New Delhi, Jan 17 (ANI): European Union Minister for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell Fontelles addresses during Raisina Dialogue 2020 in New Delhi on Friday. (ANI PHOTO)
During his visit, High Representative Borrell will have bilateral meetings with his counterparts from different continents, to discuss regional and bilateral issues, according to the statement…reports Asian Lite News
European Union Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell will visit India to participate in the G20 Foreign Ministers meetings and also attend the Raisina Dialogue, according to a statement released by the delegation of the European Union to India and Bhutan.
According to the statement, Josep Borrell will arrive in India on March 1 and will deliver a speech at the CII Business Conclave during the plenary on “India-Europe: Partners for future growth.” During his 4-day visit from March 1 -4, Borrell will meet the Minister of External Affairs, S Jaishankar. On the agenda will be the bilateral aspects of the strategic partnership and a range of regional and international security issues, both in Europe and in Asia.
On March 2, Borrell will participate in the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting. India’s G20 Presidency takes place under the theme “One Earth * One Family * One Future” (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam) with more than 200 events around the country.
“As Russia’s war against Ukraine marks its one-year anniversary, the High Representative will convey a strong message on Russia’s blatant violation of international law and the UN Charter, and its global consequences, in particular on energy and food insecurity, but also on the importance of a stronger multilateralism system, fit for the future, as well as the crucial need to speed up the green transition to address the existential threats of climate change and biodiversity loss globally,” the statement read.
“The High Representative will also focus on threats enabled by new technologies, such as disinformation and cybersecurity,” the statement added.
On the first day of the Raisina Dialogue, Borrell will address the session “The New High Table: Realigning the G20 in a changing world”. The High Representative’s intervention will be available in Europe by Satellite (EbS).
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EU’s High Representative for Foreign affairs and security policy Josep Borrell: ‘We trust Indian (G20) Presidency, country has a very influential voice on world scene’
During his visit, High Representative Borrell will have bilateral meetings with his counterparts from different continents, to discuss regional and bilateral issues, according to the statement.
The G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting (FMM) is scheduled to take place in physical format from March 1-2, 2023 in New Delhi under India’s presidency.
The New Delhi meeting will be attended by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. In all, representatives of 40 countries, including non-G20 members invited by India, and multilateral organisations will attend.
Meanwhile, Raisina Dialogue is all set to take place from March 2-4, 2023 at the Taj Palace Hotel, Diplomatic Enclave, New Delhi. (ANI)
This will be Blinken’s first visit to India since the war began last year, Lavrov’s second visit in a year and Qin’s first visit as the newly appointed Chinese Foreign Minister…reports Asian Lite News
Coming days after the G20 Finance Ministers failed to agree on a joint communique since there was no consensus on the reference to the Russia-Ukraine war, the Foreign Ministers’ meeting is set to test India’s diplomatic tightrope walk.
Amid the hardening of positions on the Russia-Ukraine war which entered its second year last week, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will host US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang among others at the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting beginning on Wednesday.
Coming days after the G20 Finance Ministers failed to agree on a joint communique since there was no consensus on the reference to the Russia-Ukraine war, the Foreign Ministers’ meeting is set to test India’s diplomatic tightrope walk.
This will be Blinken’s first visit to India since the war began last year (he last came to India in July 2021); Lavrov’s second visit in a year (he was in Delhi in April 2022); and Qin’s first visit as the newly appointed Chinese Foreign Minister. Qin’s predecessor Wang Yi had come to India in March last year.
The meeting, which will take place in the Rashtrapati Bhavan premises, will begin with a welcome reception and dinner on Wednesday evening for the visiting Foreign Ministers. This will be followed by a day-long meeting on Thursday, which will tackle six issues in two sessions.
The first session in the forenoon will discuss “strengthening multilateralism and need for reforms”, “food and energy security” and “development cooperation”. This will be followed by bilateral meetings and lunch. The afternoon sessions will discuss “counter-terrorism: new and emerging threats”, “global skill mapping and talent pool” and “humanitarian assistance and disaster relief”.
While India, which holds the G20 presidency, would like a consensus on all these topics, the shadow of the Russia-Ukraine war has polarised conversations in the past.
Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy who is attending the G20 meeting, said: “I think the Indian position has been made very clear by Prime Minister Modi himself — ‘this is not a time for war’ — and he is right.”
“India is renowned as the largest democracy in the world and has a very influential voice on the world scene. The international community needs to come together and ensure that international law will prevail against Russia’s blatant violation of and disregard for the UN Charter. It is dangerous for the entire world if a permanent member of the UN Security Council violates, in such a brutal way, international law and rules. Such behaviour, if left unanswered, can only encourage others who decide to remodel the borders or the world with military means,” said Borrell.
“This is an unprecedented situation internationally and will inevitably also have an impact on G20 proceedings. As in Bali, we will work for a G20 declaration that recognises the facts on the ground,” he said, adding, “We trust the Indian presidency and we will support its work towards an outcome that reflects the current extraordinary circumstances”.
Besides Blinken, Lavrov, Qin and Borrell, France’s Catherine Colonna, Germany’s Annalena Baerbock, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajan, Australia’s Penny Wong, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Indonesia’s Retno Marsudi and Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero are among those attending the meeting.
India, which has not explicitly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is mindful of the challenge at hand as well as the precedent in Indonesia, which could not arrive at a consensus document or a joint communique in the 16 ministerial meetings in the lead up to the G20 leaders’ summit in November.
The contention is the crucial paragraph, which echoes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s now-famous statement to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Samarkand in September last year on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit where he said “this is not the era of war”. While the Western countries in the G20 led by the US — especially the G7 — want the inclusion of paragraphs from the Bali declaration, Russia and China have opposed it.
After the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting, the Russian Foreign Ministry had applauded “the constructive role” of the Indian presidency and its efforts to have “fair consideration of interests and positions of all countries”.
Foreign ministers of #G20 countries converge in New Delhi for 1st G20 India Foreign Ministers' Meeting beginning today. Russia FM Sergey Lavrov, Turkiye FM Mevlut Cavusoglu, arrive in New Delhi; US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to arrive today@g20org@MEAIndia#G20Indiapic.twitter.com/NJtf7oTYc5
“Our opponents, primarily the United States, EU and G7, continue their paranoid attempts to isolate Russia and shift the blame for the provoked problems in the area of international security and the global economy onto it,” Moscow had said.
Besides participating in the G20 meeting, a number of Foreign Ministers are set to take part in the Raisina Dialogue, India’s annual conference on geo-politics and geo-economics.
The G20 comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, the US and the European Union.
India’s choice of Bangladesh as the only South Asian invitee to G20 Summit demonstrates the esteem with which it approaches its immediate eastern neighbour and presumably the best friend in the neighbourhood….reports Asian Lite News
India has civilisational, cultural, social and economic links with Bangladesh, and the latter, holds a major place in India’s Neighbourhood First policy. India, which holds the G20 Presidency this year, is following the convention of inviting non-member countries and international organisations to the summit and Bangladesh is the only South Asian country to have a place on India’s guest list.
India’s choice of Bangladesh as the only South Asian invitee demonstrates the esteem with which it approaches its immediate eastern neighbour and presumably the best friend in the neighbourhood. The other countries that have been invited to the G20 meeting are Egypt, Mauritius, Nigeria, Netherlands, Spain, Singapore, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The direction of ties between India and Bangladesh demonstrates that the two countries have secured mutual benefits due to close relations between the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government. PM Modi has invited his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina to attend the upcoming G20 Summit on 9-10 September as India’s Special Guest. The two leaders will meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
The meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina holds special significance since the general elections are scheduled to be held in both nations in 2024. Several high-level meetings will be held in both New Delhi and Dhaka in preparation for Sheikh Hasina’s visit.
India and Bangladesh formally celebrated the golden jubilee of diplomatic relations last September. Sheikh Hasina visited India for four days in response to PM Modi’s invitation to commemorate the occasion. It was also her first visit to India since the COVID outbreak in 2020. She participated in a meeting with PM Modi, followed by delegation-level talks on 6 September 2022.
Great warmth and cordiality informed the meetings as the two leaders were satisfied with the excellent state of mutual ties between the two nations. Ties between India and Bangladesh have been based on deep historical and fraternal ties and underwritten by a mutual commitment to democracy and pluralism. The bilateral partnership between two nations based on sovereignty, equality, trust and understanding, virtually exceeds a strategic partnership.
India and Bangladesh have 4096.7 kilometres of a common border and it forms the longest land boundary that India shares with any neighbour. India was the first nation to recognize Bangladesh as a separate and independent state.
Diplomatic relations were established immediately after the independence of Bangladesh in December 1971. The two nations have been bonded with a common history and common heritage, linguistic and cultural ties, and a love of music, literature and the arts with syncretic flavours.
Incidentally, the national anthems of Bangladesh and India have been composed by the same author, Rabindranath Tagore. Bangladesh has emerged as a most valuable immediate neighbour for India due to various factors, including trade. Bangladesh emerged as India’s 6th largest trade partner and the largest trading partner in South Asia. India is the largest export market in Asia for Bangladesh and its second-largest trading partner.
Bilateral trade has increased by 14 per cent between 2019 and 2021, from USD 9.46 billion to USD 10.78 billion, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Bangladesh accounted for the largest percentage of foreign tourists in India in 2020. Tens of thousands of Bangladeshis come to India for medical treatment.
The two countries have been making preparations to sign the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which will substantially enhance their trade and commercial partnerships. Bangladesh will be even more important for India in future, particularly since it is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
Owing to its location between the Indian State of West Bengal and the landlocked states in India’s Northeast, Bangladesh is ideally suited to provide the Northeastern part of India easy access to the rest of the country, as well as to the sea, offering a boost to economy and commerce.
The two nations have launched several initiatives in the past few years to improve connectivity between Bangladesh and India’s northeast in the last few years and actualize this potential. Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina Hasina has on several occasions called upon India to use the Chattogram and Mongla ports, which would facilitate and benefit the Northeastern states of Assam and Tripura.
Several new ports of routes have also been added to the shared inland waterway network. The Maitri Setu (bridge) connecting Sarboom in Tripura, India, to Ramgarh in Bangladesh was built in 2021. The Swapner Padma Setu, inaugurated in June 2022, is expected to connect India and Dhaka directly through rail, road and ports. The Padma Bridge also emerges as a major link for the Trans Asian Highway Network (TAHN) and effectively reduces the distance between the
Benepole border in India to Dhaka by road to 70 kilometres or 4.5 hours. The bridge now connects the entire region, linking Kolkata on the Indian side and Chittagong on the Bangladesh side to the three hub ports in Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia, respectively, with prospects of a manifold increase in economic activity in the whole region.
The Jaipaiguri-Dhaka bi-weekly Mitali Express was flagged off in 2022. The Akhaura-Agartala rail line is likely to be ready by June 2023. Bangladesh also makes for more stability in India’s insurgency-prone Northeast. The neighbouring country has lately been a reliable partner of India on security issues, particularly with its “zero-tolerance” attitude towards terrorism.
Bangladesh has, on several occasions, arrested and sent over insurgents from various radical outfits in the Northeast to India. China’s rising and assertive presence in the Bay of Bengal maritime space has led India to bolster its ties with the Bay littorals to ensure its pre-eminence in the Bay since India treats the Bay as a primary area of interest.
India has been trying to build stronger relations with its eastern neighbourhood to realize its Indo-Pacific aspirations, particularly since its western front remains perpetually troubled. Bangladesh as India’s immediate eastern neighbour, located north of the Bay of Bengal, is of cardinal importance in both of these Indian initiatives.
‘Green Development, Climate Finance and Life’ is one of the priority areas for G20 under India’s Presidency. The heads of government of India and Bangladesh have recently intensified their focus on climate change as a common concern.
In the Joint Statement released after Prime Minister Hasina’s visit to India last September, the two countries agreed to cooperate on the challenges of climate change. The cooperation focuses particular attention on the Sunderbans area to combat climate-induced sea level rise.
Energy transitions are another important issue in India’s G20 mandate. India-Bangladesh cooperation in the energy sector has steadily increased over the last few years with various projects such as the Friendship Pipeline.
In 2020, both countries signed a Framework of Understanding on Cooperation in the Hydrocarbon Sector and agreed to increase cooperation in energy efficiency and clean energy, including biofuels. In the 2022 joint statement, India and Bangladesh agreed to highlight the urgency of green energy.
India has been looking to promote reformed multilateralism, meaning accountable, inclusive, just, equitable and representative multipolar international systems capable of addressing contemporary challenges.
Bangladesh is also a member of many of the multilateral platforms in India’s neighbourhood, such as SAARC, BIMSTEC, and IORA. If India’s G20 aspiration is to be reflected effectively in regional multilateral platforms, support from Bangladesh is absolutely indispensable.
As India seeks to shape the global agenda through its G20 Presidency, it needs Bangladesh’s support to translate many of these ideas into action in its immediate neighbourhood. Some of these areas of cooperation might further enrich the “Golden Chapter” in India-Bangladesh ties. (ANI)
Startup funding slows but strong core policies will help tide over uncertainties, say experts(IN)
The market disruption by the Covid-19 pandemic created phases of growth and slowdowns for startups…reports Asian Lite News
Consumer demand is expected to stay low over the coming quarters, as inflation continues to rise, creating a further slowdown phase for the startups in the country, a new report has said.
There is an ongoing risk of further escalation in the war on Ukraine and the current wheat crop being impacted by hot weather conditions, according to market research firm Redseer Strategy Consultants.
Consumer perception of the general economic condition continues to be pessimistic as per the Reserve Bank of India’s Consumer Confidence Survey of January 2023, where more than 50 per cent of consumers reported it to have worsened.
This comes at a difficult time for startups. They currently have limited ability to drive growth through discounts and other levers, which worked well during an easier funding environment.
“Therefore, startups must focus on efficient unit economics and improving profitability by sticking to their core offerings,” the report said.
One strategy that has worked for FMCG players in the face of shrinkflation has been the push towards smaller stock-keeping units (SKUs).
“Bharat-focused startups, too, need to look at revamping their SKU strategy to fit the tighter wallets of the mass-market consumers. The second strategy is to double down on the premium categories, which have lower price elasticity and have performed well against market pressures across sectors,” the findings showed.
The market disruption by the Covid-19 pandemic created phases of growth and slowdowns for startups.
As a result, most businesses experienced a net growth that spanned two pandemic waves.
However, in 2022, global inflationary pressures severely impacted consumer demand. The revenue increase was driven by higher prices, as volumes remained low across the urban and rural sectors.
“With the macroenvironment challenges expected to continue, consumer demand is likely to remain subdued for the foreseeable future,” the report said.
“We expect consumer demand over the near future to continue staying subdued, with high inflation, unemployment in the urban organised sector and falling real wages in the rural areas,” it added.
About 43 per cent of senior APAC executives say they have already made their content processes more efficient, as efficiency and cost reduction is the focus….reports Asian Lite News
Leading Indian brands have prioritised investments in the speed, scale and efficiency of their content creation capabilities and workflows to build stronger customer relationships and succeed in 2023, a new report revealed on Tuesday.
According to the 2023 Digital Trends Report by Adobe, about 79 per cent of senior Asia Pacific (APAC) executives, including 92 per cent in India, say customer demand for content has significantly increased.
“Customer demand for content-rich, personalised experiences has increased immensely,” said Anindita Veluri, Marketing Director, Adobe India.
“To meet this, businesses need to focus on content supply chain backed by intelligent workflow automation, built on a customer-centred strategy and streamlined for the entire content lifecycle,” he added.
Moreover, the report said that industry leaders are rethinking and streamlining their content supply chains, which cover content campaign planning, creation, delivery, and data analysis.
About 43 per cent of senior APAC executives say they have already made their content processes more efficient, as efficiency and cost reduction is the focus.
As efforts to accelerate content creation have come at the cost of employee time and freedom, two in five (41 per cent) APAC marketing practitioners cite a lack of time to be creative as a barrier to delivering excellent customer experiences.
However, nearly one in two (48 per cent) Indians believe that workflow issues are the biggest challenge in providing the best customer experience.
In order to address this issue and strengthen their content machines in 2023, leading APAC brands have prioritised workflow management and digital collaboration across their content teams, with 24 per cent of senior Indian executives betting on an effective customer data management system.
Over one-third (37 per cent) have prioritised streamlining or automating collaboration processes to enable their teams to work faster and better.
Around 43 per cent have prioritised using workflow automation to improve marketing and customer experience process efficiency, higher than the global average of 38 per cent.
