St Petersburg, September 5
Attacking developed countries for unconventional monetary expansion and sudden moves for its reversal triggering currency volatilty in countries like India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today asked the G-20 to show collective committment for restoring robust growth in emerging markets.

He also called for extensive consultations within the G-20 grouping to tackle the current currency crisis.

Addressing the G-20 Summit here attended by the world's top leaders including US President Barack Obama and host Vladimir Putin, Singh declared that India has been affected by currency volatility in the past few weeks and was taking steps to finance the current account deficit (CAD) in an environment that is seen to be friendly for stable foreign capital flows.

The Prime Minister announced that India would continue to work within the framework of an open economy to restore growth to earlier levels.

"Our efforts at restoring growth will be greatly helped if we have a stable external environment that is supportive of growth.

"The G-20 has a major role to play in this context. This summit must send a clear signal of our collective commitment to work together for the revival of growth, which is the only way of ensuring a sustainable growth in quality jobs.

"We must focus especially on the need to restore robust growth in the emerging market countries, which will also contribute to global recovery," he said.

Maintaining that India has undertaken a number of reforms and that it intends to do more in the future, Singh said the reforms that lie ahead were more difficult.

They relate to control of subsidies, reform of the tax system and reform of the financial sector.

"We are working on all these areas. The new Governor of the Reserve Bank of India has indicated important changes in banking regulations that will accelerate the reforms process," he said.

Referring to the current economic situation globally and in emerging markets, the Prime Minister said while the possibility of the negative effects of fiscal consolidation in the West was known, they were supposed to be offset by strong structural reforms in industrialised countries that would enhance productivity and private investment. — PTI

St Petersburg/Washington, September 5
Influential world leaders today braced for a showdown at the G20 summit over an imminent US-led action against Syria, as President Barack Obama's plan to launch military strikes cleared the first hurdle with a key Senate committee narrowly approving it.

Tensions were evident even before Obama's arrival in St Petersburg to lobby world leaders to support for a planned military strike against Syria as the Pentagon had to clarify Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel's assertion that Russia provided chemical weapons to Syria. — PTI

Cairo, September 5
Egypt’s Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim today escaped an assassination attempt when unknown assailants targeted his convoy with a car bomb, injuring at least 20 persons in the first such attack in Cairo in years.

After the minister emerged unscathed, the Cabinet vowed it "will strike with an iron hand (against) those who threaten national security until stability returns" across the country.

"The Cabinet insists that this criminal act will not prevent the government from confronting terrorism with force and determination," the Cabinet said.

Preliminary reports suggested a car bomb or a timed device may have targeted the minister as his convoy left for work in the capital's Nasr City district.

According to the Health Ministry, more than 20 persons have been injured in the explosion and two assailants were killed.

Six security officers and a child were among the injured, according to Egypt's Ambulance Authority. — PTI

Kabul, September 5
Indian national Sushmita Banerjee, whose memoir about her dramatic escape from the Taliban was turned into a Bollywood film, was shot dead in Afghanistan by militants, the police said today.

Banerjee, 49, was killed outside her home in Paktika province. She was married to Afghan businessman Jaanbaz Khan and recently moved back to Afghanistan to live with him.

Taliban militants arrived at her home in the provincial capital of Kharana, tied up her husband and other members of the family, took Banerjee out and shot her, the police were quoted as saying by BBC.

The militants dumped Banerjee's body near a religious school, the police said.

A senior police official said Banerjee, also known as Sayed Kamala, was working as a health worker in Paktika and had been filming the lives of local women as part of her work.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Banerjee's book "Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou" (A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife), about her escape from the Taliban in 1995, became a bestseller in India and was made into the Bollywood film "Escape From Taliban" in 2003.

The memoir focused on her life in Afghanistan with her husband and her escape from the militants. — PTI