Modi Begins his China Tour With a Visit to Terracotta Warriors Museum in Xi'an

Following his arrival in China, PM Modi went on to visit the famous Terracotta Warriors Museum in Xi'an, the home town of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Modi, who is on his three-nation-visit to China, Mongolia, and South Korea, received a warm welcome on his arrival in Xi'an earlier.

Here in Xi'an, the PM will hold talks with president XI. After that, he will go on to visit the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda and other tourist attractions in the city.  He will also receive a traditional Tang Dynasty welcome ceremony, and then he will leave for Beijing. 

After getting an official welcome ceremony in Beijing on Friday, PM Modi will hold talks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. Both the leaders are expected to sign a number of agreements before releasing a joint statement to the media. Modi will leave for Shanghai, the leg of his China visit, the same day.

PM Modi will hold a meeting with Chinese CEOs on Saturday, before attending an India-China business forum. Modi will then participate in a function hosted by the Indian community in China; he will thenleave for Mongolia, the second destination of his three-nation tour. 

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India will Resolve All Its Issues with China: Rajnath Singh

India will Resolve All Its Issues with China: Rajnath Singh

Home minister of India RajnathSingh has said today that all the contentious issues with China will be resolved in a peaceful manner during PM Modi's visit to the communist nation. He quoted former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and said that friends can be changed but the neighbors cannot.

"India is one nation that believes that the whole world is family. I will try my best that the tension between China and India is lessened and I am sure that even China wants peace and hence will make efforts to achieve the same. We have not forgotten Atal ji's statement that friends can be changed but not neighbors," said the Home Minister.

Prime Minister Modi will arrive in China for his six-day, three-nation tour on 14 May. In China, he will be visiting Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an, and then leave for Mongolia.

India is expected to raise the issues like greater market access; removal of non-tariff barriers; investments in sectors such as defense; and of course, the border conflicts.  

The dragon country has already signed MoUs to set up industrial parks in India.

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K.V. Kamath of ICICI Bank Named BRICS Bank President

ICICI bank's non-executive chairman K V Kamath has been appointed the New Development Bank president. The New Development Bank, which is worth 100 billion USD venture, is being set up by  five BRICS nations:  Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

It has been reported that the presidency of the bank for the first six years will lie with India, and after that Russia and Brazil will get a five-year term each.  

The name 'New Development Bank' is the brain child of Indian PM Narender Modi. He suggested it at the BRICS meeting in Brazil in November 2014.

The bank will basically focus at funding infrastructure projects in developing countries and is being seen as a step away from West-dominated international financial systems.

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PM Modi will Start His Three-Nation Tour to China, Mongolia, and Korea From 14 May

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on his three nation official visit to China, Mongolia, and Korea form 14 to 19 of this month. The PM will be China from 14th to 16th of this month. He will visit Xian, Beijing and Shanghai. Modi will be holding bilateral talks with China's top leadership and will also take part in cultural and business events.

Modi will also participate in an event organized by the Indian community living in China.

He will leave for Mongolia on 17 May. This is going to be the first ever visit of an Indian PM to Mongolia.  

After his Mongolia visit, the Prime Minister will leave for South Korea where he will hold talks with the top business folks of the country and try to bring business home.

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China's President Xi Jinping Is Expected To Be the Chief Guest Of Pakistan's Annual Military Parade

The President of China Xi Jinping is expected to be the chief guest at the annual military parade, an event that Pakistan is going to hold after a long gap of seven years. The event will be carried out on the national day of the country on 23 March.

The venue for the event has not been finalized yet but it is expected to be held somewhere near Islamabad.  

The list of attendees will comprise of the heads of the three branches of the armed forces and several high-profile government officials. 

The announcement about Pakistan's resuming the parade that was last held in 2008 when General Musharraf was the President, came a few days after the US President Obama's visit to India; Obama was the chief guest at the Republic Day Parade on 26 January.   

President Obama's visit was seen as a emergence of a new alliance in the Asia-Pacific region, a move to counter China's spreading influence in the region. China was irked. India's external affairs minister Shushma Swaraj's China visit this week is deemed to be move to address the grievance of the neighboring country. The news of PM Modi's visit to China is expected to better the mutual relations of two big powers of the region.   

Many analysts in Pakistan are not seeing President Xi Jinping's breaching the protocol to meet Shushma Swaraj on Monday in positive light. However, President Xi has expressed his faith in Indo-China relationship. "I have full confidence in India-China relations and I believe that new progress will be achieved in growing this bilateral relationship in this New Year." 

India's relationship, after President Xi's visit in September last year, with China seems to be on the right track.

Pakistan considers China its all-weather friend. China provides Pakistan with economics, military, political and diplomatic, and technological help; a diplomatic move to keep India in check.

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Obama, Dalai Lama To Meet At The National Prayer Breakfast; Chinese Uneasiness Expected

Obama, Dalai Lama To Meet At The National Prayer Breakfast

US President Barack Obama will take part in a public event on 5 February; the Dalai Lama is also expected to be there. Observers are seeing this as a move that will irk China. Obama will speak about the importance of religious tolerance at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. Lama, the symbol of Tibet's struggle for independence, has also been invited for the event.

There is no official word on whether the two Nobel Laureates will meet there or not, but the National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan has said that the two leaders have previously met on three occasions, their last meeting happened in February last year.  

"The President is a strong supporter of the Dalai Lama's teachings and preserving Tibet's unique religious, cultural and linguistic traditions," he said.  "As he has done in the past, the President will see many religious leaders at the event, but we don't have any specific meeting with the Dalai Lama to announce."

Dalai Lama, 79, fled to India during the 1959 Tibetan uprising, where he denounced the Chinese rule and established the nongovernmental Central Tibetan Administration. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 1989 for his unwavering advocacy for the autonomy in the region.

Tibet shares borders with Nepal, India, Bhutan, and Myanmar; China deems it a region of high strategic importance.

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Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj Arrives In China On A Four-Day Trip

Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj Arrives In China On A Four-Day Trip

India's Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has arrived in China for a four-day visit to the country. In China, she will meet the President Xi Jinping and hold talks with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on an array of topics. She will also be taking part in the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral.

She is expected to give final touches to the agreement between India and China regarding the second root for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra. The agreement was signed last year during President Xi Jinping's visit to India. The root through Nathu La Pass in Sikkim that will provide the pilgrims with easy bus route to Kailash Mansarovar, is expected to be opened in the coming two-three months.

Swaraj will be accompanied by the newly-appointed foreign secretary S Jaishankar and other top officials of the ministry.

The foreign minister's China trip comes within a week of US President Obama's three-day visit to India. The foreign ministry has said that the external affairs minister will hold talks on 'bilateral, regional and global issues of concern to both sides' with her Chinese counterpart.

The possibility of a PM Modi's visit to China towards the end of the year will also be explored during the visit. In her four-day stay in the neighboring country, Swaraj will address the India-China Media Forum, meet the Indian community living in Beijing, and inaugurate the 'Visit India Year' ot bolster the tourism sector.   

Hua Chunying, the spokesperson of the Chinese foreign ministry, earlier told the media that China gives great importance to the visit of the foreign minister; and the mutual relationship between the two developing nations are on the right track. 

Prior to her visit, a number of articles and critical commentaries were appearing in the Chinese media accusing President Obama of giving too much importance to India in order to contain the Chinese influence in the region.

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India Will Overtake China As World's Fastest Growing Economy In 2016

India will become world fastest growing economy by the year 2016-2017; with a growth rate of 6.5%, it will take China's place at the top, which would be growing at the same time at a rate of 6.3% per year. This projection has been released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its World Economic Outlook Update on Tuesday.

 

The IMF has projected that India will grow at 6.3%, up from 5.8% in 2014. China grew at 7.4% in the year 2014.

One another forecast was also released on the same day - the United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects (UN WESP). This prediction, slightly lower than the same of IMF, says that India will grow at 5.9% during 2015 and in 2016 it will grow at 6.3%.

Growth forecast for India will broadly remain unchanged as the weak demand will be compensated by the low oil prices. And the impetus provided by the Modi government in form of policy reforms will also provide a boost in the industrial and investment activity. 

Nagesh Kumar, Head of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) said, “India could overtake China but it must be taken note of that China has grown at high growth rates of 9 per cent to 10 per cent over decades and it is a much larger economy and India will have to work to sustain high growth rates over a period of time to be an engine of global growth.”

Mr Kumar also said that there is no substitute to government's increasing it public spending for infrastructure and bringing-in private investment to the country to sustain a considerable growth in a longer run.   

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Japan Increases Its Defense Budget By 2.8%, Dispute With China Main Reason

Japan's cabinet has approved a record defense budget of 4.98 trillion yen that is equivalent to $42bn. Experts are seeing this development in the light of growing maritime tension between Japan and China. The defense budget is 2.8% higher than the previous year's defense spending. Japan has been increasing its defense expenses for the past three years (this year included), after a decade of cuts.

The defense minister of the country Gen Nakatani has said that the step has been taken in accordance with the changing situation around Japan. The hike is expected to be directed towards patrol vessels and aircrafts. The purchase list has 20 maritime patrol aircraft, five crossover aircraft, and six stealth fighters. 30 amphibious vehicles and an early-warning aircraft are also in the wish-list.

Both Japan and China are engaged in a bitter dispute in the East China Sea over the issue of ownership of islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. 

Mr Nakatani said, "The level of defense spending reflects the amount necessary to protect Japan's air, sea and land, and guard the lives and property of our citizens." He also mentioned that Chinese naval ships can be seen meandering along Japan's waters and that its fighter jets comes perilously close to the same of Japan. The statement, obviously, has been denied by China that says its maritime exercises are completely legitimate. 

It should be noted that China's defense expenditure is two and half times more than that of Japan, while America tops the list of military budget with over $600bn. India comes ninth in the list with an expenditure of over $36bn.

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