POLITICAL ISSUES
EGYPT
1. Egypt president to visit India next month
New Delhi, Thursday, 7 February 2013
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, will visit India next month. Indian authorities had contemplated briefly about inviting Morsi for this year's Republic Day celebrations but later abandoned the idea because of his hectic schedule.
Source: The Times of India, New Delhi

IRAN
2. France wants India to convince Tehran on nuclear issue
New Delhi, Friday, 15 February 2013
France, a key player in the P5+1 talks with Iran on its contentious nuclear programme, asked India to “convince” its “close friend” Tehran to enter into serious negotiations and respect international obligations with regard to nuclear non-proliferation.
Source: The Hindu, Chennai

3. Iranian Speaker in India to explore communication links
New Delhi, Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament), arrived in India on a four-day visit. Besides exchanging views on the available formats for making payments for oil imported from Iran, the two sides discussed about the communication links that have been in the works for long. They also discussed Afghanistan, taking up from the first India-Iran-Afghanistan trilateral that was held on the eve of the Non Aligned Summit held in August last year.
Source: The Hindu, Chennai

4. India, Iran must promote trade, economic links: Prez
New Delhi, Thursday, 28 February 2013
India and Iran must work together to further promote trade and economic links, increased people to people contacts between them and within the region, President Pranab Mukherjee has said.
Source: The Economic Times, New Delhi

ISRAEL
5. 'Israeli diplomat attackers be brought to book'
New Delhi, Friday, 22 February 2013
Insisting that Iran was responsible for the attack on its diplomat last year, Israel has again taken up the issue with Indian authorities saying that it wants the accused to be brought to justice in all "seriousness".
Source: The Times of India, New Delhi

SAUDI ARABIA
6. Missing in Hyderabad, man grilled over Saudi links in J&K
Jammu, Thursday, 28 February 2013
The Jammu and Kashmir police have detained a 36-year-old commerce postgraduate from Hyderabad for his “suspicious movement” in Kashmir Valley and his alleged links to Saudi Arabia.
Source: The Hindu, Chennai

ECONOMIC ISSUES
IRAN
7. India's Iran oil imports drop 21.8 pct in Apr-Jan –trade
New Delhi, Friday, 22 February 2013
India's imports of oil from Iran rose 3.7 percent in January from December, but overall purchases fell 21.8 percent in the first 10 months, as New Delhi cut dependence on Tehran under the pressure of sanctions.
Source: Reuters, U.K

ISRAEL
8. Israel to partner Gujarat in mega agricultural meet
Ahmadabad, Sunday, 3 February 2013
Israel is all set to join hands with Gujarat in an agricultural meet that Chief Minister Narendra Modi plans on the lines of his much-touted Vibrant Gujarat industrial summit. The Chief Minister sent out an invite to Israel to be a country partner in his 2014 event Gujarat Agro Tech Global Fair, similar to the biennial Vibrant Gujarat meet, and Israel’s Ambassador to India Alon Ushpiz, accepted the offer during his visit Gujarat.
Source: The Hindu, Chennai

9. India identifies telecom partner nations to achieve NTP-2012 goals
Kolkata, Monday, 11 February 2013
India has included the Israel and US, Japan, South Korea, Belgium and Sweden in an internal list of six "strategically important" telecom partner countries for realizing NTP-2012 goals, leaving out China and Taiwan, which happen to be two of the world's biggest telecom gear manufacturing zones.
Source: The Times of India, New Delhi

OMAN
10. Indian agency likely to bag Oman border fencing contract
New Delhi, Thursday, 7 February 2013
The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) is likely to construct the border fence between Oman and Yemen. Only two Indian agencies—CPWD and Engineering Projects India Ltd (EPIL)—were short-listed in a secret bidding. Sources said that the Oman government wanted to give the contract to an agency outside Oman and Yemen to avoid controversy, and consequently India was approached.
Source: The Times of India, New Delhi

TURKEY
11. Turkey offers help in Rajasthan tourism sector
Jaipur, Monday, 4 February 2013
To bring out the untapped beauty of Rajasthan and preserve its heritage, the Ambassador of Turkey to India Burak Akcapar has proposed to extend his country's assistance in building up infrastructure in the tourism sector. Akcapar was in Jaipur and inaugurated the India Stone-Mart 2013 in which 65 exhibitors from Turkey participated.
Source: The Times of India, New Delhi

SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
IRAN
12. For the first time, women musicians from Iran perform before men
Kolkata, Monday, 4 February 2013
When the six members of the all-woman Ghazal Sufi Ensemble stepped on stage to perform in the city over the weekend, it was the first time that men were a part of their audience. Their performance at home in Iran has been only in front of an all-female audience, in accordance with the country’s rules on women musicians.
Source: The Hindu, Chennai

13. Fatwa on Kashmir girls band stuns Iran musical group
New Delhi, Wednesday, 6 February 2013
The Ghazal Band from Iran finds it strange that an all-girls band in Kashmir has been hounded into silence. The band rubs it in when they tell people in democratic India that not only are musical concerts by women in Iran a regular feature, often there are bigger crowds attending them.
Source: The Times of India, New Delhi

PALESTINE
14. India go down 2-4 against Palestine
Kochi, Thursday, 7 February 2013
Hosts India failed to capitalize on home advantage and surrendered meekly to Palestine in a friendly at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The Indian defenders cut a sorry figure in the second half and the Palestinians made the most of it to cruise 4-2, leaving a crowd of 15,000 disappointed.
Source: The Times of India, New Delhi

MISCELLANEOUS
BAHRAIN
15. Bahrain Air leaves passengers stranded
Kochi, Thursday, 14 February 2013
The overnight withdrawal of services and liquidation of Bahrain Air have panicked its staff, besides confusing passengers and travel agents. The decision to immediately suspend the operations was taken at its extraordinary general meeting (EGM) held in Bahrain.
Source: The Times of India, New Delhi

SAUDI ARABIA
16. Families get closure with last rites held after five months in Saudi Arabia
Kozhikode, Thursday, 28 February 2013
The bodies of three Keralites from Kozhikode and Malappuram districts, who were charred to death in a bus-tanker collision at Saudi Arabia in September, were finally laid to rest at a mosque at Jubail in Saudi Arabia. This was almost five months after their death.
Source: The Times of India, New Delhi

Compiled by Manjari Singh

Manjari Singh is pursuing her M Phil degree in School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.  Email

As part of its editorial policy, the MEI@ND standardizes spelling and date formats to make the text uniformly accessible and stylistically consistent. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views/positions of the MEI@ND. Editor, MEI@ND: P R Kumaraswamy