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India, Italy to fast-track trade, two-way investments

India, Italy to fast-track trade, two-way investments

India, Italy to fast-track trade, two-way investmentsNew Delhi : India and Italy on Tuesday agreed to fast-track bilateral trade and investments and set up a bilateral industrial development and cooperation mechanism at a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Italian counterpart Guiseppe Conte here.

“In order to give an impetus to enhanced economic cooperation between India and Italy, it was decided to set up a CEO Forum guided by a Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation (JCEC),” Modi tweeted following the meeting.

“To increase two-way investments, we have decided to create a fast-track mechanism,” he said.

The Indian Prime Minister said both sides have decided to boost ties in key sectors such as lifestyle accessories design, transportation and automobile design, energy, and life sciences.

According to a joint statement issued following the meeting, both sides agreed on the need for an institutional framework for a sustained dialogue to enhance the environment for ease of doing business in their countries and further facilitate and promote bilateral economic cooperation.

“To take this forward, the leaders tasked the JCEC to work towards constituting a CEO Forum and setting up a fast-track mechanism to promote two-way investments, and resolve issues, if any, confronted by the businesses in each other’s country,” the statement said.

India is Italy’s fifth largest trading partner in the European Union while Italy is the fifth largest investor in India.

The India-Italy trade stood at $10.5 billion in 2017-18, up from $8.8 billion in the previous fiscal.

Conte, who assumed office in June, arrived here earlier on Monday to take part in the India-Italy Technology Summit organised by industry chamber CII in collaboration with India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Italian government.

Lauding Italy’s rich tradition of scientific research and its reputation in manufacturing during the course of his valedictory address at the summit, Modi said the two sides can cooperate in devising technological solutions for industry.

“We have also decided to set up various Indo-Italian Centres of Excellence. Business and industry of both countries are already cooperating in bringing cutting edge technology in various sectors and can cooperate fruitfully in areas like renewable energy, neurosciences and IT,” he said.

In his address, the Italian Premier said Italy’s participation as partner country in this edition of DST’s Technology Summit has a special symbolism coming on the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Italy and India.

“Innovation can be a catalyst for more inclusive growth and globalisation should not leave anyone behind,” Conte said.

“The common goal of our two governments is to be strategic partners in innovation,” he said, adding the whole gamut of bilateral relations had been reviewed in his talks with Modi.

According to the joint statement, Modi and Conte expressed their commitment to strengthening the India-EU economic partnership and noted the ongoing efforts of both sides to reengage actively towards an early resumption of negotiations for a comprehensive, balanced and mutually beneficial India-EU Broad Based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA).

Negotiations for the BTIA started in 2007 but were put on hold in 2015. In all, 16 rounds of negotiations have been held.

After India renounced its bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with all countries, investments from European nations are now not protected.

India has terminated all BITs following a new BIT model New Delhi released in December 2015.

The 28 EU member-states have now passed on the responsibility of investment protection negotiations to the EU.

Both sides also recognised the need to broad-base defence ties.

“India invited Italian defence equipment manufacturing companies to invest in India under the Make in India initiative and to collaborate with Indian companies for design and construction of defence equipment,” the statement said.

This assumes significance given that India cancelled the contract with Italian firm Finmeccanica’s British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the Indian Air Force, over alleged breach of contractual obligations and on charges of paying kickbacks amounting to Rs 423 crore.

During their meeting, Modi and Conte also agreed to strengthen counter-terrorism cooperation through multilateral fora.

“The leaders asserted that strong measures need to be taken against terrorists, terror organisations and all those who encourage, support and finance terrorism,” the joint statement said.

“They condemned all kinds of state support to terrorists including cross border terrorism and providing safe havens to terrorists and their network,” it stated in what can be seen as a veiled reference to Pakistan.

—IANS

India, Russia set two-way investment target of $50 bn

India, Russia set two-way investment target of $50 bn

India, Russia set two-way investment target of $50 bnMoscow : India and Russia have set a new two-way investment target of $50 billion by 2025 following a meeting between Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov here on Friday during which bilateral cooperation across various sectors was reviewed.

Addressing the media after co-chairing with Borisov the 23rd India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Technical and Economic Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC), Sushma Swaraj said in 2017, the annual trade between India and Russia reached $10.17 billion.

“We discussed ways and means to increase this momentum, ensure balanced trade and remove barriers to trade,” she said.

“Two-way investments have already crossed the $30-billion target, which we had set for 2025.

“We have therefore proposed that we enhance this figure to $50 billion by 2025.”

IRIGC-TEC is a standing body which annually meets and reviews ongoing activities of bilateral cooperation.

The Commission, after taking stock of bilateral cooperation in various fields, provides policy recommendations and directions in the fields concerned.

Friday’s meeting prepared the groundwork for the annual India-Russia bilateral summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, to be held in New Delhi next month.

Russia is one of only two countries with which India holds annual bilateral summits, the other being Japan.

The India-Russia bilateral relationship was elevated to Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership in 2010.

Modi and Putin have already met twice this year — at an informal summit in the Russian resort city of Sochi in May and then on the sidelines of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit in South Africa in June.

In her address, Sushma Swaraj said in the IRIGC-TEC meeting, both sides discussed the possibilities of working together on projects in third countries as a new dimension of the strategic partnership.

Pointing out that there has been significant expansion in cultural and tourism exchanges, she said: “Tourism flows in both directions has shown impressive growth. We are working on further liberalising visa regulations on both sides.”

In this connection, she also welcomed the initiative of the Russian government to enable electronic visas for Indian nationals visiting the Russia “far east”.

With energy being traditional area of cooperation, Sushma Swaraj said that earlier this year the first shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia reached India “in a new breakthrough of our energy partnership”.

“We have identified new areas of cooperation such as agriculture, infrastructure, transport and science and technology,” she said.

“We would like to expand our cooperation in the area of space.”

The Indian Minister also said that both sides have agreed to organise the first-ever India-Russia Business Summit involving major companies from both countries in early October in India.

Soon after her arrival here on Thursday, Sushma Swaraj met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and according to Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar, both leaders had a good exchange of views on bilateral and regional issues.

—IANS

Afghanistan, not India, will be Imran Khan’s priority until 2019

Afghanistan, not India, will be Imran Khan’s priority until 2019

Imran Khan

Imran Khan

By Saeed Naqvi,

Even before elections in Pakistan had taken place, the media which articulates the Western establishment point of view, like the Economist, had already declared it a “flawed election”; it even screamed “foul play” which the “khaki umpire” (read the Army) had rigged.

If you will stand for a mixed metaphor, the “khaki umpire” is, these days, playing the monkey between two cats – the US and China. With Donald Trump and his Deep State apparently engaged in a savage fight to the finish, the balance of advantage must be seen to be with China. But the Chinese themselves are keeping their fingers on the China-Pakistan economic corridor.

Imran Khan has expressed reservations on transparency issues. On the other hand, there have been reports that thousands of Pakistani students, who in the past would have been westward bound, have entered Chinese schools of learning. Who knows, this may be the thin end of the wedge.

If the Chinese can decolonize the Pakistani mind to this extent, it must be time for the West to take note. But a sketch that sections of the Army and Imran Khan might be innately anti-
West can be overdrawn. Yes, Pakistan has choices other than the US which includes Russia, but this does not mean the Army will bite the hand that has fed it since its inception.

These are complex times and a durable phenomena like the “West” manifests itself in many forms. After all retired Pakistan armymen, like retirees elsewhere, do keep a steady gaze on post-retirement sinecures. A huge opportunity beckons Pakistan retired Army officers in Saudi Arabia.

The new Prime Minister will be pragmatic. He will not seek to impose a moral code on his armed forces. But he will draw some very firm red lines and these red lines will stretch from Pakhtunkhwa right through Afghanistan, the arena of his political baptism and purgatory. That is where he cannot be seen to be striking deals. His political turf will turn to ash if he does.

He should not be seen in the traditional Pathan-Punjabi balance. The brunt of the blowback from the Afghan war was borne by the Pathan region, true, but it was a national catastrophe. Let me explain.

Washington twisted Pervez Musharraf’s arm to turn upon those Mujahideen in Afghanistan whom Riyadh, Washington and Islamabad had reared to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. The blowback from the Afghan war singed Pakistan. The Lal Masjid fiasco in Islamabad aggravated an uncontrollable situation. The reverberations from that blowback have not ended yet. Remember, the public outcry was against Musharraf fighting “America’s war” against terrorism. It became all the more shrill when the two brothers controlling Lal Masjid, Ghazi Rashid and Maulana Aziz, led the chorus.

Let me fast forward to the latest American debacle in Syria and its possible impact on the Af-Pak region. When almost all the mercenary Islamists had been caught with their trousers down, the existential question arose: what to do with trained terrorists?

When animal lovers in Britain forced an end to the traditional foxhunt, the impulse reached India’s southern hill station of Ootacamund also. The same question arose: what to do with hundreds of pedigree hounds? Good sense dawned and the canines were kept in a deluxe kennel, then distributed among dog lovers. But what do the trainers do with terrorists, trained and tested in action, who have not only tasted blood but have begun to love it? Trained terrorists can only have one use: as assets against any Muslim society the “trainer” wishes to destabilize – Afghanistan, Xinxiang, the Caucasus and so on.

I can quote at least two recent US Presidents to prove my point. In an interview to Thomas Friedman in August 2014, President Barack Obama made a startling admission. Asked why he had not ordered air attacks against the Islamic State, when it first reared its head, Obama said: “that would have taken the pressure off Nouri al Maliki”, Iraq’s stubbornly anti-American, Shia Prime Minister. In other words, the IS advance from Mosul to Baghdad was facilitated to oust Nouri al Maliki, an outcome the US was excitedly waiting for. Maliki had to be punished for the affront of not signing the “Status of Forces agreement” with the US. Eventually Maliki was shown the door.

After having been briefed by the intelligence agencies, candidate Donald Trump told Jake Tapper of the CNN: “Where do you think have billions of dollars worth of arms – and cash – gone in the course of our involvement in Syria? To the extremists, of course, I believe so.” He has not budged from this position.

What should worry Imran Khan is the next stage: the transfer of trained terrorists from Syria to Northern Afghanistan. Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, told a Friday congregation in Tehran on January 30: “The US transfer of IS terrorists to Afghanistan is aimed at creating a justification for its (US’) continued presence in the region.” More recently, Russia’s Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Morgulov Igor Vladimirovich, told a high powered assembly at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi: “IS fighters were being flown to northern Afghanistan.” The Afghan air space is under the control of the US and the government in Kabul. “So who is responsible?” Vladimirovich asked.

Islamabad, Beijing, Moscow are all persuaded that Taliban will have to be part of the solution in Afghanistan. Americans have been marking time with the good Taliban, bad Taliban mantra because they clearly do not have a policy.

The moment is laden with irony for President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul. The emergence of a Pathan in Islamabad should have provided him with comfort. Instead he is having kittens: the Pathan on the other side has an agenda which is totally at cross purposes with Ghani’s. Imran’s agenda would boost his popularity in the country where Ghani, alas, has none. The moral is simple: no sidekick to a foreign power has ever been respected at home.

(A senior commentator on political and diplomatic affairs, Saeed Naqvi can be reached on saeednaqvi@hotmail.com. The views expressed are personal.)

—IANS

India need not fear oil shortage: UAE envoy

India need not fear oil shortage: UAE envoy

UAE Ambassador to India Ahmed Albanna

UAE Ambassador to India Ahmed Albanna

By Aroonim Bhuyan,

New Delhi : Even as the US-imposed sanctions on Iran has put India’s energy security in jeopardy, UAE Ambassador to India Ahmed Albanna has allayed fears of an oil shortage, saying his country as well as Saudi Arabia can fill in if supply from Iran is disrupted.

“In the international market, the law of demand and supply controls the prices,” Albanna told IANS here in an exclusive interview when asked about rising fuel prices in India.

“Production is the important element there… to ensure that the production is enough for the world consumption of oil,” he said.

He said that consumer countries have been faced with most of the problems because of challenges faced by some Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) countries as also non-OPEC countries.

However, at the same time, he said that India need not fear shortage of oil with the new US sanctions on Iran set to take effect in November this year. Iran is the second-largest supplier of crude oil to India, supplying more than 425,000 barrels of oil per day, and India is one of the biggest foreign investors in Iran’s oil and gas industry.

“There was some disruption during the embargo against Iran years ago,” Albanna said.

“Saudi Arabia was able to rectify the matter and supply India in the face of the shortage that took place because of the embargo,” he said.

“The same thing will happen this time I guess in November, when the embargo takes place.”

The Ambassador said that because India enjoys a “great relationship” with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Iraq, “the alternatives are there all the time”.

Regarding energy giants Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) and Saudi Aramco jointly investing in the development of the $44-billion Ratnagiri refinery and petrochemicals complex in Maharashtra, Albanna said that it is a “strategic project” with a trilateral arrangement.

“Due to the close and strategic relationship between the UAE and Saudi Arabia and between India and both UAE and Saudi Arabia, we have been able to reach such an agreement,” he said. “It will be beneficial to all parties.”

Earlier this year, the first consignment of two million barrels of crude oil from the UAE for India’s strategic petroleum reserve in Karnataka’s Mangaluru landed on the west coast. This consignment fills one of the two strategic reserve caverns at Mangaluru under an agreement between Adnoc and the Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL).

Albanna also highlighted the close ties between India and the UAE which were elevated to that of a Comprehensive and Strategic Partnership during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Gulf nation in August 2015, the first prime ministerial visit from India to that country in 34 years.

This was followed by the visit of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Commander of the UAE Armed Forces to India Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in 2016 and then again in 2017 as the chief guest for India’s Republic Day celebrations. Modi again visited the UAE last year where he delivered the keynote address at the World Government Summit in Dubai.

Stating that India is one of the first countries with which the UAE has signed a strategic agreement, he said there are collaborations at many different levels.

“Whether we talk about traditional sectors like oil and gas and the normal trade and also the new sectors such as cooperation in airspace, cooperation in IT, IT manufacturing, cooperation in security and security exchange, security information exchange, and also in solar energy,” he said.

“If we look at the bilateral trade between the UAE and India, India is trading partner number one (for the UAE) with a total value of $57 billion,” Albanna said.

“If we look at the Indian side, the UAE is the third-largest trading partner after China and the US.”

Stating that all these show the importance of the India-UAE relationship, the Ambassador said that it “reflects the vision of our leadership to look at this bilateral trade and to make it further grow”.

He also referred to UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s week-long visit to India last month and said that there are many outcomes of the visit “which we are now at the stage of following up and look at the best way of implementation”.

The UAE is home to a nearly three million-strong expatriate Indian population.

(Aroonim Bhuyan can be contacted at aroonim.b@ians.in)

—IANS

India, China headed into a ‘marriage squeeze’ due to gender imbalance (Book Review)

India, China headed into a ‘marriage squeeze’ due to gender imbalance (Book Review)

Too Many Men Too Few WomenBy Saket Suman,

Book: Too Many Men Too Few Women; Edited by: Ravinder Kaur; Publisher: Orient Blackswan; Pages: 340; Price: Rs 925

Much of the scholarly work on adverse sex ratios or gender imbalance until now has primarily focussed on the identification, patterns and causes of skewed sex ratios, and very little on their consequences. This offering, on the contrary, focuses on their social consequences in China and India — two of the world’s most populous countries — by presenting an empirical work and ethnographic accounts by well-known sociologists, economists and demographers.

At the onset, editor Ravinder Kaur, a noted professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at IIT-Delhi, highlights that the gender balance in Asia is significantly shaped by the “male biased sex ratios” of India and China. Kaur points out that rapid fertility declines in the two countries, resulting from China’s one-child policy and India’s two-child norm, coupled with son-preference and the advent of sex determination technologies, has contributed to an excess of males and a shortage of females in both countries.

Once the proposition is explained, the respective authors dealing with diverse subjects elaborate on the social consequences of gender imbalance in India and China. Of all possible outcomes and consequences, “The Marriage Squeeze”, mentioned by almost all contributors in the book, comes across as the most striking.

What is “the marriage squeeze” and why are India and China likely to face it in the coming years?

In layman’s terms, marriage squeeze is one of the fundamental consequences of the sex ratio imbalance which leads to mismatch in the “marriageable population”.

“A shortage of women implies a male marriage squeeze, while a shortage of males implies a squeeze against women,” explains Kaur.

As per the assertions of demographers, the possibility of marriage depends on the supply of potential mates, which in turn is influenced by the sex ratio at birth, the population age structure and marriage patterns. Therefore, when “fertility declines rapidly and is accompanied by female-biased sex selection”, a far lesser number of women are born and enter the “marriage market”.

“It is important to note that the effects of the marriage squeeze are likely to be felt more than twenty years after the appearance of skewed sex ratios,” the book points out.

But what is the likely impact of the marriage crisis on left-out men?

The book maintains that due to the economic, social, moral and psychological importance of marriage in both the Indian and Chinese societies, the “shortage of brides” has taken on immense importance in the public imagination, and as the demographers point out, it has become one of the most significant negative impacts of the sex ratio imbalance.

“With age, single men become a subject of ridicule amongst friends who have settled down,” says one of the respondents from a Haryana village, quoted in the book.

In the cultural context of China too, “singlehood is a state of frustration, and even of deprivation”, which in the likely scenario, is expected to have adverse effects on the left-out men. The book also claims that men living in rural areas are likely to “suffer more” as the bride shortage is often exacerbated by “women moving to urban or more prosperous areas”.

Monica Das Gupta’s chapter “China’s Marriage Market and Upcoming Challenges for Elderly Men” mentions that the proportion of never-married in China will be especially high among poor men in low income provinces, which are “least able” to provide “social protection programmes”. Other factors resulting in men remaining unmarried, according to the book, are addiction to drugs or alcohol, disability, and among other factors, social stigma. The marriage squeeze against men, the book notes, can be compounded by geographic factors such as residence in a less-favoured location.

Interestingly, the findings of the book suggest that under conditions of a male marriage squeeze, “women who are similarly disabled or whose reputations are similarly tarnished” are more likely to find spouses than men. At the same time, strictly in the Indian context, the consequences of the marriage squeeze are made worse by the fact that the traditional modes of dealing with bachelorhood are diminishing as the joint family declines and nuclear families become less welcoming of unmarried relatives.

The book finds that the marriage squeeze is also likely to have consequences on dowry and economic behaviour revolving around marriages.

“It is commonly expected that with the scarcity of women, the direction of marriage transactions would be reversed. It is conjectured that in India, dowry would decline, with some form of bride price taking place. In China, the effect is seen in the rise in bride price as men compete for scarce women,” writes Kaur.

So what should be the way forward?

The general view among scholars in the book is that “self correction” of skewed sex ratios cannot be left to happen by itself over a long duration.

“Rather, communities and governments need to take proactive steps to engender an equal value of the girl child. There is also a need to address the negative social consequences of sex ratio imbalance, which will continue to unfold in the future,” Kaur maintains.

(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)

—IANS