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China on Wednesday expressed regret and concern over Indian strikes on Pakistan, urging both sides to show restraint in response to a major escalation between its nuclear-armed neighbours, The Indian Express reported.

India and Pakistan exchanged heavy artillery along their contested frontier on Wednesday, after New Delhi launched missile strikes on its arch-rival.

Pakistan said Indian strikes had killed at least eight people, and India said Pakistani artillery fire had killed three civilians along the de facto border in contested Kashmir, according to The Indian Express.

China, which shares land borders with both countries and is a close ally of Pakistan, said it expressed “regret over India’s military action this morning” and said it was “concerned about the current developments”.

A judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to admit some 12,000 refugees into the United States under a court order partially blocking the president’s efforts to suspend the nation’s refugee admissions program, Associated Press reported.

The order from U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead followed arguments from the Justice Department and refugee resettlement agencies over how to interpret a federal appeals court ruling that significantly narrowed an earlier decision from Whitehead.

During a hearing last week, the administration said it should only have to process 160 refugees into the country and that it would likely appeal any order requiring it to admit thousands. But the judge dismissed the government’s analysis, saying it required “not just reading between the lines” of the 9th Circuit’s ruling, “but hallucinating new text that simply is not there.”

“This Court will not entertain the Government’s result-oriented rewriting of a judicial order that clearly says what it says,” Whitehead wrote Monday. “The Government is free, of course, to seek further clarification from the Ninth Circuit. But the Government is not free to disobey statutory and constitutional law — and the direct orders of this Court and the Ninth Circuit — while it seeks such clarification," according to Associated Press.

India said that it had conducted strikes on Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir under Operation Sindoor, two weeks after 26 people including a Nepali, most of them tourists, were killed in a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Issuing a statement on Wednesday, the Defence Ministry of India said that nine sites linked to the April 22 Pahalgam attack were targeted.

India described the operation as “focused, measured, and non-escalatory,” emphasizing that no Pakistani military facilities were hit.

The Indian Army declared on X, “Justice is served.”

Pakistan’s military claimed that India fired missiles from its own territory, killing three civilians and injuring 12, according to Dawn. Indian air defence units along the border have been put on high alert, The Hindu reported.

CPN-UML lawmaker Yogesh Kumar Bhattarai has said the policies and programs presented in the House are youth-oriented and investment-friendly. In Tuesday’s meeting of the House of Representatives, he said the policies and programs have ensured suitable policies for providing employment to the youth and for investment.

“There are provisions related to the integrated plan bank and to industrial, environment and youth-centric policies and programs, while priority has been given to policies and programs for agriculture, industry, production and infrastructure development,” Bhattarai said. He argued that if the capital of Nepalis scattered in different parts of the world could be integrated, there would be no need to look to others for national economic development. Lawmaker Bhattarai was of the view that the country would progress through the development of energy, agriculture and tourism.

Rastriya Swatantra Party leader and lawmaker Swarnim Wagle described the government's policies and program as routine. He was airing his views on party basis during a discussion on the government’s annual policy and programs for the upcoming fiscal year 2025/26 in Tuesday’s meeting of the House of Representatives. “This is merely a list of the old programs brought reluctantly by a tired government. The order of the budget is also not aligned. Tourism has been lumped under the physical infrastructure and agriculture under trade. There is also no coordination between ministries of foreign affairs and finance,” he said.

According to him, although the agreement reached between the Nepali Congress and the UML during the formation of the government was aimed at banishing corruption and maintaining good governance, this is completely missing in practice. He said though the NC and UML had agreed to amend the constitution, they could not bring out the details of amendment even after 10 months of the formation of the government.

Wagle pledged his party’s support if the high-level economic reform suggestion report included in the policies and programs was implemented practically. Referring to his party’s support to the government in the Economic and Business Environment Reform and Investment Promotion Bill, he said the issue of re-prioritizing physical infrastructure projects in the policies and programs was positive.

Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) leader and lawmaker Gyanendra Shahi said, “The government’s policy document speaks of bringing about a revolution in agriculture, but the situation is such that farmers are not able to sell fish due to the import of foreign fish, the apples of Jumla remain unsold; at least if a policy is made to not import agricultural products from outside, then the people themselves will be engaged in production.”

‘Policies and programs traditional’

Secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center) and member of the House of Representatives Devendra Paudel described the government’s policies and programs as ‘traditional’. During a discussion on the policies and programs for the fiscal year 2025/26 in Tuesday’s meeting of the House of Representatives, Paudel said, “Public policy synchrony, social justice, employment of students 20 hours a week and provisions on citizen apps, online tax system, digital foundation, cyber security, digital Nepal and bank system were included in last year’s policies and programs. These have been copied and included in the new policies and programs.” 

Stating that the policies and programs should incorporate strong resolve for nation-building, Paudel slammed the policy document for failing to cover the overall national development. According to him, the projects of national pride in the current fiscal year are facing problems due to lack of budget. Paudel said only 31.9 percent of the development budget has been spent in the 10 months of the current fiscal year.
Stressing the need to increase investment in the manufacturing sector, he said, “We sell electricity to neighboring countries at cheaper price but buy it at higher price. This should not be the way.”