India slams Pak at UN over treatment of minorities, says Islamabad has no standing to lecture New Delhi

New York: India slammed Pakistan at the United Nations over its treatment of religious minorities, accusing Islamabad of failing to protect vulnerable communities while attempting to lecture New Delhi on religious freedom, burial rights and the treatment of minorities.
Delivering India’s statement during an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief on funeral rights in exceptional circumstances, First Secretary of India’s Permanent Mission to the UN, Bhavika Mangalanandan, questioned the report’s approach to religious discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic and its advocacy for the funeral rights of terrorists.
Mangalanandan said the report appeared to attribute discriminatory practices and shortcomings during the pandemic primarily to countries in the Global South while overlooking similar tragedies in developed nations.
“As per the report, all discrimination and wrong practices during COVID-19 supposedly took place only in the Global South. What benefit does a report derive by not mentioning similar tragic situations in the developed world?” she asked. She cautioned against politicising human suffering and said reports on religious freedom should address violations impartially rather than selectively highlighting incidents for political purposes.
Parliamentary panel seeks gender-inclusive urban criteria
A parliamentary standing committee has called for a review of India’s criteria for identifying urban areas, highlighting that one of the existing tests relies only on the share of male workers in non-agricultural employment and does not adequately reflect women’s participation in the economy.
The panel has also flagged that while the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India (ORGI) received the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’ (MoHUA) February 23, 2024 Office Memorandum and deemed the proposed regional relaxations to be non-objective, the ORGI never communicated this finding back to MoHUA or asked them to furnish objective criteria.
The Standing Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs also pointed to a possible gap between India’s conventional measure of urbanisation and estimates based on some international definitions.