Maldives

Feb 2014 :

Religious Conservatism :

• The Maldives, a string of 1,192 islands, has made several moves to cement the supremacy of Sunni Islam since Yameen was sworn in as president in November 2013.
• The Ministry of Islamic Affairs has set its top priorities for 2014, which include blocking all religions except Islam in the nation, ensuring that all laws and regulations adhere to Islamic principles and developing and strengthening the Islamic Fiqh Academy to issue fatwas. 
• The ministry has also signed an agreement with the Saudi Arabian Muslim Scholars Association to receive a grant of MVR1.6 million, or $104,166, for the “mutual goal” of developing and improving the study of the Quran and religion.
• The Ministry of Education has meanwhile introduced Arabic as a subject in schools.

Before 2014 :

• Just before it hosted the SAARC summit in 2012, the Maldives allowed China to open an embassy. 
• Maldives requested China for a soft loan of Rs. 250 crore for an IT infrastructure project.
• The Sri Lankan subsidiary of Chinese telecom equipment-maker Huawei Technologies has signed an agreement with the National Centre of Information Technologies, Maldives, to develop the IT infrastructure under the ‘Smart Maldives Project.’
• EC declares presidential elections to be held on september 2013.
• India stiffens medical visa facility for Maldivians
•  India is also angry over detention and deportation of Indian travelers and confiscation of the passports of Indian workers there by their employers.
• Nasheed, who defeated former autocratic President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in the 2008 election but was ousted in an alleged coup in February 2012, had promised to bring true democracy for the nation’s progress.

India-Japan

India-Japan

Jan 2014 

Japan PM Shinzo Abe  visited India during 25-27 Jan 2014 and was chief guest during republic day parade.

• The two countries signed eight pacts, of which half were connected with Japanese aid, thus indicating that soft loans and outright grants will continue to remain an integral component of Tokyo’s strategy of reaching out to New Delhi. 
• Mr. Abe held out the promise of more aid, of which 70 per cent will go for implementing phase-III of the Delhi Metro project.
• On the defence side, the two countries decided to make joint naval exercises a permanent feature and India, despite the experience of 2007, invited Japan to join the Indo-U.S Malabar series. Seven years ago, the presence of Japan and Australia in the Malabar series fuelled protests at home and from China leading to the dropping of the duo from subsequent chapters.
• The Prime Ministers reviewed the progress made in selling hi-tech US-2 amphibious aircraft to India, with government sources saying final plans envisaged a transfer of a substantial number of such planes. This is the first time Japan is offering to sell a plane which has military uses as well.
• Within two months, we have received from Japan, first that rare, and symbolically greatest, gesture, the visit of Their Imperial Majesties, then the Defence Minister’s, and now, the Premier’s.
• Japan invited to develop India's NE particularly in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, which is disputed almost in its entirety by China
• Japan also lowered non-tariff barriers to import of shrimps that will help Indian

China

• 12th Plan stresses hydropower from Yarlung Zangbo(Brahmaputra).

• China has, so far, only begun construction on one major hydropower dam on the main stream of the middle reaches of the Brahmaputra or Yarlung Zangbo as it is known in China – a 510 MW project in Zangmu in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR)
• A 640 MW dam will be built in Dagu, which lies 18 km upstream of Zangmu. Another 320 MW dam will be built at Jiacha, also on the middle reaches of the
  Brahmaputura downstream of Zangmu. A third dam will be built at Jiexu, 11 km upstream of Zangmu.
• Chinese Culture : Peking Opera and ballet
• Chinese maritime surveillance vessels have repeatedly entered Japanese-claimed waters around the islands since last September, when Japan’s government

Russia-India Ties

• Russia has lifted the ban on import of non-basmati rice and oilseeds from India

Russia-Iran Ties

• Russia has taken a “principled” decision to sell Iran an improved version of the S-300 air defence missiles and to build a second nuclear reactor at Bushehr,


• President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to prepare the two proposals for his meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, in Sep 2013 on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

North Korea

North Korea has confirmed the end of the 60-year-old armistice signed after the end of the Korean War, and warned of “merciless” military retaliation against its enemies. The North has annulled the 1953 armistice in protest over joint South Korea-US military manoeuvres.
The armistice was approved by the UN General Assembly, and both the United Nations and South Korea have repudiated the North’s unilateral withdrawal.
The North has also threatened to launch nuclear strikes against the United States and South Korea in response to fresh UN sanctions adopted after the North carried out its third nuclear

Pakistan

• Pakistan regretted North Korea’s decision to conduct an underground nuclear test.
• Pakistan on Friday successfully tested the nuclear-capable Hatf-II ballistic missile with a range of 180 km(short range surface-to-surface ballistic missile)
• Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline work to start on March 11 and agreements for opening two more border crossings at Gabd and Pasni and for setting up an oil refinery in Gwadar will also be signed 
• There is impasse b/w the government and the opposition over who will be the

United Kingdom

• Immigration rules that would benefit high-skilled foreign workers and “exceptionally bright’’ students came into force : (however the existing limit on not allowing more than 20,700 foreign workers to come to Britain over the next two years would remain)
• Intra-company transferees (ICT) who are paid more than £152,100 will no longer need to take an English test if they want to extend their leave in the U.K
• Foreign MBA students graduating from British universities would be allowed to stay on for up to a year after graduating as part of the expanded graduate entrepreneur scheme.
• the changes would allow PhD students to stay on after their studies for up to a year and work, without having to switch courses.
• no limit on the number who can obtain a Tier 2 visa to stay and work, providing they can get a graduate-level job paying £20,300 [a year] or more
• Austerity Measure to reduce deficit ::
• Bedroom tax : Families living in government-subsidised homes will lose some of their housing benefits if they have a spare room.
  
  
  India and UK
• A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed b/w India and UK to strengthen their cooperation in Earth Sciences and environmental research by sharing information on meteorology, hydrology and climate variability. 
• The MoU was inked b/w the Earth System Science Organisation (ESSO) of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) Govt. of India and UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
• Since 2008, the two countries have committed close to £150 million for joint research programmes.

Mauritius

India and Mauritius

• India wants Mauritius to amend DTAA but the differences over capital gains tax, especially the definition of ‘enterprise’ and the treatment of ‘shell companies’ are acting as hindrances. 
• Article 13 on ‘capital gains’ of the India-Mauritius DTAA provides for taxation of capital gains only in the country of residence of the investor. India proposed to amend the pact to provide the source-based taxation of such capital gains (in this case India) to prevent the misuse of the treaty by shell companies set up by third countries’ corporate entities
• The Mauritius government issues Tax Residency Certificate (TRC) to companies investing from that country into India and those companies could take the benefit of the agreement — by not paying capital gains tax in India. But, India alleges shell companies or post-box companies in Mauritius have burgeoned because of leniency in issuing these TRCs.

Myanmar

• Mining project in Monywa is a joint venture between a military-controlled holding company and China’s Wanbao Mining Copper Ltd., a subsidiary of NORINCO, a Chinese weapons manufacturer.Protestors wanted it to be halted.

India and Myanmar

• India and Myanmar organized the 18^th National Level Meeting in New Delhi.
  India reiterated its commitment to bolster the cooperation b/w the two nations to eliminate the link b/w the drug trade, arms smuggling and extremism/terrorism.
• Both countries expressed satisfaction over opening of a third Border Liaison Office (BLO) b/w Changlang, India and Pangsau, Myanmar.

Russia Relations

• U.S.-Russia compromise formula on defence co-operation ,pledging to cooperate on missile defences and not to use them against each other.
• Russia will re-establish its permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean, more than two decades after it withdrew from the region.
  
  
  India And Russia Relations  
  
  
• Russia was unhappy with India’s refusal to waive civil liability for units III and IV of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) and failure to secure Russian telecom company Sistema’s massive investment in the joint venture, Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd (SSTL)
• India was concerned over a year-long delay in the delivery of the Vikramaditya aircraft carrier. 
• Russia reaffirmed its readiness to share cutting-edge weapons technologies, leasing out the nuclear submarine Chakra and offering to jointly develop the fifth-generation fighter aircraft.
• According to an agreement signed on November 12, 2007 between ISRO and Roskosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, ISRO had the primary responsibility to provide both the orbiter and the rover, while Roskosmos was to design and build the lander for this combined orbiter-rover-lander mission.Due to failure of Roskosmos’ Phobos-Grunt mission,, as well as financial problems, the Russian agency apparently expressed its inability provide the lander to meet even the revised time frame of 2015 for the Chandrayaan-2 launch.
• The two countries have set the goal of boosting bilateral trade to $20 billion by 2015
• The only Hindu temple in Russia- the Iskcon Krishna temple in Moscow is facing the threat of demolition by the Russian authorities.
• As per Russian authorities, the temporary Iskcon temple violates the urban building code and has no legal grounds for existence. Indian embassy has sought an extension to the temple which is set to expire on December 31, 2012, until they complete the construction of a Vedic cultural centre.
• In 2011, Russia had sought to ban Bhagavad Gita. The move caused furore in Lok Sabha  and the Parliament had unanimously asked Russia to prevent the ban. 
• On Russian president Vladimir Putin’s visit to India, both nations moved further to strengthen their economic relations by inking a pact on a Kremlin-backed $2 billion investment fund and consenting to open talks on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) that will also involve Belarus and Kazakhstan
• Finalised 10 agreements
• Two military contracts, worth about Rs. 20,000 crore
• To take the initial steps towards operating a “ranging station” that will help accurately fix the location of satellites.
• Equity participation through ONGC-OVL in existing and new projects in Siberia, Russia’s Far East and the Arctic Shelf.
• Both nations also decided to further their partnership in the energy sector, which has moved beyond investment (Sakhalin-I) to direct trade (Gazprom-Gail) and is now moving towards joint investment in downstream and upstream sectors.
• To encourage investments b/w the two nations, India’s State Bank of India (SBI) and Russian sovereign wealth fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) came together to ink an MoU for setting up a $2 billion investment consortium. Both the groups would invest up to $1 billion each in the consortium.

Japan

• Largest importer of earth rare metals.

India and Japan

• India and Japan  inked a strategic agreement that will allow Japan to import rare earth minerals from India.  
• Joint venture : Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corp. and India’s state-run Indian Rare Earths Ltd.
• The 3 projects that Japan is backing are:
• Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) 
• Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) 
• Chennai-Bangalore Industrial Corridor (CBIC) 
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France

India and France 

• India, France ink pact for Sustainable Urban Development

International Organisations

5+5 Countries 

• It is a group of 10 nations, 5 from Europe and another 5 from North Africa. The 5+5 initiative was first proposed by France in the 1980s. Its members include France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Malta from Europe  and five countries from Maghreb in North Africa - Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania the forum in 1991. Among these, Portugal and Mauritania are the countries which do not actually border the Mediterranean, but they do have cultural links with their Mediterranean neighbors.

United Arab Emirates

India and UAE

• India and United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed an MoU on Air Services
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Germany

India and Germany

• PM visited Germany and many agreements were inked in april 2013 : 
• Promotion of German as a foreign language in India.
• Cooperation in the field of Higher Education
• In the area of Civil Security Research : 
• 5 pilot projects in 2013 with the identified priorities being natural disaster management, biological risk situations, urban security, protection & rescue of people and social aspects of civil security research.
• Aims at strengthening cooperation in: i) plant variety protection, ii) conservation of plant genetic resources. iii) cooperation between Indian and German agricultural research institutions and seed companies.
•  Establishment of an Indo-German Working Group on Quality Infrastructure for Cooperation in Standardization, Conformity Assessment and Product Safety.
• Aims at fostering increased use of renewable energy in India through technical and fanatical cooperation by way of integrating additional renewable energy generation capacity with the national grid. The Technical cooperation would be implemented through the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and KfW intends to provide concessional loans of up to Euro one billion over the next six years.

EGYPT

India And Egypt

• India, Egypt sign seven pacts : 

• in the field of cyber security
• setting up of a Centre for Excellence in IT (CEIT) in Egypt’s Al Azhar University
• cooperation in the field of protection of intellectual property rights
• prevention of illicit traffic of antiquities
• MOU signed for areas e-governance and e-education, IT and electronics hardware, sharing of experiences in the creation of Technology Parks and IT clusters, and strengthening the cooperation between ICT companies in the private sector among
• A letter of intent concerning launch services of the Egyptian Nano Satellite EGYCUBESAT-1 on board the Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), was signed between Antrix Corporation, the commercial wing of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and the Egyptian National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS).
• India inks MoU with Egypt for their ongoing cooperation in the domain of election management and administration.
• The pact was signed by the Chief Election Commissioner of India, V.S. Sampath and the Secretary General of the Supreme Presidential Election Committee of Egypt, Justice Hatem Bagato.    
• Till date, Election Commission of India has signed 13 MoUs with Election Management Bodies and international entities across the globe. India and Egypt are already working together in the areas of Electronic Voting, Voters Education and Election Tracking Technology.

European Union

India and EU

•  Indo-EU Policy Dialogue on Culture : 
• Development and support for Audio Visual (AV) Sector.
• Sharing of technical expertise and experiences of ‘Europeana’ for development of National Virtual Library.
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Tajikistan

India and Tajikistan 

• India to set up IT centre of excellence in Tajikistan.
• Vice President Hamid Ansari Visited in apr 2013.
• Helping Tajikistan in capacity building, human resource development, information technology.
• India signed 6 agreements with Tajikistan on sports, health, culture, education, labor, textiles and energy in sept 2012
•  India also decided to raise training slots for Tajikistan from 100 to 150 under India Technology and Eco Training Programme.

Singapore

• Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian island city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula.
• Capital  : Singapore 

India and Singapore 

• Signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on bilateral air services arrangement in the presence of Civil Aviation Minister, Shri Ajit Singh on Apr 2013