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13th President to Elected This Month
India will have its 13th President elected on July 19, 2012 with two senior leaders in the fray. The former Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee and Former Speaker of Lok Sabha, Mr P A Sangma, are contesting the elections for the highest post in the country, reports said.
The two leaders have already filed their nominations and the elections will be held on July 19th if none of the contestants withdraw their candidature, reports said.
Both leaders are veterans in politics and have contributed to public life and nation building, reports said.
Mr Mukherjee has over four decades of experience in politics and government and has held some very important portfolios including Finance, Commerce and External Affairs among others, reports said.
Mr Sangma has also held some important posts the most important of which was as the Speaker of Lok Sabha between 1996-1998. He was the Minister for Information and Broadcasting before being elected as the Speaker.
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UK Tweaks Visa Policy
The United Kingdom has tweaked its Visa policy, which will accelerate investments and traffic from India, reports said.
Regional Director-South Asia, UK Border Agency, Thomas Greig said that while the UK government remained committed to reduce migration it was also keen on attracting visitors, students as also filling the gaps in the labour market.
The UK has set an annual limit of 20,700 for the number of skilled migrants coming to Britain. However, it has now changed its Visa rules to state that intra company transfers – which means if a company based in India wants to send its staff to work in Britain then the Visa provided to that person would not form part of this quota, reports said.
This decision has been taken with consultation with several business groups but is expected to largely benefit the Information Technology sector, reports said. Last year, London issued 15,000 intra-company transfers and skilled workers visas in India, reports said. India and UK hope to take their current bilateral trade of £ 16 billion to £ 25 billion by 2025.
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India Pledges $ 10 bn For Eurozone Bailout
India has agreed to contribute US$10 billion contribution to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help create a $ 450 billion firewall to resolve the Eurozone crisis. At the same time it also raised a question to the G-20 leaders on which countries would fund the growth requirements of developing as also least developed countries.
References: Hindustan Times, Times of India, The Hindu, Economic Times, Business Standard, Business line