Noting that the U.S. and India share common climate and clean energy interests and are close partners in the fight against climate change, the White House said the leadership from both countries helped galvanise global action to combat climate change and culminated in the historic Paris Agreement reached last December.
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“Switzerland welcomes India’s contributions to non-proliferation of nuclear arms”, Switzerland President Johann Schneider-Ammann said at a joint address to the media with Prime Minister Narendra Modi following delegation level talks between the two sides.
The Prime Minister is now on a three-day U.S. visit at the invitation of President Obama.
“All of us are very honoured that he took time to come and acknowledge the shuttle catastrophe and the deep cooperation that we have with India in the space world”, Williams said.
India has agreed to work towards joining the Paris Agreement on climate change this year, India and the United States said on Tuesday, giving momentum to the worldwide fight to curb global warming.
At the outset, Obama recollected his visit to India in January previous year as Chief Guest for the Republic Day celebrations and “the incredible hospitality” he received.
“We discussed how we can, as quickly as possible, bring the Paris Agreement into force”, Obama told reporters during talks in the Oval Office.
Often trapped in debt, victims including women and children are forced to work in brick kilns, rice mills, agriculture, embroidery factories, and other industries to pay off what they owe to their traffickers. Modi’s USA visa was revoked in 2005 over his alleged role as Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat during deadly riots there three years earlier (he was subsequently exonerated by Indian courts), but reinstated soon after he became Prime Minister.
India and the USA released a joint statement previous year ensuring freedom of navigation, “especially in the South China Sea”, where the Chinese appear to be building military installations in disputed territory.
Anubhav Gupta, senior program officer at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said Monday in a blog post that “this visit affords the two leaders a final chance to make good on the vast time and political capital they have invested in the bilateral relationship”.
Last week India unveiled a draft of its first comprehensive anti-human trafficking law, which provides for more shelters, a rehabilitation fund, fast-track courts to ensure speedy trials, a federal investigative agency to boost convictions.
White House advisors and some environmental activists praised the apparent progress on climate change. “I would anticipate that they’ll have a discussion about what more the United States and India can do to advance the climate agenda”.
NYT reported that the U.S. is supporting the rise of India as a huge Asian Partner to control China.
Since 2014, there have been six meetings and countless phone calls between Obama and Modi, and this visit “reflects the significance that the two leaders place on the natural alliance between the two largest democratic countries of the world”, a senior USA official had said ahead of the meeting.
In another significant step forward in India’s push for accessing high-end technology, all members of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) have agreed to India being admitted into the exclusive club.
“The President would really like India to ratify the Paris Climate treaty before he leaves office”, Vaishnav says.
“Within my country I need to create two or three Switzerlands”.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday laid a wreath at the Tomb of Unknown Soldiers and paid homage to Indian-American astronaut late Kalpana Chawla at Arlington National Cemetery here.
