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...

  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...

  Sunak wrote of his concerns to Prime Minister Boris Johnson before ministers are due to discuss August travel guidelines this week Chancellor  Rishi Sunak  has urged an easing of the UK’s travel restrictions, which he said are damaging the country’s tourism industry and overall economy. Sunak wrote of his concerns to Prime Minister Boris Johnson before ministers are due to discuss August travel guidelines this week, the Sunday Times reported. In the letter, Sunak said UK border policy was out of step with international competitors, and did not take advantage of the UK’s vaccine rollout, the newspaper wrote. About 72 per cent of UK adults are fully vaccinated and 88 per cent have had at least a first dose, according to government figures. That helped limit severe outcomes including hospitalizations and deaths as cases rose sharply into mid-July. Daily positive tests have receded since then. Sunak is concerned that the restrictions in place are harming UK  companies ...

  This comes amid a surge in cases in the UK due to the rapid spread of the mutant coronavirus strain British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday cancelled a planned trip to India later this month, citing the need to oversee the pandemic response at home. “The prime minister spoke to Prime Minister Modi this morning, to express his regret that he will be unable to visit India later this month as planned,” a Downing Street spokeswoman said. “In light of the national lockdown announced last night, and the speed at which the new coronavirus variant is spreading, the prime minister said that it was important for him to remain in the UK so he can focus on the domestic response to the virus.”