India and New Zealand have signed a pact to institutionalize their defence ties and vowed to boost cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised concerns about anti-India activities by some illegal elements in New Zealand with his Kiwi counterpart Christopher Luxon. The two sides also signed six agreements to enhance cooperation in areas including education, sports, agriculture, and climate change. They also agreed to prepare a roadmap for cooperation in the defence industry sector and explore early implementation of cooperation in the digital payments sector.
The key meeting was held in Beijing on March 27, the MEA said in a statement.
India's GDP growth rate will rise to 7 per cent by 2026 compared to 4.6 per cent for China, S&P Global Ratings said on Tuesday. In a report titled 'China Slows India Grows', S&P said it expects Asia-Pacific's growth engine to shift from China to South and Southeast Asia. "We project China's GDP growth to slow to 4.6 per cent in 2024 (2023: 5.4 per cent), edge up to 4.8 per cent in 2025, and return to 4.6 per cent in 2026.
PM Modi went to New York this time not to engage in polemics, but to find solutions to global problems. He made some progress on several matters, even on reform of the UN Security Council, when the US made a major concession for the first time that six permanent members without veto, including India, could be considered
"Based on this consensus, the process of disengagement is almost complete. Our efforts will be to take the matter beyond disengagement; but for that, we will have to wait a little longer," he added.
China has been an aggressor against India along the Himalayan border, a top American diplomat nominated by President Joe Biden as his next envoy to Beijing has told lawmakers, stating that the US must hold the Chinese government accountable for failing to play by the rules.
There is a reason this 11 year phenomenon is a rule as much as it is an observation. It speaks to the nature of man and what humans are like, explains Aakar Patel.
India and China have agreed to take measures to further ease the situation at the borders while continuing to implement the October agreement to resolve the standoff in eastern Ladakh comprehensively. The two sides held the 32nd meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on China-India Border Affairs (WMCC) in New Delhi, agreeing to maintain communication through diplomatic and military channels and safeguard sustainable peace and stability in the border areas. This meeting follows the October 21 agreement between the two countries to resolve the over four-year-long military standoff in eastern Ladakh.
'No Cold War should be reignited and no Ukraine-style crisis should be repeated in Asia'
The Sino-Japan row over disputed islands in the East China Sea took a new turn on Thursday as Beijing said its surveillance plane was 'disturbed' by Japanese fighter jets and warned Tokyo of consequences.
"China creeps towards hegemony in Asia, threatens India's borders, and treats other countries as junior partners, Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna said.
Pompeo explains how the Donald Trump administration succeeded in bringing India on board the Quad grouping.
The rupee tumbled 3 per cent against the US dollar in 2024 as concerns over slower economic growth and a stronger greenback in global markets weighed, but it was among the least volatile currencies in the world and the headwinds may be less intense in the coming year.
India must integrate more with East Asia by getting into regional trade arrangements, lower its tariff walls, and improve the quality of its workforce, suggests T N Ninan.
China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years, which it says it has the right to defend.
The earthquake damaged houses, roads, as well as other infrastructures, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted eyewitnesses from the area as saying.
'Decline of the UN did not start with the Trump administration. It has been happening over the last two decades or more.'
China welcomes all initiatives that truly help developing countries build infrastructure and sincere efforts to promote connectivity and common development, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.
Amid a raging dispute with Japan over islands in East China Sea, the Chinese army has scaled up its military exercises on all fronts including aerial drills by its air force in Tibet as well as by special forces.
"This trip will advance the Biden-Harris administration's rock-solid commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in Washington, DC on Wednesday.
President Trump made these remarks on Monday while talking to reporters aboard Air Force One on his way back to Joint Base Andrews from Florida.
China claims nearly all of the disputed South China Sea, though Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all claim parts of it. Beijing has built artificial islands and military installations in the South China Sea. Beijing is also involved in a maritime dispute with Japan over the East China Sea.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the UN Human Rights Council and prohibiting any future funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Trump also directed the US to review its participation in UNESCO, citing concerns about anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment within the organizations. The executive order argues that the UNHRC, UNESCO, and UNRWA have drifted from their missions and act contrary to US interests. Trump previously halted funds for UNRWA during his first term, and President Joe Biden put a block on US funds for UNRWA in January 2024 over allegations that staff for the agency participated in Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack against Israel.
United States Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for meetings with top Chinese leaders amid an international spat over China's new air defence zone over the disputed islands in the East China Sea.
This includes over $15 billion of proposed investment in the infrastructure sector in the Indo-Pacific and $9 billion for shoring up American defence in the region.
Jaishankar also spoke about how he expected a change in Russia's direction towards the rest of the world and it may likely want multiple options in Asia.
Here is what you need to know about the year's Australian Open:
'The US has agreed to negotiate with us a mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement, which will go for reduction of tariffs on both sides so that our trade can grow.'
Today, with China centrally seated and located, the Global South has an intriguing road ahead. Odds of it becoming a Chinese bloc in the emerging new bipolar world are higher than we'd wish them to be, observes Shekhar Gupta.
India and China have made "some progress" in disengagement, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday, describing it as a "welcome" move which opens up the possibility that other steps could happen.
'Under General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping, Beijing has stepped up its aggressive foreign policy toward New Delhi. Since 2013, China has engaged in five major altercations with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC),' said a brief issued by US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
'Consider 40% to 50% in equities, 10% in gold as a hedge, and the remaining 30% to 40% split between multi-asset funds and hybrid funds.'
China on Saturday said it "expelled" foreign military planes from its airspace, the first such incident after Beijing unilaterally declared an air defence zone over islands disputed with Japan in the East China Sea.
As a leader, he was ambitious, not for himself but for India and its people. His was not the short-term election cycle calculation of individual political gain. His was a practical vision of how to better the lives of his fellow citizens, asserts Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, who served as foreign secretary and national security advisor when Dr Singh was prime minister.
'Neither are Baloch insurgents capable of breaking up Pakistan, nor has Pakistan learned any lessons from the 1971 debacle that led to the country's dismemberment.'
Meanwhile, Israel has expressed its "deep disappointment" with China's response to the war.
China, which has territorial disputes with many countries in the strategic Indo-Pacific region, has been opposing the Quad alliance since its formation.
'They talk about their 2021 centenary goal, their 2035 goal, and their 2049 goal. They're accelerating. There's also been this unfortunately bashing of nationalism inside the People's Republic of China by the government'
The stage may be set for a recalibrated US-Iran relationship, suggests Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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