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1 India and the US discussedthe ramifications of theongoing war in Ukraine duringa telephonic conversationbetween Secretary of StateAntony Blinken and his Indiancounterpart S Jaishankar late onWednesday. The two leadersreviewed regional priorities,the worsening humanitariansituation in Ukraine and pro-moting a free and open Indo-Pacific. Just completed a usefulconversation Reviewed theprogress on our bilateral coop-eration. Discussed develop-ments pertaining to the Indo-Pacific, Ukraine, and the glob-al economy, Jaishankar tweet-ed. The two leaders spoke toreview regional priorities,including the worseninghumanitarian situation inUkraine and our shared effortsto promote a free, open, secure,and prosperous Indo-Pacific, inwhich the sovereignty and ter-ritorial integrity of all states isrespected, State DepartmentSpokesperson Ned Price , visiting USDeputy National SecurityAdviser for InternationalEconomics, Daleep Singh, onThursday said the USA will notset any red line for India onits energy imports from Russiabut does not want to see a rapid acceleration.

2 Friends don t set red lines, Daleep Singh told reporters. Asagainst purchase of 16 millionsbarrels oil in 2021, India hasbought at least 13 million bar-rels of Russian crude oil sinceRussia s invasion of discussion betweenJaishankar and Blinken tookplace hours before RussianForeign Minister Sergei Lavrovarrived in New Delhi to holdtalks with the Indian leadershipon is the first visit by aRussian Minister to India sincethe military operations beganin Ukraine on February and Russia are likely todiscuss issues like rupee-roubletrade and procurement of oil atdiscounted prices.

3 The twosides are also likely to take stockof the ongoing weapons supply,including S-400 missile, wrapped up a tourof the West Asia, North Africa,and India on Wednesday, mak-ing an impassioned appeal toAlgeria to limit its ties withRussia. The countries of NorthAfrica and the MiddleEast(West Asia) have experi-enced themselves the conse-quences of Russia s militarycampaigns before, and the US havebeen in touch over the Russianinvasion of Ukraine. The USDeputy NSA Daleep Singharrived in India on Wednesdayon a two-day after his arrival,Singh held talks withCommerce Minister PiyushGoyal.

4 Singh is known to be akey architect in designing theUS sanctions against Russiaover its invasion of visiting US officialalso met Foreign SecretaryHarsh Shringla on Thursdayand discussed India-US eco-nomic cooperation and strate-gic partnership. Look forwardto working together on globalissues of mutual interest,including in G20, Ministry ofExternal Affairs SpokespersonArindam Bagchi said. Adefiant Pakistan PrimeMinister Imran Khan saidon Thursday that he will notresign despite losing the major-ity and insisted that he will playtill the last ball and face the voteof no-confidence in theNational Assembly on Sundaywhich will decide where thecountry will a live-address to thenation, 69-year-old Khan alsodiscussed a threat letter andtermed it as part of a foreignconspiracy to remove him as hewas not acceptable for follow-ing an independent foreignpolicy.

5 He named the US as thecountry behind the threat let-ter in what appeared to be a slipof s address came at acritical juncture of his politicalcareer when he lost majorityafter defection from hisPakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)party. Two of his allied partiesalso withdrew their supportand joined the ranks of theOpposition. The nation should decidewhere the country always played until thelast ball. I will never resign, hesaid. Those against me shouldhave shouldnot have sold themselves formoney. Calling the rebel lawmak-ers as traitors , Khan said thatthey will be branded as such forthe rest of their lives as hepleaded them to come backand foil the attempt to topplehis government.

6 I will fight against the con-spiracy and will never let it suc-ceed, Khan said as he vowedto face the no-trust vote in theassembly on speech came hoursafter Deputy Speaker QasimSuri abruptly adjourned theNational Assembly session tillSunday after Opposition law-makers demanded an imme-diate vote on the no-trustmotion. The resolution against theembattled premier was tabledby Leader of the Opposition inthe National Assembly ShehbazSharif on March needs 172 votes inthe lower house of 342 to foilthe Opposition s bid to topplehim. However, Oppositionclaims it has the support of 175lawmakers and the PM shouldimmediately Pakistani PrimeMinister has ever completed afull five-year term in , no Prime Minister inPakistan s history has ever beenousted through a no-confi-dence motion, and Khan is thethird premier to face the talked at lengthabout the threatening letter which he said was an officialcommunication by Pakistan sambassador and showed thatthe opposition leaders were incontact with that country as itwas written before the no-confidence move.

7 They (officials of othercountry) said that if no confi-dence succeeds then thingswill be if ImranKhan remains in power, rela-tions will deteriorate and you(Pakistan) will have to faceproblems, Khan said, quotingfrom the said the foreign offi-cial knew the ones who wouldcome into power after himwould have no issues takingorders from the externalforces. But what is most dis-turbing is that our people, whoare sitting here, are in contactwith foreign powers, he said,as he referred to the threestooges Pakistan MuslimLeague-Nawaz presidentShehbaz Sharif, PakistanPeoples Party co-chairmanAsif Ali Zardari and JamiatUlema-e-Islam MaulanaFazlur Rehman.

8 Wildlife traffickers are bla-tantly exploiting theshorter travel time and exten-sive reach that the aviation sec-tor offers. A new study hasrevealed that in ten years since2011, about 70,000 native andexotic animals in manycases their body parts andderivatives like RedSandalwoods were attempt-ed to be smuggled from 18 airport was mostfrequently misused to moveillegal wildlife products speed-ily with significantly fewertransit losses, said the report High Flying: Insight intowildlife trafficking throughIndia s airports which wasreleased recently here by theTRAFFIC least 140 wildlife seizureincidents were reported fromthe airports during the period.

9 It is the tip of the iceberg. Theseizures reflect the ongoingtrafficking and not an actualrepresentation as most of theillegal wildlife trade goesunchecked and unreported, said Dr Saket Badola and AsthaGautam, authors of the report noted that allkinds of nefarious tricks wereused to traffic the contrabands. Checked luggage and person-al baggage, concealment ofwildlife contraband within pas-senger clothing, footwear, andother wearable and through thewrong declaration of protectedspecies, all of which makesdetection cumbersome forenforcement agencies weremost common tactics, it was more concern-ing was that many of the seizedspecies are categorised asthreatened on the IUCN RedList and listed in theConvention on InternationalTrade in Endangered Species ofWild Fauna and Flora (CITES)Appendices.

10 For instance, the IndianStar Tortoise is listed as vul-nerable on the IUCN Red , traffickers clearlydisregard the threatened statusand international CITES rulesin Appendix I prohibiting itstrade as the Indian Star Tortoisewas the highest number ofnative species seized between2011 and 2020, said the report. Among the species groupsseized (including both Indianand exotic species), reptileswere the most encounteredgroup during the stated period(46 per cent), followed bymammals (18 per cent), timber(13 per cent), and species fromthe marine environment (10per cent).