COAL INDIA LIMITED/SOUTH EASTERN COALFIELDS LIMITED AS THE OFFICIAL PARTNER FOR HOCKEY WORLD LEAGUE FINAL

NARESH KUMAR SAGAR

New Delhi, 23rd Oct. 2015: Hockey India, the apex organisation governing field hockey in India, has secured an official partner in Coal India Limited (CIL)/South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) for the much awaited Hockey World League Final 2015. The Hockey World League Final is organised by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and this year will be played at the Raipur International Hockey Stadium, Raipur, India from the 27th of November – 6th December 2015. This year India along with Argentina, Great Britain, Canada, Belgium, Australia, Germany and Netherlands will vie for top honours at this global event.
India under the guidance of chief coach Roelant Oltamns has just returned from New Zealand after winning the series, is expected to enter the tournament high on confidence. The Netaji Subhash Southern Centre, Bengaluru will host 26 probables for the national camp from the 26th of October 2015, ahead of the World League Final in Raipur. India is currently ranked 8th in the FIH world rankings.
An elated Dr. Narinder Dhruv Batra, President, Hockey India said, “We are delighted to see Coal India Limited/South Eastern Coalfields Limited come on board as the official partners for World League Final. It reinforces my faith in the fact that the sport is not going unnoticed in India and both the private and public bodies are equally keen to help the growth of Hockey in the country. Keeping in mind our recent series win against New Zealand last month I am confident of seeing a more confident and improved team India at the Hockey World League final. I would like to wish luck to the participating teams and hope to see some quality hockey on the field.”
“CIL/SECL is happy to partner with the Hockey World League final. We have been actively involved with grass-root sports talent development in the past and this partnership is just an extension of our long standing commitment to sports in India. We are glad to be associated with our national game, Hockey and wish all the very best to the participating teams”, said Mr. Om Prakash, CMD, SECL.
SECL, a miniratna company, is the largest coal producing subsidiary of Coal India Limited. This association is in continuation to CIL/SECL’s long-term commitment towards promoting sports and developing a sporting ecosystem in the country.
About Hockey World League
Hockey World League is a fast-paced and action-packed tournament comprising of four rounds played over a period of two years. The tournament doubles up as the qualifying event for the World Cup and Olympics, hence allows participating country’s gain FIH world ranking points too. Open to all members of FIH the Hockey World League gives every hockey playing nation a unique opportunity to compete with the best in the world and write their own story. The Final round is an 8 team event, for both the men’s and women’s teams. This year the men’s final is being hosted by India from 27th Nov – 6th Dec 2015 and the women’s final will be played at Rosario, Argentina from the 5th – 13th December 2015.

HOCKEY INDIA TEAM PARTNERS
Sahara
Cairn
Shiv Naresh

• Naresh Kumar Sagar
• October 23, 2015

Goodbye Banjul, India set to intensify relations with Africa

 

ASHOK B SHARMA

 

India’s engagement with Africa is set enter a new phase with the hosting of the 5-day summit meeting with the leaders of the continent. The first summit level talks were held in 2008 in New Delhi and the second in 2011 at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Though the links between India and Africa are millennia old and New Delhi had supported the continent’s struggle for independence and fight against apartheid, China could score points on having more intensive engagement with the continent. Comparatively, India structured institutional engagement with Africa as a whole had a late start. But better late than never. Prime Minister Narendra bhai Damodardass Modi has rightly seized the opportunity for deepening relationships with Africa, picking up the thread from 2008.

Prime Minister Modi intends to give a new direction to India’s institutional relationship with Africa. The earlier Banjul formula of inviting only 15 heads of state or government through the African Union has been done away with. Now all 54 heads of state and government have been invited to the 5-day Third India-Africa Summit scheduled towards the end of this month in New Delhi, and almost all the African leaders have given consent for participation, making it the largest international summit to be hosted by India after the 1983 NAM and CHOGM summits. This led Prime Minister Modi to tweet “Level of engagement for @indiafrica2015 has been tremendously scaled up”.

Turkey, Japan, European Union, China, South Korea and lately US have regular institutional arrangements with the natural resource-rich continent. Competition in engagement should not be a policy as in a multi-polar world there is enough space for every country to develop relationships suitable to its convenience and to the needs of Africa. India needs to develop its relationship with Africa in its own unique way. Since the Banjul formula has been done away with, India needs intensify its relationship with African countries through bilateral, regional and pan-African formats. There are several economic and political groups in the vast continent catering to regional interests and India needs to directly engage with these groups. At the same time, we must continue our relations with the African Union.

So far, India’s development assistance was routed through the African Union. But the vast continent has countries with varied needs and priorities for development. Therefore it is necessary that India engage with these countries directly or through regional groups. Other venues of engagement are include the Economic Commission for Africa, Afro-Asian Rural Development Organisation (AARO), Pan African Parliament, and the Indian Ocean Rim Association.

Recently, South Africa hosted the 5th BRICS Summit with focus on partnership for development, integration and industrialisation of Africa. BRICS countries agreed to set up a Development Bank to meet the needs of developing and least development countries.

India’s basic approach of development cooperation is a three-pronged strategy – technical assistance, line of credit (LoC) and grants. Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) was launched as early as in 1964 to share its development experiences with fellow developing countries, but the continent of Africa as a whole was not much in focus then. To give focus to the country’s development cooperation programmes, a separate Development Partnership Administration (DPA) was set up in the External Affairs Ministry in January 2012; the Investment and Technology Promotion (ITP) Division was also created to promote economic diplomacy.

Since the First India-Africa Summit, India committed $7.4 billion Line of Credit (LoC), out of which $6.8 billion have been approved and $3.5 billion has been disbursed, which created 137 projects in 41 countries. Total grant element in the LoC was $500 million. Though the pace of capacity building and training has been satisfactory, that of setting up of projects and institutions has been slow due to delay in preparation of detailed project reports (DPRs) by African countries. India, with the help of AU, could set up Pan-African e-network for education and health in 48 countries. Since the first summit, New Delhi extended 40,000 scholarships for study in India. Indian pharma companies supplied cheap medicines to contain HIV AIDS in Africa, but its role in containing Ebola outbreak was limited.

It is an irony that while Africa seeks closer engagements with India, New Delhi’s response has not kept pace. There are 43 African Missions in New Delhi while India has set up permanent missions in only about 25 countries.

Some of the fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa. It is a continent with large swathes of arable land and rich in natural resources including oil and gas. It is a demographically young continent – 65 per cent of the African population is under the age of 35 years. It has a long coastline, very important in trade and strategic terms, of 26,000 km. There are, however, several landlocked countries.

Africa has adopted 2063 Agenda for sustainable development, good governance, rule of law, democracy, gender equity, renewable energy, sustainable fisheries. The UN adopted Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 with 17 goals and 169 targets. Will India be an active partner in Africa’s development? Can India be a leader of the developing world, including the landlocked countries and small island states in the global fora, particularly in the context of the upcoming G-20 summit, Paris conference on climate change and WTO Ministerial in Nairobi? Africa represents 28% of UN membership and its support is crucial for India getting a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

The UAE, Singapore, UN Coordinator for Africa, UN Global Head for HIV AIDS and President of the African Development Bank are special guests at the summit as they are interested in financing projects addressing health and social issues.

Apart from the development of the continent, there are areas of win-win for both sides. Bilateral trade has reached $ 70 billion and needs to be scaled up. Indian corporates’ investment in the resource-rich continent is in the range of $30-35 billion. There is a 2.7 million Indian diaspora in Africa. There is ample scope for setting up fertiliser plants in Africa with buyback arrangements. New Delhi depends on import of pulses from countries like Tanzania to meet its shortages. Nigeria exports oil to India. Mozambique has huge gas potential and there are new hydrocarbon discoveries in North Africa, including Somalia. A 400-strong business delegation will be coming for the business forum meeting and the trade ministers’ meeting is likely to sort out problems in trade and investment.

Finally, development needs peace and security. Africa faces terrorist threats from Boko Haram and Al Shabaab. India has joint working groups on counter-terrorism and defence training arrangements with several African countries, which need to be extended to others. India is already in the UN peacekeeping mission in Africa. Countries on the east coast of Africa are crucial for maritime security in the Indian Ocean and New Delhi has offered them a package of maritime security and sustainable blue economy. All awaits the finalisation of the joint action plan with the African Union after the summit meeting, which would pave the way for 2.3 billion people of India and Africa working together.

(Ashok B Sharma is a senior Columnist writing on Strategic & Policy Issues in several Indian and international newspapers and magazines. He frequently writes in The Daily Observer, Bangladesh and the Diplomatist magazine. He can be reached at ashokbsharma@gmail.comMobile phone no +91-9810902204) 

• Naresh Kumar Sagar
• October 23, 2015

ICC partnership with UNICEF

NEW YORK, 21 October 2015 – The International Cricket Council (ICC) and UNICEF today announced a five-year partnership to advocate on behalf of the world’s most disadvantaged children.

Every year 5.9 million children die before their fifth birthday from mostly preventable causes; over half a billion children live in extreme poverty; and 59 million primary school-aged children do not go to school. The partnership aims to raise awareness of these challenges and encourage cricket fans to speak out for the children whose lives are these statistics.

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 was the most watched event in the history of Indian television, drawing over 635 million viewers. The partnership will use the ICC’s platform to advocate for children in India and other countries where cricket is a popular sport.

An initial focus will be to improve sanitation in India, which has the largest number of people still defecating in the open: more than 595 million. Poor sanitation can cause diarrhoea, which accounts for 9 per cent of the 1.2 million under-five deaths each year in India. The partnership will also engage with children and young people to inspire them to take up sport.

ICC Chief Executive, David Richardson said “Investing in initiatives that will improve the health, education, nutrition, protection and sanitation of children is so important to the lives of us all and we are proud to work with UNICEF in bringing these projects to life. ICC and UNICEF together will engage the broader cricketing community in work to empower children and adolescents and will, in particular, during the many ICC Events over the next five years, develop and implement various community outreach programs and initiatives in collaboration with coaches, cricketers and cricketing personalities.”

“Our new partnership will brighten a spotlight on the challenges children face, like hunger, poor sanitation and lack of education, and help transform awareness into action,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. “We are harnessing the power and reach of one of the world’s most popular sports behind the most important cause of all: the lives and futures of children.”

• Naresh Kumar Sagar
• October 23, 2015

Netanyahu arrives in Berlin

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in Berlin and meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Video: GPO

• Naresh Kumar Sagar
• October 23, 2015

Twin bomb blast at a mosque in Nigerian city of Maiduguri

Nine News Australia ‏@9NewsAUS 

#BREAKING: Witness says twin bomb blasts kill at least 18 people at a mosque in Nigerian city of Maiduguri. #9News

• Naresh Kumar Sagar
• October 23, 2015

Urban Planning and the Production of Violence on the Urban Periphery:

Dear All,

As part of our Urban Workshop Series, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), Delhi, are delighted to invite you to a Workshop on Urban Planning and the Production of Violence on the Urban Periphery: The Case of Bombay Hotel, Ahmedabad byRenu Desai, urban researcher and Coordinator at the Centre for Urban Equity, CEPT University.

Date:               Tuesday, 27 October 2015

Time:               3.45 p.m.

Venue:             Conference Hall, Centre for Policy Research, Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi 110 021

• Naresh Kumar Sagar
• October 23, 2015

Sonia Gandhi added 6 new photos to the album: Dussehra Celebrations at Red Fort.

16 hrs ·

+3

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