United Nations (PTI): External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met the President of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly Dennis Francis here on Monday.

The minister began his nine-day visit to the US on Friday last week, primarily to attend the annual session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York and to host a special event on Global South.

Jaishankar met Francis at the UN headquarters and thanked him for his presence at the special India-UN for Global South: Delivering for Development' side event Jaishankar hosted in New York on Saturday last on the margins of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly.

He is scheduled to meet UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres later on Monday.

On Sunday, Jaishankar held a series of separate bilateral meetings with his global counterparts, including from Mexico, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Armenia, on the sidelines of the high-level UN General Assembly session here, exchanging views on reforming multilateralism and cooperation in G20.

Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.



Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.

Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.

He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.

Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.

He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.

Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.

He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.