Punjab to track listed extremists with GPS devices amid rising militant violence in Pakistan

MUMBAI: India has summoned the top Pakistani diplomat in New Delhi, local media reported on Thursday, a day after it announced measures to downgrade ties with Islamabad as relations between the nuclear-armed rivals plummeted following a deadly militant attack in Kashmir.
A day after suspected militants killed 26 men at a tourist destination in Kashmir in the worst attack on civilians in the country in nearly two decades, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said there was cross-border involvement in the attack and New Delhi would suspend a six-decade old river-sharing treaty as well as close the only land crossing between the neighbors.
India will also pull out its defense attaches in Pakistan and also reduce staff size at its mission in Islamabad to 30 from 55, Misri said.
India has summoned the top diplomat in the Pakistan embassy in New Delhi, local media reported, to give notice that all defense advisers in the Pakistani mission were persona non grata and given a week to leave, one of the measures Misri announced on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for an all-party meeting with opposition parties on Thursday, to brief them on the government’s response to the attack.
In Islamabad, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was scheduled to hold a meeting of the National Security Committee to discuss Pakistan’s response, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said in a post on X.
The Indus water treaty, mediated by the World Bank, split the Indus River and its tributaries between the neighbors and regulated the sharing of water. It had so far withstood even wars between the neighbors.
India would hold the treaty in abeyance, Misri said.
Diplomatic ties between the two countries were weak even before the latest measures were announced as Pakistan had expelled India’s envoy and not posted its own ambassador in New Delhi after India revoked the semi-autonomous status of Kashmir in 2019.
Tuesday’s attack is seen as a setback to what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have projected as a major achievement in revoking the special status Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed and bringing peace and development to the long-troubled Muslim-majority region.
 

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Wednesday acknowledged Saudi Arabia’s critical role in helping secure the country’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan package and invited his counterpart from the Kingdom to visit Pakistan, during a series of high-level bilateral meetings held on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, DC.
The IMF approved a $7 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for Pakistan in September 2024 after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and China provided essential financing assurances to unlock the package.
The deal was widely seen as vital to stabilizing Pakistan’s economy amid declining foreign reserves and mounting fiscal stress.
The Pakistani finance chief acknowledged the Kingdom’s role in a meeting with his Saudi counterpart, Mohammed Aljadaan, during his trip to the United States.
“Senator Aurangzeb thanked H.E. Aljadaan for Saudi Arabia’s longstanding and strong support to Pakistan in its pursuit of economic development, including through support for the IMF program, and invited him to visit Pakistan,” the finance ministry said in a statement circulated after the meeting.
Aurangzeb reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to economic reforms and welcomed Saudi investments. The meeting followed Aurangzeb’s engagement a day earlier with Sultan bin Abdulrahman Al-Murshid, the top Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) official, where he sought faster disbursements under the $1.2 billion Saudi Oil Facility, an arrangement that allows Pakistan to defer payments on oil imports.
He also requested SFD’s support for the National Highway N-25 and reviewed the pace of implementation of ongoing projects.
In addition to his meeting with the Saudi counterpart, the Pakistani finance chief held separate sessions with senior UAE and Chinese officials.
During a meeting with UAE Minister of State for Financial Affairs Mohamed Bin Hadi Al Hussaini, Aurangzeb discussed his country’s improving economic indicators, including a recent credit rating upgrade by Fitch, and briefed him on the government’s privatization program.
He informed the UAE side that a Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) had been reached with the IMF under the EFF and a new arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility.
The finance minister also expressed interest in the UAE’s regulatory experience in cryptocurrency and invited his counterpart to visit Pakistan.
In another bilateral engagement, Aurangzeb met with Chinese Finance Minister Lan Fo’an to discuss Beijing’s continued economic support. 
He sought support from the People’s Bank of China to fast-track the issuance of Pakistan’s Panda Bond, a renminbi-denominated bond issued in China’s capital markets.