Sacked IPS Sanjiv Bhatt gets life imprisonment in 1989 custodial death case

New Delhi, Jun 18: Major General-level talks between India and China, held to resolve the issues related to the violent face-off in Ladakh's Galwan area on June 15-16, lasted for more than six hours on Thursday, sources said.

The talks between the Major Generals of the two countries had remained inconclusive on Wednesday.

Sources also said that all Indian Army personnel who were involved in Galwan valley violent face-off on June 15-16 are accounted for and no soldier is missing in action.

At least 20 Indian Army personnel, including a Colonel rank officer, had lost their lives in the violent face-off which happened in the Galwan valley as a result of an attempt by the Chinese troops to unilaterally change the status quo during the de-escalation in eastern Ladakh.

Indian intercepts have revealed that the Chinese side suffered 43 casualties including dead and seriously injured in the violent clash. The commanding officer of the Chinese unit is among those killed, sources confirmed to media persons.

India wants restoration of old status quo along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) prevailing before May 2020 when the first reports of Chinese incursions started appearing.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had on Wednesday conveyed a clear and tough message to his Chinese counterpart Foreign Minister Wang Yi that what happened in Galwan was a "pre-mediated and planned action that was directly responsible for the resulting violence and casualties."

New Delhi, Jan 18: Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal has granted the power of detaining authority to the Delhi Police Commissioner under the National Security Act (NSA), according to a notification. The NSA allows preventive detention of an individual for months if the authorities feel that the individual is a threat to the national security, and law and order, sources said.

In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (3) of section 3, read with clause (c) of Section 2 of the National Security Act, 1980, the Lt Governor is pleased to direct that during the period January 19 to April 18, the Delhi Police Commissioner may also exercise the powers of detaining authority under sub-section (2) of the section 3 of the aforesaid Act, the notification stated.

The notification has been issued on January 10 following the approval of the LG.

It comes at a time when the national capital has been witnessing a number of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

However, the Delhi Police said it is a routine order that has been issued in every quarter and has nothing to do with the current situation.

Washington, Feb 5: Experts warned a US government panel last night that India's Muslims face risks of expulsion and persecution under the country’s new Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which has triggered major protests.

The hearing held inside Congress was called by the US Commission on International Freedom, which has been denounced by the Indian government as biased.

Ashutosh Varshney, a prominent scholar of sectarian violence in India, told the panel that the law championed by prime minister Narendra Modi's government amounted to a move to narrow the democracy's historically inclusive and secular definition of citizenship.

"The threat is serious, and the implications quite horrendous," said Varshney, a professor at Brown University.

"Something deeply injurious to the Muslim minority can happen once their citizenship rights are taken away," he said.

Varshney warned that the law could ultimately lead to expulsion or detention -- but, even if not, contributes to marginalization.

"It creates an enabling atmosphere for violence once you say that a particular community is not fully Indian or its Indianness in grave doubt," he said.

India's parliament in December passed a law that fast-tracks citizenship for persecuted non-Muslim minorities from neighboring countries.

Responding to criticism at the time from the US commission, which advises but does not set policy, India's External Affairs Ministry said the law does not strip anyone's citizenship and "should be welcomed, not criticized, by those who are genuinely committed to religious freedom."

Fears are particularly acute in Assam, where a citizens' register finalized last year left 1.9 million people, many of them Muslims, facing possible statelessness.

Aman Wadud, a human rights lawyer from Assam who traveled to Washington for the hearing, said that many Indians lacked birth certificates or other documentation to prove citizenship and were only seeking "a dignified life."

The hearing did not exclusively focus on India, with commissioners and witnesses voicing grave concern over Myanmar's refusal to grant citizenship to the Rohingya, the mostly Muslim minority that has faced widespread violence.

Gayle Manchin, the vice chair of the commission, also voiced concern over Bahrain's stripping of citizenship from activists of the Shiite majority as well as a new digital ID system in Kenya that she said risks excluding minorities.

More than 40 people were killed last week in New Delhi in sectarian violence sparked by the citizenship law.

India on Tuesday lodged another protest after the UN human rights chief, Michele Bachelet, sought to join a lawsuit in India that challenges the citizenship law's constitutionality.