Summits & Meetings - Current Affairs for September, 2015

PM Modi on 26th September 2015 attended a townhall meeting with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg at the company’s HQ. Close to 40,000 questions were received for this townhall meeting. India aims to be a USD 20 trillion economy from its current USD 1 trillion. India has 6,00,000 villages and these will be connected through optical fiber network with half a decade. FDI from the US has risen by 87% in last 15 months though India is still 140th in the world in the ease of doing business.

PM Narendra Modi has attended the G-4 summit to be held in NYC on 26th September 2015. G-4 includes Japan, Brazil and Germany apart from India. Summit also focused on UNSC reforms. G-4 leaders have stressed the need for a more representative Security Council to meet the challenges of global conflicts. The leaders paid tribute to the dynamic leadership of the President of the 69th General Assembly and the efforts of the Chair of the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) in moving the IGN process towards text-based negotiations, welcoming the adoption by consensus of the General Assembly Decision 69/560 to use the text presented by the President of the 69th General Assembly in his letter dated 31 July 2015 as the basis for negotiations within the IGN. They also pledged support and cooperation with the President of the 70th General Assembly.

NHAI International will have offices in different countries and function like rail PSUs undertaking construction and consultancy projects internationally. It will be outside the ambit of NHAI. Iran, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan are some of the nations planning to award contracts to India in coming years. GoI has also made the decision to increase India’s national highways network to 1.5 lakh km in a year through addition of 50,000 km more than the existing/current network. Target is 30 km of road construction every day by March 2016. A separate body is also being planned for carrying out the expressways project. Mass transit projects are also on the anvil.
Panel for preparing the reorganisation of NHAI has been formed.

The G-20 meet was held in Ankara, Turkey. G20 was formed since 1999 after a meeting following the Asian market meltdown among central bank governors and representatives of 20 strong economies in the world. G-20 comprises the nations such as UK and the US. Its current presidency(which rotates every year) is allocated to Turkey. At the latest G-20 meet, W20 was formed as an international grouping for promoting gender inclusive economic development.

On 4th Sep’15 the conclave will be concluded. It was a 3 days conclave that started in Delhi on 3rd Sep’15. The Prime Minister will attend the ceremony at the Bodhi tree as the head of delegates of 90 countries that include former President of Sri Lanka Chandrika Kumaratunga, besides foreign ministers of Japan, Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal, Taiwan and other Buddhist countries, the Bodhgaya Temple Management Committee ( BTMC ) confirmed.