Pakistan's Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari plans to visit India next month to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, his ministry said on Thursday.
His trip will be the first by a senior Pakistani government official to India in nearly a decade.
Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours have been fraught for years. They have fought three wars, two of them over the Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule in part.
During his trip to India, Mr Bhutto Zardari will attend a meeting of foreign ministers from the organisation in Goa on May 4 to 5, the ministry said.
The organisation is an eight-member political and security bloc that comprises India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The announcement has ended weeks of speculation over whether Mr Bhutto Zardari would attend the conference in person.
“Our participation in the meeting reflects Pakistan’s commitment to the SCO charter and processes and the importance that Pakistan accords to the region in its foreign policy priorities,” Pakistan Foreign Ministry representative Mumtaz Zahrah Baloch said.
It will be the first visit to India by a senior Pakistani official since former prime minister Nawaz Sharif attended the inauguration of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.
Mr Bhutto Zardari is the son of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and a former president, Asif Ali Zardari.
India has accused Pakistan for years of helping extremists who have battled Indian troops in its part of Kashmir since the late 1980s.
Pakistan denies the accusation and says it only provides diplomatic and moral support for Kashmiris seeking self-determination.
Violence in the region has eased recently but the neighbours have not held talks on any major issues in years.
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If you go
The flights
Emirates (www.emirates.com) and Etihad (www.etihad.com) both fly direct to Bengaluru, with return fares from Dh 1240. From Bengaluru airport, Coorg is a five-hour drive by car.
The hotels
The Tamara (www.thetamara.com) is located inside a working coffee plantation and offers individual villas with sprawling views of the hills (tariff from Dh1,300, including taxes and breakfast).
When to go
Coorg is an all-year destination, with the peak season for travel extending from the cooler months between October and March.
When is VAR used?
• Goals
• Penalty decisions
• Direct red-card incidents
• Mistaken identity
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
Revival
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Interscope
CREW
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SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20APPLE%20IPAD%20PRO%20(12.9%22%2C%202022)
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Gender equality in the workplace still 200 years away
It will take centuries to achieve gender parity in workplaces around the globe, according to a December report from the World Economic Forum.
The WEF study said there had been some improvements in wage equality in 2018 compared to 2017, when the global gender gap widened for the first time in a decade.
But it warned that these were offset by declining representation of women in politics, coupled with greater inequality in their access to health and education.
At current rates, the global gender gap across a range of areas will not close for another 108 years, while it is expected to take 202 years to close the workplace gap, WEF found.
The Geneva-based organisation's annual report tracked disparities between the sexes in 149 countries across four areas: education, health, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
After years of advances in education, health and political representation, women registered setbacks in all three areas this year, WEF said.
Only in the area of economic opportunity did the gender gap narrow somewhat, although there is not much to celebrate, with the global wage gap narrowing to nearly 51 per cent.
And the number of women in leadership roles has risen to 34 per cent globally, WEF said.
At the same time, the report showed there are now proportionately fewer women than men participating in the workforce, suggesting that automation is having a disproportionate impact on jobs traditionally performed by women.
And women are significantly under-represented in growing areas of employment that require science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, WEF said.
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