, the border infrastructure was really neglected,” he added.
“Today we have put in five times more resources annually than there used to be a decade ago which is showing results and enabling the military to actually be effectively deployed. The combination of these (factors) has led to where it is,” he said.
Earlier this week, India announced it had reached an agreement with China on patrolling along the LAC in eastern Ladakh, in a major breakthrough in ending the over four-year-long military standoff.
Since 2020, the situation on the border has been very disturbed which understandably negatively impacted the overall relationship. Since September 2020, India had been negotiating with the Chinese on how to find a solution, he said. The EAM said there were different aspects of this solution.
The pressing one is disengagement because troops are very very close to each other and the possibility of something happening existed. Then there is de-escalation because of troop buildup on both sides, he added.
“Then there is a larger issue of how you manage the border and negotiate the boundary settlement. Right now everything that’s going is concerning the first part which is disengagement,” he said.
He said India and China came to an understanding at some places after 2020 on how troops return to their bases but a significant segment was related to patrolling, the External Affairs Minister pointed out.
“There was blocking of patrolling and that is what we had been trying to negotiate for the last two years. So what happened on October 21 was that in those particular areas Depsang and Demchok we reached an understanding that patrolling would resume how it used to be before,” Jaishankar added.
In Brief:
An Army soldier was killed and 13 people, including nine Army personnel, were injured when their vehicle skidded off the road and overturned in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district, officials said on Saturday. The injured, which included four civilians, were taken to a hospital where their condition is stated to be stable, they said. The accident in Kulgam’s D H Pora area happened during an operational move on Friday night, said the Army’s Srinagar-based 15 Corps, also known as Chinar Corps.
Published - October 26, 2024 08:52 pm IST
