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Batting great Virat Kohli announced his immediate retirement from Test cricket on Monday, just days before India name their squad for a tour to England.Kohli, who scored 9,230 runs in 123 matches at an average of 46.85, posted the decision on Instagram five days after India captain Rohit Sharma called time on his Test career.Since making his debut in 2011, Kohli struck 30 hundreds and 31 fifties with a highest score of 254 not out.”It’s been 14 years since I first wore the baggy blue in Test cricket,” the 36-year-old Kohli posted on his official feed, which has 271 million followers.”Honestly, I never imagined the journey this format would take me on. It’s tested me, shaped me, and taught me lessons I’ll carry for life.”As I step away from this format, it’s not easy — but it feels right. I’ve given it everything I had, and it’s given me back so much more than I could’ve hoped for.”An inspirational figure, Kohli was India’s most successful Test captains with 40 wins and 17 defeats in 68 matches before stepping down from the role in 2022. The next best are Mahendra Singh Dhoni with 27 wins from 60 and Sourav Ganguly with 21 from 49.”I’m walking away with a heart full of gratitude — for the game, for the people I shared the field with, and for every single person who made me feel seen along the way.”I’ll always look back at my Test career with a smile.”Kohli’s lack of form in the five-day game may have been behind his decision to call it a day. After averaging close to 55 at his peak between 2011 and 2019, the figure dropped to 32.56 over the past 24 months.Kohli’s last Test was in Sydney in January when India lost the match and with it the series 3-1 to Australia.Apart from an unbeaten century in the second innings of the first Test in Perth, Kohli managed just 90 runs from eight innings in the five-Test series.The 36-year-old Kohli was part of the “Fab Four” quartet of batting greats who dominated Test cricket over the past decade, alongside Steve Smith of Australia, Kane Williamson of New Zealand and Joe Root of England.Nicknamed “King Kohli”, he was India’s batting backbone across three international formats and ended his Twenty20 career with a match-winning innings in his team’s World Cup final victory in Barbados last year.Kohli then walked away from the shortest format along with Rohit.

A commando in an elite Sri Lankan police unit, Sameera Dilshan has an unusual mission — to reclaim farms poisoned by salt, a long-standing problem now accelerating due to climate change.Increasing salinity is slowly and steadily swallowing traditional rice paddies along the island’s coastline, taking away the livelihood of generations of farmers.Two hours’ drive south of the capital Colombo lies Katukurunda –- one of the camps of the formidable Special Task Force (STF), an elite force created four decades ago to fight Tamil rebels.While his colleagues train for riot control under the humid heat of the nearby Indian Ocean, the 35-year-old non-commissioned officer and his “commando-farmer” team are hoeing, weeding, and watering.Their goal? To grow coconut palms and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables in a paddy declared dead 40 years ago due to salt water contamination.”This plantation was launched in 2022 as part of a government initiative to improve food security,” Dilshan said, with local authorities allocating out land parcels.The method — known as “sorjan”, is similar to techniques used in Thailand and Indonesia.It reshapes flood-prone land by digging ponds where rice can be grown or fish raised, with more saline-tolerant coconut trees planted.Embankments around these ponds are used for more delicate crops.”We’re tending to 360 coconut trees planted here… along with pumpkins, gourds, and cucumbers,” said Dilshan. “In two and a half years, we’ll know if it’s a success or not.”- Yields under threat -“It’s an efficient and climate-resilient production system that optimises land use and productivity, and increases farmers’ profits,” said Buddhi Marambe, from the University of Peradeniya.The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a 2024 report that saltwater from seas and oceans affects 10.7 percent of the earth’s land, making it uncultivable in some cases.It travels up rivers with the tides, seeps into soil through evaporation, and contaminates groundwater used for irrigation.Climate change -– which dries out the soil, reduces water resources, or raises sea levels –- is expected to increase the proportion of such “salty” land from 24 percent to 32 percent of the world’s surface area by the end of the century, the FAO warns.These trends “threaten agricultural productivity and reduce crop yields in affected zones”, it warns.Sri Lanka is no exception.Marambe estimates that 223,000 hectares (551,000 acres), half of which are rice paddies, are impacted by salinity — nearly eight percent of the country’s total arable land.- Seeping salt -South of the pilot plantation lies the village of Parappuwa, surrounded by abandoned land.Here, just a few kilometres from the sea, only a tiny portion of the paddy fields is still in use.”Everything is polluted by salt that comes up during high tide,” said Gamini Piyal Wijesinghe, 46, a farmer’s son who, after he left the army, went into the restaurant business instead.He pointed to a small stream, where 18 small dams were built to stop the seawater.”They weren’t constructed properly,” he said. “The water seeps through.”Other former rice farmers have turned to cinnamon or rubber cultivation.”Cinnamon is doing fairly well, but our income has significantly dropped since we stopped growing rice,” said  W.D. Jayaratne, 50, head of the local farmers’ association.The future is gloomy.”Salinity in the water is increasing and threatening our farmland,” he added. “There are also insects. Everywhere you look, there are problems.”In this district of Kalutara, local authorities are offering abandoned land to farmers to bring it back under cultivation, mostly with coconut trees.”We’ve already allocated 400 hectares and plan to increase that to 1,000 in the next two years,” said the district chief Janaka Gunawardana.”There’s high demand for coconut. It will create income for our people.”- Resistant varieties -In Katukurunda, Aruna Priyankara Perera, 55, was encouraged by the success of the STF farming experiment.”I got five acres (two hectares) next to my hotel to replicate the STF’s project,” he said standing in front of his freshly planted coconut and pumpkin field.”The land is free for two years, provided you can show it’s being cultivated.”The local staple rice is a top concern for the authorities.”Soil salinity is a major issue in Sri Lanka,” said Marambe.”We’ve successfully tested several promising rice varieties that are resistant to salinity and flooding.”The stakes are high.A recent study of the Bentota river estuary, in the island’s southwest, found that half of local rice farmers had lost all their income due to saltwater contamination.Even more seriously, Sri Lanka’s food security is now under threat. The last rice harvest, from September to March, was the country’s lowest since 2019.”If we don’t all roll up our sleeves to bring salt-polluted land back into cultivation and production,” warned Marambe, “the future will only get darker.”

The frontier between arch-foes India and Pakistan was peaceful and had the “first calm night in recent days”, the Indian army said Monday, after a surprise weekend ceasefire.The truce was agreed to on Saturday after four days of missile, drone and artillery attacks between the two countries which killed at least 60 people and sent thousands fleeing.It was the worst violence since the nuclear-armed rivals’ last open conflict in 1999 and sent global shudders that it could spiral into full-blown war.There were initial doubts as the two sides accused each other of breaching the ceasefire just hours after it was unexpectedly announced by US President Donald Trump on social media.”The night remained largely peaceful across… Kashmir and other areas along the international border,” the Indian army said. “No incidents have been reported, marking the first calm night in recent days,” the statement added. It was also the second straight night without gunfire or shelling at Poonch, the frontier town in the part of divided Kashmir administered by India. Poonch was one of the worst-hit regions in the latest conflict, with at least 12 residents killed and most of the estimated 60,000 residents fleeing their homes. On Sunday, people started trickling back to the town, although many still remained worried that the ceasefire would not last.The alarming spiral towards all-out conflict began before dawn on Wednesday, when India launched missile attacks destroying what it called “terrorist camps” in the Pakistani part of Kashmir.This followed an April 22 attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, which killed 26 civilians.India accused Pakistan of backing the attack but Islamabad denied involvement and immediately responded to the strikes with heavy artillery fire.It claimed to have downed five Indian fighter jets — something New Delhi has not commented on.Militants have stepped up operations in Kashmir since 2019, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government revoked the region’s limited autonomy and took it under direct rule from New Delhi.Divided Muslim-majority Kashmir is claimed in full by both countries, who have fought several wars over the territory since their independence from Britain in 1947.

Millions of Filipinos will vote Monday in a mid-term election widely seen as a referendum on the explosive feud between President Ferdinand Marcos and impeached Vice President Sara Duterte.Workers in the capital Manila were busily setting up polling stations Sunday for a race that will decide more than 18,000 posts, from seats in the House of Representatives to hotly contested municipal offices. It is the Senate race, however, that carries potentially major implications for 2028’s presidential election.The 12 senators chosen Monday will form half the jury in a Duterte impeachment trial — tentatively set for July — that could see her permanently barred from public office. Duterte’s long-simmering feud with former ally Marcos exploded in February when she was impeached by the House for alleged “high crimes” including corruption and an assassination plot against the president.Barely a month later, her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, was arrested and flown to the International Criminal Court (ICC) the same day to face a charge of crimes against humanity over his deadly anti-drugs campaign.Sara Duterte will need nine votes in the 24-seat Senate to preserve any hope of a future presidential run. Heading into Monday, seven of the candidates polling in the top 12 were endorsed by Marcos while four were aligned with his vice president.Two, including the president’s independent-minded sister Imee Marcos, were “adopted” as honorary members of the Duterte family’s PDP-Laban party on Saturday.The move to add Marcos and television personality Camille Villar to the party’s slate was intended to add “more allies to protect the Vice President against impeachment”, according to the resolution.At her final rally in Manila on Thursday, Duterte invoked the spectre of “massive” electoral fraud and once again referred to her father’s transfer to the ICC as a “kidnapping”.Despite his detention at The Hague, the elder Duterte remains on the ballot in his family’s southern stronghold of Davao city, where he is seeking to retake his former job as mayor. At least one local poll is predicting he will win comfortably.- Election violence -National police in the archipelago nation have been on alert for more than a week, and around 163,000 officers have been deployed to secure polling stations, escort election officials and guard checkpoints.Thousands more personnel from the military, fire departments and other agencies have been mobilised to keep the peace in a country where battles over hotly contested provincial posts are known to erupt in violence.A city council hopeful, a polling officer and a village chief are among the at least 16 people police say have been killed in attacks in the run-up to Monday’s election.On Saturday, a candidate for municipal councillor was one of two men in an “armed group” killed in a shootout with police and the military in southern Mindanao island’s autonomous Muslim region, a notorious hotbed of election-related violence.Further north, a group of men were arrested the same day at the Cebu airport while transporting 441 million pesos (nearly $8 million) in cash, a crime under election rules aimed at preventing the exchange of bribes for votes.Both cases were still under investigation.

As an uneasy calm settled over villages on the Pakistan side of contested Kashmir on Sunday, families returned to their own beds but were sure to leave their bunkers stocked.More than 60 people were killed in four days of intense conflict between arch-rivals Pakistan and India before a US-brokered truce was announced on Saturday.At heart of the hostilities is Kashmir, a mountainous Muslim-majority region divided between the two countries but claimed in full by both, and where the heaviest casualties are often reported. On the Pakistan side of the heavily militarised de facto border, known as the Line of Control (LoC), families wearied by decades of sporadic firing began to return home — for now.”I have absolutely no faith in India; I believe it will strike again. For people living in this area, it’s crucial to build protective bunkers near their homes,” said Kala Khan, a resident of Chakothi which overlooks the Neelum River that separates the two sides and from where they can see Indian military posts.His eight-member family sheltered through the night and parts of the day under the 20-inch-thick concrete roofs of two bunkers.”Whenever there was Indian shelling, I would take my family into it,” he said of the past few days. “We’ve stored mattresses, flour, rice, other food supplies, and even some valuable belongings in there.”According to an administrative officer in the region, more than a thousand bunkers have been built along the LoC, around a third by the government, to protect civilians from Indian shelling. – ‘No guarantee’ -Pakistan and India have fought several wars over Kashmir, and India has long battled an insurgency on its side by militant groups fighting for independence or a merger with Pakistan.New Delhi accuses Islamabad of backing the militants, including an attack on tourists in April which sparked the latest conflict. Pakistan said it was not involved and called for an independent investigation. Limited firing overnight between Saturday and Sunday made some families hesitant to return to their homes on the LoC.In Chakothi, nestled among lush green mountains, surrounded by an abundance of walnut trees at the foothills, half of the 300 shops were closed and few people ventured onto the streets.”I’ve been living on the LoC for 50 years. Ceasefires are announced, but after a few days the firing starts again,” said Muhammad Munir, a 53-year-old government employee in Chakothi. It is the poor who suffer most from the endless uncertainty and hunt for safety along the LoC, he said, adding: “There’s no guarantee that this latest ceasefire will hold — we’re certain of that.”When clashes broke out, Kashif Minhas, 25, a construction worker in Chakothi, desperately searched for a vehicle to move his wife and three children away from the fighting.”I had to walk several kilometres before finally getting one and moving my family,” he told AFP.”In my view, the current ceasefire between India and Pakistan is just a formality. There’s still a risk of renewed firing, and if it happens again, I’ll move my family out once more.”A senior administrative officer stationed in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir where a mosque was struck by an Indian missile killing three people, told AFP there had been no reports of firing since Sunday morning.- ‘Serious doubts’ -In Indian-administered Kashmir, hundreds of thousands of people who had evacuated also began to cautiously return home after heavy Pakistani shelling — many expressing the same fears as on the Pakistani side.The four-day conflict struck deep into both countries, reaching major cities for the first time in decades — with the majority of deaths in Pakistan, and almost all civilians.Chakothi taxi driver Muhammad Akhlaq said the ceasefire was “no guarantee of lasting peace”.”I have serious doubts about it because the core issue that fuels hostility between the two countries still remains unresolved — and that issue is Kashmir,” said the 56-year-old.

A ceasefire appeared to hold on Sunday between India and Pakistan, hours after the nuclear-armed rivals accused each other of violating a truce that brought them back from the brink of all-out war.The ceasefire was agreed on Saturday after four days of missile, drone and artillery attacks which killed at least 60 people and sent thousands fleeing, in the worst violence since India and Pakistan’s last open conflict in 1999.The “full and immediate” halt to hostilities was unexpectedly announced by US President Donald Trump on social media, who said that it followed a “long night of talks mediated by the United States”.Early on Sunday India’s foreign secretary said that New Delhi had retaliated after Pakistan’s “repeated violations” of the truce.Pakistan said it “remains committed” to the ceasefire and that its forces were handling violations by India with “responsibility and restraint”.Residents of several villages along the Indian side of the Line of Control, the de-facto frontier of divided Kashmir, said heavy Pakistani shelling resumed hours after the ceasefire announcement.Bairi Ram’s four-room house in the village of Kotmaira was reduced to rubble in shelling and three of his buffaloes were killed.”Everything is finished,” he said.- ‘Fragile peace’ -But by later in the day a senior security official in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan administered-Kashmir said there were “intermittent exchanges of fire” but that situation was “quiet since the morning”.Hazoor Sheikh, 46, who runs a store in the main market in the border town of Poonch, which was the worst-hit in India during the fighting, was one of the first to reopen his shop on Sunday.”Finally, after days, we could sleep peacefully,” said Sheikh.At least 12 Poonch residents were killed at most of the 60,000-strong population had fled in cars, on buses and even on foot. On Sunday people were starting to come back, although some remained worried that the ceasefire would not last.”Every time India has agreed to such an agreement, Pakistan has ended up violating it,” Poonch resident Hafiz Mohammad Shah Bukhari, 49, told AFP.This was echoed on the other side by Kala Khan, who lives in Chakothi in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and who hid with neighbours in a bunker.”India is a deceitful neighbour. You can never trust it,” said Khan told AFP. “I have absolutely no faith in India; I believe it will strike again.”Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, was also sceptical.”Things are going to remain hostile. Things are going to be difficult,” he said.Pro-military rallies were held in cities across Pakistan on Sunday, with the country’s green and white flag draped from buildings and cars. – ‘Terrorist camps’ -The alarming spiral towards all-out conflict began before dawn on Wednesday, when India launched missile attacks destroying what it called “terrorist camps”.This followed an attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22 that killed 26 people and which India accused Pakistan of backing.Pakistan firmly denied any involvement and called for an independent investigation.Islamabad immediately responded to the strikes with heavy artillery fire and claimed to have downed five fighter jets — something India has not commented on — before it said it launched its own strikes on Indian cities on Saturday.Militants have stepped up operations in Kashmir since 2019, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government revoked the region’s limited autonomy and took it under direct rule from New Delhi.Divided Muslim-majority Kashmir is claimed in full by both countries, who have fought several wars over the territory since their independence from Britain in 1947.- ‘Positive step’ -Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on X that his country — which has long sought international mediation in Kashmir — “appreciates” the US intervention.India has consistently opposed mediation, however, and observers were sceptical of the truce.News of the ceasefire was met with relief from countries including Britain and Iran, as well as the United Nations.China, which borders India and Pakistan, said it was “willing to continue playing a constructive role” and remained concerned with any escalation, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.”The days ahead will be critical to see whether the ceasefire holds and gives way to relative normalcy,” read an editorial in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English language newspaper.”While foreign friends can certainly help create a conducive atmosphere, it is Islamabad and New Delhi that will have to do the heavy lifting themselves to secure peace.”burs-stu

Residents of the town in Indian-administered Kashmir worst hit by the deadliest fighting in decades with Pakistan trickled back on Sunday, a day after a surprise truce.Over 60 people died in days of days of missile, drone and artillery attacks that came close to all-out war until the ceasefire, which was holding on Sunday despite early alleged violations.Most of the dead were civilians and the majority Pakistanis.On the Indian side, Poonch on the Indian-run part of divided Kashmir bore the brunt, with at least 12 people killed at 49 injured, according to officials.They included 12-year-old Zian Khan and his twin sister Urwa Fatima, hit by an artillery shell on Wednesday as their parents tried to leave the town.The majority of the 60,000-strong population fled in cars, on buses and even on foot, leaving only a few thousand to brave it out.Tariq Ahmad arrived back on Sunday bringing back 20 people in his bus as signs of life and activity returned to Poonch’s streets.”Most who fled are still afraid and will wait and watch to see if this agreement holds,” the 26-year-old driver told AFP at the main bus terminal.”Luckily, I managed to pick up 20 people from nearby villages who wanted to check if their homes and belongings survived the intense Pakistani shelling.”Poonch lies about 145 miles (230 kilometres) from Jammu, the second largest city in Indian-administered Kashmir.Hazoor Sheikh, 46, who runs a store in the main market, was one of the first few people to reopen his shop. “Finally, after days, we could sleep peacefully,” he said. “It is not just me or my family but everyone around finally had a smile yesterday,” he added.”I nervously returned a short while back to check on my shop,” 40-year-old Mushtaq Qureshi said.”Our families and neighbours were all separated as people fled to villages or relatives’ homes for safety. But we are happy to be back today and to see each other again,” he said.Qureshi had left his home with about 20 relatives.  “Buildings around our neighbourhood were hit but luckily nothing has happened to my home,” he said. – ‘Worst nightmare’ -Rita Sharma, 51, said she was really looking forward to seeing five children from her extended whom she had sent away for safety.”They were the first to call yesterday after the (ceasefire) announcement and declared that they’d be back home by Sunday evening,” she said. “We hope it stays peaceful.” Hotel manager Subhash Chandar Raina also stayed put despite “the worst shelling in years”.”I feel sorry for those who’ve lost lives and belongings but thank God for allowing us to return to our normal lives after the worst phase in the region for years,” the 53-year-old said. Raina was one of only two hotel staff who stayed back as they felt travelling “was risky”. Abdul Razzak, 50, remembers fleeing with four children and two other relatives on two motorbikes with nothing but their clothes. “It was our worst nightmare… We’ve seen our people die around us, so none of us want a war,” Razzak said.Hafiz Mohammad Shah Bukhari, was sceptical.”We are not entirely confident that this ceasefire agreement will hold, based on our experience over the years,” the 49-year-old said.”Every time India has agreed to such an agreement, Pakistan has ended up violating it… It’s people like us, the frontier people, who end up suffering and losing everything.”

An overcrowded bus carrying dozens of Buddhist pilgrims plummeted into a precipice in Sri Lanka on Sunday, killing at least 21 and injuring 24, a senior transport official said.The island nation’s winding roads are among the most dangerous in the world, and the crash off a cliffside road on Sunday was among the deadliest recorded in Sri Lanka in decades. The roof and side panels of the bus were sheared off, and more than half the seats were ripped from the floor of the vehicle, which landed wheels up into a tea plantation, photos of the wreckage showed.The state-owned bus was carrying around 70 passengers — about 20 more than its capacity — through the central hilly region of Kotmale when the driver lost control and it veered off the road before dawn, police said.”We are trying to establish whether it was a mechanical failure or if the driver fell asleep at the wheel,” a local police official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to media.Deputy Transport Minister Prasanna Gunasena told reporters at the scene that the injured were rushed to two area hospitals.”Twenty one have died and we are trying to identify the victims,” Gunasena said.The toll could have been higher, the minister added, if not for local residents helping pull people from the mangled wreckage and rushing them to hospital.Police said 24 people were being treated in the two hospitals.One survivor told a local journalist that he had been in the front section of the bus and was lucky to have escaped with only minor injuries.”The bus was leaning to the left side and as the driver was negotiating a bend, he lost control and it fell down the precipice,” said the man, who did not give his name, in a video seen by AFP.The bus was travelling from the pilgrim town of Kataragama in the island’s deep south to the central city of Kurunegala, a distance of about 250 kilometres (155 miles). Sri Lanka records an average of 3,000 road fatalities annually, making the island’s roads among the most deadly in the world.Sunday’s bus accident was one of the worst in the country since April 2005 when a driver attempted to beat a train at a level crossing in the town of Polgahawela. The bus driver was lightly injured, but 37 passengers were killed.In March 2021, 13 passengers and the driver of a privately owned bus died when the vehicle crashed into a precipice in Passara, about 100 kilometres east of the scene of the crash on Sunday.

India cricket board officials were reported to be meeting Sunday to discuss a quick resumption of the IPL, following India and Pakistan agreeing a ceasefire in their deadly border conflict.Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan called a halt to hostilities on Saturday and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Devajit Saikia told website cricbuzz they were “closely monitoring the evolving situation.”Saikia added they will “take a call on IPL resumption after consulting all stakeholders of IPL and the concerned government authorities.” Rajeev Shukla, vice-president of the BCCI, told Indian media that officials would meet on Sunday to decide the future course of action.The Indian Premier League was on Friday suspended for a week, a day after a match  between Punjab Kings and Delhi Capital was abandoned in Dharamsala, less than 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the northern city of Jammu, where explosions were reported hours earlier.A special train was arranged for players to return to Delhi on Friday as airspace was closed, while overseas stars began to head home on Saturday.Teams on Sunday were reported to be contacting their overseas players and coaching staff about returning, with website ESPNcricinfo saying the IPL could restart around May 15 if given the go-ahead by the government.There are 12 regular season games remaining to be played followed by three playoff matches and the final, originally scheduled for May 25.India and Pakistan have fought two of their three full-scale wars over Kashmir, a disputed territory that both claim in full but administer separate portions of since gaining independence from British rule in 1947.New Delhi launched missile strikes on Wednesday morning in retaliation for a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-run Kashmir two weeks ago that India blames on Pakistan.Islamabad has denied any involvement.At least 60 people have been killed on both sides of the border since Wednesday, in the worst violence in decades between the South Asian neighbours.

India and Pakistan traded accusations of ceasefire violations early Sunday, hours after US President Donald Trump announced that the nuclear-armed neighbours had stepped back from the brink of full-blown war.India’s foreign secretary said it retaliated after Pakistan’s “repeated violations” of the truce, while Pakistan said it “remains committed” to the ceasefire and that its forces were handling violations by India with “responsibility and restraint”.AFP staff in Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir reported hearing loud explosions. A senior official in Pakistani-run Kashmir told AFP that “intermittent exchange of fire is ongoing” across the de facto border in the contested region, the Line of Control (LoC). More details were not immediately available, and it was not possible to independently verify the claims. On Saturday, Pakistan and India had agreed to a full and immediate ceasefire after days of deadly jet fighter, missile, drone and artillery attacks which killed at least 60 people and saw thousands flee their homes along the border as well as in divided Kashmir.The news had been surprisingly announced by Trump on Saturday.”After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence,” Trump posted.Late Saturday, Trump posted again on Truth Social, praising the leaders of India and Pakistan for understanding that “it was time to stop the current aggression”, and also pledging to increase trade “substantially” with both nations.The US president also said he would work with New Delhi and Islamabad to “see if, after a ‘thousand years,’ a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir”.India’s foreign secretary Vikram Misri had said earlier that both sides would “stop all firing and military action on land, air and sea” with effect from 5:00 pm (1130 GMT).He then accused Pakistan of “repeated violations” and said the Indian armed forces “are giving an adequate and appropriate response”.Meanwhile, the foreign ministry in Islamabad said Pakistan “remains committed to faithful implementation” of the truce. “Notwithstanding the violations being committed by India in some areas, our forces are handling the situation with responsibility and restraint,” it said.- ‘Vigilant’ -The conflict was touched off by an attack last month in the Indian-administered side of Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly male Hindu tourists, which New Delhi blamed on Islamabad.India accused the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba — a UN-designated terrorist organisation — of carrying out the attack, but Islamabad has denied any involvement and called for an independent probe.Indian former foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said Sunday that the ceasefire “seems to be a temporary situation.”The Pakistanis were prompted by the Americans,” he said, adding that India’s “Operation Sindoor was a huge success in terms of targeted strikes against terrorists”. Militants have stepped up operations in Kashmir since 2019, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government revoked its limited autonomy and took the state under direct rule from New Delhi.The countries have fought several wars over the territory, which both claim in full but administer separate portions of since gaining independence from British rule in 1947.”The ceasefire is a positive step,” said Bilal Shabbir, an IT consultant in Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.”In war, it’s not just soldiers who die, it’s mostly civilians — and in this case, it would have been the people of Kashmir.” In Srinagar, resident Sukesh Khajuria was more cautious.”The ceasefire is welcome, but it’s difficult to trust Pakistan. We have to be vigilant,” he said.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the ceasefire came after he and Vice President JD Vance engaged with senior officials on both sides.Rubio also said on X that they had agreed to “start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site”.On X, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country — which has long sought international mediation in Kashmir — “appreciates” the US intervention.India has consistently opposed mediation, however, and observers were sceptical of the truce.”The ceasefire was cobbled together hastily, and at a moment when tensions were at their highest,” US-based South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman wrote on X after the claims of violations.”India appears to have interpreted the deal differently than did the US and Pakistan, and it’s likely not keen on the broader talks it calls for. Upholding it will pose challenges,” he warned.News of the ceasefire was met with relief from countries including Britain and Iran, as well as the United Nations.China, which borders India and Pakistan, said Beijing was “willing to continue playing a constructive role” and remained concerned with any escalation, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.burs-st-ach/sco