This was at least the 11th time India had abstained on a substantive resolution at the Security Council and the General Assembly involving Ukraine.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said, “We are glad that a Pakistani citizen detained abroad is finally reunited with his family”.

An Amnesty International investigation found that “up to 99 Hindu women, men, and children” had been massacred by ARSA fighters, who also abducted Hindu villagers in August 2017 in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

Thanedar said on his campaign site that he grew up in poverty in a family of ten in India and worked in odd jobs to support his family after his father retired.

Jones has experience in South Asia starting her foreign service career in Kabul, and later has been the deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Following the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, she was charged with helping Afghans fleeing the Taliban and resettling them here.  

A small group of countries - which includes Pakistan - have so far blocked the reform process by preventing the adoption of a negotiating text which has meant that the IGN functions without a proper agenda or a record of the negotiations.

US and India have asked the Security Council committee dealing with sanctions on the Islamic State and al-Qaeda along with affiliated groups like the L-e-T to impose sanctions on Mahmood, who runs its international operations.

At the Ekta Nagar in Gujarat's Kevadia, Gutteres is to join Modi to launch the Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment), the MEA said. Gujarat is Modi’s home state.

The Assembly session also witnessed a sideshow by Pakistan, which stuck to its gimmick of bringing up Kashmir regardless of the topic on the agenda. Kamboj dismissed it as an attempt to misuse the UN forum with “frivolous and pointless remarks”.

The IMF’s World Economic Outlook report released in Washington on Tuesday cut India’s growth rate by 0.6 per cent from the projection of 7.4 per cent made in July, but it kept the slower growth projection for next year at 6.1 per cent, which would still be the highest for major economies.