India an amazing success story: Antony Blinken
Davos, Jan 17: Describing India as an “extraordinary success story”, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said the policies and programmes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been very beneficial to the people of India. Speaking here at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024, he also said US President Joe Biden and Modi enjoy excellent relations and their conversations cover all aspects, including US-India relations. Hailing the expansion of bilateral ties between the two countries, Blinken said the US and India are always in constant conversations and those cover all aspects, including on democracy and fundamental rights. “It’s part of very sustained and very real conversation we have always had,” he said. He was replying to a question on whether the rise of Hindu nationalism concerns India despite the country’s robust economic growth and infrastructure building under the Modi regime. (PTI)
Drugs and Kalashnikovs have destroyed Pak: CJP Isa
Islamabad, Jan 17: Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa on Wednesday lamented that drugs and Kalashnikovs have destroyed Pakistan and insisted on eliminating the “Kalashnikov culture” from the country. The Supreme Court also issued notices to multiple authorities across the country seeking information about licenses issued for prohibited weapons. “Drugs and Kalashnikovs have destroyed Pakistan. No one goes around carrying Kalashnikovs in big cars with tinted glasses anywhere around the world,” the country’s top judge remarked. “CJP Isa said he has also been offered to acquire a Kalashnikov license,” The News International reported quoting the judge’s observation during a hearing here. The chief justice was hearing the bail plea of a petitioner accused of theft. The petitioner, Kashif, was booked on charges of theft after a citizen’s home was robbed with their weapons also stolen in the robbery. (AP)
Fireworks factory explodes in central Thailand
Bangkok, Jan 17: An explosion at a fireworks factory in central Thailand killed at least 15 people on Wednesday, a rescue worker said. The exact death toll was not immediately clear, but Kritsada Manee-In, a rescue worker with the Samerkun Suphan Buri Rescue Foundation, estimated that around 15 to 17 people had been killed. Local media offered varying death tolls. Photos posted online by local rescue workers in Suphan Buri province showed the site, in an otherwise unoccupied rice field, leveled flat aside from debris and body parts. The blast, whose cause was not immediately clear, came less than a month before Chinese New Year in February, when demand for fireworks is strong. In July last year, a large explosion at a fireworks warehouse in southern Thailand killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 100, according to officials. That explosion in Narathiwat province was in a residential area, damaging about 100 houses within a radius of about 500 meters, according to the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation. The Narathiwat governor said that blast was ignited by construction work in the warehouse. (AP)