Tag Archives: signed

Cabinet Approves MoU with US Homeland Security

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The Union Cabinet on Wednesday, June 28, 2017, approved signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation between India and the United States of America on Homeland Security.

The Memorandum of Cooperation will further strengthen bilateral security relations between India and the USA and will also help in coordination and interactions among the six Sub-Groups that are proposed to be formed under Homeland Security Dialogue between the two countries.

The Cabinet approval follows Prime Minister’s recent visit to the United States where he had talks with President Donald Trump and senior US officials on boosting bilateral cooperation, including upgrading security matters such as MALABAR joint exercise with US and Japan in the Indian Ocean.

The Cabinet also approved another MoU between India and Israel on National Campaign for Water Conservation in India, that will ensure conserving water for future generations.

The two countries will work together at the national, regional and international level to design, implement and monitor a professionally-designed National Water Conservation campaign in India. The Ministries agree to jointly work on the water conservation campaign to achieve the following objectives:

a.Put water conservation on the national agenda in India

b.Encouraging every citizen to save water in everyday life

c.Generating awareness about water

d.Promoting Re-use, Recharge and Recycling of water

e.Develop digital tools such as websites, mobile apps on water conservation

India Ropes in Italian Firm to Avoid Rail Accidents, Maintain Railway Safety

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Indian Ministry of Railways and Italian state-owned Ferrovie Dello Stato Italiane Group, managing the Italian railway sector, have signed on Thursday an MoU for cooperation in rail safety and train operations.

The MoU covers areas of safety audit of Indian Railways and measures for enhancing safety in train operation, Assessment and certification of advanced technology based safety products and systems to Safety Integrity Level (SIL4), Training and competency development with focus of safety, modern trends in maintenance and diagnostics.

The MoU comes in the backdrop of emphasis given by India on safety in railway operations, which have seen several derailments of late and sabotage bids, killing scores of passengers. The move was taken up by the Railway Board to collaborate with the international experts to identify the best practices in this field.

Ferrovie Dello Stato Italiane Group (FS Group) is a fully owned company of the Italian Government working in the Railway Sector under Ministry of Treasure, Itlay. The Group was widely recognized globally for its most advanced expertise in fields of design and realization of High Speed and Conventional Lines, Safety Systems, Certification, Training and Operation and Maintenance.

The FS group employs 69,000 staff and operates more than 7,000 trains per day, carrying over 600 million/year of passengers and 50 million tons of freight on a railway network of more than 16,700 km.

FS Italiane Group is also operating in five continents, in more than 60 countries, with branches in Abu Dhabi, Riad, Muscat, Doha, Istanbul, Alger, and Bucharest. It has controlled several companies in countries such as France, Germany and Serbia.

The MoU was signed on behalf of the Ministry of Railways by Mr. Vinod Kumar, Executive Director/Safety(coordination), Railway Board and by Mr. Renato Mazzoncini, CEO of FS Group, Italy.

Portugal PM Visits Ancestral Home in Goa

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António Costa

Portugal Prime Minister António Costa, who is on an official visit to India, was greeted with six Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) between India and Portugal being signed on the occasion, including one pact on defence cooperation.

Later Mr Costa visited Goa, his ancestral home and Bengaluru where he was the Chief Guest at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas opened on Saturday. The Portugal PM is on a seven-day visit to India. Portugal PM Costa presented PM Modi with Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo’s jersey.

PM Narendra Modi, welcoming the visiting Portugal PM, said, “It gives me immense pleasure to welcome you and your delegation to India. We are deeply honoured that you accepted our invitation to be the Chief Guest at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas. In my extensive discussion with Portugal PM we reviewed the full range of India-Portugal ties.”

On Portugal’s support to India’s Nuclear Supply Group membership, he said, “We are grateful to Portugal for their continued support for India’s membership in Nuclear Suppliers Group. The MoU on Defence cooperation signed today will help us harness our respective strengths in this field for mutual benefit.”

Costa’s father was writer Orlando da Costa, who was of Goan, Portuguese, and French descent. His 200-year-old ancestral house on Abade Faria Road in Margao, where Anna Kaarina Costa, first cousin of the Portugal Prime Minister, currently lives was spruced up for his visit.

This is his second visit to the house, the first was when he had come with his parents as a teenager. Portugal ruled Goa till 1961.

India Signs Open Skies Pact With 6 Countries During ICAN 2016

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On the sidelines of International Civil Aviation Negotiations (ICAN) – 2016 held recently in Nassau from 5th to 9thDecember, 2016, R.N. Choubey, Secretary, Civil Aviation said that India signed agreements with six nations on air aviation.

The Conference was attended by 106 countries out of ICAO membership of 191 countries. India held negotiations with 17 countries and “Memorandum of Understanding” was signed with 12 countries.   The major issues resolved at these negotiations as per the directions in National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP 2016) are:

  1. Increase in traffic rights:- India renegotiated traffic rights with Oman increasing the entitlements with 6,258 seats effective from Summer 2017 as the existing entitlements were nearly exhausted. The points of call remained unchanged.

India agreed with Saudi Arabia to increase the capacity by 8000 seats per week from IATA season when Indian carrier’s utilization reaches 80%. This was in response to the needs of increasing traffic between the two countries where Indian carriers have been utilising open sky in Damman to mount more flights than the Saudi Arabian side.

India also agreed with Ghana to increase the present allocation of 2 frequencies to 7 frequencies per week to encourage connectivity between the two countries.

  1. Open Skies agreement as per NCAP 2016 :- allows unlimited number of flights to six metro airports namely Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai, was signed with six countries namely Jamaica, Guyana, Czech Republic, Finland, Spain and Sri Lanka. The new arrangement will encourage connectivity and passenger travel between India and these countries.
  2. New Air Service Agreements were signed with Jamaica and Guyana.
  3. Code Shares:- In the present scenario code shares provide seamless connectivity to the travelling passengers and make possible connectivity between far off destinations not served by direct flights.  As per NCAP 2016 code shares are to be encouraged and keeping this in view, negotiations were completed with 9 countries to enable the legal framework between the governments of these countries to make possible code shares between the airlines of two sides. The negotiations have  enabled domestic code shares with Czech Republic, Portugal and Malaysia, domestic and international code shares including third country airlines with Guyana, removal of restriction of counting of capacity in case of code share with 3rd country carriers and domestic code  share to additional two points to Mauritius, code share with 3rd country carriers and 4 additional domestic code share points with Saudi Arabia and Spain and code share with 3rd country carriers with Sri Lanka.
  4. Resolution of other issues relating to Air Services Agreement was also completed with Ghana, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Portugal, Hong Kong, Ethiopia and Bangladesh.