Category: International News

G20 Secretariat:   The Union Cabinet approved the setting up of a G20 Secretariat and its reporting structures, which will be responsible for implementation of overall policy decisions and arrangements needed for steering India’s forthcoming G20 Presidency. G20 is the premier forum for international economic cooperation that plays an important role in global economic governance. […]

Russia-Ukraine Crisis:   Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky recently said he had declared February 16, which U.S. officials had said could be the date of a Russian attack, as a day of “national unity”. However, Russia has clarified that it has no plans to invade Ukraine. Russia want Talks to discuss implementation of previous commitments on […]

India-Australia Interim Trade Agreement:   India and Australia have announced that they are set to conclude an Interim Trade Agreement in March 2022 and a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) 12-18 months thereafter. The agreement will cover “most areas of interest for both countries” including goods, services, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures and […]

World Food Programme (WFP):   India signed an agreement with the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) for the distribution of 50,000 tonnes of wheat that it has committed to sending Afghanistan as part of humanitarian assistance Diplomatic efforts are under way to begin sending truck convoys through Pakistan by road, and the transport is […]

Quad:   Calling for justice for the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai (2008) and the Pathankot airbase attack (2016) for the first time since the group was formed, the Foreign Ministers of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. said the Quad was already cooperating on sharing intelligence on threats in the Indo-Pacific region. The group […]

Belarus:   Russia rolled its tanks across Belarus for live-fire drills that drew an ominous warning from NATO and added urgency to Western efforts to avert a feared invasion of Ukraine. The war games — set to run until February 20 — followed a gradual Russian military build-up around Ukraine that some U.S. estimates say […]

ASEAN:   India is in discussion with the 10-nation bloc ASEAN for initiating the review of the FTA (free-trade agreement) in goods between the two regions to seek more market access for domestic products. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is a pact between two or more nations to reduce barriers to imports and exports among them. […]

US Relations With Indo-Pacific:   The United States has said that it remains focused long-term on the Indo-Pacific region despite concerns over Russian aggression toward Ukraine. This highlights the importance of the region and the role that India has to play with regard to ensuring security of the region. The idea of the Indo-Pacific as […]

What Is The Unitary Digital Identity Framework?   In a bilateral meeting India has agreed to provide a grant to Sri Lanka to implement a ‘Unitary Digital Identity framework’, apparently modelled on the Aadhaar card. Both sides also discussed the fishermen’s issue and India provided financial assistance of 2.4 billion USD to Sri Lanka. Earlier, […]

UN Peacekeepers:   UN peacekeepers and troops of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have increased patrols near the site of last week’s deadly raid on internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northeast Ituri province. The UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, known by its French acronym as MONUSCO, recently exchanged fire with members of […]