India on September 19, rejected the Canadian allegation that a prominent pro-Khalistan activist was murdered by agents of India “on Canadian soil”.
In a tough statement, Ministry of External Affairs said such allegations as made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau divert attention from the activities of the Khalistan operatives living in Canada and called for effective action against them. In a tit for tat move India also expelled a senior Canadian diplomat after Canada expelled a diplomat from the Indian High Commission in Ottawa.
“Such unsubstantiated allegations see to shift the focus from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who have been provided shelter in Canada and continue to threaten India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The inaction of the Canadian government on this matter has been a long-standing and continuing concern,” a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs declared. The statement further acknowledged that the matter was discussed between PM Modi and Mr Trudeau earlier.
“Similar allegations were made by the Canadian Prime Minister to our Prime Minister, and were completely rejected,” the release stated. The official remark expressed concern for the use of Canadian soil by “anti-India elements” and urged Ottawa to “take prompt and effective legal action” targeting them.
Earlier in an unprecedented turn of events, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India of being behind the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent figure of the Khalistan movement based in British Columbia terming the June incident an “unacceptable violation”.
In a statement to the House of Commons, Trudeau also informed that Canadian security agencies have investigated the June killing over the past several weeks and that he had taken up the matter with Prime Minister Modi during his visit to Delhi last week where he participated in the G20 summit. “Last week, at the G20, I brought them personally and directly to Prime Minister Modi in no uncertain terms,” said Trudeau in a statement to the House of Commons yester afternoon.
Canada has also expelled the station head of the R&AW (Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency), Foreign Minister Melanie Joly has informed the Canadian parliament. “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty. It is contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open, and democratic societies conduct themselves,” said Trudeau in a remark to the House of Commons in Ottawa.” Trudeau was in New Delhi to attend the G20 summit during which he also held a one-on-one meeting with PM Modi.
The Star, a Canadian media outlet, has described the expelled R&AW official as Pavan Kumar Rai. In a tit for tat move MEA summoned High Commissioner Cameron Mackay on Tuesday morning and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat stationed in Delhi. India-Canada relation has been on a downward trajectory over the past several months which was further hit when both sides shelved trade talks earlier this month after six rounds of negotiation, citing “political issues”. Trudeau’s departure after G20 summit in Delhi was delayed as his official aircraft had developed technical snag.
Backing the Narendra Modi government on the Canada issue, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), said, “The Indian National Congress has always believed that our country’s fight against terrorism has to be uncompromising, especially when terrorism threatens India’s sovereignty, unity and integrity”. “Our country’s interests and concerns must be kept paramount at all times,” Ramesh added.
Women’s reservation bill: Govt. introduces ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’ in Lok Sabha
The government on September 19 introduced a constitutional amendment bill to reserve one-third of seats in Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for women, reviving a bill pending for 27 years for want of consensus among parties.
Making it the first bill to be introduced in the new Parliament building, the government said it will enable greater participation of women in policy-making at the state and national levels and help achieve the goal of making India a developed country by 2047. The bill will be named Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam.
With several parties pushing for reservation of women in Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, the bill is likely to see a smooth passage this time, unlike the earlier instances when several regional parties had opposed it. However, its implementation may still take some time and is unlikely to be in force for the next Lok Sabha elections in 2024 as the reservation will come into effect only after a delimitation exercise is completed.
Speaking in Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Union Cabinet approved the bill on Monday and that the government wants more and more women to join the development process of the country.
The world has recognised the women-led development process in the country and is witnessing contributions made by Indian women in different aspects of life from sports to startups, the prime minister said.
The bill has proposed that the reservation would continue for a period of 15 years and there will be quota for SC/STs within the reserved seats for women. The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023, was listed for introduction in the Lower House through a supplementary list of business.
The reservation will come into effect after a delimitation exercise is undertaken and will continue for 15 years. Seats reserved for women will be rotated after each delimitation exercise, according to the bill. The government said women participate substantively in panchayats and at municipal bodies, but their representation in State Assemblies, Parliament is still limited.
Women bring different perspectives and enrich quality of legislative debates and decision-making, it added. There have been several efforts to introduce women’s reservation bill in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies since 1996. The last such attempt was made in 2010, when the Rajya Sabha had passed a Bill for women’s reservation, but the same could not be passed in the Lok Sabha.
Data shows that women MPs account for nearly 15% of Lok Sabha strength while their representation is below 10% in many State Assemblies.
Prime Minister Modi launches his WhatsApp channel
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 19 announced his entry into WhatsApp, a platform that has been a powerful campaigning tool for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but had hitherto not been used directly by the PM for outreach. The WhatsApp channel, created last Thursday, gained thousands of followers within minutes of its existence, officials said.
Mr. Modi shared a photograph of himself sitting at a desk in the new Parliament building as his first post on the channel, with an accompanying message in English that reads: “Thrilled to join the WhatsApp community! It is yet another step closer in our journey of continued interactions. Let’s stay connected here!”
WhatsApp channels are a means of one-way communications, with no way to contact a channel owner from within the platform — officials handling Modi’s broadcasts will also not be able to see subscribers’ phone numbers, except for those people whose numbers are saved on their phones, the Meta-owned firm said in a message to users subscribing to updates from the Prime Minister.
Meta did not immediately provide a comment on the launch of the channel.
India is WhatsApp’s largest market, with nearly every smartphone having the messaging app installed. The app has around half a billion users in India, according to multiple industry estimates. Meta recently denied a Financial Times report that the company was considering adding advertisements to the app to leverage its steep user base.
Modi’s personal social media accounts have 48 million followers on Facebook, 17.7 million YouTube subscribers, and 91.8 million followers on X (formerly Twitter). Among these services, only YouTube has a user base comparable to WhatsApp in India.
TMC questions why President was not invited to function held in old Parliament building
The Trinamool Congress on September 19 questioned why President Draupadi Murmu was not invited to the function held in New Delhi to mark the move to the new Parliament building.
The event held in the historic Central Hall of the old building was presided over by Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar. “Where was the President of India during today’s event at the Central Hall [of the old Parliament building]? Was she invited? Why was she ignored?” TMC leader Derek O’Brien said.
Members of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha had gathered at the Central Hall of the old Parliament building for the event.
Opposition parties had earlier objected to the President not being invited for the inauguration of the new Parliament building in May. At least 21 Opposition parties had boycotted the inauguration, contending that President Murmu should inaugurate the new building and not Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The sessions of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are summoned and prorogued by the President on the advice of the government.
Azerbaijan announces an ‘anti-terrorist operation’ targeting Armenian positions in Nagorno-Karabakh
Azerbaijan on September 19 began what it called an “anti-terrorist operation” targeting Armenian military positions in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and officials in the area reported heavy artillery firing around its capital.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry announced the start of the operation hours after four soldiers and two civilians died in landmine explosions in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The reports raised concerns that a full-scale war over the region could resume between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which fought heavily for six weeks in 2020.
The Ministry did not immediately give details, but said “positions on the front line and in-depth, long-term firing points of the formations of Armenia’s armed forces, as well as combat assets and military facilities are incapacitated using high-precision weapons.”
The Azerbaijani statement said, “Only legitimate military targets are being incapacitated.”
But ethnic Armenian officials in Nagorno-Karabakh said in a statement that the region’s capital Stepanakert and other villages were “under intense shelling.”
Earlier on September 19, Azerbaijan said six people were killed in two separate explosions in the region that is partly under the control of ethnic Armenian forces.
A statement from Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry, state security service and prosecutor-general said two employees of the highway department died before dawn when their vehicle was blown up by a mine and that a truckload of soldiers responding to the incident hit another mine, killing four.
Nagorno-Karabakh and sizable surrounding territories were under ethnic Armenian control since the 1994 end of a separatist war, but Azerbaijan regained the territories and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself in a six-week war in 2020. That war ended with an armistice that placed a Russian peacekeeper contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh.
However, Azerbaijan alleges that Armenia has smuggled in weapons since then. The claims led to a blockade of the road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, causing severe food and medicine shortages in the region.
Red Cross shipments of flour and medical supplies reached Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, but local officials said road connections to the region were not fully open.
The hostilities come amid high tensions between Armenia and its longtime ally Russia. Armenia has repeatedly complained that the 3,000-strong Russian peacekeeping force was unable or unwilling to keep the road to Armenia open even though that duty was stipulated in the agreement that ended the 2020 war.
Armenia also angered Russia, which maintains a military base in the country, by holding military exercises with the United States this month and by moving toward ratifying the Rome Convention that created the International Criminal Court, which has indicted Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Tuesday denied claims that Russia was informed in advance of Azerbaijan’s intention to mount the operation, saying the peacekeepers were notified only “a few minutes” before it began.
In Brief:
Two militants, including a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) ‘commander’ and a soldier were found dead at the Anantnag encounter site, taking the toll to six, the J&K Police said on September 19. The combing operation of the Gadool hill in Anantnag’s Kokernag continued for the seventh day on September 19 as the area is being sanitised.
The University Grants Commission on September 19 announced the schedule for three key entrance exams — CUET-UG, CUET-PG, and NET for 2024-25 academic session. Common University Entrance Test (CUET)-UG for admission to undergraduate courses will be conducted from May 15 to 31, 2024.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
