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Lifetime achievement award for Swraj Paul
- Industrialist and Labour peer Swraj Paul was on Tuesday given the lifetime achievement award for his outstanding contributions in various fields.
- He said economic liberalisation was a “long process and we cannot afford to slow the pace.” Once the economy opened up, it would unleash “the innovative and entrepreneurial genius of the Indian people ... proving fully equal to any competition anywhere in the world.”
- In December 2008 he was appointed deputy speaker of the Lords; in October 2009 he was appointed to the Privy Council; shortly thereafter he was required to step down from the former position due to allegations of financial impropriety, in the context of the United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal, and was eventually censured by the Committee for Privileges and Conduct.
- In 1966 he relocated to the United Kingdom to get medical treatment for his young daughter, who had leukemia. He spent a year getting over her death, after which he founded Natural Gas Tubes From acquiring one steel unit, he went on to acquire more and founded the Caparo Group in 1968, which developed into one of the leading producers of welded steel tube and spiral welded pipe in the United Kingdom
Taliban to have an address
- Final arrangements have been put in place for the opening of a Taliban mission in the state of Qatar — the Islamist insurgent group's first formal diplomatic office since it was evicted from power after 9/11 and internationally proscribed for its links to al-Qaeda.
- the mission will be designated as a political office for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban calls itself, and have the privileges but not the formal protection of a diplomatic mission.
- News that the Taliban was planning an overseas mission first emerged in September. Both Istanbul and Qatar were considered possible headquarters for the mission. The Gulf kingdom was finally picked, the sources said, because of its proximity to the region — and also because the U.S. Air Force base there would facilitate logistics.
- Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai later told journalists his government could not “keep talking to suicide bombers, therefore we have stopped talking about talking to the Taliban until we have an address for the Taliban.”
- The decision to allow the Taliban to open an office would provide negotiators with such an address — but efforts are divided on the prospects of successful negotiations.
- Islamabad, meanwhile, is reported to have moved forward with fresh efforts to secure a peace deal on its side of the Afghan border.
- Pakistan hopes that simultaneous peace deals with Islamist jihadists on both sides of the border, involving ceding some political power in return for an end to violence, will help end an insurgency its army has so far failed to contain.
