by admin | May 25, 2021 | World

British Prime Minister Theresa May
London : The British government on Thursday published the long-awaited white paper on Brexit seeking to create a free trade area with the EU. Prime Minister Theresa May said it delivers on the Brexit vote.
The 98-page document, titled “The Future Relationship between the UK and the EU”, was published amid chaotic scenes in the House of Commons. It spelled out that workers from the other 27 EU member states will be able to travel to Britain visa-free to take up temporary employment, the Guardian reported.
It also stated that businesses that provide services will be able to move their talented people to and from Europe and Britain. Media reports in London said the white paper had been amended to soften the restrictions on Europeans coming to Britain after Brexit.
Dominic Raab, newly-appointed Brexit Secretary after the shock resignation of David Davis, gave details of the proposals to MPs in the Commons. The release of the document sparked chaotic scenes when it became apparent that copies of the paper were not immediately available to MPs.
He described the proposals as a “principled and practical Brexit”, describing the white paper as “the most significant Brexit publication” since the referendum in 2016.
Asked if there was a possibility of no-deal being struck between the EU and Britain, Raab said every eventuality was being planned for, but his aim was to see a future trade deal with Brussels.
May said the document “delivers on the Brexit people voted for”. But, pro-Brexit politicians vowed to table amendments saying May’s plan did not amount to Britain fully leaving the EU. It will see Britain leaving the European single market and the customs union.
The Department for Exiting the EU said the document proposed “a free trade area for goods that ensured continued frictionless access at the border, protected jobs and livelihoods and ensured Britain and EU meet their shared commitments to Northern Ireland and Ireland”.
Raab said the white paper outlined a vision that respects the result of the referendum and delivers a principled and practical Brexit. “It would maintain frictionless trade in goods between the UK and the EU through a new free trade area, responding to the needs of business,” he said.
Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg said it was a “bad deal for Britain”.
EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said he would analyse them (proposals) with the European Parliament and member states and was “looking forward” to negotiations with the UK next week.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Opinions, Success Stories

London Mayor Sadiq Khan (L) and UK’s Home Secretary Sajid Javid
By Saeed Naqvi,
The three column, six inch-deep headline on page 1 of the Daily Telegraph caught my eye: “Doors open to thousands more skilled migrants.”
Given the anti-immigrant rhetoric I had heard in Rome and elsewhere in Europe, the headline was refreshing. Even more noticeable was the name of the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, the third-highest ranked member of Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet who had reversed policy with the statement which formed the headline.
The 48-year-old son of Pakistani migrants who started business with a 500 pound bank loan had already established his “clubability” with the Conservative Party when he became Managing Director of Deutsche Bank.
Of comparable agility in the political race is the high profile Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, of the Labour party. He is only 41 but has already graduated through a stint in the cabinet as Transport Minister. “I am the first Muslim in Britain to have attended cabinet meetings,” Khan said with pride.
One of the obstacles in the way of Donald Trump making a state visit in 2017, a banquet with the Queen et al, was the Conservative Party’s very bipartisan objection: How can we host a US President who has imposed restrictions on citizens of Muslim countries? “We have a Muslim mayor and therefore a state visit by Trump is out of the question.”
“There are two Muslims in this country who are positioned to make a bid for the Prime Minister’s post,” said Lord Meghnad Desai. He was chairing a discussion on “India at 70: Nehru to Modi” in Committee Room 1 of the House of Lords. Instantly a question surfaced: Can a Muslim nurse such aspirations back home where he has a history for a 1,000 years?
Last year, at a similar seminar at King’s College, London, someone pointed to the presence of four Muslims in the English cricket team. This time I find that even the ever-present Moeen Ali, with a beard longer than W.G. Grace’s, is not in the squad. This waxing and waning is itself proof of a consistent quest for merit. It is not just a blanket upward mobility that Muslims have acquired: A process of distillation is taking place.
The post-9/11 war on terror which distorted most democracies by transferring extraordinary powers to the Deep State did not leave Britain unscathed. But persistent reliance on the Rule of Law has kept prejudice from taking root at an institutional level. The brief travel I have undertaken from London to Manchester has been something of an eye-opener.
A distinguished psychiatrist with the National Health Service married to my sister has been bed-ridden with a stroke he suffered three years ago. The care he has received in hospitals has to be seen to be believed. He is under 24/7 observation. The four very English “carers” who visit him round the clock have virtually become members of the family. It would be malicious to put it down to the aromatic cuisines my sister rustles up every time the carers arrive.
One evening I was invited to a “All Faith”, post-Iftar talk on a theme which surprised me because of its incongruity: “Wave of Populism in Europe”. It was all very graceful.
Earlier, in London, I had seen Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the local Rabbi and Priests of various churches breaking bread with their hosts at a “street Iftar Party” outside Finsbury Park mosque. The enthusiastic white, English participation in the event was heartwarming.
The war on terror with its random targets did cast the Muslim in an unfortunate image, particularly during the Tony Blair years. But excesses of those years also filled the ordinary people with a sense of guilt and compassion.
This somewhat exclusive focus on the Muslim in Britain must not obscure the overall south Asian profile in the country. A recent study produced a very negative image of Pakistanis among the public. A total of 1,668 British adults were asked last month to indicate the extent to which Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis made a positive or negative contribution to life in UK. The image of Indians was by far the most positive. 25 percent of those asked thought that Indians made a positive contribution. When positive and the negative figures were placed side by side for Bangladeshis and Pakistanis their score was -4 (minus four) and -3 (minus three), respectively.
Obviously proportionate to their population in the country, there are fewer Muslims in the high aspirational bracket than there are Indians, mostly Hindus in diverse careers. This imbalance can be traced to India’s social history. The majority community took to western education in late 19th century itself while Muslims remained anchored to feudal nostalgia and their rich Urdu culture.
I, in my earlier years, have seen this country rattled by Enoch Powell’s anti-immigrant speech in 1968, exactly 50 years ago: “Like the Roman, I see the Tiber foaming with blood.” The Liberal press reached out for Powell’s jugular and for a while Powellism appeared to be receding. But soon enough the country experienced another bout of street racism. “Paki bashing” became the war cry in the run-down parts of the country. But such upheavals never unhinged Britain from its basic anchor: The Rule of Law. It is this anchor which has been the primary enabling factor in Sajid Javid and Sadiq Khan’s rise.
It may be instructive for us in India that Britain is a very resilient Protestant monarchy which overseas secularism tied with hoops of steel to the Rule of Law.
It would be absurd to compare apples and oranges. The bewildering variety of our civilisational tapestry is unique. Even so our trajectory could have borne some resemblance to “genuine equal rights”, a phenomena Britain can boast of. Instead our politicians dissembled at the very outset leading us into a messy path. I shall explain.
(Saeed Naqvi is a commentator on political and diplomatic affairs. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached on saeednaqvi@hotmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World

Vladimir Putin
London : The UK has been accused of turning a “blind eye” to Russia’s “dirty money”, putting national security at risk. A British parliamentarian body said London is being used to hide Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal assets, media reports said.
The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said it was “business as usual” for the UK despite the poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter as the UK was being used to stash “corrupt assets” of Putin and his allies, the BBC reported.
A report, named Moscow’s Gold: Russian Corruption in the UK, points out that Russian gas giant Gazprom was able to trade bonds in London “days after the attempted murders” of Skripal and his daughter.
This undermined the UK’s efforts to confront the full spectrum of Putin’s offensive measures, it added.
Business between the UK and Russia had resumed so swiftly following the incident that it had prompted the Russian embassy in London to tweet: “Business as usual?”
Committee Chairman and Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat wrote in the Sunday Times, ahead of the publication of the report that the UK’s “lethargic response is being taken as proof that we do not dare stop them… London’s markets are enabling the Kremlin’s efforts”.
Security and Economic Crime Minister Ben Wallace said he had not been called to give evidence to the Committee: “I fear such an omission weakens the foundation of the report,” he said.
Wallace said the UK was “determined to drive dirty money and the money launderers out”.
“(We) will use all the powers we have, including the new powers in the Criminal Finance Act, to clamp down on those that threaten our security,” he added.
Tungendhat said ministers should investigate “gaps” in the sanctions regime which allows the Russian government and individuals linked to Putin to continue to raise funds in the city.
“The scale of damage that this ‘dirty money’ can do to the UK foreign policy interests dwarfs the benefit of Russian transactions in the city.
“The UK must be clear that the corruption stemming from the Kremlin is no longer welcome in our markets and we will act,” the BBC quoted Tugendhat as saying.
The committee’s report urges the government to show “stronger political leadership” on the issue by taking a number of actions, including: further sanctions against “Kremlin-connected individuals”; closing loopholes in the existing sanctions regime and speeding up plans to disclose transparent corporate ownership.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
London : Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has no plans as of now to face members of a British parliamentary committee probing the misuse of the firm’s data its practice of collecting user information, the media reported.
In a letter to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Rebecca Stimson, Facebook’s Head of Public Policy in the UK, said that “Zuckerberg has no plans to meet with the committee or travel to the UK at the present time”, theregister.co.uk reported on Tuesday.
The committee had expressed dissatisfaction with Facebook’s response to various points it raised including on Cambridge Analytica, dark ads, Facebook Connect, the amount spent by Russia on UK ads on the platform, data collection across the web and budgets for investigations.
Stimson’s letter, however, did not dampen the desire of the committee to hear from Zuckerberg directly.
“Although Facebook says Zuckerberg has no plans to travel to the UK, we would also be open to taking his evidence by video link, if that would be the only way to do this during the period of our inquiry,” said Chair of the Committee Damian Collins in response to Stimson’s letter.
“For too long these companies have gone unchallenged in their business practices, and only under public pressure from this Committee and others have they begun to fully cooperate with our requests,” Collins added.
The committee issued Facebook 39 questions it said the firm’s Chief technology Officer Mike Schroepfer had failed to answer in his evidence to the parliamentarians.
The committee said Facebook’s latest responses to these questions do not fully answer each point with sufficient detail or data evidence.
The committee said it plans to write again to address significant gaps in Facebook’s answers in the coming days.
“It is disappointing that a company with the resources of Facebook chooses not to provide a sufficient level of detail and transparency on various points including on Cambridge Analytica, dark ads, Facebook Connect, the amount spent by Russia on UK ads on the platform, data collection across the web, budgets for investigations, and that shows general discrepancies between Schroepfer and Zuckerberg’s respective testimonies,” Collins said.
“Given that these were follow up questions to questions Schroepfer previously failed to answer, we expected both detail and data, and in a number of cases got excuses,” Collins added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Sanjiv Kataria,
Time was when, if you aspired to study abroad, you wouldn’t look beyond the US and the United Kingdom with their prestigious colleges and great institutions of higher learning, many of them with an Ivy League tag. They still exist, but a plethora of restrictions of late on internships, on-job training, work permits and the uncertainty around H-1B visas have led students and parents to cast the net wider.
Countries like Canada, Australia, Singapore and, of late, Dubai have emerged as hot favourites due to the growing number of opportunities to study, find remunerative work and options to settle down.
But before you jump to a country of choice, you need to answer questions like: What is it that really interests you? What would you like to achieve? What do you enjoy doing? These are not inane questions but important pointers to your future career. With the jobs as we know them to be today set to change vastly or disappear in the next 5-10 years due to tectonic technological changes, students looking for a satisfying and successful career will have to seriously ponder the road ahead.
Here are a few parameters for you to consider when comparing Universities:
* Compare the QS rankings of the short-listed colleges. The reputed British agency, QS, compares top universities globally on parameters like research, teaching, employability and internationalisation — and the institute’s stature.
* Consider the academic excellence and research facilities, but also check out the innovation, entrepreneurship and employability focus of the University.
Remember, employability means not just employment and getting a job, but equipping you with the skills, the knowledge and tools to be able to succeed in your career.
Of all these parameters, check out specifically the focus the university places on employability of students, making sure to find out if they have a well-researched and thought through Professional Development Program (PDP) tailored for international students to enhance their career success.
* It is normal and expected of students not to know what they want to do. Check out if the PDP for an international student like you will give systematic opportunities to experience, say, an Australian, Singaporean or a Canadian workplace culture, facilitate internships, the recruitment process and prepare you for a global career — through interactive sessions. Also check out how the programme will equip you with inputs so that you as an international student “stand out”.
* Do enquire what options are available for international students for networking and sharpening the communication skills to boost your employability, besides helping you with effective resumes, interviewing tips and mock interviews.
* What career advice can you expect to maximise employment outcomes? Does the University’s placement division organise career fairs and seminars? If yes, how often are recruiters invited to the campus? Do the invitees to the career workshops include international alumni who have made a success of their careers? Where does the university rank on employer reputation on QS?
* One of the important parameters to consider would be the state of the health of the economy. Many of you would be surprised to learn that Australia has been recession-free for the past 26 years while the strong economies of Singapore and Canada have experienced a blip or two during this period. Australia’s economic success often goes unnoticed because it is not promoted as much as the UK and the US.
* Compare starting salaries for graduates or post-graduates, especially from your area of study across Universities and the cost of living of shortlisted countries. Some countries prescribe minimum wages based on qualifications and industry and you would do well to compare them.
* While most popular courses to pursue abroad among Indian students are Business, Information Technology, Engineering, Science and Architecture, you would do well to check how the programme of your choice ranks in the preferred University.
* Look for institutions where scholarship awards are offered to only a few students based on merit-based scores that are usually above the minimum cut-off prescribed for admissions. Best to avoid institutions that offer scholarships as a bait to every foreign student more as a price-off than on merit.
* Another point for Indian students to consider is how easy is to transfer to the education system. How compatible and similar is it to Indian 10+2+3 education structure? Since universities in the US insist on a 10+2+4, only those following an under-graduate engineering and architecture programme of four years or more can go in for higher education.
* Your safety and congenial weather conditions are equally important considerations when going abroad to study. I would recommend a safe and student-friendly place like Sydney any time over an extreme weather location in America and Canada where the weather, for majority of the year, can be harsh and below freezing point.
(Sanjiv Kataria, who served as brand custodian for NIIT for nearly two decades, is a communications counsel. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at sanjiv.kataria@gmail.com )
—IANS