Budget 2018-19

  UK’s Johnson warns of ‘doomsday’ as climate summit begins / British Prime Minister Boris Johnson opened the  global climate summit  on Monday, saying the world is strapped to a “doomsday device”. Johnson likened an ever-warming Earth’s position to that of fictional secret agent James Bond — strapped to a bomb that will destroy the planet and trying to work out how to defuse it. “We are in roughly the same position my fellow global leaders as James Bond today except that the tragedy is this is not a movie… the doomsday device is real… it’s ‘one minute to midnight’ to prevent climate catastrophe.” The threat is climate change triggered by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, and he pointed out that it all started in Glasgow with James Watt’s steam engine powered by coal. He was kicking off the world leaders’ summit portion of a UN climate conference, which is aimed at getting agreement to curb carbon emissions fast enough to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius...

  UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the Rome summit was not all he hoped for Leaders of the Group of 20 major economies agreed on a final statement on Sunday that urged “meaningful and effective” action to limit global warming, but offered few concrete commitments, angering climate activists. The result of days of tough negotiation among diplomats leaves huge work to be done at the broader United Nations COP26 climate summit in Scotland, which starts this week. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi hailed the Rome gathering, saying for the first time all G20 states had agreed on the importance of capping global warming at the 1.5 degrees Celsius level that scientists say is vital to avoid disaster. “We made sure that our dreams are not only alive but they are progressing,” Draghi told a closing news conference, brushing off criticism from environmentalists that the G20 had not gone nearly far enough to resolve the crisis UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who warned on F...

  India’s focus at the  COP26  Summit will be on the country’s “ambitious” NDC goals for the post-2020 period under the Paris Agreement Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Glasgow on Sunday for the COP26 climate summit and bilateral talks with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the United Nations (UN) meet. “Leaving for Glasgow after a fruitful G20 Summit in Rome. During the Summit, we were able to have elaborate deliberations on issues of global importance such as fighting the pandemic, improving health infrastructure, boosting economic cooperation and furthering innovation,” Modi said on Twitter. The Prime Minister, who flew into Glasgow from the  G20 Summit  in Italy, is scheduled to begin the UK leg of his European tour with a meeting with community leaders and Indologists based in Scotland on Monday morning. He will then proceed for the opening ceremony of the World Leaders’ Summit (WLS) at the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) to...

  This was the first interaction between the two leaders after Democrat Biden defeated incumbent president Donald Trump in the US presidential election Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to US President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday, with the two leaders discussing the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific Region, while reiterating their firm commitment to the strategic bilateral partnership. This was the first interaction between the two leaders after Democrat  Joe Biden  defeated incumbent president Donald Trump in the US presidential election. “Spoke to US President-elect Joe Biden on phone to congratulate him. We reiterated our firm commitment to the Indo-US strategic partnership and discussed our shared priorities and concerns — Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific Region,” Modi said in a tweet. The prime minister also conveyed his congratulations to US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. “Her success is ...