American lawmakers want Narendra Modi to address US Congress-Times of India
WASHINGTON: Two American lawmakers have written to US House Speaker John Boehner requesting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi be invited to address a joint meeting of Congress in September when he travels to Washington at President Barack Obama's invitation.
"India is a critical partner of the United States. In every aspect, whether it be in political, economic, or security relationship, the United States has no more important partner in South Asia," Congressmen Ed Royce and George Holding wrote in their June 20 letter to the House Speaker, echoing Obama's oft-cited statement that US-India relationship will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century. Royce and Holding said the US must now work closely with Modi to strengthen the relationship given that he has promised to focus on private enterprise, reduce bureaucracy, and strengthen trade ties with major partners. Since 2001, US-India trade has experienced impressive growth, but our commercial relationship remains far below the scale of our markets, they said.
Royce, a California Republican who is chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee and former co-chair of the India Caucus, has been a ardent votary of a Washington outreach to Modi even as some of his colleagues worked to keep the former Gujarat chief minister out of the US in view of his alleged inaction during the 2002 Gujarat riots. The State Department complied with the pressure from a few lawmakers and their human rights constituents. All that is now in the past after the White House, pilloried for allowing the India relationship to drift, initiated a policy turnabout, ostensibly impressed by the mandate the Indian electorate gave the Modi-led BJP. Efforts are now on to reset the relationship amid the discovery in Washington of Modi's many perceived strengths and virtues. Link Times of India
PM Narendra Modi disbands 4 Cabinet committees, gives teeth to economic affairs
panel-Hindustan Times-11.06.14 In the second major decision to end the UPA government's legacy, Prime Minister
Narendra
Modi on Tuesday scrapped four cabinet committees, including one on Unique
Identification Authority (UIDAI), as part of his efforts to minimise
decision-making processes. The other committees disbanded were the Cabinet Committee on Prices, the Cabinet
Committee on Management of Natural Calamities and the Cabinet Committee on World
Trade Organisation Matters, an official statement said. Modi, however, gave additional responsibilities to the all-important cabinet
committee on economic affairs (CCEA) which primarily deals with matters of high
economic importance such as clearing big-ticket projects, approving FDI or
deciding on food export/import.
With regard to the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI-related issues, the statement
said major decisions have already been taken and the remaining issues will be
brought to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. NDA govt moves to amend Factories Act-Livemint
“The labour and employment ministry proposes to amend the Factories Act 1948,” said a ministry document dated 6 June and posted on its website.
Coincidentally, it was the same day the BJP government in Rajasthan approved amendments to three key labour laws—the Industrial Disputes Act, the Factories Act and the Contract Labour Act—and set in motion a process of decentralizing the labour market and making it “employment friendly”.
The BJP, which has won a majority on its own, had in its manifesto signalled its intent to pursue labour law reforms, saying that if elected to power, it would “bring together all stakeholders to review our labour laws which are outdated, complicated and even contradictory”.
Ahead of Modi-Obama meet, India and US seek to strengthen ties-LiveMint
Wide range of talks planned leading up to Narendra Modi’s meeting with Barack Obama in September
New Delhi: India and the US are looking to reset ties with governments on both sides keen to arrest a recent downslide in relations marked by lethargy and tension after the detention of an Indian diplomat in New York in December, people close to the development said on Tuesday.
On the cards are a wide range of dialogues to intensify engagement—the India-US-Japan trilateral talks and discussions between the commerce and defence departments of the two countries besides the India-US strategic dialogue between Secretary of State John Kerry and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. All these are expected to lead up to a meeting between India’s newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama in September when the former travels to the US for the United Nations General Assembly
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi seeks Narendra Modi's company to dominate the world-DNA
At the end of his two-day visit to India, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in a free-wheeling press conference on late Monday evening, said that he felt the winds of change in the new government and that the international community has high expectations of the new dispensation. He was confident that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that both India and China relations would achieve greater progress and modernisation.
Wang Yi emphasised that there were more commonalities than differences and greater cooperation than competitiveness between the two countries. Wang had called on President Pranab Mukherjee and PM Modi earlier in the day. He said that Modi had told him of the visit of seventh century CE Chinese Buddhist traveller Zuan Zhang to Gujarat, and that they have agreed to launch a Zuan Zhang cultural exchange programme. He also admitted that India was one of the priorities in China’s foreign policy and that if China too was a priority for India, then the relations between the two countries would grow faster than ever. He said that as India had the Look East policy, China, too, is looking to the west Modi factor helps stock market cap cross $1.5 trillion-HT
The combined market capitalisation of India's publicly listed companies
crossed $1.5 trillion on Monday, as billions of dollars poured into India in the
wake of Narendra
Modi's stunning election victory in May.
Modi, leading the Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party, scored the biggest
election win for 30 years, pledging sweeping reform to create jobs and boost an
economy growing below 5% - its slowest in more than a decade.
Strong foreign buying has pushed both the Sensex and the broader Nifty up by
just over 20% so far this year, posting a series of record highs - the latest on
Monday - and far outperforming a 5% gain in the MSCI Asia-Pacific index
excluding Japan.
Foreign investors have bought a net $8.55 billion so far this year, with
$3.31 billion coming since the beginning of May.
At $1.52 trillion as of Monday's close, the market value of the National
Stock Exchange and the smaller Bombay Stock Exchange makes India the second
largest among emerging markets in Asia, ahead of South Korea, but still below
the market cap of $2.4 trillion for Shanghai-listed shares, according to Thomson
Reuters data.
India's market capitalisation, however, remains below a peak average of $1.82
trillion hit in December 2007, according to data from BSE
Narendra Modi, Barack Obama will meet in Washington in September-Times of India NEW DELHI: In what is probably the most significant foreign policy decision taken since he became Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has confirmed to US President Barack Obama that he will have a bilateral meeting with him in Washington in the last week of September this year.
Obama had invited Modi to the US when he called up the PM to congratulate him.
Significantly, the meeting won't happen on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly in New York but in the form of a full-fledged bilateral summit in Washington.
The two sides are finalizing the date for the meeting which will be in the last week of September, TOI has learnt. The Modi-Obama summit promises to be one of the foremost international events of the year and will overshadow Modi's presence at UNGA, if he decides to go to New York too.
In taking the decision, Modi has shown that his own predilections, if any, won't come in the way of ties with the US.
He has, in fact, acted with alacrity and decisiveness on what many believe is going to be one of the biggest immediate challenges for India's foreign policy — that of mending India-US ties which had tapered off under UPA-2 and then nosedived with l'affaire Khobragade.
Modi's decision underlines the significance of the US in India's strategic matrix. There was speculation that Modi could focus more on China and South Korea for economic gains and on an improved security partnership with Japan but these are not likely to come at the expense of Washington.
Modi was thought to be inadequately equipped to mend India-US ties because — as some reckoned — he could find it difficult to come to terms with the US hostility towards him after the 2002 Gujarat riots, and the resultant revocation of his US visa. He remained the only person to be barred from traveling to the US for many years under the country's controversial International Religious Freedom Act.
While the UK and EU were quick off the blocks in reaching out to Modi, US was late in responding, but once it did in the form of a meeting former US ambassador Nancy Powell sought with him, Modi has been generous in his response.
In an interview to TOI, before he took over as PM, Modi had said that relations between the two countries cannot be allowed to be "even remotely" influenced by incidents related to individuals.
Describing the US as a natural ally, he said it was in the interest of both countries to further develop the relationship.
Modi's decision to confirm the Obama bilateral is also the second big surprise he has sprung on his detractors who thought he would be straightjacketed by his own election campaign, and the baggage he was supposed to have come with on relations with the US.
Despite Pakistan featuring in his speeches, and his admonition of UPA for its 'biryani' diplomacy, Modi successfully invited Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif for his swearing in.
