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President Joe Biden on Tuesday said Russia’s war in Ukraine amounted to “genocide,” accusing President Vladimir Putin of trying to “wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian," Associated Press reported.

“Yes, I called it genocide,” he told reporters in Iowa shortly before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington. “It’s become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian.”

At an earlier event in Menlo, Iowa, addressing spiking energy prices resulting from the war, Biden had implied that he thought Putin was carrying out genocide against Ukraine, but offered no details. Neither he nor his administration announced new consequences for Russia or assistance to Ukraine following Biden’s public assessment.

Biden’s comments drew praise from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had encouraged Western leaders to use the term to describe Russia’s invasion of his country.

“True words of a true leader @POTUS,” he tweeted. “Calling things by their names is essential to stand up to evil. We are grateful for US assistance provided so far and we urgently need more heavy weapons to prevent further Russian atrocities.”

A United Nations treaty, to which the U.S. is a party, defines genocide as actions taken with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

Past American leaders often have dodged formally declaring bloody campaigns such as Russia’s in Ukraine as genocide, hesitating to trigger an obligation that under international convention requires signing countries to intervene once genocide is formally identified. That obligation was seen as blocking President Bill Clinton from declaring Rwandan Hutus’ killing of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis in 1994 as genocide, for example, according to the Associated Press.

Biden said it would be up to lawyers to decide if Russia’s conduct met the international standard for genocide, as Ukrainian officials have claimed, but said “it sure seems that way to me.”

“More evidence is coming out literally of the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine, and we’re only going to learn more and more about the devastation and let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies,” he said.

Just last week Biden had he did not believe Russia’s actions amounted to genocide, just that they constituted “war crimes.”

During a trip to Europe last month, Biden faced controversy for a nine-word statement seemingly supporting regime change in Moscow, which would have represented a dramatic shift toward direct confrontation with another nuclear-armed country. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said, Associated Press reported.

He clarified the comments days later, saying: “I was expressing the moral outrage that I felt toward this man. I wasn’t articulating a policy change.”

India held the first meeting of Inter-Ministerial Coordination Group (IMCG) which was led by foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla.

The IMCG has been setup as a high-level mechanism towards mainstreaming of India’s ‘Neighborhood First Policy’, in line with vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, says India’s Ministry of External Affairs. 

 Secretaries of Ministries/Departments of Home, Commerce, Finance, Fisheries, representatives from Ministries/Departments of Defence, Railways, Economic Affairs, Consumer Affairs, Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Information & Broadcasting and from Cabinet Secretariat, National Security Council Secretariat as well as other relevant agencies along with heads of Border Guarding Forces participated in today’s meeting. The meeting deliberated upon and took important decisions on various aspects of India’s bilateral relationship with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the areas of trade and investment, connectivity, border infrastructure, immigration, development cooperation, border security, according to the statement.

The IMCG is supported by Inter-Ministerial Joint Task Forces (JTF) convened by the concerned Joint Secretaries in the Ministry of External Affairs. Government of India’s efforts to deliver benefits like greater connectivity, stronger inter-linkages and greater people-to-people connect under India’s Neighborhood First Policy takes place through a whole-of-government approach with coordination involving various Ministries, Departments and agencies of GOI and of concerned State governments, says the statement. 

 The IMCG will further improve institutional coordination across government and provide comprehensive direction to this whole-of-government approach on India’s relations with its neighbouring countries, according to the statement. 

President Bidya Devi Bhandari has given approval to mobilise the army in the local level elections slated for May 13.

President Bhandari gave permission to deploy the army as per the recommendation made by the National Security Council on March 31 and the decision of Cabinet meeting held on April 7, read a statement issued by the President's Office on Tuesday.

Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota has said that right information should be disseminated as voters could be affected due to lack of right information during election.

Inaugurating an interaction on 'Dissemination of Right Information during Election' organised by the National Information Commission here today, Speaker Sapkota said the responsibility of disseminating right and true information had increased.

He opined, "Local-level elections scheduled for May 13 is a great festival of the nation. We all should participate in the election as responsible citizens."

Sating that democracy could not remain alive without election, the speaker said that election was an opportunity for the nation and the people.

Some political forces are still wanting to participate in the election process, he said, expressing the view that maximum efforts possible should be taken to bring such forces into the election process.

Speaker Sapkota said that the government should incorporate all sides in the mega campaign of election as the election is for all.

Similarly, Chief Information Commissioner Mahendra Man Gurung said that true and factual information should be disseminated to the people to clear the rumours.

People, political parties and government bodies should be aware of misleading information.