The participation of 600 participants from 32 countries is a clear indication of India's growing international profile and the confidence of the global business community in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a $1 million ad-hoc grant for the operational budget for the BIMSTEC secretariat and another $3 million assistance to revive the grouping's centre for weather and climate.
Opportunity for India to take leadership in economic diplomacy.
The two sides held discussions on enhancing investment in technology, renewable energy and food security.
Biden told reporters in Hanoi in the Vietnamese capital that he also raised the importance of respecting human rights with Prime Minister Modi.
India said a new mechanism will be set up for issues relating to trade and investment.
He said India would continue to actively pursue and promote its geo-political, strategic and economic interests on the seas, in particular the Indian Ocean.
There have been sharp differences between the Russia-China combine and the Western countries over the text to describe the Ukraine crisis.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said projects for port connectivity, tourism infrastructure and amenities will be taken up 'on our islands, including Lakshadweep' to address the 'emerging fervour' for domestic tourism in the country.
'The future of BRICS is under stress as Chinese attempts to expand the platform are being resisted by India and Brazil.' 'Beijing is focused on a quick expansion with the aim of giving the platform a distinctly anti-Western orientation, which New Delhi and Brasilia seem to have no interest in,' notes Harsh V Pant.
The minister said this underlying resentment and pain of those countries regarding the global economy was building up for the last 15-20 years and the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine conflict resulted in prices of energy and food items going up.
India is increasingly a willing participant in the evolving US' Indo-Pacific strategy. While these developments are related to the perception of a growing Chinese security challenge, their implications for India's much-vaunted strategic autonomy should be a matter of deeper and closer reflection, asserts former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said she declined the offer of the Bharatiya Janata Party to contest elections pleading that she did not have the 'kind of funds' required for fighting the Lok Sabha polls.
'The world is watching carefully. The choices India makes today have consequences beyond its borders.'
Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Thursday expressed hope that the economy will maintain the trend growth rate of 6.5 per cent and above for the rest of the years in the current decade. The economy will close the current fiscal logging in a growth of 6.5-7 per cent, he said, citing the projections of private sector analysts, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and international agencies like OECD and the IMF. "This appears to be reasonable at this point in time although we will get the data on the fiscal second quarter in a few days, which will give more clarity on these numbers.
On Day 2 of the summit, Modi and Xi held a fresh round of one-on-one discussion at the Taj Fisherman's Cove Hotel.
In August, the top BRICS leaders at the grouping's summit in Johannesburg approved a proposal to admit six countries, including Argentina, into the bloc with effect from January 1.
Modi emphasised that it was necessary to work together for sustained global economic recovery.
India is an 'extraordinarily important' economy and an 'important partner' of Canada in a range of sectors including fighting climate change and creating economic growth, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Sunday.
Asserting that India's dedication to climate commitments is evident from its performance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday hoped that rich countries of G-7 will support India's efforts in combating climate change and invited them to tap the huge market for clean energy technologies emerging in the country. In his remarks at the session on 'Investing in a better Future: Climate, Energy, Health' at G7 Summit, Modi highlighted India's track record and said it has achieved the target of 40 per cent energy-capacity from non-fossil sources nine years before time. "The target of 10 per cent ethanol-blending in petrol has been achieved 5 months before time.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday embarked on a tour of Japan, Papua New Guinea and Australia to attend three key multilateral summits including that of the G7 grouping and Quad.
India, along with Pakistan, is set to be inducted as full members into the bloc, which mainly deals with issues relating to security and defence.
'From Doklam to Wuhan and the return of the India-China relationship to its previous equilibrium is indeed a major contribution of President Xi and PM Modi. Without any doubt they deserve the kudos for their sagacity and their wisdom,' says Ambassador Gautam Bambawale, India's envoy to China during the Wuhan summit.
Modi's emphasises on transit for trade comes amid Pakistan's reluctance to provide such a facility for two-way trade between India and Pakistan.
The international community counts a lot on India's leadership of the G-20 at a time when the world is faced with the continued economic slowdown and social distress, the chief of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva has said. "India, which is the president of G-20 countries, remains among the countries that perform better than the global average and by a good percentage," IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters during a media roundtable on Thursday. India formally assumed the G20 (Group of 20) Presidency on December 1.
While Modi has spent fewer days abroad than his predecessor (270 days versus Dr Singh's 306), he has travelled more extensively and actively than any other Indian PM.
In a post on X, Modi said, "Happy to have welcomed @POTUS @JoeBiden to 7, Lok Kalyan Marg. Our meeting was very productive."
In his opening remarks at the G20 Leaders' Summit at the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, Modi said the 21st century is a time of giving new direction to the world.
'You know the kind of force involved in all of this. They are not good for the country where all of this will happen.'
'We will likely never know why Xi decided not to travel to New Delhi. One possible explanation could be his desire to avoid a meeting with US President Joe Biden.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday night left for Australia on the second leg of his three-nation tour during which he will attend the annual summit of the Group of 20 of the world's developed and emerging economies.
Calling out the need for a global consultative approach towards the creation of regulations around artificial intelligence (AI), Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for information technology, said India has taken the lead in framing such regulations. He also stated that these frameworks will be presented by June-July this year. "India has taken the lead in creating this draft paper.
'I hope the trend is sustainable and that economic activity accelerates going forward.'
Modi hits out at trade protectionism and calls for a rule-based, transparent, anti-discriminatory, open and all inclusive WTO-centred multilateral trading system focused so that the interests of every country specially the developing ones can be taken care of.
Modi hailed the close defence cooperation between the two countries and welcomed the completion of the logistics agreement between the two navies.
Engagement with neighbours is a strategic imperative, and not an option, asserts Rup Narayan Das.
It is time the political leaderships in this country arrived at a common ground over issues of foreign and security policy concerns. There has to be a greater communication between the government and the Opposition leaderships for the nation to present a unified face against the rest of the world, advises N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi was expected to arrive in Wuhan in the evening on April 26 and join Xi in the informal summit at a picturesque location the next day.
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