Can't give timeline for Masood Azhar's listing as global terrorist at EU: German envoy
New Delhi: Germany is "very much" pushing for the listing of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist at the European Union (EU), but a timeline for it cannot be given, Jasper Wieck, the Deputy Head of the German Mission in India, said Tuesday.
He said Germany is hopeful that at a certain stage, Azhar will be designated as a global terrorist at the United Nations too.
"We are working on it... We still have hope that the listing will take place at the United Nations at a certain stage and that would be a better solution.
"In the short-term, we are working on this within the European Union. I cannot give you an exact timeline on how it will be done, but Germany is among those who are very much pushing for this," Wieck said at a press conference.
"What is important is to know that even if it did not work out at the UN when we tried a couple of weeks ago, we should not give up hope that we will succeed in this endeavour in the next round at the UN," he said.
In March, Germany initiated a move at the EU to designate Azhar as a global terrorist, days after China blocked a bid at the UN to designate him so.
Germany is in touch with several EU member-nations in this regard.
All the 28 member-countries of the EU will have to support the move as the bloc decides on such issues under the principle of consensus, sources had earlier said.
On March 15, France imposed financial sanctions on Azhar and stated that it would work with its European partners to put the JeM chief's name on the EU list of persons and entities involved in terror acts.
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Voting begins for high-stakes civic polls in Maharashtra; all eyes on big battle for Mumbai
Mumbai (PTI): Voting in 29 municipal corporations across Maharashtra began on Thursday morning with spotlight on Mumbai, where the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance is locked in an intense battle with the reunited Thackeray cousins for control of India's largest and richest civic body.
Polling for 2,869 seats spread across 893 wards in these municipal corporations began amid tight security at 7.30 am and will conclude at 5.30 pm. A total of 3.48 crore voters are eligible to decide the fate of 15,931 candidates.
In the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), whose annual budget is over Rs 74, 400 crore, 1,700 candidates are vying for 227 seats in elections being held after nine years, after a four-year delay. More than 25,000 police personnel have been deployed across Mumbai to oversee elections.
Except for Mumbai, the other urban bodies have multi-member wards. Vote count will take place on January 16.
These are the first BMC polls since the 2022 split in the Shiv Sena when Eknath Shinde, now Deputy Chief Minister, broke away with a majority of the party’s MLAs and allied with the BJP to become the chief minister.
The undivided Shiv Sena held sway over India's richest civic body for 25 years (1997-2022).
In a significant political turn of events ahead of the elections, estranged cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray, who head Shiv Sena (UBT) and MNS, respectively, reunited last month after two decades in their bid to consolidate Marathi votes even as rival NCP factions forged a local alliance in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
The Congress, once a formidable political force in Maharashtra, has asserted its presence in Mumbai by stepping out of the shadow of its Maha Vikas Aghadi allies - Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP).
The grand old party has joined hands with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and the Rashtriya Samaj Paksh in the state capital.
Elections to the 29 municipal corporations are being held after a gap of several years, with terms of most of them having ended between 2020 and 2023. Of these, nine fall in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), the most urbanised belt in India.
Voting is underway in the following municipal corporations: Mumbai, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Solapur, Amravati, Akola, Nashik, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Ulhasnagar, Thane, Chandrapur, Parbhani, Mira-Bhayandar, Nanded-Waghala, Panvel, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Latur, Malegaon, Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad, Jalgaon, Ahilyanagar, Dhule, Jalna and Ichalkaranji.
