India on Sunday signed three agreements with the US for developing smart cities in Ajmer, Allahabad and Visakhapatnam, with the government saying that the agreements would make significant contribution to building such cities in the country.
India's time use survey for January-December 2019 had found that an average person in urban areas spends 485 (eight hours and five minutes) minutes on employment and related activities.
In his opening remarks at the virtual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Modi also said that some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of their policy and the grouping must not hesitate to criticise them.
At a time when crackdown on tax havens has acquired a political colour, data shows that Swiss banks held securities worth $3.35 trillion in 2008, with over half managed on behalf of foreign entities.
Four major political takeaways from Narendra Modi's much-anticipated trip to China
This could become tricky territory for India, given its basically adversarial relationship with China, its moves to block imports and investment from that country, and to deny market access for Chinese technologies, observes T N Ninan.
India stands top among South Asian countries in pension coverage to its older people, according to a joint report by the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday held wide-ranging talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov focusing on the Ukraine conflict, bilateral ties and issues relating to the G20 foreign ministers' meeting.
In an address at the Council of Heads of Government meeting of the eight-member SCO, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu said the most important challenge faced by the region is terrorism, particularly cross-border terrorism, and that India remained concerned about threats emerging from ungoverned spaces as well.
At a time when political parties are coming up with poll promises like job guarantees, OECD, a group of rich nations, has found that nine in 10 employees in India do not have a formal labour contract and social security benefits such as advance dismissal notices.
Borrowing from BRICS bank will help India avoid other kinds of politics emanating from the West. Overall, the BRICS institutions will necessarily adopt alternative ways of doing things based on their own cultural and socio economic needs, says M K Venu.
'Terrorism continues to be the overwhelming threat to security and stability in the SCO region and therefore Dr Jaishankar strongly pitched for 'collective action',' observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
In a strong reaction, external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said such statements only expose the OIC as an organization devoted to a "communal agenda being pursued through terrorism".
As India's stock rises, the resolution of the border row may become even more difficult, warn Harsh V Pant and Kalpit Mankikar.
The prime minister will leave for the Indonesian city of Bali on Monday on a three-day visit to attend the summit that is expected to deliberate extensively on pressing global challenges including the Ukraine conflict and its implications.
During the meeting, Gantz emphasised the opportunity to invest further in defence cooperation between the two countries.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi discussed ways to further strengthen the "iron-clad friendship" between the two countries as the two sides signed five agreements to deepen their bilateral cooperation in various fields, the foreign office said on Tuesday.
China has signalled that it will prevent India from assuming leadership of the Global South, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Das is friendly, but he finally does what he does. The quality of engagement is very good.'
Singh emphasised that the Indo-Pacific is no more a maritime construct, but a full-fledged geo-strategic issue, and that the region is facing "a complex web" of security challenges, including boundary disputes and piracy.
"In India's development cooperation, we will be guided by our partners' development priorities. Our assistance does not create indebtedness and is without conditionalities," he said at the 44th Annual Meeting of the G-77 Foreign Ministers on Thursday, in a veiled reference to China's loans which has led to debt-traps in some countries.
Officials hint the visit could finally see a formal defence industrial road map being adopted by both nations.
Asserting that terrorism is not linked to any religion, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on Tuesday said it is no coincidence that despite there being around 200 million Muslims, the involvement of Indian citizens in global terrorism has been "incredibly low".
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.
The World Bank's executive board unanimously selected 63-year-old Malpass, who is currently Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs, as the bank's 13th President for a five-year term beginning April 9.
Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra on Wednesday refused to speculate on whether the G20 foreign ministers' meeting would be able to come out with a joint communique against the backdrop of widening differences between the West and Russia on the Ukraine conflict.
'No Cold War should be reignited and no Ukraine-style crisis should be repeated in Asia'
The PM said that countries sponsoring, aiding and funding terrorism must be held accountable.
In a boost to the embattled Adani Group, Mauritian Financial Services Minister Mahen Kumar Seeruttun has told the nation's Parliament that Hindenburg Research's allegations of the presence of 'shell' companies in the Island nation are 'false and baseless' and that Mauritius was in compliance with OECD-mandated tax rules. US short seller Hindenburg on January 24 alleged that billionaire Gautam Adani used shell companies based in Mauritius to manipulate stock prices of his Indian-listed companies.
India is keen to strengthen its partnership with Russia on Arctic subjects and there is immense scope for cooperation in the field of energy as well, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will hold its first in-person summit in Samarkand in Uzbekistan on Thursday after two years, shaking off Covid fears and providing a rare opportunity for all its eight heads of state to meet on the sidelines of the event to have face-to-face talks on pressing global and regional issues of common concern.
'It's vital that over the next 10 years, that India, the US and the Artemis Accords family of nations come together to ensure that we not only return humanity to the moon, but that we build the technology that will allow us stay there permanently.' 'And then go on to Mars.'
The talks took place in a beach resort in Benaulim on the sidelines of a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
The silver lining for India's presidency is likely to be the support by almost all G20 countries to its proposal to include the African Union as a permanent member of the bloc that has emerged as perhaps the most influential multilateral forum after the United Nations.
Chinese Premier Premier Li Keqiang said world economic recovery should not be driven by mainly China, but in concert with many countries.
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