Washington, August 15
US President Barack Obama has greeted people of India on the occasion of the country's 63rd Independence Day saying that a vibrant and promising India has a natural friend in the United States.

"India has attained unprecedented milestones as its democracy has matured. Boasting of a vast diversity of ethnicities and languages, India constitutes the largest democratic union the world has ever known," Obama said in his message.

The President said, "This vibrant and promising India has a natural friend in the United States. Our people are bound by common values and ideals, and Indian Americans contribute to all aspects of American life." In an unusually long one-page message personally signed by him on August 12, Obama noted that the fate of the two countries was tied by the interconnected nature of the world and a shared vision of peace, prosperity and respect for human rights.

Highly impressed by its economic growth, Obama said economically India was forging a new path. Fulfilling the promise of internationally competitive institutes of higher education, Indian professionals are leading their nation into a new phase of growth.

"From Bangalore to Boston; Indian scientists, engineers and thinkers are generating ideas and prosperity that improve and save lives across India and the globe," Obama said

In his message, Obama echoed words of the first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's historic speech "tryst with destiny," mentioned the 1857 War of Independence, the freedom movement under Mahatma Gandhi and the country's all-round development after Independence.

The President said, "Indian politics has given voice to women and countless minorities, and has demonstrated that Indians stand unified in their commitment to human dignity." Obama said he was also impressed by the country's entertainment industry as its members were marking their presence globally.

"Bollywood and Hollywood, Indians contribute to films that captivate audiences in every corner of the world," he said, adding that millions were being lifted out of poverty and were carrying the hope for a bright future as the Indian economy continued along a promising road.

"Marking Indian Independence Day, the United States and its people celebrate the realisation of the vision of Prime Minister Nehru described and the bright future it continues to portend for the people of India," Obama said.

The message sent to the Indian Government starts with reference to Pandit Nehru. "As Indians stood ready to claim their own fate on August 15, 1947, Prime Minister Nehru declared that a 'tryst with destiny,' forged years ago, would finally be fulfilled." — PTI

Gaza, August 15
The Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers said today that the leader of an Islamist pan-Arab group was among 22 persons killed in clashes with the police.

A spokesman for the Hamas-run interior ministry said Abdel-Latif Moussa was killed in the clashes between supporters of his Jund Ansar Allah group("Warriors of God"), and Hamas policemen in the southern town of Rafah.

Moussa staged a challenge to Hamas’s nationalist brand of Palestinian Islam by declaring before Friday prayers an “Islamic emirate” in Gaza. About 15 gunmen, including a Syrian national, and six Hamas policemen were killed in the violence, the spokesman said. He said about 40 “outlaws” affiliated with the group were arrested in Rafah, near the Egyptian border.

Moussa was know to followers by the Al-Qaida-style nom de guerre Abu al-Nour al-Maqdessi. His group espoused a pan-Arab militancy aligned with Al-Qaida, which uses the historical term "emirate" to mean clerical rule across the Islamic world.

Hamas’s comment that a Syrian gunmen had been killed in the clashes contradicted an earlier statement by Ismail Haniyeh, who heads Gaza’s Hamas government, that no non-Palestinian fighters were in the territory, as alleged by Israel which says veterans of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq live in Gaza.

Moussa’s group announced its presence in Gaza two months ago after three of its members were killed in a border raid on an Israeli base in which gunmen rode on horseback.

Outside the mosque on Friday, nearly 100 of the group’s masked fighters in Pakistani-style dress, and with long hair in a style believed to imitate the Prophet Mohammad, carried automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Hamas' leaders say it is a moderate movement while independent analysts say it gives priority to Palestinian nationalist goals over the international religious aims that are typical of Al-Qaida’s network.

Israel unilaterally ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip in 2005 and withdrew its forces.

Islamist radicals began to surface in Gaza after the takeover of the Israeli-blockaded enclave by Hamas in 2007, when it routed the forces of the secular Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. — Reuters

Islamabad, August 15
Indian singer Sukhbir Singh and his entourage were briefly detained by the Pakistan police for allegedly violating local laws, media reports said today.

Sukhbir was stopped by the police while travelling from Faisalabad to Lahore yesterday and held briefly.

However, there were conflicting reports on the reason for the action taken by the police. The police was quoted by the Daily Times newspaper as saying that Sukhbir was stopped at a picket because his guard was carrying a weapon without a licence or a permit.

The Dawn newspaper reported that the singer's entourage was stopped as he had violated a ban on using vehicles with tinted glasses. Sukhbir was allowed to go after senior government officials intervened on his behalf, the reports said.

Dhaka, August 15
A legal notice has been served to Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, demanding a clarification on her party celebrating her birthday that coincides with the National Mourning Day.

Two lawyers, K M Nazibullah and Balaram Poddar, served a notice to BNP chief Zia asking her to explain why her party was celebrating her birthday on August 15, the day when the country’s founder Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in a military putsch 34 years ago.

Though Zia is not celebrating the birthday at family level, her party and front organisation leaders were involved in the celebrations on her “65th birthday” cutting a huge 65 kg cake at the BNP’s central office last evening. She was set to join the main celebration later today at her office at posh Gulshan area, a party spokesman said.

But the notice said it was evident from available documents that Zia had taken the matriculation examinations in 1961, registering the date of her birth as September 5, 1947.

Earlier media reports claimed her previous passport and examination documents of her early school days contained another two dates and the four different dates of birth led to a controversy. The BNP started celebrating her birthday on August 15 while she was in power from 1991 to 1996.

“You are celebrating the birthday on August 15 only to undermine the significance of the day, which is observed as National Mourning Day,” the notice said. — PTI

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has called upon the armed forces to distance themselves from former military ruler Pervez Musharraf and not to pre-empt his trial.

“The military should cut its ties with Musharraf and file a lawsuit against him,” Nawaz Sharif, the chief of the Pakistan Muslim League -Nawaz, said at a flag hoisting ceremony at the Aiwan-i-Karkunan-i-Pakistan commemorating the nation’s 63rd Independence Day.

“Those who abrogated the constitution, damaged the judiciary and arrested judges must be punished,” he said.

“If a violator of a traffic signal can be penalised, why should a person who violated the basic law of the land go scot-free,” the former prime minister argued.

He urged the government to shed its reluctance and do its duty as he saw no reason for a unanimous resolution in parliament to bringing the former army chief to task.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had recently told the National Assembly that the government would prosecute Musharraf for treason only after the house passed a unanimous resolution.

Sharif said Gen Musharraf should be brought to justice for pushing the country into a series of crises by “getting Nawab Akbar Bugti murdered and ordering a crackdown on students of Jamia Hafsa”.

He said, as the prime minister, he had not been consulted by the army generals over the 1999 Kargil war. “I accepted responsibility for the misadventure to rescue the country and military, but in return I was ousted from power and put in solitary detention before being exiled,” he said, adding that the country could not afford another martial law.