The two-day meeting of G20 countries concluded with discussions on finding solutions to vulnerabilities in the international financial system, enhancing financing for development and strengthening international financial architecture.
The meeting saw participation of nearly 100 delegates from G20 member nations, invitee countries and international organisations (IOs). The presence of a large number of delegates in City Beautiful demonstrated the strong support of the global community to India’s G20 presidency.
During their visit, the delegates got to experience city’s vibrancy. Apart from witnessing a polo match on January 29, the delegates got the opportunity to sample cuisine and art during a gala dinner hosted at Sukhna Lake last evening. Folk and classical dance and musical performances displaying India’s rich cultural diversity were organised. A 10-minute laser sound and light show showcased the theme of the G20 Summit — “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” (One Earth, One Family, One Future).
Today, the delegates were taken around city’s landmarks, including Capitol Complex and world-renowned Rock Garden. An official said while a few delegates left the city in the evening, others will head off to the Virasat-e-Khalsa monument at Anandpur Sahib in Ropar district of Punjab tomorrow morning, followed by a traditional Punjabi lunch on way to the city before their departure.
The next meeting of the G20 meeting on agriculture would be held in Chandigarh in March.
Get slice of Rock Garden
Delegates were taken around city’s landmarks, including Capitol Complex and Rock Garden
They will visit Virasat-e-Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib on Wednesday morning, followed by a lunch
US visa renewal application can now be submitted through dropbox
People seeking renewal of US visa can now submit their applications through dropbox, the US Embassy has said while clarifying that such requests would not be entertained through email.
According to John Ballard, the consular chief at the US Consulate General in Mumbai, the US embassy and consulates in India have prepared to receive a record number of visas from Indian students in 2023.
The US embassy adjudicated over 1,25,000 student visas in 2022.
“It was the most students that we have ever adjudicated here in India and we expect in 2023, we will have even more Indian students that will be coming into apply for visas,” Ballard told PTI.
Safety and well-being of Indians in Canada priority for govt: MoS Muraleedharan
The safety and well-being of Indian nationals in Canada is a priority for the government, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said on Thursday.
His remarks came in response to a question in Rajya Sabha on instances of increasing hate crime and sectarian violence against Indians in Canada.
Muraleedharan said India regularly takes up with Canada untoward incidents affecting the Indian community and requests it to bring the perpetrators to justice after carrying out proper investigation.
“The safety and well-being of Indian nationals in Canada is a priority for the government. The Indian Mission/Consulates in Canada are constantly engaged with the Indian community, including on measures to ensure their safety and well-being,” he said.
“The ministry and our Mission/Consulates in Canada regularly take up any untoward incidents related to the Indian community, with the concerned Canadian authorities and request them to ensure proper investigation, identify the perpetrators and impart justice,” he said.
Muraleedharan said the ministry as well as the Indian mission and consulates in Canada have issued advisories from time to time, asking Indian nationals residing in that country to exercise due caution and remain vigilant.
Few days back, a prominent Hindu temple in Brampton in Canada was targeted with anti-India graffiti, causing outrage among the Indian community.
Condemning the act of vandalism at Gauri Shankar Mandir, the Indian Consulate General in Toronto said the defacing of the temple has deeply hurt the sentiments of the Indian community in Canada.
To a separate question on India’s policy towards Taiwan, he said it is clear and consistent.
“The government facilitates and promotes interactions in areas of trade, investment, tourism, culture, education and other such people-to-people exchanges,” he said.
Though India and Taiwan do not have formal diplomatic ties, the bilateral trade relations have been on an upswing.
Following the eastern Ladakh border row with China, some experts in India have been pushing for upgrading New Delhi’s ties with Taipei, especially in the trade and investment sectors.
In 1995, New Delhi set up the India-Taipei Association (ITA) in Taipei to promote interactions between the two sides and to facilitate business, tourism and cultural exchanges.
India-Taipei Association has also been authorized to provide all consular and passport services.
In the same year, Taiwan too established the Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre in Delhi.
LCA Tejas aircraft to be at centre stage of India Pavilion at Aero India 2023
A full-scale LCA Tejas aircraft in Final Operational Clearance (FOC) configuration will be at the centre stage of “India Pavilion” at Aero India 2023, to be held from February 13 to 17 at Yelahanka Air Force Station here.
The 14th Edition of the biennial aero show and aviation exhibition, organised by the Ministry of Defence, will have a separate “India Pavilion” based on ‘Fixed Wing Platform’ theme to showcase India’s strides in the fixed wing area and future prospects in the field, a Defence release said on Thursday.
The India Pavilion will further showcase the growth of India in developing an eco-system for fixed wing platform which includes the demonstration of various structural modules, simulators and systems, among others, of LCA Tejas aircraft being produced by private partners.
There will also be a section for “Defence space, New Technologies” and a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) section which will give an insight about the growth of India in each sector.
LCA Tejas is a single engine, light weight, highly agile, multi-role supersonic fighter. It has quadruplex digital fly-by-wire Flight Control System (FCS) with associated advanced flight control laws.
The aircraft with delta wing is designed for ‘air combat’ and ‘offensive air support’ with ‘reconnaissance’ and ‘anti-ship’ as its secondary roles. “Extensive use of advanced composites in the airframe gives a high strength to weight ratio, long fatigue life and low radar signatures,” the release said.
Tejas is equipped with state-of-the-art features like glass cockpit, zero-zero ejection seat, in-flight refueling probe and jam-proof AESA Radar, among others, which make the aircraft “more lethal,” it said.
LCA has come a long way in terms of development and presently available in Air Force fighter & twin seater and LCA Navy fighter and twin seater. Other variants like LCA LIFT (Lead in fighter trainer) and MK-2 are being developed for LCA Tejas.
Aero India provides a platform to various national and international aerospace and defence companies to showcase their advanced products and capabilities to explore business opportunities, it was noted.
Republican Senators ask Blinken to hold China accountable for rights abuses, aggression towards allies like India and Taiwan
Several influential Republican lawmakers have urged Secretary of State Antony Blinken to hold China accountable for its egregious human rights abuses, unfair trade practices and aggression towards the US and its allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific and beyond, including its unacceptable and provocative behaviour against India and Taiwan.
The lawmakers wrote a letter to Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, ahead of their upcoming trips to Beijing.
Blinken heads to China on Sunday. Yellen is expected to travel there later in February.
“The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has stepped up its aggression in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond,” the Republican Senators led by Marco Rubio from Florida wrote in the letter on Wednesday.
They urged them to avoid giving the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a propaganda win and hold the CCP accountable for its egregious human rights abuses, unfair trade practices, leading role in the fentanyl crisis, and aggression towards allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific.
Signatories to the letter in addition to Rubio are Senators Chuck Grassley, Bill Cassidy, Eric Schmitt, Dan Sullivan, Kevin Cramer, Ted Budd, Rick Scott, Marsha Blackburn, Lindsey Graham, Shelley Moore Capito, Pete Ricketts, John Hoeven, and Bill Hagerty.
According to the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy, China is “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping stated in his 20th Party Congress report that the CCP has “shown a fighting spirit and a firm determination to never yield to coercive power.”
“As we have seen recently, General Secretary Xi has engaged in unacceptable and provocative behaviour in the Taiwan Strait and along the Himalayan border with India,” the letter said.
“Beyond the Indo-Pacific, the CCP has…intelligence collection outposts in the United States, Japan, and throughout Europe to suppress dissidents and keep tabs on those who Beijing deems a threat. It is evident that General Secretary Xi is determined to use coercion and aggression against the US and our allies and partners to achieve his geopolitical goals. Deterring the CCP from achieving these goals, therefore, must be our top priority,” the Senators wrote.
India, the US and several other world powers have been talking about the need to ensure a free, open and thriving Indo-Pacific in the backdrop of China’s rising military manoeuvring in the resource-rich region.
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.
China also has territorial disputes with Japan in the East China Sea.
According to the Senators, the CCP is the worst offender of human rights.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations have determined that Beijing’s actions against Uyghurs, and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) – including its system of mass surveillance and internment, denial of individuals’ rights to peacefully practice their religion, and use of forced labour, sexual violence, forced abortion, and forced sterilisation of women – constitute genocide and crimes against humanity.
Moreover, the CCP continues to deny basic human rights to other groups whom the regime deems a threat, such as Tibetans, Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners. The CCP is also responsible for fuelling the fentanyl crisis in the US, a scourge which has, and continues, to kill Americans.
“Finally, the CCP continues the horrible practice of wrongfully detaining US citizens and the family members of US citizens, including David Lin, Mark Swidan, Kai Li, Gulshan Abbas, Ekpar Asat, and Zhou Deyong. You must make clear that the United States will not cooperate with a regime that uses hostages as bargaining chips,” the letter said.
Beijing, they said, also has a long history of unfair trade practices and industrial espionage, which has caused immense harm to American workers and our economy.
“Over the last several decades, China has engaged in a methodical campaign to steal American intellectual property and research, often redirecting the acquired technologies to military ends. It has repeatedly abused its privileges in the world trading system to exploit our nation’s open economy and establish itself a leader in critical industries, including pharmaceuticals, rare-earth minerals, and commodities such as steel,” the Senators wrote.
“We are pleased that the US Trade Representative has continued to impose Section 301 tariffs on certain products made in China in response to its “unreasonable” and “discriminatory” non-market practices, and this tool should continue to be used to counter unfair trade policies of China. Meanwhile, much more needs to be done to rebalance our economic relationship with Beijing,” wrote the Senators.
DRDO seeks industrial partners to develop advanced wheeled and tracked armoured vehicles
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has sought Indian industrial partners to develop and manufacture wheeled and tracked variants of an advanced armoured platform (AAP) for the Army.
The AAPs will have all modern war-fighting features in tune with the Army’s futuristic battlefield requirements according to separate requests for proposals (RFP) issued by DRDO on January 28.
The wheeled variant will be a 24-tonne class of vehicle based on an 8×8 chassis. For comparison, the Russian BMP-2 tracked infantry combat vehicle in service with the mechanised formation at present weights around 15 tonnes.
Both variants will have compact integrated power pack with fully automatic transmission, modular ballistic and blast protection, NBC detection and protection, provisions for integration of advanced laser warning, detection and counter-measure system, add-on armour and interface arrangement for loiter munitions and mini UAV.
They will also be fully amphibious and equipped with various thermal and optical sights for the crew and fire control systems. The wheeled version will feature a crewless turret with a 30 mm cannon along with run flat inserts for the tyres, according to the RPF.
In December 2022, the Defence Acquisition Council (DCA) had accorded an acceptance of necessity (AoN) for the procurement of futuristic infantry combat vehicle (tracked) for the Mechanised Infantry.
Amphibious capability, manned turret with fire control system, fire and forget top-attack anti-tank guided missiles, automatic cannon of at least 30 mm calibre, co-axial machine gun and a stabilised radar-controlled weapon system with 12.7mm machine gun, modern warning and protection measures and a crew of three along with capacity for carrying a stick of eight soldiers were among the specifications listed by the DAC.h
The Army had earlier projected a requirement for 1,750 futuristic infantry combat vehicles (FICV). This includes different variants such as fully armed versions, command and control versions, and surveillance and recce versions.
The industrial partners for the AAP project will be required to design, develop, integrate and test the vehicle’s chassis, hull, engine, transmission and electrical systems, protection apparatus, weapons and combat systems and other components and sub-systems according to technical specifications issued by DRDO’s Vehicle Research and Development Establishment (VRDE), Ahmednagar.
According to some reports, a few years ago Russia had offered the BMP-3, a follow-on variant of the BMP-2 to India for its FICV requirements, but the offer was rejected in favour of indigenous development. The Indian Army had also initiated a project to upgrade its existing fleet of BMP-2s.
Here is why Pakistani-Bangladeshi-origin couple named their child ‘India’
A Pakistani-Bangladeshi-origin couple has named their child ‘India’.
Omar Esa, a popular singer, took to Facebook to share a hilarious photo of him and his wife with their kid lying on his stomach between them.
In the picture, just like the three neighbouring countries they lie next to each other just as on the map. Earlier the boy was called Ibrahim, parents changed his name as “India was cauing mad issues in his life”.
Esa wrote on Facebook: “A WARNING to all new parents and condolences to all the parents who did what we did, so me and my begum made the silly mistake to let our firstborn Ibrahim sleep in our bed from when he was a little baby, you know new parents and that, we were so protective over him,”
“Well now this little guy is used to this sleeping arrangement and always ends up in the middle of us when we are sleeping even though he has his own bedroom. So as I’m Pakistani origin and my wife is Bangladeshi origin, we have given Ibrahim a new name, we call him India now as he’s right in the middle of his Pakistani and Bangladeshi parents, India causing mad issues in my life,” he added.
Expose black sheep in forces helping drug peddlers: and drugs are available at grocery stores. Pb Governor to border villagers
Governor Banwarilal Purohit addresses mediapersons in Amritsar on Wednesday. Sunil Kumar Tribune News Service
GS PAUL
Amritsar, February 1
With no let-up in cases of drug abuse and arms smuggled mainly from across the India-Pakistan international border, Governor Banwarilal Purohit has given a call to residents of the border belt to post a letter to him to reveal lapses and black sheep in forces, who are prospering with the help of peddlers.
Accompanied by DGP, Punjab Police, Gaurav Yadav, Chief Secretary VK Janjua and Principal Secretary to the Governor Rakhi Gupta, Purohit was here on his two-day tour to the border belt of Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur, Pathankot, followed by Fazilka and Ferozepur tomorrow.
The Governor also interacted with border residents and sought their cooperation in alerting the police and security forces, if they come across any illegal activity in their respective areas.
Stressing to nail the black sheep, he said local citizen defence committees should be formed and taken into loop to curb the drug menace
Though, the DGP spelled out the seizures and action taken against tainted police personnel, yet the Governor said, “While the security forces are doing their duty, yet the local input could play a vital role in plugging the influx of contraband, weapons and drugs into our territory.”
He also pointed out that drug smugglers lodged in jails operate their handlers through mobile phones procured illegally in connivance with the prison authorities.
The Governor said, “This is my third visit to Punjab that shares border with Pakistan. On the basis of the feedback received from local residents, I must say that the drug menace could not be curtailed despite the fact that there is a spurt in official figures of seizures and arrests by security forces. I am a worried man, especially for the six districts bordering Pakistan. The border residents told me that drugs could be made available at general stores selling groceries. I have no hesitation in intervening directly. I ask local residents to directly send me the feedback through a letter without revealing their identity. Then, I can take up the matter with the authorities concerned.
He said his purpose of visit was to strengthen the coordination among the BSF, Punjab Police, Army and other security agencies.
Meanwhile, the Governor said problems of farmers, who face difficulty in tilling their land located beyond the border fencing, increasing the quota of Punjab in ‘Agniveer’ recruitment scheme and other job opportunities and special incentives for the border belt residents had already been taken up by him with the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Others present on the occasion include the BSF IG, Punjab Frontier, Asif Jalal, Amritsar Police Commissioner Jaskaran Singh, SSP (Amritsar rural) Swapan Sharma, Tarn Taran Deputy Commissioner Rishipal Singh and SSP Gurmeet Chauhan.
Drugs at grocery shops?
Residents told me that drugs are available at grocery stores. I have no hesitation in intervening directly and I ask them to directly send me feedback through a letter anonymously. Then, I can take up the matter with the authorities concerned. — Banwarilal Purohit, Governor
Punjab government to give job to former hockey player currently working as ‘Palledar’
Mann said that it is our duty to respect the players. Video grab- Twitter/Bhagwant Mann PTI
Chandigarh, February 2
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Thursday said a former hockey player, Paramjeet, who currently works as a labourer, will be given a job by his government as a coach in the sports department.
Mann tweeted the video of the meeting with Paramjeet, 30, where he said he works as a ‘palledar’, a labour work that includes loading and unloading rice and wheat sacks from trucks, at the Faridkot mandi.
During his interaction, the chief minister said that Paramjeet will be recruited as a hockey coach in the sports department and soon formalities in this regard will be completed.
On being asked whether the earlier government took note of his plight, the ex-hockey player replied, “No, did not get any response
Mann said that it is our duty to respect the players.
Paramjeet also told Mann that he wants to make his son a hockey player but it seems impossible given his poor financial condition.
“You will get a good environment to work,” Mann told him while adding “we have to make Punjab and country No 1 in sports… Hockey is our traditional game and Punjab is known as hockey nursery”
Earlier, he was part of the Sports Authority of India and Punjab team and won medals in several hockey tournaments, Paramjeet said.
However, a few years ago, he suffered an injury in his left hand which kept him away from the game for a long time and affected his hockey career.
Because of his injury, he started working as a “palledar” a few years ago.
