Same-day visa for Indian biz, no cap on students: Cameron

February 19, 2013

visa_for_Indian

Mumbai, Feb 19: In a measure to attract more Indian businessmen and students, British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday announced a same-day visa service for investors and no limit on the number of students from the country.

“We have the biggest visa operations anywhere in the world right here in India. I announce that we are going to introduce for businesses a ‘same-day visa’ service to those who want to come and invest in our country,” Cameron said at a business meeting held in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel here.

Cameron said he wanted UK companies to help India develop new cities and districts along a 600 mile (equivalent of 1,000 km) corridor between Mumbai and Bangalore, generating investment projects worth up to $25 billion.

“With me I’ve got architects, planners and finance experts who can work out the complete solution. It would unleash India’s potential along the 1,000 km corridor from Mumbai to Bangalore, transforming lives and putting British businesses in prime position to secure valuable commercial deals,” said Cameron in an interaction with the staff of Hindustan Unilever, the Indian unit of Anglo-Dutch FMCG major Unilever.

Cameron is on a 3-day visit to India with the largest trade delegation taken abroad by a British PM to date, saying he wanted UK firms to work with both the Indian and British governments to develop nine districts to link India’s financial capital Mumbai with its tech hub Bangalore.

He said India should open up its markets to allow foreign direct investment in hitherto closed sectors. Cameron is gung ho over the Mumbai-Bangalore corridor project while forecasts from his office showed that 5.8 per cent of India’s population growth would be in the corridor, contributing 11.8 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product growth by 2020.

Cameron’s office said British and Indian officials had been working with business representatives from the two countries on the Mumbai-Bangalore project since last year and had produced an initial assessment of its scale and potential.

Accordingly, the first phase of the project would involve investment in physical infrastructure, such as transport networks, telecommunications and power generation.

Later construction would concentrate on social infrastructure such as welfare and education. India has pushed the building of giant development “corridors” to accelerate the growth of its manufacturing base, which has lagged behind its IT and services industry.

The government has also planned to build 24 new industrial cities along a 1,483 km (920 mile) railway line between New Delhi and Mumbai with Japanese funding, but the project has progressed slowly.

Meanwhile, the UK government would be willing to co-fund a feasibility study, on a match funding basis, with the Indian government costing up to 1 million pounds ($1.55 million). By 2030, if realised, the project could generate close to half a million jobs, while indirect jobs could bring the total in the region to two million, Cameron's office said.

“Our initial scoping work suggests that accommodating the 3-4 million people attracted to each of the new cities would require close to 1 million new homes, up to 120 schools, 10 colleges and hospitals,” the office said. Meeting with corporate India this evening here, Cameron announced same-day visa services and said there would be no limit on the number of students from here studying in Britain and also no cap on the length of time they can stay and work in graduate-level jobs after they qualify in his country.

He made a similar announcement with regard to businessmen visas saying: “....we are going to introduce for businesses a same-day visa service for those who want to come to our country and invest...”

Cameron will fly to Delhi tomorrow for talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a range of issues.

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News Network
January 27,2020

Jan 27: Bollywood Film Director Anurag Kashyap, who has been vocal about his political views on social media, slammed Union Minister Amit Shah and accused him of being 'cheap'.

"How timid our Home Minister is. Its own police, its own goons, its own army and security increases and invades unarmed protestors. Amit Shah has crossed the extent of cheapness and inferiority. History will spit on this animal," Kashyap tweeted.

The film director has taken an active part in the anti-Citizenship Act protest rallies and was against the Jawaharlal Nehru violence. He also came in support of his contemporary Deepika Padukone when the latter faced backlash for showing up at JNU in support of the students.

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News Network
March 29,2020

New Delhi, Mar 29 : Notwithstanding the 21-day coronavirus lockdown, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to go ahead with the merger plan of ten state-run banks into four larger bank from April 1. The apex bank has issued four separate releases announcing that the branches of merging banks will operate as of the banks in which these have been amalgamated from next month.

RBI's statement comes after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's clarification on Thursday that the mega bank consolidation plan was very much on track and would take effect from April 1.

The government on March 4 had notified the amalgamation schemes for 10 state owned banks into four as part of its consolidation plan to create bigger size stronger banks in the public sector.

Bank officers' unions, however, earlier this week wrote to the prime minister seeking to defer the merger schemes of lenders due to the lockdown triggered by coronavirus outbreak.

As per the scheme, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India will be merged into Punjab National Bank; Syndicate Bank into Canara Bank; Allahabad Bank into Indian Bank; and Andhra and Corporation banks into Union Bank of India.

Under this, the branches of Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India will operate as branches of Punjab National Bank from April 1, 2020, and branches of Syndicate Bank as that of Canara Bank, the RBI said in a separate releases.

Allahabad Bank branches will operate as those of Indian Bank while the branches of Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank will function as the branches of Union Bank of India from the beginning of next fiscal year 2020-21, the RBI said.

"The Amalgamation of Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India into Punjab National Bank Scheme, 2020 dated March 4, 2020, issued by the Government of India... The scheme comes into force on the 1st day of April 2020," RBI said.

Customers, including depositors of merging banks will be treated as customers of the banks in which these banks have been merged with effect from April 1, 2020, the RBI noted.

Banking services across the country are impacted due to the effect of COVID-19 as a near shut down is being observed across the country.

In a letter written to the Prime Minister on March 25, the All India Bank Officers'' Confederation (AIBOC) said, "The finance minister yesterday announced a slew of measures in view of the deleterious effect of the contagion. We are also expecting an extension of closing related activities and the revision of the closing date itself from March 31 to June 30, which is the need of the hour."

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Agencies
February 14,2020

Lucknow, Feb 14: Uttar Pradesh doctor Kafeel Khan was on Friday booked under the National Security Act (NSA) over his alleged anti-CAA speech at Aligarh Muslim University on December 12, 2019.

The Uttar Pradesh slapped NSA on Kafeel Khan on Friday even as the doctor waited to be released from jail despite being granted bail on Monday in connection with his alleged inflammatory speech.

SP Crime Dr Arvind said that there were sufficient grounds to book the doctor under NSA.

The suspended pediatrician, Kafeel Khan, was arrested for allegedly delivering a controversial speech during Anti-CAA protests on December 12 at the Aligarh Muslim University or AMU. While he was granted bail on Monday, his family members claimed on Thursday that he was yet to be released.

Dr Kafeel Khan's brother Adeel Ahmed Khan had issued a statement saying that despite being granted bail Mathura jail authorities had not honoured the court's order.

Dr Kafeel Khan was arrested by the UP Special Task Force from Mumbai on January 29 for participating anti-CAA protest at AMU. A case was registered against him at the Civil Lines police station here for promoting enmity between different religions.

After his arrest in Mumbai, Dr Khan was brought to Aligarh, from where he was shifted to the district jail in neighbouring Mathura.

According to police, this was done as a precautionary measure in view of the anti-CAA protests on the AMU campus and at the Eidgah grounds in the old city. Police had said that the Dr Khan's presence in the Aligarh jail could have aggravated the law and order situation in the city.

The doctor was earlier arrested for his alleged role in the death of over 60 children in one week at the BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur in August 2017. Short supply of oxygen at the children's ward was blamed at that time for the deaths.

About two years later, a state government probe cleared Khan of all major charges, prompting him to seek an apology from the Yogi Adityanath government.

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