Citing ongoing strategic dialogues with India and China, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged a new era of engagement with Asia, deepening historic ties and building new partnerships.
In a policy speech at the US-sponsored East-West Center in Honolulu, she said Tuesday the Asia-Pacific relationship is a priority for the administration of President Barack [...]
A sunny day brought some relief to the people of Shimla from the cold even as the higher reaches of Himachal Pradesh continued to reel under sub-zero temperatures, the Met office here said Tuesday.
Shimla experienced a low of 6.3 degrees Celsius Tuesday, a rise of 0.1 degree from Monday’s, said Manmohan Singh, director of the [...]
If you want to witness the ‘ring of fire’ but continuous foggy conditions in the north Indian plains are bothering you, visit Himachal Pradesh to catch the glimpse of the rare celestial spectacle – the solar eclipse.
Popular tourist towns like Shimla, Kasauli, Narkanda, Dharamsala, McLeodganj, Chamba, Dalhousie and Manali are witnessing crystal-clear skies with long [...]
The Bangladesh government is keen to increase trade, business and connectivity with northeast India, officials said here Tuesday quoting visiting Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
‘Chief ministers of northeastern states have also pleaded for more connectivity and trade between the northeastern states and Bangladesh,’ an official told IANS.
The chief ministers of Assam, Tripura and Meghalaya attended [...]
India and Bangladesh Monday took a slew of defining steps to transform their bilateral ties that included New Delhi extending $1 billion for development projects in the neighbouring country and five agreements, including key security pacts to expand counter-terror cooperation.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina, who is on her first [...]
The ‘third White House crasher’, who attended President Barack Obama’s state dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asserted Monday that he got an invitation in the mail, but could not show any piece of paper relating to the Nov 24 event with his name on it.
‘I was invited. I actually got an invitation in the [...]
The Punjab government Monday announced a Rs.500,000 grant to the kin of the two youth killed in suspected racial attacks in Australia earlier this month.
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal announced the grant to the family of Nitin Garg and Ranjot Singh who were killed in racial attacks by unidentified assailants in Australia last week.
While Nitin [...]
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday launched India’s ambitious solar energy mission, the centrepiece of its activities to combat climate change, which aims to generate 20,000 MW of solar power by 2022.
Some salient points of this policy are:
-To ramp up capacity of grid-connected solar power generation to 1,000 MW by 2013
-An additional 3,000 MW to be [...]
The mercury rose marginally in this Himachal Pradesh capital Monday even as the higher reaches reeled under sub-zero temperature with Keylong being the coldest at minus 12.1 degrees Celsius.
‘Shimla witnessed a minimum temperature of 6.2 degrees Celsius compared to Sunday’s 5.1 degrees Celsius,’ Manmohan Singh, director of meteorological office here, told IANS.
He said Shimla’s minimum [...]
India’s ambitious solar energy mission, the centrepiece of its activities to combat climate change, will aim to generate 20,000 MW of solar power by 2022, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced here Monday.
Launching the mission, the prime minister said: ‘The target of 20,000 MW of solar generating capacity by the end of the 13th Five Year [...]
Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao Sunday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the backdrop of the central government efforts to evolve a mechanism to carry forward the consultation process on the Telangana state issue.
The meeting lasted for 15 minutes. Chandrasekhara Rao was accompanied by K. Jayashankar, a Telangan ideologue who represented TRS [...]
Over the past years and especially these last days, Pawan Chamling has been seeing his dreams of a prosperous Sikkim, which he wants to be India’s top state in per capita income, shaken and even fractured by an ongoing agitation for a separate Gorkhaland in neighbouring West Bengal.
‘Since 1986, when the demand first surfaced, we [...]
India Saturday approved a proposal from Russia’s largest refiner Gazprom to complete the hydrocarbon exploration work it had committed with the state-run gas company GAIL in the first round of auctions under a new policy.
A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the company’s work programme [...]
A cold wave continued to grip the hills of Himachal Pradesh Saturday with Keylong region recording the lowest temperature in the state.
‘Keylong (in Lahaul and Spiti district) was the coldest place in the state. It recorded a minimum temperature of minus 11.7 degrees Celsius,’ meteorological office director Manmohan Singh told IANS.
Kalpa in Kinnaur district was [...]
The condition of Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu deteriorated Saturday, and the 95-year-old leader has slipped into a state of drowsiness, doctors attending on him said.
According to a medical bulletin issued by AMRI Hospital, where Basu was admitted Jan 1, there was a drop in his urine output and he was feeling drowsy. ‘This signifies involvement [...]
The cabinet Saturday discussed the vexed issue of statehood for Telangana but could arrive at no decision on the roadmap ahead, informed sources said.
‘There was a meeting between the cabinet and the cabinet committee on economic affairs. It lasted about 10 minutes,’ the sources said.
‘The main dilemma is that within the (Congress) party, there seems [...]
The union cabinet Saturday approved the signing of three pacts with Bangladesh relating to security and power, informed sources said here Saturday.
The first of these three agreements relates to mutual legal assistance in criminal matters and the second is on combating international terrorism, organised crime and drug trafficking.
The two agreements are expected to be signed [...]
The Congress core committee met here Friday evening to discuss the mechanism to carry forward the dialogue process on the vexatious Telangana statehood issue.
Congress sources said the meeting discussed the situation in Andhra Pradesh and the outcome of the Jan 5 meeting between the government and eight recognised political parties of Andhra Pradesh.
Home Minister [...]
Resolution of the maritime boundary dispute will be an important item on their summit agenda when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh holds talks with his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina here Monday.
In October last year, Bangladesh approached the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), seeking arbitration to delineate the boundary of the continental [...]
India is often compared to a ’slow moving elephant’ as it often delays decision-making and implementation of its policies but that is a price the country had to pay as it tries to ‘carry all sections of our people along in national development’, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here Friday.
‘Each citizen should feel that [...]
India’s knowledge sector offers a great window of opportunity to overseas Indians to join hands with the country in its high growth trajectory and invest in its future, technology evangelist Sam Pitroda said here Friday.
‘Though the country recorded more than 7 percent growth over the last five years, the next challenge is inclusive growth,’ Pitroda [...]
A cold wave continued to sweep Himachal Pradesh Friday, with its higher reaches shivering under sub-zero temperatures.
The minimum temperature in Shimla was 3.8 degrees Celsius, down from Thursday’s 5.5 degrees, the director of the meteorological office, Manmohan Singh, told IANS.
Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti district and Kalpa in Kinnaur district saw a low of [...]
Following is the text of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s speech at the eighth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, India’s annual conclave to connect with its diaspora – that was delivered at Vigyan Bhavan here Friday:
It gives me very great pleasure to join you at the inauguration of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas 2010. Every year on this day [...]
The Indian economy will not only register one of the fastest expansions in the world this fiscal, but soon return and sustain a high growth path of 9 percent, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here Friday.
‘During the year gone by, the world faced unprecedented economic and financial crisis. But the Indian economy weathered this crisis [...]
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday said security of Indians living abroad remained high on his government’s agenda and assured a social security fund to help Indians distressed by the economic crisis returning to their country.
‘The security of our overseas workers and students is top priority of my government,’ the prime minister told the annual convention [...]
NRIs will be able to cast their votes by the time the country holds its next general elections, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here Friday.
‘I recognise the legitimate desire of Indians living abroad to exercise their franchise and to have a say in who governs India,’ the prime minister told the annual conclave for the [...]
India will return to a growth path of 9 percent soon and every effort will be made to spruce up the social and physical infrastructure in the country, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here Friday.
‘Our economy is expected to grow at 7 percent this year and we are optimistic that we will return to a [...]
The government is taking various steps to safeguard the interests of overseas Indians who have invested in property in India, according to Minister for Corporate Affairs Salman Khurshid.
Speaking at a seminar on ‘Property-Related Issues of NRIs and PIOs’ here Thursday as a prelude to the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) 2010, the annual conclave of the [...]
India Thursday unveiled for its diaspora its 21st century scientific vision, saying it intended to raise its spend on R&d to two percent of its GDP and focus on five critical areas, including energy and food security.
‘Right now, we spend one percent of our GDP on scientific research and development. We intend to take this [...]
Temperatures in the mid-hills dipped even as the mercury stayed below the freezing point in the higher reaches of Himachal Pradesh Thursday, the Met office here said.
Temperatures across the state plummeted despite no fresh snowfall or rain in the past 24 hours, Manmohan Singh, director of the meteorological office, told IANS.
He said bright sunshine greeted [...]
