Eyeing more than nine per cent growth rate for Indian economy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said exciting opportunities await India and Canada for mutual cooperation to raise their bilateral trade three-fold to $15 billion within the next five years.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his counterpart Stephen Harper hailed the signature of the nuclear agreement after their one-on-one and delegation level talks that will provide for cooperation in civil nuclear energy, including import of uranium and equipment from Canada.
"Nuclear material supplied to India will be fully safeguarded in terms of agreement signed with IAEA. We have foolproof system of export controls. We have complete civilian control and there is no scope for any nuclear material or equipment whatsoever being supplied going for any unintended purpose," Dr Singh told a joint press conference with his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper after the two countries signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement.
"It is a trip that I'm very much looking forward to, and I know that the prime minister and his gracious wife will extend great hospitality to us. We are also just excited because of the tremendous cultural, as well as political and social and economic examples that India is providing the world and has in the past," he said.
The government would infuse additional equity of Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion) into Air India over the next few months and review its performance to decide on the future course, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel has said.
A formal agreement was signed by liquor baron and Kingfisher chief Vijay Mallya and the top officers of all the 12 'oneworld' partner airlines, after a team of the global alliance visited Delhi and Mumbai, completed a safety audit and set in motion the process through which the Indian carrier would become full-fledged member of the global partnership.
After its spiral dive last year, the Indian aviation industry noticed slight signs of improvement at the fag end of 2009 that also saw a major helicopter crash in which Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S R Reddy perished and several near-miss incidents.
The prototype of an aircraft, to be propelled entirely by solar power even at night, has already been successfully tested for a 'flea hop' or a short flight at Dubendorf air base in Switzerland.
Globally, there were 73 accidents as of November 30 compared to 109 a year ago. "If you were to fly once per day, it would take 4,807 years for an individual to be involved in an accident," IATA's senior vice president (safety) Gunther Matschnigg told PTI in Geneva.
The government has recently decided to infuse equity worth Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion) in the first tranche into Air India, which has a paid-up equity base of just Rs 145 crore but has ordered aircraft worth Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion).
Ahead of the meeting of the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in New York, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday urged Pakistan to shed its mindset of using terror as an instrument of state policy against New Delhi and take action against those involved in the terror attack on Mumbai. He made it clear that there was no change in India's stand on Pakistan since the Sharm-el-Sheikh talks with his counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Dr Singh made a strong pitch for restoring the momentum of growth in the developing world at the G-20 Summit and said there is need to replace lost export demand and to expand investment.
In an unusual declaration ahead of the start of the G-20 Summit, Obama, flanked by President Nicholas Sarkozy of France and Premier Gordon Brown of Britain, announced they had detailed information that Iran is building a secret uranium enrichment facility near Qom, 160 km south of Tehran, for the past few years, which is not consistent with its energy needs.
The leaders from the US, UK, France, China and others reached a historic agreement to put the group at the centre of their efforts to build a roadmap for durable recovery, avoiding the financial fragilities that led to the crisis.
Hosts of the summit and Italian President Silvio Berlusconi, in his opening remarks at the summit of the two groupings yesterday, suggested some sort of a G-14 saying the G-8 and G-5 represented about 80 per cent of the world and 'we may consider this as a stable format of the future'.
Ahead of the G-8 meeting on Wednesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for significant reforms of the international financial institutions to address global problems and asserted that India would seek its due place in such institutions.
India hopes to increase its share in the quotas of multilateral development banks like the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank after major stakeholders in them bring forward the issue of quota review and expanding in accordance with current realities that will give proper representation to the emerging economies.
Seeking to reform the failed regulatory systems and put an end to "bubble and bust economy", US President Barack Obama said that G-20 has rejected protectionism and America was also dedicated to forging consensus rather than dictating its own terms.
Forecasting a 'major shift' in performance of carriers in India and China, IATA chief Giovanni Bisignani said the airline industry in these two 'robust emerging markets' would face 'a much more substantial slowdown' in 2009 and asked the the two governments to take corrective steps to help the ailing business.
Warning that the financial meltdown has exploded into a systemic crisis, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday asked world leaders to work on a coordinated fiscal package to tackle recession that is hitting India and other developing countries.
© 2025 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances