Priti Patel Appointed UK's First Indian-Origin Home Secretary

Agencies
July 25, 2019

London, Jul 25: Priti Patel, an ardent Brexiteer who was among the most vocal critics of Theresa May's Brexit strategy, on Wednesday took charge as Britain's first Indian-origin Home Secretary in the newly-unveiled Boris Johnson Cabinet.

Priti Patel had been a prominent member of the "Back Boris" campaign for the Conservative Party leadership and was widely tipped for the plum post in his frontline team.

"It is important that the Cabinet should represent modern Britain as well as a modern Conservative Party," she said, just hours before her appointment was announced.

A long-standing Eurosceptic, Priti Patel had steered the Vote Leave campaign in the lead up to the June 2016 referendum in favour of Britain's exit from the European Union (EU).

The 47-year-old was first elected as a Conservative MP for Witham in Essex in 2010 and gained prominence in the then David Cameron led Tory government as his Indian Diaspora Champion.

She went on to be appointed to junior ministerial posts, Treasury minister in 2014 and then Employment Minister after the 2015 General Election, before Theresa May promoted her to Secretary of State in the Department for International Development (DfID) in 2016 until she was forced to resign the post in 2017.

"With Boris Johnson leading the Conservative Party and as Prime Minister, the United Kingdom will have a Leader who believes in Britain, will implement a new vision for the future of the country and a roadmap to move forward and thrive as a self-governing nation that re-establishes our ties with our friends and allies around the world such as India," she told PTI after Johnson won a landslide victory in the Tory leadership contest this week.

"He is committed to securing new and improved trading relationship with our friends in India and ensuring that the values we share - the rule of law, democracy, and dynamic entrepreneurial spirit should be at the heart of one of our most important partners on the global stage," said Patel, who has been a champion of India-UK ties ever since her time as Indian Diaspora Champion.

The Gujarati-origin politician, who is a prominent guest at all major Indian diaspora events in the UK, is seen as an avid supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the UK.

As a member of the UK Parliament's influential Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC), she was part of the team that recently released its damning report warning that the UK was falling behind in the race to engage with India at the end of a lengthy Global Britain and India parliamentary inquiry.

"Our report calls for the government to look again at the relationship between the UK and India," Ms Patel said, in reference to the 'Building Bridges: Reawakening UK-India ties'' report released last month to mark the first-ever India Day in the UK Parliament.

"This should be a special relationship based upon the living bridge between our two great countries and a partnership we should be nurturing. The report covers many of the missed opportunities where the UK should be proactively and bilaterally enhancing our ties. We are soon to have a new PM in the UK, which will provide a welcome change in how we engage India''s re-elected PM Modi," she said at the time.

She once again returns as the senior-most British Indian member of the UK Cabinet, having been forced to resign in November 2017 as International Development secretary amid a scandal over allegedly failing to disclose meetings with officials in Israel without informing the UK Foreign Office.

She had maintained it was a private visit and Boris Johnson, then UK foreign secretary, spoke out at the time to back her.

Describing Ms Patel as a "good friend" with whom he worked closely together for Global Britain, he had said it was "quite right that she meets with people and organisations overseas".

But Priti Patel was effectively sacked by Theresa May, forcing her to the Parliament backbenches from where she continued to voice her criticism of Ms May's Brexit plan.

She was among the rebel Tory MPs who consistently voted against the former Prime Minister's Withdrawal Agreement with the EU as a "bad deal for Britain", which ultimately sealed Theresa May's term as Prime Minister.

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News Network
May 12,2020

New Delhi, May 12: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was admitted to the AIIMS here after suffering reaction to a new medication, was discharged on Tuesday.

The 87-year-old Congress leader was discharged around 12:30 pm, hospital sources said.

Manmohan Singh was shifted to a private ward in the Cardio-Neuro tower on Monday night. He was also tested for Covid-19 and his results had come out negative, the sources said. The Congress leader was admitted to the hospital on Sunday evening after he complained of uneasiness.

The sources said that Singh had developed a reaction to a new medication and was admitted to AIIMS for observation and investigation.

Manmohan Singh is currently a Member of Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan. He was the prime minister between 2004 and 2014.

In 2009, Singh underwent a successful coronary bypass surgery at the AIIMS.

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Agencies
March 14,2020

San Francisco, Mar 14: Microsoft on friday announced that co-founder Bill Gates has left its board of directors to devote more time to philanthropy.

The 64-year-old stopped being involved in day-to-day operations at the firm more than a decade ago, turning his attention to the foundation he launched with his wife, Melinda.

Gates served as chairman of Microsoft's board of directors until early in 2014 and has now stepped away entirely, according to the Redmond-based technology giant.

“It's been a tremendous honor and privilege to have worked with and learned from Bill over the years,” Microsoft chief executive and company veteran Satya Nadella said in a release.

Nadella said Microsoft would continue to benefit from Gates' “technical passion and advice” in his continuing role as a technical advisor.
“I am grateful for Bill's friendship and look forward to continuing to work alongside him,” he added.

Gates left his CEO position in 2000, handing the company reins to Steve Ballmer to devote more time to his charitable foundation.

He gave up the role of chairman at the same time Nadella became Microsoft's third CEO in 2014.

Regularly listed among the world's richest people, William H. Gates was a geeky-looking young man when he and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft in 1975.

Gates went on to turn his attention from software to fighting disease and other humanitarian challenges with his wife, under the auspices of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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News Network
May 1,2020

Washington, May 1:The novel coronavirus, that has killed over 230,000 people globally so far and has shattered economies, emerged from a virology lab in the Wuhan city of China, US President Donald Trump claimed Thursday with a high degree of confidence.

"Yes, I have. Yes, I have," Trump told reporters at the East Room of the White House when asked if he has seen anything at this point that gives him a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is where the virus originated.

The president, however, refuse to provide any details, except for saying that investigations are on and it would be out soon.

Asked what gave him a high degree of confidence that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he said, "I can't tell you that. I'm not allowed to tell you that."

The president, however, did not hold his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping responsible for this. "I don't want to say that, I don't want to say that, but certainly it could have been stopped. It came out of China and it could have been stopped and I wish they had stopped it and so does the whole world wish they had stopped it."

Reiterating that this is something that could have been contained at Wuhan ground zero, he said that China could have contained it. "They were either unable to, or they chose not to. And the world has suffered greatly."

One of two things happened, he reasoned. "They either didn't do it and you know they couldn't do it from a competent standpoint or they let it spread and I would say probably it got out of control."

"But there's another case that how come they stopped all of the planes and all of the traffic from going into China, but they didn't stop the planes and the traffic from coming into the United States and from coming into all over Europe," he said, citing the example of Italy, the hardest-hit European country.

"This country (the US) is very lucky and I'm very lucky that I put the ban on China, as you know, very early on. In January, we put the ban on China and that was a very early day. That wasn't a late day, that was an early day. Then, we later put the ban on in Europe," he said.

Before holding them accountable, Trump said he wants to find out what happened. "I think we'll be able to get a very good -- a very powerful definition of exactly what happened. We're working on it strongly now and I think it's going to be very powerful," he said.

"But they could have stopped it. They are a very brilliant nation, scientifically and otherwise. It got loose, let's say, and they could have capped it. They could have stopped it, but they didn't. And they stopped the planes from going to China, but they didn't stop them from going to the rest of the world. What was that all about?” he asked.

"We should have the answer to that in the not-too-distant future and that will determine a lot how I feel about China," Trump said.

When asked if President Xi misled him, Trump said, "Something happened. I don't say misleading or not. I'll let you know that. I mean, I'll be able to give you that answer at some point in the hopefully not-too-distant future."

The entire world has suffered as a result of this, he said.

"We have had tremendous death and tremendous sorrow, sadness, and nobody's ever seen anything like it. So, have most of the countries of the world. They've suffered tremendously. It's something that is going to have to be dealt with. We'll have to see," said the president.

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