Budget 2018-19

  India was trying to evacuate as many people as possible from Afghanistan, the minister said Evacuating Indian personnel from Afghanistan, where the situation is “critical”, was a top priority, the government said on Thursday at the all-party meet, convened to brief on the Afghan situation. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar briefed the leaders on the latest situation in  Afghanistan  after the Taliban captured power there last week. Besides Jaishankar, Union minister and Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi were also present during the briefing in the Parliament House Annexe. India was trying to evacuate as many people as possible from Afghanistan, the minister said and asserted that evacuating Indian personnel was a “top priority”, according to some of the participants at the meeting. The government also described the situation in the war-torn country as “critical” and said the Taliban has broken the promi...

  Officials said since Indian missions in Afghanistan are shut, the applications will be examined and processed in New Delhi The Union home ministry on Wednesday announced that all Afghan nationals henceforth must travel to India only on e-Visa in view of the prevailing situation in Afghanistan. The decision comes days after the government introduced a new category of visa called “e-Emergency X-Misc visa” for the Afghan nationals after the  Taliban  captured power in that country. “Owing to the prevailing security situation in Afghanistan and streamlining of the visa process by introduction of the ‘e-Emergency X-Misc visa’, it has been decided that all Afghan nationals henceforth must travel to India only on e-Visa,” a home ministry statement said. The home ministry also announced that keeping in view some reports that certain passports of Afghan nationals have been misplaced, previously issued visas to all Afghan national...

  The Indian ambassador to Afghanistan and around 120 of his staff members are being brought back to India on Tuesday from Kabul by a C-17 heavy-lift aircraft of the IAF The Indian ambassador to Afghanistan and around 120 of his staff members are being brought back to India on Tuesday from  Kabul  by a C-17 heavy-lift aircraft of the IAF as part of an emergency evacuation in view of the prevailing situation in the Afghan capital after its take over by the Taliban, people familiar with the development said. External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that it was decided that the ambassador and his Indian staff will move to India immediately in view of the prevailing circumstances. “In view of the prevailing circumstances, it has been decided that our Ambassador in Kabul and his Indian staff will move to India immediately,” Bagchi tweeted. An Indian Air Force (IAF) C-17 heavy-lift transport aircraft brought back some personnel from Afghanistan...

  Jaishankar said President-elect Biden is “not a stranger” to India or to the relationship between the two countries External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday exuded confidence that ties between India and the US will expand further under Joe Biden’s administration, noting that he was part of the period when bilateral relations underwent a radical transformation. “As vice president, we dealt with him. I happened to be the ambassador during the last phase of the Obama administration. We’d known him earlier when he was in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as the ranking Democratic member and then as the chairman,”  Jaishankar  said. The external affairs minister was speaking at an online discussion organised by leading think-tank Gateway House. “He (Biden) is very much part of this period when Indo-American relations underwent a radical transformation, which I reasonably date back to (Bill) Clinton’s visit,” Jaishankar said. Jaishankar said President-elect Bide...