Shiv Sena attacks Modi’s surprise visit to Pak

The meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan Premier Nawaz Sharif will definitely augur well for the foreign secretaries’ level talks scheduled in January in Islamabad, according to the media here. A nightly news anchor said he had received messages from intelligence officials expressing pessimism toward Modi’s visit while pro-army Twitter accounts that observers believe are run by the military also voiced negative opinions.

“(Atal Behari) Vajpayee had, to mend relations between both countries started the “Lahore bus” service and also went out of his way to meet General (Parvez) Musharraf in Agra.

Of course the visit doesn’t mean a sudden shift in India’s position.

The neighbouring country only intends to safeguard its interests and bring the region under its influence, the JuD chief tweeted in Urdu.

During his monthly radio address ‘ Mann Ki Baat’, Modi said in every sphere “we need to have new ideas and focus on innovation”.

Ordinary people in India and Pakistan are keen for cultural and economic relations, but narrow politics and myopic visions of leaderships have kept the nations apart. Find us on Facebook too!

Sartaj Aziz said except reaction from some quarters in India the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been welcomed by majority of the people in the two countries as well as the global community.

A meeting of their top diplomats is now set for January in Islamabad, indicating a potential thaw in ties between two countries that have fought three wars, along with countless close calls, since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.

Mr Khosa further said poverty was a common enemy of both countries and they should fight it together.

Modi’s visit, though short, was full of bonhomie between the two PMs.

“It is the right step in the right direction”, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed said from his hospital bed in Delhi where he is admitted.

Mehrun Nisa, daughter of Maryam Nawaz, married Raheel Munir, son of well known industrialist Chaudhry Munir, who was the first to shake hands with Modi when he got off the vehicle at Jati Umrah outside Lahore on Friday evening. Things appear to have changed around a month ago, when both Modi and Sharif met in Paris for the climate change summit and held a brief tete-a-tete.

By actually “dropping in” for tea with the Pakistani PM, Modi put into action what his predecessor, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had sought. It probably helped the two leaders to build a personal rapport that may give the comprehensive bilateral dialogue the necessary impetus.

Despite the continuous crackdown on the separatists in Kashmir, the leading separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani clarified that they don’t have any reservation about improving ties between India and Pakistan.