India will remain long-term partner of Afghanistan: Minister

Agencies

November 15, 2018

Kabul, Nov 15: Asserting that India has been and will remain a long-term partner of Afghanistan, the Afghan finance minister has said that Kabul has no secret deal with New Delhi, while hoping that it can have a similar relationship with Pakistan. "India has been a traditional and long-term partner of Afghanistan spanning over a couple of millennia more. Culturally, commercially in so many things, we have so much common heritage, so many common elements. They have been a long-term partner. They will remain a long-term partner," Afghan Finance Minister Mohammad Humayon Qayoumi told a Washington audience this week.

"Afghanistan has no secret deals with India. All of the relationship that we have is based on trust, based on two countries, based on two sovereign governments, two people that have a long history," he said, responding to a question at the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University.

India and Afghanistan will continue to have strong cultural, educational ties as well as commercial ties, he said.

"Our hope is that we have a similar relationship with Pakistan. But I think it's Pakistan that has to decide what they would like to do as part of it in where they would like to be," the Afghan finance minister said early this week.

Noting that Pakistan has the sixth largest population in the world, yet, he said, it has an economy smaller than Israel.

So, the conflict is not in the interest of Pakistan, he said.

For the betterment of the people of Pakistan, he said it would be helpful for Pakistan to have closer linkages and ties with India and Central Asia as a whole.

He said the South Asia region is ripe for being a very functioning economic ecosystem but right now it is the least integrated region of the world economically. "It's not helping anyone," Qayoumi said.

"We hope Pakistan can really see that as a way on how we can work together as a region, as equals, as sovereign nations, but also as a region that can have a future together successfully where economically and politically all areas can work together," he said.

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Elusive bamboo shrimp resurfaces in Mangaluru estuary after 70 years

News Network

December 7,2025

Mangaluru, Dec 7: A rare bamboo shrimp has been rediscovered on mainland India more than 70 years after it was last reported, confirming for the first time the presence of Atyopsis spinipes in the country. The find was made by researchers from the Centre for Climate Change Studies at Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, during surveys in Karnataka and Odisha.

The team — shrimp expert Dr S Prakash, PhD scholar K Kunjulakshmi, and Mangaluru-based researcher Maclean Antony Santos — combined field surveys, ecological assessments and DNA analysis to identify the elusive species. Their findings, published in Zootaxa, resolve decades of taxonomic confusion stemming from a 1951 report that misidentified the species as Atyopsis moluccensis without strong evidence.

The shrimp has now been confirmed at two locations: the Mulki–Pavanje estuary near Mangaluru and the Kuakhai River in Bhubaneswar. Historical specimens from the Andaman Islands, previously labelled as A. moluccensis, were also found to be misidentified and actually belong to A. spinipes.

The rediscovery began after an aquarium hobbyist in Odisha spotted a shrimp in 2022, prompting systematic surveys across Udupi, Karwar and Mangaluru. Four female specimens were collected in Mulki and one in Odisha, all genetically matching.

Researchers warn the species may exist in very small, vulnerable populations as freshwater habitats face increasing pressure from pollution, sand mining and infrastructure development. All verified specimens have been deposited with the Zoological Survey of India for future reference.

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