Summits & Meetings - Current Affairs for May, 2017

India has hosted a two-day Pacific Islands Conference in Suva, the capital city of Fiji. The India-Pacific Islands Sustainable Development Conference held between 25 and 26 May 2017 was hosted by Ministry of External Affairs.

The conference that was inaugurated by the Acting Fijian Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed- Khaiyum saw the signing of eight MoUs on the day of inauguration.

These MoUs were signed on 25 May 2017 by five participating nations, namely Fiji, Cook Islands, Nauru, Samoa and Niue. On behalf of India, the inaugural session of the conference was addressed by Gen. (Dr) V.K. Singh (Retd), Minister of State for External Affairs.

List of Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) signed during the Inaugural session of India-Pacific Islands Sustainable Development Conference:

Serial No.	Country	MoU
1.	Fiji	MOU for cooperation on broadcasting between Prasar Bharti, New Delhi, India and Fiji Broadcasting Corporation for Exchange of Audio Visual Programmes.
2.	Fiji	MoU between Ministry of New and Renewable Energy of the Government of the Republic of India and Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport of the Government of the Republic of Fiji on Co-operation in the field of Renewable Energy.
3.	Fiji	MoU between the Government of Republic of India and the Government of the Republic of Fiji for establishing India - Fiji Centre of Excellence in IT.
4.	Fiji	MoU between the Ministry of Youth and Sports of the Republic of Fiji and the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports of the Republic of India on Cooperation in the field of Youth Development.
5.	Cook Islands	MoU between the Government of Republic of India and the Government of Cook Islands for Establishing India - Cook Islands Centre of Excellence in IT.
6.	Nauru	MoU between the Government of Republic of India and the Government of Republic of Nauru for establishing India - Nauru ICT Learning Centre of Excellence in IT.
7.	Samoa	MoU between the Government of Republic of India and the Government of Independent State of Samoa for Establishing India - Samoa Centre of Excellence in IT.
8.	Niue	MoU between the Government of Republic of India and the Government of Niue for Establishing India - Niue Centre of Excellence in IT.

India will contribute USD 1 million to Fiji’s Trust Fund for their Presidency of COP-23 to be held in November 2017.

The conference was held under the framework of the Forum for India Pacific Islands Co-operation (FIPIC).

The conference was organised by the Ministry of External Affairs wanted to boost the bilateral relations with the 14 Pacific Island countries.

The event saw Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF). India-Pacific Islands Countries discuss on a wide range of issues including climate change.

FIPIC was formed in November 2014, to strengthen India’s relationship with the Pacific Island Countries.

The first FIPIC summit was held at the level of Heads of Government in November 2014 in Suva, Fiji, which was followed by the FIPIC-II summit held in August 2015, in Jaipur, India.

Chitale committee constituted to prepare guidelines for desiltation of river Ganga from Bhimgauda (Uttarakhand) to Farakka (West Bengal), submitted its report to Ministry of Water Resources on 19 May 2017.

The committee in its report has recommended a slew of measures like a study of reach wise sediment transport processes along with establishing annual sediment budgets to guide de-silting activities.

It also recommended the preparation of annual reports (Sand registry) describing the previous de-silting/dredging activity and a technical institute may be entrusted to conduct the sediment budget, morphological and flood routeing studies.

This would examine and confirm the necessity of the de-silting of the reach under consideration.

In July 2016, the Ministry of Water Resources River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation constituted a committee to prepare guidelines for desiltation of river Ganga from Bhimgauda (Uttarakhand) to Farakka (West Bengal).

It was asked to establish a difference between desilting and sand mining and also to establish the need for desilting for ecology and e-flow of the river Ganga.

Chitale Committee: Know More

• Madhav Chitale (Expert Member, NGRBA) was appointed as Chairman of the committee.
• Other members of the committee included Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change and Dr Mukesh Sinha, Director, Central Water and Power Research Station, Pune.

In pursuance of the Prime Minister’s call for a New India 2022, the first meeting of the National Steering Group and other knowledge partners was held in NITI Aayog on 17th May 2017 under the co-chairmanship of Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO and Shri Ratan P Watal, Principal Adviser, NITI Aayog.

The meeting was aimed at bringing together 32 premier educational and policy research institutions to catalyse the development process, enhance institutional capacity development and a field level interface with the community for New India 2022.

The meeting witnessed signing of Memoranda of Understands (MoUs) between NITI Aayog and major think tanks across the country to create an ecosphere of evidence based policy research.

This network will enable efficient knowledge sharing and information exchange among all partners to fulfil their role in transformative policy reform so as to achieve a sustainable and more inclusive development in line with the National Development Agenda, Sustainable Development Goals as well as the 15 year Vision, 7 year strategy and 3 year action plan.

The meeting was also attended by representatives of four State Governments viz. Kerala, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

This is the first ever initiative taken in the country to bring the large number of institutions cutting across diverse domain themes to deliberate together on the way forward for inclusive development of the country.

As part of Samavesh initiative, a new link on NITI’s website was launched on the occasion which would eventually emerge as a major repository of knowledge based reports and case studies across different sectors of the economy