US President Barack Obama on Tuesday called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi to greet him on Diwali and they agreed to meet in Turkey on the sidelines of the G20 Summit to be held early next week.
The United States will host the next G-20 Summit on September 24 and 25 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in which global powers, including India, will participate, the White House announced on Friday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has urged the G20 nations to send a strong message to control the 'serious problems' of tax evasion and illicit flows that have grave bearing on the developing nations' future.
The first-ever meeting of Labour Ministers from G-20 countries, including India, that began here on Wednesday has stressed on the need to create new jobs and preservation of the existing ones as the working class across the globe are among most hit by the current global economic crisis.
The new French President Francois Hollande has pledged to continue France's strategic partnership with India with same vigour as his predecessors Jacques Chirac and Nikolas Sarkozy who belonged to rival parties.
India is pushing for greater disclosures by credit card companies, fintech firms, and payment aggregators (PAs) at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), so that the sender and recipient in a cross-border financial transaction can be easily identified and the information shared with law enforcement agencies. Separately, the inter-governmental group, which sets standards to curb money laundering, will release the fourth round of its mutual evaluation report on India on September 19. FATF in June had adopted the mutual evaluation report on India and placed the country in the "regular follow-up" category - the highest rating given by the global watchdog and a distinction shared by only four other G20 countries.
India too will advocate the IMF quote reforms at the two-day meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors beginning Saturday.
The other key issues to be taken up at the summit, which is expected to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will include raising the global GDP by an additional 2 per cent in the next five years and boosting infrastructure sector funding.
Observing that the world is at a crossroads now as it faces the greatest economic crisis in 60 years, the IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said at a news conference that the G-20 leaders have the opportunity to spur a recovery next year if they take the right action.
Addressing a news conference after discussions with experts on the financial crisis, Merkel spoke of her determination to work for an agreement on more stringent regulation of financial markets and to prevent financial institutions from 'blackmailing' the state.
Defence Ministry spokesperson A Bharat Bhushan Babu said the DRDO never installed any helicopter model in Lucknow.
The first of such demonstrations will be held on Saturday. It has been organised by an alliance of more than 150 unions, environment and faith groups under an umbrella calling itself Put People First.
Prime Minister Narendra D Modi was rather selective about his famous hugs when he encountered his G20 guests at Bharat Mandapam on Saturday, September 9, 2023, morning.
The G20 summit has failed to heal the rift over US plans for military action against the embattled Syrian regime, as American President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin could not reach consensus on Friday during "candid and constructive" talks.
In retrospect, it appeared that the bitterness of the war was still strong and the Ukrainian success in occupying Russian territory just a few days ago had added to the complexity of the situation. The positive US response to the visit, however, remains a silver lining in the dark clouds, notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Stating that the global financial crisis threatens the livelihoods of nearly 1.4 billion people globally, a United Nations agency has asked the G-20 leaders to commit themselves to save the world poor from the adverse impact of the downturn.
Development issues of vital interest to India are expected to receive focused attention at the G20 Summit beginning in Cannes on Wednesday, a Ficci Paper on the B20 Working Group on Development said.
India would like the upcoming G-20 Summit to discuss on ways to prevent regulatory failures that led to the economic crisis from recurring.
'To get a 100 per cent consensus document without any reservation, any bracket, any chair summary is unprecedented in the history of multilateral forums.'
Amid imminent phasing out of the fiscal stimulus by US Federal Reserve, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday called for an "orderly exit" from unconventional monetary policies being pursued by the developed world for the last few years to avoid damaging growth prospects of the developing world.
it's just a matter of time, the former army chief said in response to a question.
India no longer needs big ticket reforms but small and basic ones to drive the growth forward, Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said on Monday. Addressing the media after the Economic Survey 2023-24 presented in Parliament, Nageswaran said there is a need to pursue all possible approaches without any ideological orientation. "In terms of the kind of reforms that we need to do, it is no longer big-ticket reforms that dominate your front pages but more about grunt works.
Delhi wears an empty look as the capital police remain on high alert on the first day of the G20 Summit.
One person died after he collapsed during demonstrations against the G-20 summit in London, as security officials vowed to prosecute protestors who broke into a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland. The man died after he collapsed at the scene of protests near the Bank of England. A protester called the police after they saw the man collapse and stop breathing. Two police medics broke through the cordon and carried the man to a clear area.
Except for China's leaders, few others have any capital or standing to make a difference. Not Manmohan Singh or George Brown, both on the way out. But Manmohan Singh would typically read being there as India coming of age under his stewardship. The only good news for us is that our elections are around the corner.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the United Nations Security Council that 'we have to prepare' the second peace summit to end the Russia-Ukraine war 'altogether' and he has invited India and other countries to join the peace process.
India and Canada have mutually beneficial political and economic linkages. The two countries should get together and find a solution. The expulsion war should, in the meantime, be a guarantee against any deterioration of the situation, asserts Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, the first Indian head of mission to be ever expelled by any country.
From India's neighbourhood and extended neighbourhood, presidents of Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Iran, Seychelles and prime ministers of Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Mauritius have sent congratulatory greetings to Modi.
For India, the talks will work as another opportunity to sharpen its positions ahead of the formal UN negotiations.
IMF members will also be examining whether China's heavy intervention in the yuan market was befitting of a freely convertible reserve currency
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden are set to hold bilateral talks on Friday evening with a focus on further solidifying the India-US comprehensive global and strategic partnership.
India on Tuesday told the UN General Assembly that the days when a few nations set the agenda and expected others to fall in line are over, underlining that its presidency of the G20 sought to focus on key concerns of the many, not just the narrow interests of a few.
The unease in India-Canada ties was on display when Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday responded to a congratulatory message from his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau and said New Delhi looks forward to working with Ottawa based on mutual understanding and respect for 'each other's concerns'.
PM Modi articulated five action points that would serve the common interest of promoting peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.
G-20, the grouping of developed and emerging market economies, will focus on food security but issues concerning India like rising prices of vegetables may not come up for discussions at a meeting in Paris next week.
'Trump's disregard for norms and institutions could prove very costly for America's social fabric.'
India would be a major beneficiary of softer oil prices among the G20 economies as the country is a major crude importer.
