India wants IMF to re-think on its funding to Pakistan: Rajnath Singh in Bhuj

Addressing the Indian Air Force (IAF) officers at Bhuj airbase in Gujarat, Singh equated IMF's funding to Pakistan with the direct or indirect funding to terrorism.

Singh said, "I believe Pakistan will spend a large portion of the funds received from the International Monetary Fund on terror infrastructure in its country. I want to ask the world, will the funding from the IMF not be considered as an indirect funding on terror?

"I believe any kind of economic assistance to Pakistan is nothing short of terror-funding. India wants the IMF to re-think its $1 billion assistance to Pakistan..."

Clearing India's stand, the minister said, "India doesn't want our funding to the IMF to be directly or indirectly used for building terror infrastructure in Pakistan or any other country."

Despite opposition from New Delhi, the IMF last week approved a loan of $1 billion to Pakistan at a time when the country was in an unprovoked military conflict with India.

The loan has been granted to Pakistan under the ongoing Extended Fund Facility.

Adding to this, the IMF has also considered a new Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) lending programme of $1.3 billion for the country which is accused of cross-border terrorism.

In a message for the IAF on Operation Sindoor, which was launched to avenge the Pahalgam terror attack, Singh said, "Whatever you did during Operation Sindoor, has made all Indians proud - whether they are in India or abroad. Just 23 minutes were enough for the Indian Air Force to crush terrorism being nurtured in Pakistan."

Gujarat, which shares a border with Jammu and Kashmir, was one of the states which were targeted by Pakistan during the four-day military conflict between the two hostile neighbours.

Though Pakistani drones were hurled at Bhuj, the Indian Army Forces successfully thwarted all of them.

Singh's visited Bhuj a day after the Defence Minister interacted with the soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar.

'Are nukes safe with irresponsible and rogue nation like Pakistan?': Rajnath Singh to world

Singh on Thursday sought a global monitoring of Pakistan's nuclear weapons questioning how safe the nukes are with the "irresponsible" and "rogue" nation.

Singh visited Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday for the first time since the Indian Armed Forces conducted Operation Sindoor to bust the terrorists camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Pakistan to avenge the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 tourists.

In the course of his address to the armed forces, the Defence Minister said, "We snubbed Pakistan's nuclear blackmail and this makes India's firm stand against terrorism evident. The entire world has seen how Pakistan irresponsibly made atomic threats to India.

"From the land of Srinagar, I ask the entire world whether nukes are safe with an irresponsible and rogue nation like Pakistan? Pakistan's atomic weapons should come under international monitoring."