Page 7 - Rishi Sunak

UK to benefit from India's progress, says Indian Dy High Commissioner

Urging the UK to shed its "old lenses" and "see India for what it is", India's Deputy High Commissioner, Sujit Ghosh, on Wednesday said that London is "uniquely positioned" to benefit from New Delhi's rise. Ghosh was addressing the annual UK-India Parliamentary Lunch organised by the London-headquartered India Global Forum (IGF) here. The annual event brings together "leading figures from politics, business, finance, and culture over an informative sit-down lunch to celebrate the growing ties between our two great democracies," according to the IGF website. Ghosh spoke extensively about the growing UK-India ties, the vibrant digital economy, and opportunities in India, the IGF said in a post on the social media platform X. He said, India is not just creating opportunities for its people but also for the rest of the globe. The UK is uniquely positioned to benefit from India's rise." "The time has come for our friends in the UK to shed their old lenses and see India for what it is,"

Rishi Sunak's Rwanda migration bill suffers blow in Britain's Parliament

The upper house of Britain's Parliament has urged the Conservative government not to ratify a migration treaty with Rwanda. It's a largely symbolic move, but signals more opposition to come for the stalled and contentious plan to send some asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to the African nation. The House of Lords voted by 214 to 171 on Monday evening to delay the treaty that paves the way for the deportation plan. The treaty and an accompanying bill are the pillars of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak 's bid to overcome a block on the deportations by the UK Supreme Court. Members of the Lords, who are appointed rather than elected, backed a motion saying Parliament should not ratify the pact until ministers can show Rwanda is safe. John Kerr, a former diplomat who sits in the Lords, said the Rwanda plan was incompatible with our responsibilities under international human rights law. The considerations of international law and national reputation... convince me that it wouldn't be right to

India-UK FTA: 'Majority of issues closed or at advanced stage of talks'

Majority of the issues in the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between India and the UK are either finalised or at an advanced stage of talks, a government official said on Monday. Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce L Satya Srinivas said that the 14th round of negotiations between the officials of the two countries is underway here. "The majority of the chapters are either closed or at an advanced stage of negotiation. Discussions are being held at the higher level as well as at the team level to iron out differences," he told reporters here. The talks for the pact began in January 2022. The current round of talks is expected to be the final one. Talks are also progressing on the proposed Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). There are 26 chapters in the agreement, which include goods, services, investments and intellectual property rights. Issues from both goods and services are pending for conclusion. The bilateral trade between India and the UK increased to US

Sunak will face UK lawmakers over decision to join US strikes on Yemen

Four Royal Air Force Typhoon jets took part in last week's US-led strikes on sites used by the Iran-backed rebels, who have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea

RAF conducted 'targeted strikes' against Houthi rebel sites: UK PM Sunak

Sunak noted that Houthis in recent months have conducted a series of "dangerous and destabilising attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea

Ongoing India-UK FTA could be brought to successful conclusion: PM Sunak

Rajnath Singh and Rishi Sunak agreed on the need for the two nations to work together in trade, defence and technology sectors, Ministry of Defence said in a press release

Rajnath Singh meets Rishi Sunak in London during his first official visit

The Defence Minister is currently on an official visit to Great Britain. The visit marks the first visit by a sitting Indian Defence Minister to the UK in more than 20 years

PM Sunak pledges action in Post Office fraud impacting many British Indians

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday said that the government is reviewing the compensation process in an accounting scandal that wrongly accused hundreds of sub-postmasters of fraud, many of them of Indian heritage. During an interview with the BBC, Sunak was asked about the historic scandal involving a faulty IT system named Horizon dating back to the late 1990s and confirmed that his justice minister is looking at how the process of overturning wrongful convictions and providing compensations can be speeded up. The government, which formally owns Post Office Ltd, has paid out millions in compensation to many of the sub-postmasters impacted but there are many others still waiting for years. "Obviously it's something that happened in the '90s but actually seeing it and hearing about it again just shows what an appalling miscarriage of justice it is for everyone affected and it's important that those people now get the justice they deserve, and that's what the compensation .

UK Oppn raises questions over Akshata Murty's liquidated firm Catamaran

The UK's Opposition Labour Party has got into campaigning mode for an expected general election later this year, with advertisements claiming British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is giving the British public a raw deal and also raising questions over his wife Akshata Murty's recently liquidated investment venture Labour's national campaign coordinator and shadow minister, Pat MacFadden, posted a letter on social media dated January 4 that he wrote to UK Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden questioning the circumstances surrounding Murty's Catamaran Ventures being wound up. The 43-year-old Indian businesswoman and daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy had incorporated the venture in 2013 with her husband as one of the directors before he resigned in 2015. It had emerged in a financial statement last year that she had decided to wind down her firm as a going concern. In the past few months, numerous reports about the business dealings of Catamaran Ventures have circulated, reads

UK PM Rishi Sunak faces byelection challenge after ex-minister quits

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was on Friday hit with a byelection challenge as a former energy minister resigned as Conservative Party MP over new oil and gas production related legislation coming up in Parliament next week. Chris Skidmore, who was a minister for energy under former prime minister Boris Johnson, said he was resigning as Tory MP for Kingswood in Gloucestershire, south-west England, because the constituents deserved a new member of Parliament after his "personal decision" not to continue in the Commons. Skidmore, 42, had already announced plans not to contest the next general election but his hastened exit means Sunak will be forced to contend with a byelection, which is often seen as a precursor to the final poll results in a general election year. "The bill would in effect allow more frequent new oil and gas licences and the increased production of new fossil fuels in the North Sea," said Skidmore in his resignation letter posted on X. "I can no longer stand b

PM Rishi Sunak indicates UK general election in second half of 2024

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday seemed to rule out going to the electorate in the coming months as he indicated that the UK general election will be held in the second half of 2024. During his first tour of the New Year to the market town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, in the East Midlands region of England, the British Indian leader told broadcasters that he still has a lot to do before calling an election which must be held latest by January 2025 at the end of five years of a Conservative Party led government. While he declined to rule out an election in May, as was being widely speculated, Sunak seems to be inclined to go the polls around the two-year mark since he took charge at 10 Downing Street in October 2022. "My working assumption is we'll have a general election in the second half of this year and in the meantime, I've got lots that I want to get on with," said Sunak. "We want to keep managing the economy and cutting people's taxes, and I want to keep ...

UK statistics watchdog looking into Rishi Sunak's asylum backlog claim

The UK's statistics watchdog on Thursday said that it is "looking into" the government's recent announcement that it had met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's target to clear the country's asylum backlog by the end of 2023, a claim strongly contested by the Opposition. Earlier this week, the UK Home Office said that 112,000 asylum cases were processed in the past year, which exceeded Sunak's initial target of 92,000 applications pending at the end of 2022. However, the Opposition Labour Party had contested this and accused the government of misleading the public. It has now emerged that a formal complaint is likely to have been raised with the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), which independently monitors the use of official statistics. "The Office for Statistics Regulation confirmed it is looking into the government announcement about the asylum backlog, said a spokesperson for OSR. While the OSR can ask for additional information from the Home Office, it does not have the power

More stringent international student visa norms come into force in UK

International students, including Indians, starting courses at British universities this month will no longer be able to bring family members on all but postgraduate research courses and courses with government-funded scholarships under tougher UK visa norms effective from Monday. The UK Home Office said the changes, first announced by former home secretary Suella Braverman in May last year, are aimed at clamping down on people using the student visa as a backdoor route to work in the UK and will see an estimated 140,000 fewer people come to the UK. The tougher rules are geared towards cutting what Home Secretary James Cleverly dubbed as an unreasonable practice of overseas students bringing dependants, which official figures show have risen by more than 930 per cent since 2019. "This government is delivering on its commitment to the British public to cut migration. We have set out a tough plan to rapidly bring numbers down, control our borders and prevent people from manipulating o

British PM Rishi Sunak keen to clinch FTA with India by April: Report

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is keen to clinch a free trade agreement (FTA) with India in time for Easter, which falls at the end of March 2024, according to a UK media report. The India-UK FTA talks began in January last year, aimed at significantly enhancing the GBP 36-billion bilateral trading partnership. A new round of negotiations, expected to be the last, is set to start early in the new year after the thirteenth round concluded on December 15. Prime Minister Mr Sunak and India's premier Narendra Modi are said to be keen to get the deal wrapped up by April, reads a report in the Daily Express' newspaper updated on Saturday. It is hoped a deal can be signed and sealed before India's general elections begin on April 1, it claims. The newspaper quoted a source close to the trade talks on the UK side to say that a lot of progress has been made, but some of the hardest aspects remain pending. We have made a lot of progress, but the last stuff to do is the hardest. We have

Self-driving cars could be on British roads by 2026, says UK minister

Self-driving cars could be on British roads as early as 2026, according to UK Transport Secretary Mark Harper. In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, the minister said he expected to see the owners of such vehicles being able to travel without having to watch where they're going by the end of that year. It came against the backdrop of the UK's Automated Vehicles Bill, which lays out a set of laws for using autonomous vehicles and was introduced in Parliament last month. The government hopes it will pass through both Houses by the end of 2024. "I think that's when companies are expecting in 2026, during that year that we'll start seeing this technology rolled out," Harper told the BBC. The transport minister said it was clear the self-driving technology works from a roll-out in California, where cars "without a safety driver, so in full, autonomous mode" are already on the roads. "This technology exists, it works and what we're doing is putting in place the proper legislation

PM Modi's YouTube channel reaches 20M subscribers, most among world leaders

Compared to PM Modi, US President Joe Biden has 794,000 subscribers on YouTube. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, on the other hand, has 589,000 subscribers on the video-sharing platform

Rishi Sunak's minister under fire for making joke about date rape drug

British Home Secretary James Cleverly was under fire Sunday for joking about date rape just hours after announcing plans to crack down on what he had dubbed a perverse offence. Cleverly, who oversees national security and law enforcement in England and Wales, faced a call to step down after he reportedly joked at an event at the prime minister's home about drugging his wife. He told women guests at a Dec 18 reception that the secret to a long marriage was having a spouse who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there, the Sunday Mirror newspaper reported. Cleverly said "a little bit of Rohypnol" the so-called date rape drug "in her drink every night was not really illegal if it's only a little bit. The drug, colloquially known as a roofie when it is crushed and put into someone's beverage without their knowledge, makes the subject drowsy and can lead to unconsciousness and memory loss. Cleverly apologised through a spokesperson for what he .

Family Visa salary threshold hike to be in incremental stages: UK govt

The UK's proposed hike in the minimum annual salary threshold for British citizens and permanent residents to be eligible to sponsor a spouse or partner on a Family Visa will take place in incremental stages, the government has told Parliament. The update came on Thursday in reply to a written parliamentary question in the House of Lords, stating that the threshold will initially rise to GBP 29,000 in early 2024 from the current level of GBP 18,600 and then be followed by two further increases. The move has been branded a rowing back by the Opposition after Home Secretary James Cleverly had told the Commons earlier this month that the threshold will jump to GBP 38,700, in line with the minimum salary requirement for the Skilled Worker visa route. Latest Home Office documents now say that while the intention remains to align both thresholds, it will be done in stages over time. The MIR (Minimum Income Requirement) will be increased in incremental stages to give predictability, said .

With elections in sight, PM Rishi Sunak pins hopes on India-UK FTA

The ambitious India-UK free trade agreement (FTA) may have proved elusive even in 2023, but it remains the focal point for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to try and bolster his electoral pitch for voters increasingly disillusioned by his government over the rising cost of living and illegal migration. As Sunak, Britain's first Indian-origin Prime Minister, marked the start of this year by setting out his government's top priorities for the year ahead, the deal was not far behind on the agenda. The two nations will begin a new round of discussions in the New Year after the 13th round was completed this month. The round included sessions both in-person, in London and Delhi, and virtual talks. As with round 12, these negotiations focused on complex issues including goods, services, and investment. The UK and India will continue to negotiate towards a comprehensive and ambitious Free Trade Agreement, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said. There is a strong sense that bot

EU, UK approve 3-year postponement of tariffs on electric vehicles

The European Union and the UK approved a three-year postponement of tariffs on electric vehicles, giving carmakers more time to make necessary changes to comply with local content requirements