Modi to meet Apple CEO Tim Cook in San Francisco

September 16, 2015

New Delhi, Sep 16: The showstopper of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's US visit later this month may well be his meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook in San Francisco. This could have implications far beyond the headlines it will generate. Apple, it is believed, is looking to invest in building manufacturing capacities in India, which could come as a huge boost for Modi's 'Make in India' project.

modi621While auto companies are already here, tech companies like Google don't really manufacture. Apple, if it comes, would be really into manufacture and signal Indian manufacturing capabilities.

The Cupertino-based company's sales of i-Phones in India grew 93% in the third quarter — albeit off a lower base — faster than 87% growth in Greater China markets. Apple uses manufacturing facilities of Foxconn, which has recently promised to invest $5 billion in manufacturing facility in Maharashtra.

It's believed that Apple may consider manufacture in India for third country markets. There is also talk that Apple might consider facilities in India to refurbish its products. Refurbishing is currently not allowed under India's industrial policy. There would be a demand from Apple to change that policy. It believes its refurbished products (phones, computers, tablets, laptops) have a big market in Asia. They draw a distinction between refurbished and second-hand products and believe that Apple products, if properly refurbished, have a much longer life than, say, Samsung or other similar products.

In fact, Cook will, in a unique coincidence, be meeting the heads of two biggest Asian powers in the same week. Cook may join other top US CEOs for an exclusive meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping who will be touring the US around the same time as Modi.

As he prepares to sweep through New York and California, Modi has carefully chosen his meetings with US Inc in the same way he did last year. Time Inc, for instance, will be hosting a 100-guest dinner for Modi with chief executives from companies specializing in infrastructure and manufacturing. In 2014, Modi had promised action on land acquisition, GST and energy. This year, he will have to explain how he plans to find ways around as his government is still to deliver on two of these. Nevertheless, he will still be able to showcase a large number of reforms his government has undertaken in the past year.

J P Morgan will be doing an exclusive meet for 15 top CEOs from the financial sector with Modi while in a separate meeting, he plans to explore media and communication strategies with Rupert Murdoch of News Corp and others.

In California, Modi will be welcomed at the Tesla plant by the now iconic Elon Musk. He could ride the famous Tesla M, but then again, he might heed the caution of his own officials.

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook will be doing a town hall meeting with Modi on September 27, which he announced on his Facebook page, and was "liked" by almost 75000 people. At the Google tent, Modi will be meeting Eric Schmidt and Sundar Pichai, though not Sergey Brin.

Apart from pushing the digital technology sector as he plans a big push to his 'Digital India' and 'Make in India' projects. While in manufacturing, India still has a way to go, it is now the new name in town in digital innovation and entrepreneurship, where government rules too are a lot more business-friendly.

The key themes that will dominate Modi's visit to the US this time are entrepreneurship and innovation. In his meetings, both in California and New York, India will seek to get a deeper sense of the opportunities it can harness, lessons to be learnt and the role governments can play in harnessing entrepreneurship. The Indian team will be looking for lessons on how to support the eco-system for disruptive digital technologies and innovations, including ways to be able to harness these for the welfare of those in the bottom of the pyramid.

A third theme running through Modi's visit this time will be renewable energy. He will not only hold a roundtable on the subject at Stanford University, but this will feature prominently in his conversation with US President Barack Obama in New York on September 28, weeks before world leaders gather in Paris for the climate change conference.

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News Network
June 19,2020

Kolkata, Jun 19: The nationwide clamour for boycott of Chinese goods is getting louder amid the Ladakh face-off, with traders urging the Centre to direct e-commerce firms to restrict the sale of items from the Dragonland, which imports products worth USD 74 billion to India annually.

Of the total import from China, retail traders sell goods worth around USD 17 billion, mostly comprising toys, household items, mobiles, electric and electronic goods and cosmetics among other things, which could possibly be replaced by Indian products, a national trading body said.

"We, at 'Federation of All India Vyapar Mandal', are advising our members to clear their stocks of Chinese products and refrain from placing fresh orders. We are also requesting the government to restrict e-commerce companies from selling Chinese products," V K Bansal, the association's general secretary, told PTI.

Sushil Poddar, the president of the Confederation of West Bengal Traders Association, said its members have been told to shun trading in Chinese goods as much as possible.

Another national traders' body, The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), has decided to step up its movement against the boycott of Chinese goods, under its campaign 'Bhartiya Samaan-Hamara Abhimaan'.

It released a list of over 450 broad categories of commodities, comprising 3,000 Chinese products.

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Agencies
July 13,2020

Hyderabad, Jul 13: Family members of Telugu poet and writer Varavara Rao, who is currently lodged in Navi Mumbai's Taloja jail in the Bhima Koregaon case, on Sunday appealed to the government for his immediate release in view of his deteriorating health.

Rao's wife P. Hemalatha and their three daughters urged the government to save his life by shifting him to a hospital or allow them to provide him with immediate medical care.

We want to remind the government that it has no right to deny the right to life of any person, much less an undertrial prisoner," they said.

His family members said they were very much worried about his deteriorating health. They said his health condition had been scary for over six weeks, ever since he was shifted in an unconscious state to JJ Hospital on May 28.

"Even as he was discharged from the hospital and sent back to jail three days later, there has been no improvement in his health and he is still in need of emergency healthcare," Hemalatha said.

"The immediate cause of concern now is that we are very much perturbed at the routine phone call we received from him on Saturday evening. Though the earlier two calls on June 24 and July 2 were also worrying with his weak and muffled voice, incoherent speech and abruptly jumping into Hindi. But the latest call, on July 11 is much more worrisome as he did not answer straight questions on his health and went into a kind of delirious and hallucinated talk about the funeral of his father and mother, the events that happened seven decades and four decades ago respectively," Rao's wife said.

She said her husband's co-accused companion took the phone from him and informed her that he is not able to walk, go to the toilet and brush his teeth on his own.

"We were also told that he is always hallucinating that we, family members, were waiting at the jail gate to receive him as he was getting released. His co-prisoner also said he needs immediate medical care for not only physical but also neurological issues. The confusion, loss of memory and incoherence are the results of electrolyte imbalance and fall of Sodium and Potassium levels leading to brain damage. This electrolyte imbalance may be fatal also."

Stating that Taloja Jail Hospital is not well equipped to handle this kind of serious ailment, they demanded that he be shifted to a fully equipped super specialty hospital to save his life and prevent possible brain damage and risk to life due to electrolyte imbalance.

"At the present juncture we are leaving aside all the pertinent facts like, that the case against him is fabricated; he had to spend 22 months in jail as an undertrial with the process turned into punishment; his bail petitions got rejected at least five times now and even the bail petitions with his age, ill-health and COVID vulnerability as grounds were ignored. His life is the top most concern for us right now. Our present demand is to save his life," the family said.

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News Network
March 20,2020

New Delhi, Mar 20: Bodies of the four Nirbhaya convicts who were hanged on Friday morning at Tihar Jail have been sent to hospital for a post-mortem, following which it will be handed over to the families, according to an official.

After the hanging at 5:30 am today, the bodies were taken from Tihar Jail to Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital for post mortem at around 8:20 am.

Tihar jail Director-General Sandeep Goel said that the bodies will be handed over to the families after the post mortem.

The families, however, will have to give a written undertaking that they will not make a public demonstration of the cremation or burial of the executed person.

The superintendent will also consult the District Magistrate and the Deputy Commissioner of Police for arrangements for the disposal of the body.

The post mortem comes in line with the Supreme Court's order in Shatrughan Chauhan's case in January 2014, which had mandated the same observing that there is a dearth of experienced hangman in the country.

"By making the performance of post mortem obligatory, the cause of the death of the convict can be found out, which will reveal whether the person died as a result of the dislocation of the cervical vertebrate or by strangulation which results on account of too long a drop," the apex court had said in its order.

"Our constitution permits the execution of death sentence only through the procedure established by law and this procedure must be just, fair and reasonable," the order added.

All four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case -- Akshay Singh Thakur, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, and Mukesh Singh -- were hanged till death at 5:30 am this morning.

The case pertains to the brutal gang-rape and killing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in the national capital. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

One of the adults accused had allegedly committed suicide in the prison during the trial, while the juvenile was released from a correction home after a period of three years.

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