In a setback for China, an international arbitration court ruled that it has jurisdiction to hear some territorial claims the Philippines has filed against it over disputed areas in the South China Sea, a ruling rejected by China as null and void.
This was the first phone call between the two leaders after Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on January 20.
India's e-commerce market is poised to grow by 84 per cent to $111 billion by 2024 on the back of accelerated adoption of digital technologies amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a report by fintech firm FIS said on Wednesday. The report noted that countries, including India, have seen a shift in consumer behaviour caused by COVID-19, and new payment trends are shown to be on the rise. FIS, in its 2021 Global Payments Report, examined current and future payment trends across 41 countries. India's e-commerce market is projected to grow by 84 per cent between now and 2024 to about $111 billion (from about $60 billion in 2020) driven by mobile shopping, which is projected to grow 21 per cent annually over the next four years, the report said.
Corporate India lags the rest of its Western and Asian peers by a wide margin when it comes to the presence of women on their boards, with just 17.3 per cent of the large companies having them on their key decision making bodies, an international report said on Tuesday. However, this is a near 6 percentage points improvement between 2015 -- when it was only 11.4 per cent -- and 2021, Swiss brokerage Credit Suisse said in the report, which covered over 33,000 executives from more than 3,000 companies across 46 countries, including over 1,440 firms across 12 Asia-Pacific markets. Female representation on boards of large Indian companies has increased by 5.9 percentage points from 11.4 per cent in 2015 to 17.3 per cent in 2021.
'After a strategic pause though, Beijing will revive its policy of slowly creeping towards acquiring sovereignty over the South China Sea.'
India, Australia, Japan and the US on Friday pledged to work together for ensuring peace and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific and the world, as top leaders of the Quad grouping announced a slew of new initiatives to take on common challenges, amidst muscle flexing by an assertive China in the strategic region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday described India and America as "natural partners" as he held the first in-person meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House during which they decided to further cement the Indo-US strategic partnership and discussed global issues of common interest, including threats to democracy and the Indo-Pacific.
The trade to-and-from India so far is not affected. But if the situation continues to remain the same for the next two to three months, it could definitely hurt India trade, including essential cargo.
US State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus on Sunday said five years ago on September 25, 2015 the Chinese President, standing in the White House Rose Garden, promised 'China does not intend to pursue militarisation' of the Spratly Islands, and China's outposts 'would not target or impact any country'.
Leyna Bloom is the first transgender woman of colour to appear in a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
With automation taking place at a much faster pace across industries especially in the tech space, domestic software firms that employee over 16 million are set to slash headcounts by a massive 3 million by 2022, which will help them save a whopping $100 billion mostly in salaries annually, says a report. The domestic IT sector employs around 16 million, of them around 9 million are employed in low-skilled services and BPO roles, according to Nasscom. Of these 9 million low-skilled services and BPO roles, 30 per cent or around 3 million will be lost by 2022, principally driven by the impact of robot process automation or RPA. Roughly 0.7 million roles are expected to be replaced by RPA alone and the rest due to other technological upgrades and upskilling by the domestic IT players, while it the RPA will have the worst impact in the US with a loss of almost 1 million jobs, according to a Bank of America report on Wednesday.
The official told the reporters during a conference call on Friday, ahead of the next week's 2+2 India-US Ministerial in New Delhi, that the Trump administration was providing support to India through defence sales, joint military exercises and information sharing.
Kumar was among five individuals who were declared winners of the award, which is Asia's premier prize and highest honour and celebrates greatness of spirit and transformative leadership in Asia.
Although the Malabar is a routine exercise which has been carried out for several years now, security experts attach a lot of traction to it in view of China's assertive behaviour in the South China Sea, observes Rup Narayan Das.
'India is possibly the most fiscally constrained market in the region.'
For 2020 calendar year, it reduced the estimate by a similar measure to 6.7 per cent.
Meet the stunning Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray.
Based on industry estimates, telecom companies, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea and BSNL, are expected to invest over $10 billion on buying 5G telecom equipment in the next five years as they transition from non-standalone networks to standalone 5G networks.
The Philippines army battles terrorists backed by Islamic State in the first major military encounter with Islamists in that part of the world.
In its rise to the top of the voice-based BPO business, the Philippines has brought a great deal from the Indian industry but has also learnt from its mistakes.
The US House of Representatives and the Senate on Tuesday passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included key components of Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi's resolution language urging the Chinese government to end its military aggression against India along the LAC.
Countries that have signed the RCEP agreement can start negotiations with India for joining the pact once New Delhi submits a written request stating its intention for the same, according to a declaration. On November 4 last year, India walked out of mega free trade agreement RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) as negotiations failed to address New Delhi's outstanding issues and concerns. The remaining 15 member countries have signed RCEP agreement and have stated that the pact would remain open to India.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that he had a productive meeting with visiting External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar during which they discussed the bilateral ties, COVID-19 relief efforts, India-China border situation and Afghanistan and vowed to work together to address areas of shared concern.
They have named this unique cluster of virus population as 'Clade A3i' found in 41 per cent of the genome sequenced in India.
The Philippine election commission will decide on Tuesday whether a boxing match between Manny Pacquiao, who is standing in May's vote, and American welterweight champion Timothy Bradley violates polling rules. On May 9, more than 54 million people in the Philippines will vote for a president, vice-president, 300 lawmakers and thousands of local government posts. Pacquiao, who has courted controversy with comments against gays and same-sex marriage, is running for one of 12 vacant seats in the Senate, the upper house of parliament. Pacquiao, a former eight division world champion, said he will make his final ring appearance on April 9 in Las Vegas against Bradley, the reigning WBO welterweight champion. Walden Bello, a former congressman, has asked the election commission to investigate whether the bout gives Pacquiao undue advantage at the polls because of high-profile advertising and publicity surrounding the boxing match.
Biden on Friday opened the first Quad Leaders' Summit held virtually and attended by Prime Minister Modi, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
The Quad has come of age and its agenda covering areas like vaccines, climate change and emerging technologies makes it a force for global good, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the first summit of the coalition. In his opening remarks, he also talked about shared values and promoting a secure, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific.
Lavasa would soon be joining the Asian Development Bank as vice president
Air India passenger flights were barred from landing in Hong Kong between August 18 and August 31 after 14 passengers on its Delhi-Hong Kong flight of August 14 tested positive for COVID-19 post arrival.
Those in the soccer competition that started ahead of the main event beginning on Saturday have borne the brunt of the disruption.
Quad leaders are also planning to roll out vaccine deliverables and announce a series of measures in the field of healthcare and infrastructure sector, officials in Washington, DC said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison in Washington, DC, ahead of the first in-person Quad meeting to be hosted by US President Joe Biden and discussed a broad range of issues of bilateral, regional and global importance, including the Indo-Pacific.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday asked the United States to "play a constructive role" in maintaining peace and stability in the disputed South China Sea, asserting that Beijing will "unswervingly" safeguard its sovereignty over the area.
The Indian rupee is down nearly 2 per cent against the US dollar since the beginning of January 2019. Experts attribute the Indian rupee's relatively poor performance to a sharper-than-expected fall in economic growth in India.
Manny Pacquiao's loss to undefeated American Floyd Mayweather Jr in their welterweight showdown in Las Vegas was met with tears, anger and accusations of foul play in his homeland of the Philippines on Sunday.
'Sullivan and Jaishankar welcomed the cooperation in recent weeks that resulted in deliveries of over USD 500 million in COVID-19 relief supplies from the US federal and state governments, US companies and private citizens across America for the people of India'
"Built on what was a series of islands, the city's historic downtown core is particularly vulnerable," the NYT said.
'India is in a slowdown which most of us have not seen in our living memory.'
In the midst of a hectic campaign schedule, Modi needs to find time to meet visiting leaders and attend the East Asia Summit in the Philippines.
The agreement would divert China's attention and keep them busy in the Pacific theatre, probably resulting in a reduction in threat perception in our area of interest in the Indian Ocean, notes Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
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