British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesperson echoed a statement issued by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly in Parliament earlier this week to add that the government continues to invest in its relationship with India.
Lord Jo Johnson, younger brother of former British prime minister Boris Johnson, has resigned his non-executive directorship of a UK-based investment firm linked with the now-withdrawn Adani Enterprises Follow-on Public Offer (FPO). 'The Financial Times' newspaper referenced UK Companies House records to reveal that 51-year-old Lord Johnson had been appointed as a director of London-based Elara Capital Plc in June last year and resigned on Wednesday, the day when the Adani Group announced withdrawal of the FPO. Elara, which described itself as a capital markets business raising funds for Indian corporates, was among the bookrunners on the FPO.
The Income Tax authorities have left the offices of the BBC in New Delhi and Mumbai after three days of lengthy questioning of some of its staff, the United Kingdom-headquartered public broadcaster said on Thursday.
The UK government made its first major commitment to support UN Security Council reforms and India's permanent membership within it as part of a refreshed defence and foreign policy review tabled in Parliament on Monday.
Patricia Hewitt, chair, UK India Business Council and former UK minister, spoke on a number of government initiatives and investment sentiments.
While there has been no official statement related to the action, British government sources said they are 'closely monitoring reports of tax surveys conducted at the offices of the BBC in India'.
Negotiations for a trade deal between India and the UK have run into fresh controversy, after the proposals under a leaked chapter of the deal on intellectual property (IP) are believed to put access to affordable, lifesaving generic medicines from India at risk. According to the draft IP chapter put out by an international trade portal bilaterals.org, the UK is seeking continuous extension of patent period and rights through small tweaks in the drug, known as evergreening. This may prevent patents from expiring, impacting cheaper drug availability and its production by Indian generic drug manufacturers.
In their first phone call since Truss assumed office earlier this week, Modi conveyed his condolences on the death of Queen Elizabeth II on behalf of all Indians and paid tribute to the 96-year-old late monarch's "lifetime of service".
Britain's prime ministerial candidate Rishi Sunak has said he wants to change the UK-India relationship to make it a more two-way exchange that opens up easy access to UK students and companies in India.
The Netherlands has emerged as India's fifth-largest export destination in 2021-22 (FY22), jumping from its 10th position a year ago. Exports to the fifth-largest economy in the European Union (EU) bolted 94 per cent to $12.5 billion in the financial year ended March 31. In FY22, the Netherlands surpassed Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK, Germany, and Nepal to become India's largest export destination in the EU. Germany, which was earlier India's top European export destination (eighth position), has now dropped two ranks to 10th place.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday met his British counterpart Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the COP26 climate summit here and discussed ways to enhance bilateral cooperation in areas like green hydrogen, renewables and clean technology, economy and defence.
While Sunak has maintained a dignified silence over the recent crisis, his supporters have not lost any opportunity to point out how the former finance minister had got the economic forecasts right.
UK's Cairn Energy Plc has won an arbitration against the Indian government levying Rs 10,247 crore in retrospective taxes, the company said on Wednesday. The three-member tribunal, which also comprised a judge appointed by the Indian government, ruled that India's claim of Rs 10,247 crore in past taxes over a 2006-07 internal reorganisation of Cairn's India business was not a valid demand, sources said. The tribunal asked India to pay the funds withheld along with the interest to the Scottish oil explorer for seizing dividend, tax refund, and sale of shares to partly recover the dues.
Downing Street said Johnson reiterated the year 2021 as an important one for UK-India ties and also re-emphasised the UK's commitment to the wider Indo-Pacific region, ahead of the first deployment of the HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier group to the region next year.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who landed in Ahmedabad on Thursday morning on a two-day India visit, was accorded a grand welcome at the airport in Ahmedabad. Soon after, he visited Sabarmati Ashram in the company of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupesh Patel.
His visit to India followed a few cancelled plans since he took office in July 2019 due to the coronavirus pandemic crisis, with the two leaders holding several virtual talks and eventually meeting in person on the sidelines of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow last November.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi spoke over phone on Monday during which they took stock of India-UK trade and defence talks, opening up of international travel between the two countries and climate action targets in the lead up to the COP26 summit, Downing Street said.
Newly-elected Conservative Party leader and prime minister in waiting Liz Truss is among the senior British politicians known for championing deeper India-UK strategic and economic ties, describing them as a "sweet spot" of global trade dynamics.
'We are receiving a steady stream of interest from well-established foreign universities.'
Rishi Sunak, the former UK chancellor of the exchequer, on Friday formally launched his leadership bid to succeed Boris Johnson as the new Conservative Party leader and future British prime minister.
"We are strongly committed to build a strategic relationship. It is happening at various levels including business to business," Cable, who was Guest of Honour at a reception hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry at Lancaster House here said. India's High Commissioner to the UK Nalin Surie, G P Hinduja, President of the Hinduja Group, Lord Navnit Dholakia, Lord Raj Loomba were among those who attended the reception.
>The Indian cricketers, who have been picked for next month's World Test Championship final against New Zealand and the five-Test series in England, are looking to get their first dose of the vaccine ahead of their trip to the UK.
Johnson's first visit to India as United Kingdom prime minister will begin on April 21 with a trip to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, which is Prime Minister Modi's home state.
Few people know Ratan Tata as well as R K Krishna Kumar does. Widely perceived to be among the managers closest to Tata, Krishna Kumar assesses Ratan Tata, the man and business leader, in this exclusive interview to Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
It will be for the first time in over five decades that India will not have a chief guest at the Republic Day parade.
Robertson received a British Empire Medal (BEM) in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to the local community.
'After greeting Prince Charles with a traditional bow, moving away from protocol, I also did a namaste, which HRH reciprocated twice -- once before the award presentation and the second time just before I left him.'
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar left London at the end of a four-day visit to the United Kingdom on Friday with a message of convergence as the two countries agreed on an ambitious '2030 Roadmap' towards a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
The group, which held its first meeting in London on Monday will focus mainly on the construction of major highways and district-level roads. It will comprise major road building contractors from the UK and India.
London hopes to convince New Delhi's naval planners to power India's second indigenous aircraft carrier with the Queen Elizabeth's integrated all-electric propulsion system.
India is in the process of filing an appeal against an arbitration panel asking it to return $1.2 billion to British oil firm Cairn Energy Plc, sources said on Wednesday. If enforcement proceedings are initiated, India is confident to address them and will strongly defend its interests, the sources said, adding it is open to a constructive settlement of tax disputes within the existing legal framework. India is in the process of filing an appeal in the Cairn's arbitration award case, they said, adding in this case, it was well within India's sovereign powers to redress the situation of Double Non-Taxation and tax abuse. Cairn chief executive Simon Thomson had last month met the then finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey to discuss the arbitration award.
SII would be scaling up its AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine manufacturing capacity to 200 million doses a month from 100 million a month now, reports Sohini Das.
During his three-day UK visit until Tuesday, Modi is listed to address the COP26 summit with a national statement about India's climate action plan in the afternoon session on Monday, ahead of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The UK government said on Tuesday that it has kicked off preparations for a free trade agreement (FTA) with India, launching a 14-week consultation to seek the views of the public and business before formal negotiations begin later this year. UK Trade Secretary Liz Truss said Britain wants a trade deal with India that pushes new frontiers and welcomes wide input from consumers and businesses across all sectors, which will help craft a deal that includes closer cooperation in "future-focused industries" such as science, technology and services, creating high-value jobs across the country. "We're firing the starting gun on a free trade deal with India - the world's largest democracy, fifth-biggest economy, a nation of 1.4 billion people and a huge market for British goods like whisky, cars and services," said Truss.
The ministry of external affairs said Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla told the envoy that discussions in the British Parliament on India's agri reforms represented a gross interference in politics of another democratic country.
The Indian High Commission made its displeasure known despite the British government earlier reiterating that the three New Delhi laws on agricultural reform were a "domestic matter".
'Having dedicated my life towards improving breast healthcare in my motherland. I shall continue to work with rock-solid determination following this "chosen" path.'
"Pakistan feels that this is illegitimate activity because Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognised disputed territory and Britain should be aware of it," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tasneem Aslam said.
Britain has finalised 1 billion pounds worth of new trade and investment with India, creating over 6,500 jobs in the UK, to be signed off at a virtual summit between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Tuesday. The investments confirmed by Downing Street on Monday evening form part of an Enhanced Trade Partnership (ETP), which will set the ambition to double the value of UK-India trade by 2030 and declare a shared intent to begin work towards a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA). "Like every aspect of the UK-India relationship, the economic links between our countries make our people stronger and safer," Johnson said.
Johnson was to spend a few days in India starting April 26 as part of a planned itinerary, which is expected to include finalising a UK-India Enhanced Trade Partnership.
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