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PM Modi meets Theresa May for bilateral talks on immigration, counter-terrorism

Agencies
April 18, 2018

London, Apr 18; Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday arrived at 10 Downing Street for a breakfast meeting with his British counterpart Theresa May during which the two leaders are expected to discuss wide range of issues of mutual interest, including cross-border terrorism, visas and immigration.

Modi was greeted with the customary handshake by May.

"Very welcome to London, Prime Minister," May said as she greeted Modi, who arrived in a Tata Motors' Range Rover.

The two leaders will hold talks over a breakfast meeting on a wide range of issues of mutual interest, including cross-border terrorism, visas and immigration.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the return of illegal immigrants, which had expired in 2014, will be officially renewed to take into account biometric and other developments in the field, along with a range of nearly a dozen MoUs across different sectors.

"A slew of agreements will be signed between India and the UK during the bilateral leg of the visit today. This is a relationship that cuts across all sectors and has reached a very mature level. The prime minister's visit is about what more we can do to build on that," a senior Indian official said.

A "flash mob" of sari-clad women from Indian Ladies in UK, accompanied by dhols, had gathered outside Downing Street to welcome the Indian PM with banners such as "In India, Peace is always in Fashion".

Modi had landed in Britain from Stockholm overnight for bilateral engagements as well as multilateral discussions as part of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

He was received at the airport by UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who said he was "excited" that India-UK bilateral trade is growing at 15 per cent a year and the visit will help build on "huge economic advantages". Both leaders held a late night meeting at Heathrow airport.

"A real pleasure to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the UK. Lots to discuss on UK-India bilateral issues - tech collaboration, trade, healthcare opportunities and more," Johnson said.

"Another chapter in modern partnership bound by strong historical ties," added the ministry of external affairs (MEA).

Modi is set for a packed day of official engagements today.

After his meeting with the British PM, he arrives at the Science Museum in London to explore the '5000 Years of Science and Innovation' exhibition and interact with Indian-origin and other scientists and innovators based in the UK.

The event, hosted by Prince Charles, will include the launch of a new Ayurvedic Centre of Excellence, aimed at creating a first-of-its-kind global network for evidence-based research on yoga and Ayurveda.

A brief stop to garland the Basaveshwara statue on the banks of the river Thames, which Modi had inaugurated during his last visit to the UK in 2015, will be followed by his second meeting with Theresa May at an event hosted by the British prime minister at the Francis Crick Institute.

Following an interaction with Indian-origin scientists working on cancer research, malaria and other tropical diseases, both leaders will initiate the India-UK CEOs Forum. An India-UK Tech Alliance is also expected to be among the announcements during the day.

Modi is scheduled for a private audience with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace before the Bharat Ki Baat, Sabke Saath diaspora event, to be telecast live from the iconic Central Hall Westminster in London.

The event, billed as the centrepiece of the "Living Bridge" theme of the India-UK bilateral visit, will involve the PM addressing questions from across the world which have already been received via social media.

An estimated 1,700 people, mostly from the Indian diaspora in the UK, successful in a ballot of free online registrations will attend the event organised by the Europe India Forum.

"It will be a no-holds-barred interaction with Prime Minister Modi, in a manner and format never witnessed before," said Vijay Chauthaiwale, in charge of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Foreign Affairs Department.

At the end of the live telecast, Modi will join Heads of Government from 52 other Commonwealth countries at a dinner hosted by May as a formal welcome to the CHOGM.

According to official estimates, India-UK bilateral trade stands at USD 13 billion, with the UK among the largest G20 investors into India. Modi's UK visit this week will have a particular focus on the India-UK technological partnership as well as an enhanced role in the Commonwealth.

A series of demonstrations, including a silent protest to condemn the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district, have been planned by various groups at Parliament Square here his visit.

Comments

rameeztk
 - 
Thursday, 19 Apr 2018

Hamare pyaare PM ji...   What kind of terrorism are you going to counter? end?  End the terrorism from OUR OWN GOONS in India.  

Bring some laws so that....

 

 

01. Let’s think of saving our mothers, sisters and daughters from OUR OWN GOONS.  

 

 

02. Let’s create a safe environment for our mother sisters and daughters.

 

 

03. Put the criminals behind the bar and punish them. 

 

 

04. According to me Politician is a respected word/degree/profession (In actual it’s not at present scenario) Choose candidates with some degree in political science, economy etc. to become MLA MP. Don’t let criminals enter the politics.

 

 

05. We are on high performance rate when it comes to voting, we start visiting each and every homes, constituencies to meet and greet the people. Hope using same method/strategy we can reach each and every common man when it comes to his/her safety issues.

 

 

06. Let’s derive some good methods to counter the terrorism within our own country by OUR OWN GOONS.

 

 

07. For rapists, bring a strict law (Hang to death) to punish them.

 

 

As a law abiding citizen of India I’m ready to cooperate with you Mr. Pyaare PM.

You still have one year time to do all these stuffs.

 

 

Don’t work for NAME and FAME,

 

We may have to face SHAME..

 

I don’t want anyone to BLAME,

 

Taking our Indian PM NAME..

 

 

JAI HO… JAI HIND..

 

 

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Agencies
April 14,2020

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has reprimanded the Imran Khan government for denying food aid to Hindus and Christians in Pakistan amid the coronavirus pandemic and warned that it will trigger an additional crisis due to religious discrimination.

The USCIRF is an independent federal government entity set up by the US Congress to monitor and report on religious freedom in the world.

Pakistan continues to be in the tier one of the USCIRF list of the countries whose record on religious freedom remains abysmal.

In a statement issue on Monday, the USCIRF said it was troubled by the reports of food aid being denied to Hindus and Christians in Pakistan amid pandemic.

Citing one of the examples of religious discrimination, the USCIRF said that in Karachi, the Saylani Welfare International Trust, a non-government organization set up to help the homeless and seasonal workers, has been refusing food aid to Hindus and Christians and providing it only Muslims.

Describing such actions "reprehensible", the USCIRF commissioner Anurima Bhargava said: "As COVID-19 continues to spread, vulnerable communities within Pakistan are fighting hunger and to keep their families safe and healthy. Food aid must not be denied because of one's faith."
One of the USCIRF commissioners, Johnnie Moore warned that if the Khan government continued with such policies, Pakistan would add an additional crisis.

"In a recent address by Prime Minister Khan to the international community, he highlighted that the challenge facing governments in the developing world is to save people from dying of hunger while also trying to halt the spread of COVID-19. This is a monumental task laying before many countries.

"Prime Minister Khan's government has the opportunity to lead the way but they must not leave religious minorities behind. Otherwise, they may add on top of it all one more crisis, created by religious discrimination and inter-communal strife."

The organization which makes foreign policy recommendations to the US President, the Secretary of State, and Congress, urged the Pakistani government to ensure that food aid from distributing organizations is shared equally with Hindus, Christians, and other religions minorities.

Last year, in its annual report, the USCIRF had noted that Hindus and Christians in Pakistan "face continued threats to their security and are subjected to various forms of harassment and social exclusion".

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Agencies
August 5,2020

Ninety per cent of a sample group of coronavirus-recovered patients from a prominent hospital in China's Wuhan city where the pandemic broke out have reported lung damage and five per cent of them are again in quarantine after testing positive for the virus, according to a media report on Wednesday.

A team at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University led by Peng Zhiyong, director of the hospital's Intensive Care Unit, has been conducting follow-up visits with '100 recovered patients' since April.

The first phase of this one-year programme finished in July. The average age of the patients in the study is 59.

According to the first phase results, 90 per cent of the patients' lungs are still in a damaged state, which means their lungs ventilation and gas exchange functions have not recovered to the level of healthy people, state-run Global Times reported.

Peng's team conducted a six-minute walking test with the patients. They found that the recovered patients could only walk 400 metres in six minutes while their healthy peers could walk 500 metres in the same period.

Some recovered patients have to rely on oxygen machines even three months after being discharged from the hospital, Liang Tengxiao, a doctor from the Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, was quoted as saying by the report.

Liang's team is also conducting follow-up visits with recovered patients aged above 65.

The results also showed that antibodies against the novel coronavirus in 10 per cent of the 100 patients have disappeared.

Five per cent of them received negative results in Covid-19 nucleic acid tests but positive results in Immunoglobulin M (IgM) tests, and thus have to be quarantined again, the report said.

IgM is usually the first antibody produced by the immune system when a virus attacks. A positive result in an IgM test usually means that a person has just been infected by the virus.

It is still unclear if this means these people have been infected again.

The 100 patients' immune systems have not fully recovered as they showed a low level of B cells -- - a primary force for killing viruses in the human body -- but a high level of T cells which only recognise viral antigens outside infected cells.

"The results revealed that the patients’ immune systems are still recovering," Peng said.

The patients also suffered from depression and a sense of stigma. Most of the recovered patients told the team that their families were not willing to have dinner with them at the same table, the report said.

Less than half of the recovered patients have returned to work, it said.

The findings are significant as the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan city.

Hubei province for which Wuhan is the provincial capital has reported a total of 68,138 confirmed Covid-19 cases till now. The disease has claimed 4,512 lives in the province, according to the official data.

China reported 27 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, including 22 locally-transmitted cases, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Wednesday.

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Agencies
May 6,2020

Italian researchers have claimed that they have successfully developed a vaccine to contain coronavirus (COVID-19) which is likely to work on humans, a report said.

Luigi Aurisicchio, CEO of Takis, the firm developing the medication, said that a coronavirus candidate vaccine has neutralised the virus in human cells for the first time, the Arab News reported.

"This is the most advanced stage of testing of a candidate vaccine created in Italy. Human tests are expected after this summer," Aurisicchio was quoted as saying to Italian news agency ANSA.

"According to the Spallanzani Hospital, as far as we know we are the first in the world so far to have demonstrated neutralisation of the coronavirus by a vaccine. We expect this to happen in humans too," he added.

The researchers experimented with the vaccine on mice that had successfully developed antibodies that blocked the virus from infecting the cells. They further observed that the five vaccine candidates generated a large number of antibodies, and selected two with the best results.

All of the vaccine candidates currently being developed are based on the genetic material of DNA protein "spike", the molecular tip used by the coronavirus to enter human cells.

They are injected with the so-called "electroporation" technique, which consists of an intramuscular injection followed by a brief electrical impulse, helping the vaccine break into the cells and activating the immune system, the report said.

Researchers believe that this makes their vaccine particularly effective for generating functional antibodies against the "spike" protein, in particular in the lung cells, which are the most vulnerable to coronavirus.

"We are working hard for a vaccine coming from Italian research, with an all-Italian and innovative technology, tested in Italy and made available to everyone," Aurisicchio was quoted by the Arab News report.

"In order to reach this goal, we need the support of national and international institutions and partners who may help us speed up the process," he noted.

The total number of COVID-19 infections, fatalities and recoveries since the pandemic began has risen to 213,013 in the country.

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