UK Parliament approves Brexit bill, govt to begin exit process by Mar 31

March 14, 2017

Washington, Mar 14: Britain lurched closer to leaving the European Union Monday when Parliament stopped resisting and gave Prime Minister Theresa May the power to file for divorce from the bloc.

brexit

But in a blow to May's government, the prospect of Scotland's exit from the United Kingdom suddenly appeared nearer, too. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called for a referendum on independence within two years to stop Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will.

Amid Britain's divorce from EU, Scotland wants Independence

In an announcement that took many London politicians by surprise, Sturgeon vowed that Scotland would not be "taken down a path that we do not want to go down without a choice." Sturgeon spoke in Edinburgh hours before the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill passed its final hurdle in Parliament's upper chamber, the House of Lords.

The House of Commons approved the bill weeks ago, but the 800-strong Lords fought to amend it, inserting a promise that EU citizens living in the U.K. will be allowed to remain after Britain pulls out of the bloc.

They also added a demand that Parliament get a "meaningful" vote on the final deal between Britain and the remaining 27 EU nations.

Both amendments were rejected Monday by the Commons, where May's Conservatives have a majority. A handful of pro-EU Conservatives expressed their unhappiness, then abstained from the vote. The bill returned to the Lords, in a process known as parliamentary ping pong. Faced with the decision of the elected Commons, the Lords backed down and approved it without amendments.

Labour peer Dianne Hayter, who proposed the amendment on EU citizens, said the Lords had done their best, but "our view has been rejected in the elected House of Commons, and it is clear the government is not for turning."

Once the bill receives royal assent - a formality that should be accomplished within hours - May will be free to invoke Article 50 of the EU's key treaty, triggering two years of exit negotiations, by her self-imposed deadline of March 31.

May was forced to seek Parliament's approval for the move after a Supreme Court ruling in January torpedoed her attempt to start the process of leaving the bloc without a parliamentary vote.

Debate between House of Commons and House of Lords

The House of Commons and House of Lords battled over the bill's contents, with the status of EU nationals in Britain - and Britons in fellow EU member countries - drawing especially emotional debate. Both British and EU officials have said such residents should be guaranteed the right to stay where they are, but the two sides have so far failed to provide a concrete guarantee, leaving millions of people in limbo.

Scottish National Party lawmaker Joanna Cherry told the House of Commons that one constituent, a Lithuanian, had told her "the uncertainty caused by this government and this Parliament is making her feel worse about her personal situation in Britain than she did in Lithuania under the Soviets."

Brexit Secretary David Davis told lawmakers the government had a "moral responsibility" to the 3 million EU citizens living in Britain and the 1 million Britons in other member states, and intends to guarantee their rights as soon as possible after exit talks start.

"That is why we must pass this straightforward bill without further delay, so the prime minister can get to work on the negotiations and we can secure a quick deal that secures the status of both European Union citizens in the U.K. and also U.K. nationals living in the EU," he said.

Pro-EU lawmakers accused the government and Brexit-backing lawmakers of running roughshod over the concerns of the 48 percent of Britons who voted to stay in the EU.

Conservative legislator Dominic Grieve called the government's opposition of handing Parliament a final vote on Brexit "deranged," and the Green Party's Caroline Lucas said lawmakers should not just hand ministers a blank check.

"We were not elected to be lemmings," Lucas said.

Euroskeptics accused pro-EU legislators of trying to frustrate the will of voters who passed a June referendum to leave the EU.

"The simple truth is this - deal or no deal, vote or no vote, positive vote or negative vote, this process is irreversible," Conservative legislator Edward Leigh said. "We're leaving the EU, and that's what the people want."

May is now free to trigger Article 50 as early as Tuesday, but the government signaled the move would come much closer to the March 31 deadline. May spokesman James Slack repeated the government's position that it would happen by the end of March.

"I've said 'end' many times, but it would seem I didn't put it in capital letters strongly enough," he said.Political union under threat

The government's satisfaction at victory in Parliament was tempered by the prospect of an independence vote that threatens the 300-year old political union between England and Scotland.

Sturgeon said she would seek to hold a referendum between the fall of 2018 and the spring of 2019 so Scottish voters could make an "informed choice" about their future. While Britons overall voted to leave the EU, Scottish voters backed remaining by 62 to 38 percent, and Sturgeon said they should not be forced to follow the rest of the U.K. into a "hard Brexit" outside the EU single market.

In a 2014 referendum, Scottish voters rejected independence by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent. But Sturgeon said the U.K.'s decision to leave the EU had brought about a "material change of circumstances."

May - whose government would have to approve a legally binding referendum - accused Sturgeon's Scottish National Party of political "tunnel vision" and called her announcement "deeply regrettable."

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News Network
April 26,2020

Apr 26: The remarkable story of an airman who overcame prejudice to become one of only a handful of Indian fighter pilots in the First World War has emerged in newly-released archive files by the UK's Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).

Lieutenant Shri Krishna Chanda Welinkar is one of the thousands of moving stories from the war preserved in family correspondence and being brought alive as part of a digitisation project.

The never-before-published files contain thousands of letters, pictures and other papers sent between the Commission and the next of the kin of First World War dead.

Among them is the story of Welinkar, who hailed from Bombay in colonial India. After much hardship and discrimination, he eventually became a pilot and went missing while on patrol over the skies above the Western Front in June 1918.

His family had to wait nearly three years before they finally knew for certain that he had died, and his grave was located.

“For everyone who died in the First World War, there was inevitably a partner, parent or child back home who had questions. The heartbreaking letters in CWGC's archive give us an insight into what it was like for those families trying to come to terms with their loss,” said Andrew Fetherston, chief archivist for CWGC.

“They are stories that show desperate searches for closure, former enemies uniting and, on many occasions, the sad realisation that a missing loved one would always remain so. We are pleased to be able to make this invaluable piece of World War history accessible to a new generation and help deepen our understanding of how the First World War impacted those who were left behind,” he said.

Welinkar was one of the 1.3 million Indians who answered the call to fight for the British Empire. Nearly 74,000 never saw their homeland again and are remembered today in cemeteries and memorials throughout the world, including France, Belgium, the Middle East and Africa.

Welinkar was a well-educated man studying at Cambridge University. He trained to become an aviator in Middlesex and wished to join the Royal Flying Corps, later known as the Royal Air Force.

Upon attempting to enlist, Welinkar encountered the same prejudices as his other fellow Indian airmen and was encouraged to become an air mechanic instead.

He was eventually given a commission in the Royal Flying Corps as an Officer. In 1918, he was posted to France and patrolled the skies above the Western Front.

In June 1918, Lieutenant Welinkar embarked on what would be his final patrol; he did not return and was reported missing. His fate remained unknown for many months afterwards.

The newly-released e-files chronicle the remarkable discovery of Welinkar and his final resting place long after the war had ended. Colonel Barton, who knew Welinkar, acted on behalf of his mother and helped find her missing son. They spoke to former enemies and honed their search to the grave of an unidentified man, buried by the Germans as “Oberleutnant S.C. Wumkar” in a grave in Rouvroy, Belgium.

The body was later moved and reinterred in Hangard Communal Cemetery Extension but it wasn't until the vital clue, found in the original German burial records in February 1921, that it was confirmed beyond doubt this grave was of Welinkar's.

In May 1921, Colonel Barton, on behalf of Welinkar's mother, requested that a Commission headstone be placed on the grave with the following personal inscription: “To the Honoured Memory of One of the Empire's Bravest Sons”.

This records – known as Enquiry Files – are part of a collection of nearly 3,000 files which have never been made available to the public before. Nearly half have been digitised so far, alongside a previously unreleased collection of more than 16,000 photographs held in negatives in the Commission's archive.

The files, internally referred to simply as E-Files, contain correspondence between the CWGC and the next of kin of the war dead. They often contain letters, typed memos between Commission staff and on occasion photos, maps and diagrams.

CWGC only holds an enquiry file for a small proportion of the 1.7 million people it commemorates from the Commonwealth. Today it is only possible to release those surviving records from the First World War because correspondence with families of Second World War casualties often involves people still alive today and cannot be made public for many years, due to the UK's data protection rules.

To date, more than 1,300 of the surviving 3,000 First World War enquiry files have been digitised.

The CWGC commemorates the 1.7 million Commonwealth servicemen and women who died during the two World Wars. It also holds and updates an extensive and accessible records archive, while operating over 23,000 locations in more than 150 countries and territories.

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News Network
January 6,2020

Aboard Air Force One, Jan 6: US President Donald Trump threatened sanctions against Baghdad on Sunday after Iraq's parliament called on US troops to leave the country, and the president said if troops did leave, Baghdad would have to pay Washington for the cost of the air base there.

"We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of dollars to build, long before my time. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it," Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

Trump said that if Iraq asked US forces to leave and it was not done on a friendly basis, "we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."

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Agencies
July 13,2020

New Delhi, Jul 13: Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday announced an investment of Rs 75,000 crore or approximately US$10 billion into India over the next five to seven years through 'Google for India Digistation Fund'.

This move is significant as it comes in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and as multinational companies across the world look at alternative investment destinations.

"Excited to announce Google for India Digitisation Fund. Through it, we will invest Rs 75,000 crore or approx US$10 Billon into India over the next 5-7 yrs. We'll do this through a mix of equity investments, partnerships and operational infrastructure in ecosystem investments," said Pichai.

Pichai along with Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad virtually attended the sixth annual edition of Google for India.

"This is a reflection of our confidence in the future of India and its digital economy," said Pichai.
He added that the investments will focus on four areas important to India's digitisation.

Listing out the areas, Pichai elaborated, "First enabling affordable access and information to every Indian in their own language. Second, building new products and services that are deeply relevant to India's unique needs. Third, empowering businesses as they continue or embark on the digital transformation. Fourth, leveraging technology in AI for social good in areas like health, education and agriculture."

"When I was young, every piece of technology brought new opportunities to learn and grow but I always had to wait for it to arrive from some places. Today people in India no more have to wait for technology to come to you. A whole new generation of technologies is happening in India first," said Pichai.

Earlier today Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with Pichai and discussed a range of subjects like a new work culture in coronavirus times, data security and cyber safety.

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