New Delhi:

India and Vietnam today adopted an action plan to expand their strategic ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing to work jointly for a rules-based Indo-Pacific and asserting that New Delhi supports development and “not expansionism” in remarks that came amid concerns over China’s military posturing in the region.

The two sides signed six memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and finalised three other documents to broadbase cooperation in a range of areas following wide-ranging talks between PM Modi and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

It was also decided that India will provide USD 300 million credit line to Vietnam primarily to strengthen the Southeast Asian nation’s maritime security.

An agreement was sealed between the central banks of the two countries for rolling out digital payment connectivity.

Prime Minister Chinh arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday night on a three-day visit that is aimed at further expanding the comprehensive strategic ties between the two countries.

“In our Act East policy and our Indo-Pacific vision, Vietnam is our important partner… We support development, not expansionism (Hum vistarbad nahi, vikasvad ka samarthan karte hei),” PM Modi said in Hindi in his media statement.

“We will continue our cooperation for a free, open, rules-based and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” he said.

PM Modi said that both sides decided that cooperation will be strengthened to deal with terrorism and cyber security issues.

“We believe that ‘Developed India 2047’ and Vietnam’s ‘Vision 2045’ have accelerated development in both countries. This is opening up many new areas of mutual cooperation,” PM Modi said.

“And therefore, to further strengthen our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, today we have adopted a new plan of action,” he said.

PM Modi said new steps have been taken for cooperation in the field of defence and security.

The two prime ministers also remotely inaugurated an Army Software Park at Telecommunications University Nha Trang. It has been built with New Delhi’s development assistance.

“The agreed USD 300 million credit line will strengthen Vietnam’s maritime security,” PM Modi said.

“We agree that, to realise the mutual trade potential, the review of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement should be concluded as early as possible,” he said.

Vietnam is a key member of 10-nation ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations).

“We have decided to focus on the areas of green economy and new emerging technologies. Each other’s capabilities in energy and port development will be harnessed for mutual benefit,” PM Modi said.

The prime minister also invited people from Vietnam to the Buddhist circuit in India. “And we want the youth of Vietnam to also take advantage of Nalanda University.” In his remarks, Modi said India-Vietnam relations have both “expanded and deepened” over the past decade.

“In the last 10 years, we have transformed our relations into a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Our bilateral trade has increased by more than 85 percent,” he said.

“Mutual cooperation has expanded in energy, technology, and development partnership. Mutual cooperation in defence and security areas has gained new momentum,” he said.

“Over the past decade, connectivity has increased. And today we have more than 50 direct flights between us. Along with this, tourism is continuously increasing, and people have also been given the facility of e-visa,” PM Modi said.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

India and Vietnam today adopted an action plan to expand their strategic ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing to work jointly for a rules-based Indo-Pacific and asserting that New Delhi supports development and “not expansionism” in remarks that came amid concerns over China’s military posturing in the region.

The two sides signed six memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and finalised three other documents to broadbase cooperation in a range of areas following wide-ranging talks between PM Modi and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

It was also decided that India will provide USD 300 million credit line to Vietnam primarily to strengthen the Southeast Asian nation’s maritime security.

An agreement was sealed between the central banks of the two countries for rolling out digital payment connectivity.

Prime Minister Chinh arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday night on a three-day visit that is aimed at further expanding the comprehensive strategic ties between the two countries.

“In our Act East policy and our Indo-Pacific vision, Vietnam is our important partner… We support development, not expansionism (Hum vistarbad nahi, vikasvad ka samarthan karte hei),” PM Modi said in Hindi in his media statement.

“We will continue our cooperation for a free, open, rules-based and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” he said.

PM Modi said that both sides decided that cooperation will be strengthened to deal with terrorism and cyber security issues.

“We believe that ‘Developed India 2047’ and Vietnam’s ‘Vision 2045’ have accelerated development in both countries. This is opening up many new areas of mutual cooperation,” PM Modi said.

“And therefore, to further strengthen our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, today we have adopted a new plan of action,” he said.

PM Modi said new steps have been taken for cooperation in the field of defence and security.

The two prime ministers also remotely inaugurated an Army Software Park at Telecommunications University Nha Trang. It has been built with New Delhi’s development assistance.

“The agreed USD 300 million credit line will strengthen Vietnam’s maritime security,” PM Modi said.

“We agree that, to realise the mutual trade potential, the review of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement should be concluded as early as possible,” he said.

Vietnam is a key member of 10-nation ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations).

“We have decided to focus on the areas of green economy and new emerging technologies. Each other’s capabilities in energy and port development will be harnessed for mutual benefit,” PM Modi said.

The prime minister also invited people from Vietnam to the Buddhist circuit in India. “And we want the youth of Vietnam to also take advantage of Nalanda University.” In his remarks, Modi said India-Vietnam relations have both “expanded and deepened” over the past decade.

“In the last 10 years, we have transformed our relations into a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Our bilateral trade has increased by more than 85 percent,” he said.

“Mutual cooperation has expanded in energy, technology, and development partnership. Mutual cooperation in defence and security areas has gained new momentum,” he said.

“Over the past decade, connectivity has increased. And today we have more than 50 direct flights between us. Along with this, tourism is continuously increasing, and people have also been given the facility of e-visa,” PM Modi said.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. File
| Photo Credit: PTI

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on August 1 accused the Modi government of indulging in “tokenism” by bringing in “so-called employment-linked incentive schemes”, and said the ‘B’ in the Union Budget stands for “betrayal”.

Mr. Kharge alleged that the Modi government’s Budget has mere internships forced upon the industry with no long-term solution in sight.

He said that a week into the ‘Kursi Bachao Budget’, the academia and the industry awaits clarity from the Modi government on its “tokenism” regarding the “so-called ’employment-linked incentive’ schemes”.

“Crores of youth want a permanent solution to their plight of Jobs, but Narendra Modi ji’s government bitterly deceives them by not even giving a temporary solution!” he alleged.

“We ask two questions to the Modi government on these sham schemes – When will the Modi government provide details of the schemes?” he said.

Also read | Congress MP Jairam Ramesh says Budget promises for Andhra, Bihar are ‘post-dated cheque on crashing bank’

Neither the youth nor the industry which is to be nudged, according to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, to provide internships, first time jobs or training has any know how about the contours of the five employment-linked incentive schemes, Mr. Kharge said.

“A government, which could not create a conducive environment for private investment and took measures to plunge it, is now acting as if it will suddenly nudge 500 top companies to hire 4,000 interns per year!” he said.

Was there any stakeholder consultation before imposing this “half-copied idea” from the Congress manifesto, Mr. Kharge asked.

The Congress Manifesto had a ‘Right to Apprenticeship’ – which is a structured system of training where individuals, known as apprentices, learn a trade or profession through a combination of on-the-job training and classroom instruction, he said.

“On the other hand, the Modi government’s Budget has mere internships forced upon the industry with no long-term solution in sight,” he alleged.

Why are none of these Employment-Linked Incentive Schemes missing the Public Sector component, Mr. Kharge asked.

“Is it because the BJP wants no recruitment of SC, ST, OBC and EWS youth in the Public Sector – through reservation?” he said.

Why are all these schemes providing temporary employment or internships, he asked.

“For instance, the incentive scheme for first-time employees, which offers a ₹15,000 subsidy is paid out in three installments and the second installment is only payable if the employee undergoes a compulsory online financial literacy course,” he said.

“Why should employees in every unrelated sector be expected to do this,” Mr. Kharge asked.

“More worrying is the clause stating that the subsidy is ‘to be refunded by the employer if the employment to the first timer ends within 12 months of recruitment’. If the employee switches jobs in 10 months, he/she has already received the benefit of the scheme, but the employer is required to bear the costs. Would any small employer take this risk?” Mr. Kharge said.

The minimum wage (average) in India is about ₹13,300, he said.

“It looks as if no new intern/hire in these SHAM schemes even getting that? The Modi government should clarify on this,” he said.

“The ‘B’ in BJP’s Budget stands for ‘Betrayal’!” he added.

Mumbai:

Indian student contingents have emerged with flying colours at prestigious international Olympiads in Biology, Maths, Physics and Chemistry held this month, earning plaudits from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other bigwigs, officials said here on Wednesday.

The participating teams went through the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) here and bagged several medals and honours for the country, including seven won by Maharashtra students.

It started with the 35th International Biology Olympiad (IBO – July 7-13) held in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.

The Indian team bagged one gold (Vedant Sakre of Mumbai) and three silvers (Ishan Pednekar of Ratnagiri; Shrijith Sivakumar of Chennai and Yashaswi Kumar of Bareilly).

This was followed by the 65th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO – July 11-22) held in Bath, United Kingdom.

The Indian contingents bagged four golds (Adhitya M. V. Ganesh of Pune; Kanav Talwar of Greater NOIDA; Rushil Mathur of Mumbai and Anando Bhadur of Guwahati), while Arjun Gupta of Delhi got a silver medal and Siddharth Choppara of Pune secured an Honourable Mention.

Next was the 54th International Physics Olympiad (IPhO – July 21-29), held in Isfahan, Iran.

The Indian team secured 2 golds (Rhythm Kedia of Raipur and Ved Lahoti of Indore), plus 3 silvers (Akarshraj Sahay of Nagpur; Bhavya Tiwari of NOIDA and Jaiveer Singh of Kota).

Finally, the 56th International Chemistry Olympiad (IchO – July 21-30) was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The Indian contingent secured a gold (Devesh P. Bhaiya of Jalgaon), 2 silvers (Avaneesh Bansal of Mumbai and Harshin Posina of Hyderabad) while Kashyap Khandelwal of Mumbai got a bronze medal.

The Mumbai-based HBCSE – a national centre of the TIFR – is a premier institution for research and development in science, technology and mathematics education.

It is also India’s nodal centre or Olympiad programmes in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and junior sciences which attract the participation of students from across the country.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh had a face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his ongoing visit to Delhi. Mr Singh and PM Modi had discussed the situation in the state that was hit by massive ethnic violence last year, party sources told NDTV amid much speculation over the meeting.

Mr Singh is in Delhi for a special conclave of Chief Ministers from BJP-ruled states. But the short closed door session held in its sidelines , was specially scheduled to discuss the Centre and state’s plans and roadmap for a possible solution to the ongoing crisis. Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh were also present for the meeting, but no officials from the Centre or the state attended it, sources said, underscoring its exclusivity.

The meeting comes amid massive Opposition pressure on the BJP over the Prime Minister’s alleged silence on Manipur. Slogans of Manipur had rent Lok Sabha as the Opposition interrupted PM Modi’s speech on the Motion of Thanks following President Droupadi Murmu’s joint address for over two hours.

The BJP, though, has been especially focussed on Manipur after the two Lok Sabha seats in the northeastern state went to the Congress in the recent general election.

The meeting also comes on a day that Manipur governor Anusiya Uikey was removed and new Assam governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya was given additional charge of Manipur.

Over the last year, the clashes between the valley-dominant Meitei community and nearly two dozen tribes known as Kukis — a term given by the British in colonial times — who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, has killed over 220 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.

The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the nearly two dozen tribes that share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram, want a separate administrative carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.

Chief ministers of BJP-ruled states who participated in the two-day conclave “Mukhyanantri parishad” this week, have been asked not to dilute Central schemes and implement them fully in their character and spirit, as envisaged by the Central government.

States have been asked to work in complete “samanway” or coordination with the Centre, and work together to achieve targets. The Centre’s message of welfare and development should be uniformly reflected in the governance of the states, chief ministers have been told.

The meeting, seen as the first collective introspection exercise by the BJP after the Lok Sabha elections, saw participation from 13 chief ministers and 15 deputy chief ministers. In the recently held Lok Sabha elections, the BJP faced a setback in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Haryana that are ruled by BJP or NDA.

States have been strictly asked to utilise the funds allocated to them, and not make tweaks to them.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has specifically asked Chief Ministers to focus on the complete implementation of schemes, utilisation of funds and also work in tandem with the Centre.

“Central schemes are mindfully drafted to benefit deprived sections… states have been asked not to dilute them, make changes to them, and just implement them on ground with full integrity,” a source said.

The Centre has at least 46 flagship schemes concerning affordable housing to sanitation and free ration, skilling and scholarship that are implemented across the nation.

PM Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president JP Nadda and BJP national organisation secretary BL Santhosh took part in the meeting.

Sources said saturation of Centre’s welfare schemes, target of $5 trillion economy, taking development and heritage together were on agenda. Best practices of good governance were also discussed.

Assam’s drive for recruitment for government jobs, UP’s efforts at digitization of rural records, Bihar’s efforts to make coal mining transparent were also discussed.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 8th Governing Council meeting of Niti Aayog on the theme of ‘Viksit Bharat @ 2047: Role of Team India’ at the new Convention Centre in Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, Saturday, May 27, 2023. Image used for representative purpose only.
| Photo Credit: PTI

NITI Aayog’s 9th Governing Council meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi began in New Delhi on July 27.

The meeting focuses on making India a developed nation by 2047. It aims to foster participative governance and collaboration between the Centre and state governments, enhancing the quality of life for both rural and urban populations by strengthening the delivery mechanisms of government interventions.

The council, the apex body of NITI Aayog, includes all state Chief Ministers, Lieutenant Governors of Union Territories, and several Union ministers. Prime Minister Modi is the chairman of NITI Aayog.

The meeting also focuses on recommendations of the 3rd National Conference of Chief Secretaries held in December last year.

During the conference, recommendations were made on five key themes — drinking water: access, quantity, and quality; electricity: quality, efficiency, and reliability; health: accessibility, affordability, and quality of care;schooling: access and quality and land and property: accessibility, digitization, registration, and mutation.

A vision document is being prepared to help India become a developed economy of $30 trillion by 2047, the 100th year of its independence.

In 2023, NITI Aayog was entrusted with the task of consolidating the 10 sectoral thematic visions into a combined vision for Viksit Bharat @2047.

The vision encompasses various aspects of development, including economic growth, social progress, environmental sustainability, and good governance, among other.

New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Kyiv next month for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, sources have said.

This comes a month after PM Modi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Italy.

The two leaders were seen sharing a hug as they met.

On the day PM Modi secured a third term after the Lok Sabhal elections, Zelensky had congratulated him and invited him to visit the war-torn country.

In a phone call with President Zelenskyy in March this year, PM Modi discussed ways to strengthen India-Ukraine partnership and reiterated the nation’s people-centric approach and calls for dialogue and diplomacy for the resolution of the ongoing conflict.

The Prime Minister said India would continue to do everything within its means to support a peaceful solution. 

Ever since the war began India has maintained it can only be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy, and the Prime Minister has said “India is ready to contribute to any peace efforts”.

PM Modi had also travelled to Moscow earlier this month on a two-day visit. 

PM Modi, during his meeting with President Putin, stressed no solution – to the violence – could be found on the battlefield. “India has always called for respecting the United Nations Charter, including territorial integrity and sovereignty. There is no solution on the battlefield. Dialogue and diplomacy is the way forward,” he had said.

New Delhi:

The first budget of the third term of Narendra Modi government bore a clear imprint of the recent Lok Sabha election, in which the BJP failed to gain majority on its own and had to depend on allies to form government. The reaction went beyond the special packages for Nitish Kumar’s Bihar and Chandrababu Naidu’s Andhra Pradesh – a compensatory gesture for the blocked special category status that both states had demanded.

The biggest focus of this budget was employment for the country’s young people — across all sectors and including the opportunity for apprenticeship in private companies. The government is also providing a month’s salary upto Rs 15,000 to the new recruits through Direct Benefit Transfer.

The deal is sweetened for employers with subsidy on the employer’s share of Provident Fund Payments.

One crore people will get jobs in a year under this project, the minister said, making it clear that the BJP considers unemployment and the subsequent concern among the young people as one of  the  key reasons for its lacklustre performance.

There is also an effort to boost economy by reworking of tax slabs in the new tax regime and pushing up the standard deduction from Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000 that alone can provide an extra 17,500 in the hands of employees and boost consumption and therefore demand.

The deduction on family pension for pensioners was enhanced from Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000.

There is also some relief in other areas, with cuts on customs duty on cellphones and chargers, drugs for cancer, seafood, leather and gold. After many years, the government has not increased tax on tobacco.

“My proposals for customs duties intend to support domestic manufacturing, deepen local value addition, promote export competitiveness, and simplify taxation, while keeping the interest of the general public and consumers surmount,” Ms Sitharaman said while presenting the budget.

Largescale unemployment and the lack of disposable income in the hands of the people had kept the economy stymied and big projects lie unfinished. A case in point would be infrastructure for which there are few takers. Investments have been subdued and the labour market weak, with millions holding down low-productive jobs.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman with team members shows the Budget paper before leaving for Rashtrapati Bhavan, at North Block in New Delhi on July 23, 2024.
| Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

The Union Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the full Budget for 2024-25, sources said. Following this, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her seventh budget in the Lok Sabha.

Follow the LIVE Budget updates here

Ms. Sitharaman, India’s first full-time woman Finance Minister, has presented five full budgets since July 2019 and an interim budget on February 1, 2024.

This is the first budget of the BJP-led NDA government in its third term in office.

Earlier today, Ms. Sitharaman called on President Droupadi Murmu before presenting the full Budget for 2024-25. As per established tradition, the Finance Minister met the President at the Rashtrapati Bhavan before heading to Parliament.

President Murmu offered ‘dahi-chini’ (curd-sugar), considered auspicious, to Ms. Sitharaman before she left for Parliament to present the Union Budget.