In the most unusual request, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, in his interview with Russia Today, said on Tuesday that he would like to have a televised debate with his Indian counterpart to address and resolve differences between the two countries. The Prime Minister was noted saying that “I would love to debate with Narendra Modi on TV,.”
The two countries have had long-strained relations. These differences were exacerbated when India went on to abrogate the special status given to Kashmir and revoked article 370, which provided a certain amount of autonomy to Kashmir. After the revocation of article 370, Kashmir no longer enjoyed a separate constitution, and all Indian laws were automatically applied to the Kashmiris.
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Pakistan-India relations have been tainted ever since, but with the recent launch of the National Security Policy, Pakistan marks a shift away from the traditional paradigm of security and looked to incorporate the rather neglected realm of security studies i.e human security, into its analysis. Following the development, Pakistan made a shift in its foreign policy and its geopolitical engagements, focusing more on geoeconomics rather than military security.
Dear @ImranKhanPTI, agree that "jaw-jaw is better than war-war", but no issues are ever resolved in Indian television debates, only exacerbated! https://t.co/G8hlQ5hGjR And some of our anchors would be happy to ignite tWorld War III if it would increase their TRPs….
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) February 22, 2022
However, Imran Khan’s recent statement made highlights and amassed a lot of reactions from both sides. Most particularly from Shashi Tharoor, Ex-Minister of State, who reacted to the comments made by Imran Khan and said that “Dear Imran Khan, agree that “jaw-jaw is better than war-war”, but no issues are ever resolved in Indian television debates, only exacerbated! And some of our anchors would be happy to ignite World War III if it would increase their TRPs….”
Understandably so, political matters are not solved in a televised broadcast but need to be debated in policy circles, but the Ex-Minister of State seems to be taking the flak for the usage of the word “Dear.”
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A Twitter handler by the name of “DeepuKochi” took to Shashi and said that Indians, please note the selection of words by Tharoor “Dear Imran Khan”. Tharoor has refused to comment on the thread but the comments made by “DeepuKochi” reflect the sort of feelings the general public of the two countries has for each other, forcing them to disregard even the most basic etiquettes.