India demands Asian Development Bank cut funding for Pakistan

Milan [Italy], May 5 (ANI): India has demanded that the Asian Development Bank cut funding for Pakistan, as New Delhi continues to extend its punitive moves against Islamabad in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in a meeting with Asian Development Bank President Masato Kanda on Monday, demanded that the bank cut its funds to Pakistan, sources said.

According to sources, the demand for cutting the funding to Pakistan was one of the agenda of the meeting among various other issues. 

Nirmala Sitharaman met with ADB President Masato Kanda during the 58th ADB Annual Meeting in Italian city of Milan.

India has sharply downgraded diplomatic ties with Pakistan after the April 22 terrorist attack on tourists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, leading to the death of 26 individuals and several other injured, mostly tourists.

India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, which would over a period of time will severely reduce Pakistan's water supply. 

Further, sources told ANI that India will also approach FATF (Financial Action Task Force) to include Pakistan in the grey list. 

In a post on X today, the Finance Ministry said the Finance Minister reiterated that India focuses on private sector-led economic growth and has been consistently creating a conducive policy and regulatory ecosystem through bold initiatives such as the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, Corporate Tax Rate Reduction and GST implementation, Production-Linked Incentives, National Infrastructure Pipeline, GatiShakti National Master Plan, and StartupIndia, among others, for greater Ease of Doing Business. 

In the X post, the finance minister emphasised that India offers opportunities for ADB to pilot new, innovative financing products and models.  Kanda expressed ADB‘s full support to India’s development priorities, guided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047.

Sitharaman is leading the Indian delegation of officials from the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance for the 58th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of Asian Development Bank (ADB), scheduled from May 4 to 7 in Milan.

According to an official statement from the Ministry of Finance, the meetings will be attended by official delegations of the Board of Governors of ADB, official delegations of ADB members and international financial institutions. The Union Finance Minister will participate in the Annual Meeting's focal events like the Governors' Business session, Governor's Plenary Session and as a panelist in the ADB Governors' Seminar on "Cross-Border Collaboration for Future Resilience". (ANI)