The country’s foreign exchange reserves are declining and just enough to cover imports for two months. Last week, authorities announced a ban on over two dozen luxury and other items to save foreign exchange reserves.

Earlier this week, Ameer Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s interim foreign minister, said that they will pay "extra attention" to the security of the Indian Embassy in Kabul if New Delhi considers re-establishing a diplomatic presence.  India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had recently hinted at New Delhi’s openness to engage with the Taliban.

Significantly, any peace deal with the TTP, a group responsible for the killings of over ten thousand Pakistani nationals, would require approval from the Pakistani parliament. These demands would also effectively mean undermining the state's existing authority and constitution in the tribal region.

Hindu community members in the valley, including Rahul Bhat's family, have accused the BJP-led government of making young Kashmiri Hindus "cannon fodder" in the name of rehabilitation of the community. They have also said the incident has shattered their dream of resettling permanently in the valley.

With the economic crisis and the shortage of forex, the Indian credit line of USD 500 million for fuel imports has provided a lifeline to the island nation, which is currently experiencing its worst economic crisis since gaining independence in 1948. With long lines for fuel, cooking gas, essentials in short supply and long hours of power cuts, the public has been suffering for months.

Hindustan Times said that India and Pakistan have resumed backchannel contacts as part of efforts to bridge differences between the two sides on a host of issues, though there are no signs of any imminent breakthrough diplomatically. One of the most significant outcomes of these contacts in recent years was the revival of the 2003 ceasefire on the Line of Control (LoC) in February last year, the paper noted.

Relatives of hundreds of people across the country, mostly from its restive Balochistan and northwestern FATA region, who were forcibly disappeared alleged by people linked to the country’s security establishment, have long been demanding justice in tracing their people. Successive governments, supposedly under the pressure from the military, have for long avoided taking any concrete measures in this direction.

He said India sent medicines and vaccines to countries around the world. “Even in such a big country, we took the vaccine to every citizen,” he added.

“In the near future we may have to stay in the queue and return home without fuel,” he warned, requesting people to grow whatever crop they can grow in their home garden, a bizarre suggestion the country’s Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amarweera also repeated.

Among the dead were an Indian couple from Thane, Maharashtra and their two children.

Momin also backed multilateral development of the river infrastructure. "In the Brahmaputra basin, only 3 percent is in China, in India only 6 percent people are affected by the river, but we are the lower riparian state with 23 percent affected people, “ he said, adding, “One country alone must not develop infra on this trans-boundary river.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Friday inaugurated what was described as the country's biggest drone festival, where he said the use of drones will rise in sectors such as agriculture, sports, defence and disaster management.

The report comes amid ongoing peace talks between the TTP and the Pakistan government as the violence has increased since August last year. Earlier attempts of peace talks, mediated by the Afghan Taliban, had failed to produce any significant result. This year alone, the TTP carried out 46 attacks, mostly targeting security forces, and killed 79 people, according to the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies data.

“As the economy recovers [from the Covid-19 pandemic], our assistance will increase access to economic opportunities by promoting employment in critical sectors such as tourism and renewable energy. It will also enhance social service delivery in the islands,” Faris H Hadad-Zervos, the World Bank Country Director for Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka was quoted as saying by The Times of Addu.

Drones took the promise of 'ease of living' forward and would be yet another tool in the hands of the common man, Modi stated. “Be it urban or rural areas, agriculture fields or playfields, defence works or disaster management, the use of drones in the country will only increase,” he elaborated.