NEWS

New Delhi: The Sports Ministry will undertake an exercise to evaluate the implications of hosting the 35th Olympic Games in 2032 as well as its impact on various sectors associated with the event.

New Delhi: An essential requirement of the India-UK extradition treaty is likely to cause delay in the return of Vijay Mallya to face justice in India. 

New Delhi:China's ruling Communist Party has directed its members to shun religion for maintaining party unity. It also warned its 90 million members that religious belief is aredline for the cadres and those who resist would be punished. 

Next to Buddhism, Christianity is regarded as the fastest growing religion in Communist China. China also has over 20 million Muslims.

Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), Wang Zuoan, wrote in a Party magazine that party members should not seek value and faith in religion and those who have religious beliefs should be persuaded to give them up. 

He said officials who have religious faith should be persuaded to give it up, and those who resist would be punished by the party organisation. Wang said some foreign forces have used religion to infiltrate China, which have threatened national security and social stability. 

New Delhi: The US has listed Pakistan among the nations and regions providing "safe havens" to terrorists, saying terror groups like the LeT and JeM were still active inside the country in 2016.

These terror groups continue to operate, train, organise and fundraise inside the country, according to the US State Department`s ‘Country Repot on Terrorism 2016’.

In its annual report as mandated by the Congress, the State Department said that Pakistani military and security forces undertook operations against groups that conducted attacks within Pakistan such as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.

"Pakistan did not take substantial action against the Afghan Taliban or Haqqani, or substantially limit their ability to threaten US interests in Afghanistan, although Pakistan supported efforts to bring both groups into an Afghan-led peace process," the State Department said.

India, it said continued to experience attacks, "including by Maoist insurgents and Pakistan-based terrorists".

Indian authorities continued to blame Pakistan for cross-border attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, it said.

"In January, India experienced a terrorist attack against an Indian military facility in Pathankot, Punjab, which was blamed by authorities on JeM. 

Over the course of 2016, the Government of India sought to deepen counterterrorism cooperation and information sharing with the United States," the State Department said.

The Indian government continued to closely monitor the domestic threat from transnational terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), which made threats against India in their terrorist propaganda. A number of individuals were arrested for ISIS-affiliated recruitment and attack plotting within India, the report said.

In a separate chapter, the State Department listed Pakistan as one of the safe havens of terrorism.

The State Department said that numerous terrorist groups, including the Haqqani Network (HQN), the LeT and JeM continued to operate from Pakistani soil in 2016.

"Although LeT is banned in Pakista ,LeT's wings Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FiF) were able to openly engage in fundraising, including in the capital," it said.

"LeT's chief Hafiz Saeed (a UN-designated terrorist) continued to address large rallies, although in February 2017, Pakistan proscribed him under relevant provisions of Schedule Four of the Anti-Terrorism Act, thus severely restricting his freedom of movement," it noted.

The 2015 ban on media coverage of Saeed, JuD, and FiF continued and was generally followed by broadcast and print media, it said.