Malala says she wants to become PM of Pakistan to "save" the country

Malala Yousafzai wants to be PM, says Nobel would be 'great honor'

New York: Teenage rights activist Malala Yousafzai told an audience in New York on Thursday that she would like to become prime minister of Pakistan to "save" the country.

In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour at a sold-out public event, she also said winning Friday's Nobel Peace Prize would be a "great honor."

Asked about her conflicting dreams of becoming a doctor or a politician, and whether she would like to become premier, Malala said she wanted to help her homeland.

"I want to become a prime minister of Pakistan," she told Amanpour to cheers from the audience.

"I think it's really good because through politics I can save my whole country," she added.

"I can spend much of the budget on education and I can also concentrate on foreign affairs."

Malala was shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban on October 9, 2012, for speaking out against them, demanding that girls have the right to go to school.

She was flown to Britain for specialist care and made a remarkable recovery, going on to become a global ambassador for children's rights.

The 16-year-old has written an autobiography, addressed the United Nations and set up the Malala Fund.

On Thursday, she won the prestigious Sakharov human rights prize from the European parliament and has been tipped as a firm favorite for the Nobel Peace Prize.

"If I got the Nobel Peace Prize I think it would be such a great honor and more than I deserve," she said.

"The Nobel Peace Prize would help me to begin this campaign for girls' education."

The real prize, she said, would be to see every child, black or white, Christian or Muslim, boy or girl, go to school and "for that I will struggle and work hard."

She paid tribute to previous Nobel laureates, including scientist Abdus Salam who in 1979 won the prize for physics -- Pakistan's only Nobel to date.

"Everyone who has got a Nobel prize, they deserve it but when I think of myself I think I have a lot to do," she told Amanpour.

The Pakistani Taliban have threatened to try to assassinate her again and security was tight for her public event in New York late Thursday.

"They can only shoot a body, they cannot shoot my dreams," Malala said.

Her appearance coincided with the International Day of the Girl Child.

According to UNICEF, around one in three females in the developing world is forced to marry as a young teenager or child, making them more likely to leave school early.

Providing mothers with even just a primary education could save 1.7 million children from stunted growth and malnutrition each year, the United Nations says. New York: Teenage rights activist Malala Yousafzai told an audience in New York on Thursday that she would like to become prime minister of Pakistan to "save" the country.

In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour at a sold-out public event, she also said winning Friday's Nobel Peace Prize would be a "great honor."

Asked about her conflicting dreams of becoming a doctor or a politician, and whether she would like to become premier, Malala said she wanted to help her homeland.

"I want to become a prime minister of Pakistan," she told Amanpour to cheers from the audience.

"I think it's really good because through politics I can save my whole country," she added.

"I can spend much of the budget on education and I can also concentrate on foreign affairs."

Malala was shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban on October 9, 2012, for speaking out against them, demanding that girls have the right to go to school.

She was flown to Britain for specialist care and made a remarkable recovery, going on to become a global ambassador for children's rights.

The 16-year-old has written an autobiography, addressed the United Nations and set up the Malala Fund.

On Thursday, she won the prestigious Sakharov human rights prize from the European parliament and has been tipped as a firm favorite for the Nobel Peace Prize.

"If I got the Nobel Peace Prize I think it would be such a great honor and more than I deserve," she said.

"The Nobel Peace Prize would help me to begin this campaign for girls' education."

The real prize, she said, would be to see every child, black or white, Christian or Muslim, boy or girl, go to school and "for that I will struggle and work hard."

She paid tribute to previous Nobel laureates, including scientist Abdus Salam who in 1979 won the prize for physics -- Pakistan's only Nobel to date.

"Everyone who has got a Nobel prize, they deserve it but when I think of myself I think I have a lot to do," she told Amanpour.

The Pakistani Taliban have threatened to try to assassinate her again and security was tight for her public event in New York late Thursday.

"They can only shoot a body, they cannot shoot my dreams," Malala said.

Her appearance coincided with the International Day of the Girl Child.

According to UNICEF, around one in three females in the developing world is forced to marry as a young teenager or child, making them more likely to leave school early.

Providing mothers with even just a primary education could save 1.7 million children from stunted growth and malnutrition each year, the United Nations says.

Don't think a woman should wear a veil in court: Malala Yousafzai

London: Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education says she does not think a woman should wear a veil in court or where it is necessary to show her identity.

The 16-year-old, nominated for this year's Nobel peace prize, said she is of the view that a woman should not cover her face in court or in other places "where it's necessary to show your identity".

"I don't cover my face because I want to show my identity," Malala, who considers herself a believing Muslim said.

Asked what she thinks of the burqa in the UK, Malala told the Guardian, "I believe it's a woman's right to decide what she wants to wear and if a woman can go to the beach and wear nothing, then why can't she also wear everything?"

Her memoir 'I Am Malala', that the teenager has written with journalist Christina Lamb, has a brief but vivid description of the Taliban assassination attempt on her that shot her to fame.

The book recounts Malala's life before and after October 9, 2012, when a gunman boarded a school bus full of girls in Pakistan's Swat Valley and asked "Who is Malala?"

Then he shot her in the head.

"The air smelt of diesel, bread and kebab mixed with the stink from the stream where people still dumped their rubbish," Malala recalls.

One of her friends told her later that the gunman's hand shook as he fired.

One of the moving details in the memoir is that her mother was due to start learning to read and write on the day Malala was shot.

Malala mentions more than once in her book that no one believed the Taliban would target a schoolgirl, even if that schoolgirl had been speaking and writing against the Taliban's ban on female education since the age of 12.

In her book, Malala writes of how her speech at the United Nations received plaudits around the world, but in Pakistan people accused her of seeking fame and the luxury of a life abroad.

Have evidence of Pakistan army's support to Keran infiltrators: Army chief

New Delhi / Srinagar: Blaming Pakistan for provoking one of India's longest anti-infiltration operations in recent times, Army Chief General Bikram Singh today said no infiltration attempt along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir is possible without the support and knowledge of the Pakistani army.

"We have had evidence of Pakistan army's involvement for a long time," General Singh said, adding, "My assessment is that the infiltration will continue. They want to push as many terrorists as possible before winter."

The two-week long army operation at Keran, 100 kms from Srinagar, to prevent a group of 40 terrorists from entering India ended today with the death of seven terrorists and injuring six army jawans.

Bodies of dead terrorists may also have been dragged back or buried in crevices or the thick jungle, army sources said.

The Indian army conducted seven massive search operations of a three-km area in their mission to hunt down the terrorists in the Keran sector along the Line of Control.

"On the LoC, we are eyeball to eyeball with Pakistan Army. How can such a large group infiltrate without the complicity of the Pak Army?" General Officer Commanding (Northern Command) Lt Gen Sanjiv Chachra said in Srinagar while announcing the end of the operation.

Yesterday, NDTV spoke exclusively to one of the soldiers who was engaged in the massive encounter. He said he saw 35 to 40 infiltrators as he took a bullet in the abdomen.

Pakistani Taliban vow to attack Malala Yousafzai again

Malala Yousafzai gives a speech after receiving the RAW in WAR Anna Politkovskaya Award at the Southbank Centre in central London on October 4 

Miranshah, Pakistan: The Pakistani Taliban on Monday said schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousafzai had "no courage" and vowed to attack her again if they got the chance.

Gunmen sent by the Taliban tried to kill Malala on her school bus on October 9 last year.

She amazingly survived being shot in the head and has become a global ambassador for the right of all children - girls as well as boys - to go to school.

Having spread a message of "education for all" across the globe, the 16-year-old is now among the favourites for the Nobel Peace Prize, which will be awarded on Friday.

But Shahidullah Shahid, spokesman for the main Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) umbrella group, slammed Malala and said they would try again to kill her.

"She is not a brave girl and has no courage. We will target her again and attack whenever we have a chance," Shahid told AFP.

In an interview with the BBC, Malala dismissed the threats against her life and repeated her desire to return to Pakistan from Britain, where she was flown for treatment after the attack and where she now goes to school.

She first rose to prominence during the Taliban's 2007-09 rule in Pakistan's northwestern Swat valley with a blog for the BBC Urdu service chronicling the rigours of daily life under the Islamists.

"She even used a fake name of Gul Makai to write a diary. We attacked Malala because she was used to speaking against Taliban and Islam and not because she was going to school," Shahid said.

While she has been feted by celebrities and world leaders across the West, in deeply conservative Swat, Malala's achievements are eyed with suspicion by some.

India says it has killed seven in clashes along Pakistan border

Indian troops display arms and ammunition captured from suspected militants after a gun battle in the Keran sector at the Line of control (LOC) in Srinagar

New Delhi: India says it has killed seven fighters and is still fighting others in a Pakistan-backed force of several dozen who crossed a mountainous and thickly forested border area with the aim of killing Indian troops, ratcheting up tensions just as the two countries' leaders agreed to work together to de-escalate the situation.

Indian troops and the "infiltrators" were facing off at a distance of around 600 yards, engaged in "controlled firing," Naresh Vijay Vig, a spokesman for the Indian army, said Monday. He said five Indian soldiers had been injured.

Indian officials say the exchange of fire began two weeks ago, when the fighters were spotted in an abandoned village, Shalbhato, and prevented from advancing farther into Indian territory. Indian troops killed the seven fighters and seized a large cache of arms, including six AK-47s, 10 pistols, four grenade launchers and four rocket launchers, an army spokesman said Friday.

"They have been stopped," an army general, Bikram Singh, told reporters in New Delhi. "Some of them have been neutralized. An operation is on to flush them out." India's Defense Ministry described the episode as a "Border Action Team" maneuver, a reference to a unit of Pakistan's army.

A Pakistani military spokesman denied any involvement.

"No such thing happened at all," the official said, in comments to the Press Trust of India. "This is a blatant lie. We totally deny this baseless allegation."

The flare-up began just as the prime ministers of Pakistan and India met in an effort to de-escalate the tensions, agreeing that senior military commanders should meet to find ways to uphold the 2003 cease-fire along the so-called line of control. It is considered a crucial step toward peace between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

Though both countries are still formally observing the cease-fire, violence has risen on the border in recent months. In September, three heavily armed militants crossed the Indian border and attacked a police station and an army camp, killing 12 people before Indian troops killed them. That came after the killing of five Indian soldiers at the border and the gruesome discovery in January of the bodies of two Indian soldiers, one of whom was found beheaded. Pakistan also claims that Indian soldiers killed Pakistani troops.

The village of Shalbhato has been empty since the early 1990s, when it was the scene of fierce fighting and most of its residents moved to Pakistan, according to Indian news reports. India then built a border fence along the line of control, which skirts Shalbhato, leaving the abandoned village on the Pakistani side of the fence, though it is in Indian territory.

Non-state actors don't come from Heaven, I told Pakistan: President Pranab Mukherjee

Brussels: India wants peace with Pakistan but there can be no compromise with its own territorial integrity, President Pranab Mukherjee has said while asserting that state-sponsored terrorism from across the border cannot be accepted.

He also dismissed Pakistan's contention that "non-state actors" were behind the terror acts in India, saying they are "not coming from heaven."

Mr Mukherjee, who is on a four-day state visit to Belgium, reiterated that the terror infrastructure in Pakistan needs to be brought down.

"Terrorist activities must be curbed. And state-sponsored terrorism can never be accepted. Therefore, repeatedly we are saying, please dismantle the terrorist outfits which are located in your area," he said in an interview.

The President said non-state actors who perpetrate terrorism was a word used by Pakistan.

"Non-state actors, that is the phrase they used, then I responded by saying that non-state actors are not coming from heaven. Non-state actors are coming from territory under your control. "And not now, in 2004 Pakistan agreed that their territories will not be allowed to be used by forces inimical to India," he said.

He said India does not have any territorial ambitions and wants peace with its neighbours while maintaining its own territorial integrity."

Did Gandhi and Jinnah almost establish a legal partnership?

New Delhi: Could Mahatama Gandhi and Mohammed Ali Jinnah have had established a legal partnership in South Africa, 50 years before Indian and Pakistan were formed? Yes, it could have been possible, according to noted historian and author Ramachandra Guha who made the deduction on the basis of available literature and archival records.

"A logbook at Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad maintains the record of letters sent to Gandhi between the years 1895-97. In this logbook, there are two letters from a certain M A Jinnah, and they are dated 21 January and 23 March, 1897," Mr Guha said.

The historian launched "Gandhi Before India," the first book of his two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi, published by Penguin India here late last evening. While the contents of the letter are not available, Mr Guha says he pieced together "this curious information," based on existing documents in the public domain.

Jinnah's return from London in 1897, his visit to hometown Karachi and his struggles in Bombay to establish himself as a lawyer are facts well established.

Also documented are Gandhi's correspondences with the lawyer Kalihar Khan, based in India from where Bapu wanted to get an Indian lawyer to assist him, as well as his letters with a Durban merchant Parsee Rustomjee in South Africa.

"Jinnah was a briefless lawyer in Bombay in 1897. Gandhi had been a briefless lawyer five years ago in the same city. Gandhi was looking for a partner and Jinnah was out of work. Jinnah was Gujarati, so was Gandhi. Gujaratis in South Africa were both Hindus and Muslims," Mr Guha said.

"Could it be that 50 years before India and Pakistan were formed, Gandhi and Jinnah almost established a legal partnership in South Africa?" Mr Guha wondered.

The just launched book, claims Mr Guha, is "the first thorough account of crucial formative years in the life of the Mahatma."

Covering the period from October 1869, the year of the Mahatma's birth till his return to India from South Africa in July 1914, the tome details his upbringing in 19th century Gujarat. Vivid details of Gandhi's student years in London right up till the two decades he spent in South Africa have been written at length.

Mr Guha said this crucial phase of Gandhi's life, which was instrumental in shaping the Mahatma from a run-of-the mill lawyer has very often got short shrift in existing literature.

"One of Gandhi's most original, compelling and still relevant ideas is the idea of religious pluralism. The emphasis on religious pluralism is certainly important to India today but not just to India," Mr Guha said.

Heavy firing from Pakistan along Line of Control: army

Srinagar: The army today said Indian troops were being "heavily engaged" by continuous firing from Pakistan, but denied that Pakistani troops had occupied a ghost village in Jammu and Kashmir along the Line of Control.

The army said the heavy firing from across the border began after an infiltration bid was foiled last week in the Keran-Mendhar sector of Kashmir at an area 200 metre from the Line of Control. According to an army commander, 12 Pakistani soldiers were killed.

"The area is difficult. Our people are being engaged from across the LOC. We are proceeding with caution," said army sources. Search operations were still on, said the army's 15 Corps, which is posted at the area.

Four Indian soldiers have also been reportedly injured. They were airlifted to an army hospital in Srinagar.

Reports had said that fighting was on in a village where Pak soldiers were using abandoned homes to fire on Indian troops. Reports had also suggested that three army posts had been vacant due to a 'change of unit'.

Both the army and the home ministry have denied the reports.

This comes just after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met in New York in Sunday and agreed that reducing violence and tension along the LoC will be a priority for both countries.

India no country for old men: UN report

Geneva: India stands a dismal 73rd in the list of 91 countries, according to a UN-backed study on the wellbeing of the elderly in a rapidly ageing world.

Global AgeWatch Index 2013 released the rankings, based on data from the World Health Organisation and other agencies on older people's incomes, health, education, employment and their environments.

Sweden is the best place to grow old and Afghanistan the worst, according to the study that warns many countries are ill-prepared to deal with the old age time bomb.

In a rapidly greying world, the Global AgeWatch Index - the first of its kind - found that Sweden, known for its generous welfare state, followed by Norway and Germany were best equipped to deal with the challenges of an ageing population.

How countries care for their senior citizens will become increasingly important as the number of people over the age of 60 is set to soar from some 809 million today to more than two billion by 2050 - when they will account for more than one in five people on the planet, the report said.

"The 21st century is seeing an unprecedented global demographic transition, with population ageing at its heart," the authors of the study said.

The survey ranked many African and South Asian countries as the worst places to be retired, with Tanzania, Pakistan and Afghanistan rounding out the bottom three.

The index was compiled by the HelpAge International advocacy group and the UN Population Fund in a bid to provide much-needed data on ageing populations worldwide.

Praise for Bolivia, Sri Lanka

It ranked the social and economic wellbeing of the elderly in 91 countries, by comparing data from the World Health Organisation and other global agencies on older people's incomes, health, education, employment and their environments.

While the world's richest countries - including Western European nations, the US and Japan - predictably ranked highly, the report somewhat surprisingly found that a number of lower-income countries had put in place policies that significantly improved the quality of life for their elderly.

Bolivia, which offers free healthcare to its older citizens despite being one of the poorest surveyed countries, and Sri Lanka, with its long-term investments in health and education, were among those singled out for praise.

HelpAge's chief executive Silvia Stefanoni said a lack of urgency in the debate about older people's wellbeing "is one of the biggest obstacles to meeting the needs of the world's ageing population".

"By giving us a better understanding of the quality of life of women and men as they age, this new index can help us focus our attention on where things are going well and where we have to make improvements," she said in a statement.

The study also noted that some of the top-ranking countries had introduced successful policies to care for the elderly at a time when they were still emerging economies.

Sweden for instance put in place its universal pension system a century ago, while Norway introduced its system in 1937, it said.

"Limited resources need not be a barrier to countries providing for their older citizens," the report said.

The emerging economies of Brazil and China ranked 31st and 35th in the survey, while South Africa, India and Russia came in much lower at 65, 73 and 78 respectively.

On a positive note, the survey found that some countries and regions that were ageing the fastest were already preparing for the democratic shift.

Latin American countries, which face a doubling of their elderly populations by 2050, are well represented among the top 30, the index showed, with Chile and Uruguay in 19th and 23rd place.

But some eastern European countries still have much work to do, it showed, with Moldova ranking 76th and Montenegro at 83rd place.