Kerry heads for India to attend Vibrant Gujarat Summit

January 10, 2015

Washington, Jan 10: US Secretary of State John Kerry today headed for India to attend the Vibrant Gujarat Summit during which he will address investors to boost economic ties and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss a broad range of bilateral and global issues, including climate change.

Kerry Gujarat

"The Secretary would be emphasising the importance and future potential of our economic partnership with India, State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki said.

"Obviously the discussion would be on everything from continuing to do more economically and technologically, given that United States and India, we believe, can reach greater level of prosperity together than we would achieve alone," she said.

The three-day Vibrant Gujarat Summit will begin tomorrow in Ahmedabad.

"He would also be reiterating throughout the trip, our shared commitment to address the challenge of climate change, promoting clean energy in the future. Prime Minister Modi has a strong track record in this regard," she said, adding that the Obama administration sees this trip as a pivotal point in India-US relationship.

After a brief stopover in Munich to meet the Sultan of Oman, Kerry leading a high-level US delegation is scheduled to arrive in Ahmedabad tomorrow.

Soon after his arrival, he is expected to visit the Gandhi Ashram, meet members of the civil society and visit the Ford plant, which is expected to open shortly.

He would address the Vibrant Gujarat Summit and hold a round table with top Indian CEOs.

Kerry is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Modi on Monday and hold another round-table with American CEOs participating in the summit.

Referring to the multi-fold increase in bilateral trade in the last 10 years, which stands now at about USD 100 billion, Psaki said the summit is an opportunity to further the goal that US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Modi have talked about in terms of increasing trade five-fold to USD 500 billion.

"There is a real opportunity in terms of our economic partnership moving forward," she said, adding that Kerry's Ahmedabad trip would focus on economic issues, even though Kerry would continue to discuss a range of issues with India.

"This (Vibrant Gujarat) Summit, which the Prime Minister is hosting, is really an opportunity to highlight the economic and entrepreneurial relationship between the United States and India; not just the government to government level, but also between the business to business level," she said.

The presence of top CEOs from both India and the US would be an opportunity to showcase how the private sector continues to drive this relationship moving forward, she said.

The soon opening of the Ford Plant at Sanand which Kerry is scheduled to visit on Sunday, she said, is a very significant upcoming event.

"This is a specific example of the commitment of the United States businesses to invest in India," she said.

Noting that Kerry's Ahmedabad trip comes just two weeks before the historic visit of US President to India to be the Chief Guest at the Republic Day parade in New Delhi, Psaki said economic growth and partnership would also be a focus of the trip.

"Certainly we continue to work with India on a range of strategic issues as well. So it just would not be economy, but that would be the primary focus," she said.

With Kerry personally focused on the key global challenge of climate change, Psaki said the Secretary of State believes that large countries like the US and India have responsibilities to lead on this issue.

"The United States and China are the world's worst emitters of the world, but certainly he would talk about the importance of (climate change)... and how he feels that India can play a role," she said.

During the Modi-Kerry meeting, Psaki said she expects a broad range of bilateral, regional and global issues to come up.

"We expect this to be a wide ranging conversation. Not just about bilateral issues, but also global issues," she said.

Kerry would also meet Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay on the sidelines of the summit.

"That is the first meeting at a cabinet-level with the prime minister of Bhutan," Psaki said.

Kerry's meeting with Bhutanese Prime Minister Tobgay will mark the first bilateral meeting between a US Secretary of State and a Bhutanese leader.

Previously, the highest ranking State Department official to engage with Bhutan was at the Undersecretary of State level.

The United States has a diplomatic relationship with Bhutan. But neither the US nor Bhutan have a permanent diplomatic mission in their respective countries.

The US ambassador to India is accredited to Bhutan.

According to a senior State Department official the Bhutanese Prime Minister is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and "is quite keen to be able to provide additional opportunities for Bhutanese to be able to study in the United States."

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News Network
January 27,2020

New Delhi, Jan 27: Remember the story of two friends coming face-to-face with a bear in a forest? One of the two friends climbs the tree to save his life and the other, not knowing how to, lays on the ground, breathless, pretending to be dead.

Well, that lesson turned out to be useful for this man who pretended to be dead when a tiger had both his paws on the man's chest.

Yes, that is right. IFS officer Parveen Kaswan recently shared a video of a man lying under a tiger, with their faces extremely close to each other with the caption, "You want to see how does a narrow escape looks like in case of an encounter with a #tiger. #Tiger was cornered by the crowd. But fortunately, the end was fine for both man and tiger. Sent by a senior."

Another Twitter user shared the full 30-second video in the comments. He also said that the incident occured in Tumsar in Bhandara district, Maharashtra. The spine-chilling clip shows a tiger running freely in the fields trying to avoid people who have surrounded him and are trying to shoo him away.

In his quest to run away, the scared tiger grabs a human. When he sees that people are still approaching him and trying to scare him away, he gets up and runs away for his life. All this while, the man who was captured by the animal lays still on the ground and does not make an attempt to get free.

This is what stuck with Twitter and they are praising the man for his presence of mind.

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News Network
February 14,2020

New Delhi, Feb 14: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Thursday said there must be a "huge mass movement" if any Muslim was sent to detention camps in case the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

Speaking at the JNU campus, the former Union minister said the CAA was an outcome of the "NRC fiasco" in Assam that left 19 lakh people out of the document.

The CAA was brought to accommodate the 12 lakh Hindus among the 19 lakh people who could not be included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, he claimed.

Replying to a question by a student on the best course of action if the CAA was upheld by the apex court, Chidambaram said, "When they touch the excluded...they will only be Muslims, to identify and throw them out, declare them stateless, there must be a huge mass movement, resisting any Muslim being thrown out or kept in detention camps."

He also said the Congress believed that the CAA must be repealed and there should be a political struggle so that the National Population Register (NPR) was pushed beyond 2024.

Claiming that the NRC, CAA and NPR were "closely connected" to each other, Chidambaram said, "The CAA was brought due to the NRC fiasco in Assam and the opposition to the CAA gave way to the NPR."

He asserted that the Congress was protesting against the CAA and the NRC across the country, but had consciously avoided going to Shaheen Bagh, as in that case, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would brand the demonstration against the amended citizenship law as a "political" one.

"See, we are not going to Shaheen Bagh because that would be falling into the BJP's trap. If we go there, they (BJP) will say it is political," the senior Congress leader said.

Slamming the CAA and the NRC as instruments undermining the very basis of the formation of India, he said the country, instead, needed a "broad law" on refugees.

Speaking at an event against the NRC, CAA and NPR hosted by the Congress's student wing, NSUI, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Chidambaram accused the BJP of spreading lies against Opposition parties.

"The BJP says the Congress, the Left and other liberal parties are against citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs from Pakistan, Bangladesh. But we are not against those included, our opposition is against exclusion," he said.

Questioning the rationale behind the CAA, the former finance minister said it excluded people on the basis of religion.

"Why only three countries, what about other neighbouring countries — Nepal, Bhutan, China? What about others treated much worse? The Ahmadiyas and Shias of Pakistan, the Rohingyas of Myanmar, Tamil Hindus are equally persecuted, why are they left out?" he questioned.

Chidambaram also said the CAA did not cover persecution based on language, political ideology and economic deprivation.

Slamming the NRC, he wondered which country would accept those left out of the document.

"Which country is going to accept them? How will they go? Where will you send them? (Home Minister) Amit Shah saying that they are termites and he will throw them out by 2024 is talking through his hat," the senior Congress leader said.

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Agencies
June 2,2020

Lucknow, Jun 2: Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Tuesday said protests in the US after the death of George Floyd, an African-American man, is a clear message to the world that a common man's life has value.

She said this is also guaranteed by the India Constitution, but the governments don't follow it, resulting in the current plight of migrants workers.

Floyd, a 46-year-old restaurant worker from Houston, died in Minneapolis on Monday after a white police officer pinned him to the ground. Video footage showed the officer kneeling on Floyd's neck as he gasped for breath, sparking widespread protests across the US.

"Floyd's killing by police and the 'Black lives matter' agitation in the US have given a clear message to the world that a common man's life has value and it should not be taken for granted," Mayawati said in a tweet in Hindi.

"India's constitution guarantees independence, security, self-respect and pride and governments should give special attention to it. If it was followed, crores of migrants labourers would not have to witness such bad days," she added.

She also demanded better coordination between states to check the spread of coronavirus and said Centre should intervene.

"While coronavirus patients are rising, there is lack of coordination between states and with the Centre, and allegation and counter-allegations are going on and sealing of state borders is unjustified and it is weakening the fight against the virus.  The Centre should intervene," she said in a separate tweet.

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