'When will PM break his silence?' Congress on Trump's truce claims
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Saturday wondered when Prime Minister Narendra Modi would respond to US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly given more than an indication that it was he who brokered a truce between India and Pakistan during the latest armed conflict.
In a series of posts on X, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh tagged a video clip of Trump to say this is the 11th time in 21 days that Modi's "great friend" claimed he had a role to play in the ceasefire between the two neighbours.
"When will the PM speak up?" he asked.
Ramesh earlier said, "This is the 9th time in 20 days, across 3 countries and 3 cities. Donaldbhai keeps repeating the same sequence of events of how he got the 4-Day India-Pakistan war to stop - US intervention and the use of the trade instrument to stop nuclear escalation. The equivalence of India and Pakistan gets reiterated yet again."
Trump's Commerce Secretary made exactly the same claims in his submission to the New York-based Court of International Trade on May 23, the Congress leader said.
"But Donaldbhai's friend Mr. Narendra Modi continues to ignore his claims with absolute silence. Why doesn't the PM speak up?
"Is President Trump also doing what Mr. Modi does all the time and so well (i.e., lying)? Or is he speaking even 50% truth?" Ramesh said.
The Congress has been urging the government to clarify Trump's claims and object to his hyphenation of India and Pakistan.
The government has maintained that issues between India and Pakistan will be resolved bilaterally and without any third-party intervention.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
