India clashes with Pakistan at UN
UNITED NATIONS: India’s external affairs minister took on Pakistan
at the United Nations on Monday for raising the disputed Himalayan territory of
Kashmir.S. M. Krishna told the General Assembly that India has resumed dialogue with Pakistan and wants to normalise relations.
But he lashed out at a speech last week by President Asif Ali Zardarif, saying the neighboring nation had no business meddling in India’s predominantly Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir, which India claims as sovereign territory.
”An unwarranted reference has been made to Jammu and Kashmir from this podium,” he said, adding, ”We wish to make it abundantly clear that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India.”
Zardari said in his speech that Kashmir remained ”a symbol of the failures of the United Nations system rather than its strengths.” He said a solution could only be reached in an ”environment of cooperation.”
As the annual high-level meeting of the General Assembly wound down on Monday night, representatives of India and Pakistan traded several rounds of rebuttals before a mostly empty chamber.
A violent separatist insurgency that started in 1989 drew a crackdown by Indian forces that has killed about 68,000 people in Kashmir, where public resentment against Indian rule runs deep.
The rebellion is largely suppressed, with occasional flare-ups. The Indian army said last week that a fierce gunbattle killed a suspected rebel and a soldier.
Earlier this month, Indian police arrested Merajuddin Wani, one of the longest-surviving rebel commanders in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Russian FM due tomorrow on 2-day visit
ISLAMABAD: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov is
arriving here on Wednesday for bilateral consultations.He will be in Islamabad for two days (Oct 3-4) on the invitation of Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.
The announcement of Foreign Minister Lavrov’s visit follows cancellation of President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Islamabad scheduled for Oct 2-3 and coincides with Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s visit to Moscow.
Dispelling a perception that Mr Lavrov’s visit had been planned to deal with the fallout of the cancellation of Mr Putin’s visit, Foreign Office spokesman Moazzam Khan said Ms Khar had extended the invitation during her visit to Moscow in February
this year.
But the question remains that had Mr Putin’s visit taken place as scheduled would Mr Lavrov have stayed back for another two days because he would then have been here on Oct 2 accompanying his president.
Some diplomatic observers believe that Russian FM’s visit may have been planned after Mr Putin cancelled his scheduled trip to negate the impression that the reset in Pakistan-Russia ties was in doldrums.
“The forthcoming visit of Foreign Minister Lavrov would provide an opportunity to further expand and intensify the existing mutually beneficial bilateral ties,” the spokesman said.
“The two countries also share the common objective of peace and stability in the broader region and attach importance to regional connectivity both in terms of trade and energy cooperation,” Mr Khan said.
Besides holding bilateral consultations, Mr Lavrov is also scheduled to call on President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.
Russian President’s pointman for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, while explaining Mr Putin’s decision on not visiting Pakistan, had said: “Russian-Pakistani relations have been on the rise in recent years but progress has been mostly at political and emotional levels, while economic ties have lagged behind.”
Signing of MoUs
The announcement of Foreign Minister Lavrov’s visit coincided with the signing by Pakistan and Russia of three memoranda of understanding relating to expansion of Pakistan Steel Mills and cooperation in railways and water and power sector projects.
The first memorandum is about modernisation, reconstruction and expansion of production capacity of the Pakistan Steel.
Russia’s Tyazhpromexport company, which had helped Pakistan establish the plant, will carry out technical audit. The financial and technical terms of the project will be finalised during visit to Moscow by a Pakistani delegation.
Under the MoU on railways, Russia will explore opportunities of cooperation with Pakistan Railways, particularly a joint venture for manufacturing passenger carriages. Russia will also participate in a tender to be floated for the supply of carriages.
The third MoU concerns Russian investment in energy sector. The Russian Federation will cooperate in converting Jamshoro and Muzaffarabad thermal power plants from furnace oil into coal.
The Russian delegation led by Dr Alexander Rybas, Director General of Prominvest State Corporation, called on Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and discussed measures to bolster economic relations between the two countries.
Dr Rybas informed Mr Ashraf that another Russian team would visit Pakistan from Oct 15 to discuss various models of finance for the Jamshoro power project.
The prime minister expressed the hope that cooperation in the energy sector would help Pakistan in overcoming the power crisis.
He stressed the need for streamlining the procedure for issuing visa to Pakistani businessmen in order to enhance business contacts.
Dr Rybas said that besides energy, transportation and steel sectors, the State Corporation of Russian Technologies was also interested in exploring more investment opportunities in Pakistan.
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Business News:
Market pundits see 100bps cut in policy
rate
KARACHI, Oct 1: In the current economic scenario, falling inflation
rate has generated hope for a further cut in the policy interest rate that may
allow greater liquidity to finance investment and growth.Bankers and analysts expect a cut in the interest rate by 50 to 100 basis points in the next monetary policy to be announced on Oct 5.
Latest data on inflation showed that CPI (consumer price index) for September is 8.79 per cent which is the lowest in the last five years. The previous four years witnessed high inflation, touching 26 per cent mark, and the economy grew slightly above 2.5 per cent.
Analysts doubted that bringing the inflation low at single digit could be a political move in the wake of elections in order to provide some relief to people.
As government has shunned borrowing from the central bank, it is an important element for higher inflation. The entire burden of government borrowing is now on scheduled banks, as Rs324 billion were borrowed by the government from scheduled banks. And an amount of Rs125 billion of the State Bank were retired during the first 70 days of the current fiscal year.
“We expect 50 to 100 basis points cut in the discount rate led by falling inflation, better current account position and reduction of government borrowing from the central bank,” said Mohammad Sohail, Chief Executive of Topline Research.
The previous fiscal year witnessed a current account deficit of $4.634 billion which put pressure on economy while the government failed to meet the gap despite massive inflow of remittances that rose to $13 billion.
The business community believes that low interest rate would help reduce lending rates and encourage them to borrow money through banks. High lending rates increased defaults that ultimately convinced banks to invest in government papers instead of advancing to risky the private sector.
The State Bank has reduced discount rate by 350 basis points since July 2011 but the business community said that lowering of discount rate did not impact lending rates as it remained high due to higher risk, investment opportunity and liquidity crunch in the banking system. The business community and analysts believe that inflation is coming down owing to government policy, mainly due to general elections in the next six months.
“Political motives ahead of elections to provide short-term stimulus to the economy cannot be ruled out,” said Sohail.
Nishat Ahmed, a businessman of electronics goods, said there was a huge trust deficit.
“Despite good steps for lowering of inflation, we see it as an interim move for a short term relief to people. It could be reversed after elections,” he said.
EXCHANGE FOR CURRENCY NOTES:
U.S.A 95.65
S.Arabia 25.51
U.K 154.25
Japan 1.2281
Euro 122.64
U.A.E 26.04
BULLION RATES IN
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