All-party meeting be called but parties must attend only if PM participates: Kapil Sibal
New Delhi, May 11 (PTI): With India and Pakistan agreeing to halt military actions, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Sunday demanded that an-all party meeting be called while urging political parties not to attend it until the government assures that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be present there.
Sibal also demanded a special session of Parliament and asserted that he was confident that if Manmohan Singh had been the prime minister today, he would be present in the all-party meeting, and a special session would have been called too.
Addressing a press conference here, Sibal referred to US President Donald Trump's latest social media post on stoppage of military hostilities in which the American president said that he is proud that the US was able to help arrive at this "historic and heroic decision".
"Many questions will be raised on this tweet as well. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that for the last 48 hours talks went on. So what happened, how and why, no information has been given to us regarding this.They also stated that there will be a meeting at a neutral site. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi also spoke with NSA Ajit Dowal," Sibal said.
"We will not issue any criticism today because this is not the time for criticism. We only want a special Parliament session and an all-party meeting to be called. I want to appeal to all political parties not to attend the meeting until the government assures them that the prime minister will be present at the meeting as well," Sibal said.
"I am confident that if Dr Manmohan Singh had been the prime minister today, he would be present in the all-party meeting, and a special session would have been called too," the Independent Rajya Sabha MP said.
He said MPs can't wait till the Monsoon session for getting details on what has transpired in the last few days.
Sibal said he did not like it when Prime Minister Modi did not participate in the all-party meeting that was held after the Pahalgam terror attack.
"Maybe he (Modi) thought Bihar elections were more important. He also went to Bollywood, Kerala, he thinks that whenever such an incident takes place, no matter what happens in Manipur, it is not necessary to go there," Sibal said.
The former Congress leader hailed the armed forces for giving a befitting reply to Pakistan.
The country in one voice asserted that enough is enough and a reply should be given to Pakistan, he said.
His remarks came after India and Pakistan on Saturday reached an understanding to stop all firings and military actions on land, air and sea, with immediate effect after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.
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FIDE Women's World Cup final: Humpy draws with Divya in first game
Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).
