by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
London, (IINA) – London buses will carry adverts praising Allah as part of a drive by Britain’s biggest Muslim charity to help victims of the Syrian civil war during Ramadan, Evening Standard newspaper reported.
Islamic Relief said it hoped the posters, which bear the words “Subhan Allah”, meaning, “Glory be to God” in Arabic, will portray Islam and international aid in a positive light.
The adverts will be carried in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leicester and Bradford later this month.
Charity leaders hope it will encourage generous donations during the religious festival, which is expected to begin on June 6.
Organizers added they hoped the campaign will help young Muslims to focus on humanitarian work.
Imran Madden, the UK director of Islamic Relief, said: “In a sense, this could be called a climate change campaign because we want to change the negative climate around international aid and around the Muslim community in this country.
“International aid has helped halve the number of people living in extreme poverty in the past 15 years, and British Muslims are an incredibly generous community who give over £100 million to international aid charities in Ramadan.”
It comes as London has just elected Sadiq Khan as the city’s first Muslim mayor following an historic victory over Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith.
The capital is home to about half of Britain’s estimated three million Muslims.
Transport for London, which regulates the advertisements appearing on the city’s buses, does not allow posters linked to a “political party or campaign” but does not prevent religious ads.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Economy, News
Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivering his address at Wembley Stadium, in London
London:(IANS) Asserting that diversity was India’s pride and strength, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday hard sold brand India during his much-awaited address to the Indian diaspora here even as he urged industry captains to push India-Britain ties.
“India is full of diversity. This diversity is our pride and our strength,” Modi said as a frenzied crowd of 60,000 British Indians chanted “Modi, Modi” at the iconic Wembley Stadium here.
“Kabir and Rahim have been our inspirations. The Sufi tradition is the best antidote to terrorism,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Modi was hosted for lunch by Queen Elizabeth II.
“India has no reason to remain poor. I can say that after my experience during the last 18 months,” Modi, who started his Wembley speech in English and then turned to Hindi, said.
“Such a youthful nation like India cannot lag behind in development,” said Modi in his over an hour long speech.
He said the fact that the world’s confidence in India was increasing was proved by the fact that foreign direct investment into India has increased by 40 percent over the past year.
“It shows the increasing international confidence in India,” Modi said in the speech he delivered in Hindi.
“Two dreams that we are working towards — a clean India and India with 24/7 electricity,” he said.
Modi said that 18,000 villages in India that were not connected with electricity would get this basic facility within the next 1,000 days.
“The pace and direction of progress in India is such that the fruits of development will be seen very soon,” Modi said.
Modi said that by the year 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, he would ensure that there was 24 hours of electricity all over the country.
Much to the delight of the people of Gujarati origin sitting in the crowd, he announced the start of direct flights between London and Ahmedabad from December 15 this year.
Modi also thanked British Prime Minister David Cameron for the latter’s affection towards India and Indians.
“Whenever I meet the prime minister (Cameron), I find that he is very proud of the Indian community in UK,” he said.
Speaking ahead of Modi, Cameron sent the crowd into raptures by greeting them with “Namaste, Wembley” and said a time would soon come when there would be a British-Indian prime minister.
“It won’t be long before there is a British-Indian prime minister in 10, Downing Street,” Cameron said citing the contributions of British-Indians in various fields.
Britain is home to a 1.5 million-strong Indian diaspora, one of the largest in the world.
The British prime minister said that “India-UK ties are about people and about prosperity”.
He also backed India’s claim for permanent membership in the UN Security Council.
Adding to Modi’s pre-election Hindi slogan of “acche din aane wale hain”, Cameron said: “Acche din zaroor aayega” (Good days will definitely come).
A cultural extravaganza preceded Modi’s speech in which Indian pop and Hindi film playback singer Alisha Chinai belted out her evergreen “Made in India” number from the 1995 album of the same name. It was obviously in keeping with Modi’s “Make in India” initiative.
Apart from Alisha, British singer-rapper Jay Sean, Bollywood singer Kanika Kapoor, and Indian violinist Jyotsna Srikanth, as also the London Philharmonic Orchestra, were among those who enthralled the crowd.
Keeping with the spirit of Diwali, the night that was charged with electricity, ended with a dazzling display of fireworks over the world famous football stadium.
Earlier on Friday, Modi asked industry captains to contribute to India-Britain ties since the political will of the two countries was well established.
Addressing the UK-India CEOs Forum here, Modi said it was for industry captains to push bilateral ties with Britain as the political will of the two nations’ leadership was well established.
“India and the United Kingdom are economically made for each other. This relationship has to be driven by private sector CEOs now,” Modi said.
Cameron, who also addressed the meeting, echoed Modi and said: “We both have the political will to take our political relationship forward.”
On Friday, in a signal honour to India, Modi was hosted to a luncheon banquet by Queen Elizabeth II at the Buckingham Palace here. Modi gifted the British monarch a set of photographs from her first visit to India in 1961, award-winning Darjeeling tea, quality honey from Jammu and Kashmir Tanchoi stoles that are a speciality of Varanasi.
The Indian prime minister started his second day of his three-day visit to Britain by continuing one-to-one bilateral discussions with Cameron at the Chequers, the countryside retreat of the British.
On Saturday, Modi will leave Britain for Turkey where he will attend the annual G-20 summit.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, Economy, News
Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivering his statement to the media with the Prime Minister of United Kingdom (UK), Mr. David Cameroon, at Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in London
London:(IANS) India and Britain signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement after the two sides held delegation level talks here on Thursday, the first day of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three-day visit to Britain.
“The conclusion of the civil nuclear agreement is a symbol of our mutual trust and our resolve to combat climate change,” Modi said while issuing a joint statement along with British Premier David Cameron.
“The agreement for cooperation in India’s Global Centre for Clean Energy Partnerships will strengthen safety and security in the global nuclear industry,” he said.
He said India attached great value to defence and security cooperation with Britain, including regular exercises and defence trade and collaboration.
“This cooperation will grow. I am also pleased that UK will participate in the International Fleet Review in India in February 2016. UK will also be a strong partner in India’s defence modernization plans, including our ‘Make in India’ mission in defence sector,” the Indian prime minister said.
He said the economic partnership between the two countries was quite robust “and a key pillar of our partnership”.
“I expressed confidence that this relationship grow rapidly in the years ahead, given the size and scale of opportunities in a rapidly expanding India and Britain’s own formidable economic strengths,” Modi said.
Stating that Britain was already the third largest investor in India, he said there was more investment from India in Britain than in rest of the European Union combined.
“We will launch a new fast track mechanism for UK investments in India. The revival of India-UK CEO Forum is a welcome step,” he said.
Modi said India would also increasingly raise funds in London’s financial market.
“I am pleased, but also believe it is natural that we will issue a Railways Rupee Bond in London. This is where the journey of Indian Railways began.”
Modi expressed happiness with the progress in the cooperation between the two countries in clean energy and climate change, involving the governments and the private sector.
“This is an area of immense importance and enormous opportunities. Our bilateral cooperation will supplement India’s comprehensive and ambitious national plan on climate change,” he said.
According to the Indian prime minister, the partnership between the two countries includes peace and stability in Asia, especially in South Asia and West Asia, maritime security, cyber security, and terrorism and extremism.
He also thanked Cameron for the strong British support for India’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council and membership in the international export control regimes.
On his part, Cameron said that as the oldest and largest democracies, India and Britain were natural partners.
He said Britain and India would build stronger economic, defence and global partnerships.
Describing India’s smart cities and skill development as immense projects, he said Britain would help build the smart cities of Amravati, Indore and Pune.
During the course of Modi’s visit, the two sides are expected to sign a number of agreements on mutual investments and defence cooperation.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, Investing, News
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Prime Minister of United Kingdom (UK), Mr. David Cameroon, at delegation-level talks, in 10 Downing Street, London
London:(IANS) Calling India an easy and simple place to business in, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday invited British investors to invest in his country.
“We have worked aggressively to make India an easy and simple place to do business,” Modi said while addressing the City of London at the Old Library in Guildhall on the first day of his three-day visit to India.
“There is significant potential for India and UK to further strengthen their economic ties,” he said.
“The hallmark of our strategy now is policy-driven governance,” he said, adding that India was one of the most open countries for foreign investments.
He said the results of the hard work are now visible.
“IMF chief has recently said that India is among few bright spots in global economy today. Our growth rate in the last year was 7.3 percent,” the Indian prime minister said.
“The World Bank has very recently projected our growth rate at 7.5 percent for this fiscal and even better in the coming years. Thus, we are fortunate to be sailing in the right direction. In the World Bank Report of 2016 on ease of doing business, India has moved up by 12 ranks at one go.”
Modi said that to enhance the flow of foreign investments, India has liberalised the FDI regime allowing 100 percent FDI in railways.
“We enhanced the FDI limits to 49 percent in defence and insurance,” he said.
He also mentioned that an India Investment and Infrastructure Fund has been set up.
“We have targeted an annual contribution of $3.5 billion into this fund from our own resources. We are putting in place a professional team for asset management,” he said.
Modi said that India has also come up with the mechanism of tax free infrastructure bonds for projects in rail, road and other sectors.
“We will work together with the British government, industry and the financial markets to deepen our relationship and harness their interest in India’s infrastructure. Very soon, these bonds will become strong instruments for engagement between our financial markets,” he said.
“We want to make sure that our tax regime is transparent and predictable. We are also keen to see that genuine investors and honest tax payers get quick and fair decisions on tax matters.”
He said that in just 18 months, “we have successfully restored the credibility of India in the eyes of global players”.
At this point of time, it is wiser to be in India
Earlier in the day, India and Britain signed a civil nuclear agreement following delegation-level talks between the two sides.
After this, Modi addressed a joint session of the British parliament, becoming the first Indian prime minister to do so.
