PM Ujjwala Yojana Rs 1650 crore was sanctioned by the Modi government to provide 75 lakh LPG connections under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. This decision was taken in the cabinet meeting chaired by PM Modi. Under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, the government provides LPG connections to those living below the poverty line.
New Delhi, Agency. On Wednesday, the Central Government sanctioned Rs 1650 crore for providing 75 lakh LPG connections to oil marketing companies under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. This money will be used to provide new connections under the Ujjwala scheme.
Anurag Thakur gave information
News agency PTI reported that Union Broadcast Minister Anurag Thakur, while talking to journalists, said that the cabinet meeting chaired by PM Narendra Modi has approved the decision to provide 75 lakh additional LPG connections under the Ujjwala scheme. .
Number of PMUY beneficiaries will reach 10.35 crore
After distribution of 75 lakh additional connections under PM Ujjwala Yojana, the number of beneficiaries covered under PM Ujjwala Yojana in the country will reach 10.35 crore. Under PM Ujjwala Yojana, poor families are given LPG cylinders at concessional rates by the government. Under the Ujjwala scheme in Delhi, domestic LPG cylinder is available for Rs 703.
What is PM Ujjwala Yojana?
PM Ujjwala Yojana was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2016. Under this scheme, the government provides LPG connections to families living below the poverty line.
Eligibility for Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana
The applicant must be above 18 years of age.
Only women can apply for this scheme.There should not be any other LPG connection in the house.Beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Rural) can also apply for this.
Last Tuesday i.e. on September 12, Apple launched its iPhone 15 series. Along with this, the company has also introduced the prices of all its iPhone 15. Apart from this, the company has also introduced the date of sale and pre-order of its Pro models. Currently, Flipkart and Amazon have listed the devices of this series.
Wanderlust In 2023, Apple has launched Apple Watch 9 series and Ultra along with its iPhone 15 series. Along with the launch of this series, the company has also revealed their prices in India. Apple also said that the sale of iPhone 15 pro model will start from September 22.
You can buy these devices through Flipkart and Amazon. Yes, Flipkart and Amazon have listed these devices. Let us know about it.
How much will the iPhone 15 series cost?
Shortly after the launch of Apple iPhone 15 Series, the company has informed about their prices in India. Where the price of iPhone 15 starts from Rs 79,900 and goes up to Rs 1,09,900. The price of iPhone 15 plus has been fixed from Rs 89,900 to Rs 1,19,900.
If we talk about Pro models, the price of iPhone 15 Pro will start from Rs 1,34,900 to Rs 1,84,900. The price of iPhone 15 Pro Max will start from Rs 1,59,900 to Rs 1,99,900.
When will the sale start
The company has said that currently the Pro models of this series will be made available for pre-order from September 15. The sale of both these Pro models will start from September 22.
Apart from this, the company has not announced the sale date and pre-booking date of both the standard models.
The device is listed on Flipkart and Amazon
Let us tell you that the iPhone 15 series has been listed on Amazon and Flipkart. Let us tell you that Amazon has introduced a microsite, which states that iPhone 15 Pro will be going on pre-order from September 15 and on sale from September 22.
When you search for iPhone 15 on Flipkart, you see these devices with Coming Soon.
Last year, the central government had proposed to implement six airbag safety norms from October 2023 to enhance the safety of passengers. However, Nitin Gadkari has refused to make it mandatory at present. Let us tell you that the government has made airbags mandatory for both the front seats in vehicles manufactured on and after April 1, 2021.
Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has made a big announcement. He said on Wednesday that the government will not make six airbags mandatory for cars sold in the country. However, earlier the Union Minister had talked about making 6 airbags mandatory in vehicles to increase safety. What is the full news, let us know.
6 airbags will not be mandatory
Last year, the central government had proposed to implement six airbag safety norms from October 2023 to enhance the safety of passengers. However, Nitin Gadkari has refused to make it mandatory at present. “We do not want to make the rule of six airbags mandatory for cars,” he said at an event.
Let us tell you that last year, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) had said in a statement that in order to increase the safety of motor vehicle occupants, it has decided to enhance the safety features by amending the Central Motor Vehicles Rules (CMVR). Has gone.
What is the standard now?
To reduce the damage caused by the ever-increasing road accidents, the government had made airbags mandatory for both front seats in vehicles manufactured on and after April 1, 2021. Thus, it is mandatory for all car models to have 2 front airbags. An air bag is a vehicle-control system that intervenes between the driver and the vehicle dashboard during a collision, preventing serious injuries.
BNCAP will start from October 1
Union Road, Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has recently launched BNCAP. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and Global NCAP joined hands to announce India’s car crash test rating and it will be effective from October 1, 2023. With this announcement, India becomes the fifth country in the world to have its own crash testing norms.
Not only this, Gadkari has also announced that BNCAP has already received more than 30 applications for testing the models and is getting good response from OEMs.
Bernard Looney, CEO of British energy company BP, has resigned. Bernard Looney has resigned with immediate effect after admitting that his historical relationship with a colleague was not fully transparent. Know that someone has been made interim CEO in his place. Read the complete news.
Bernard Looney, chief executive of British energy giant BP, has resigned from his post.
Bernard Looney has resigned “with immediate effect” after admitting he was not “fully transparent” about historical relationships with colleagues.
The company issued a statement and informed
Let us tell you that BP said in a statement, “Bernard Looney has informed the company that he has resigned from the post of Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect.”
He was made interim CEO of the company
Following the resignation of Bernard Looney, BP has appointed Murray Auchincloss as the new interim CEO. Looney, 53, has been in office for less than four years.
BP had received a complaint in May last year
BP said last May its board had received allegations from an unnamed source relating to Looney’s conduct “in relation to personal relationships with company associates” which had been reviewed.
During the review Looney “disclosed certain historical relationships with colleagues before becoming CEO”, BP also said, adding that no violations of the company’s code of conduct were found.
However, according to BP, the board was given assurances over the disclosure of his past personal relationships as well as his future conduct.
Investigation started immediately after the allegation
As soon as the company became aware of the allegation, it immediately began an investigation with the assistance of external legal counsel. After which Looney has informed the company that he now accepts that he was not completely transparent in his previous disclosures.
BP said the board expects all employees to behave in accordance with the company’s values. Let us tell you that Looney has been with BP since joining the British energy giant in 1991 and was appointed Chief Executive in 2020.
The counsel appearing for Coffee Day Global Limited and IndusInd Bank on Wednesday told the Chennai bench of NCLAT about the agreement reached between the company and the bank. For this reason NCLAT has canceled the bankruptcy order against the company. Coffee Day Global runs a chain of cafes under the name Desh Café Coffee Day.
An agreement has been reached between Coffee Day Global Limited (CDGL) and IndusInd Bank regarding the outstanding loan amount. For this reason NCLAT has canceled the bankruptcy order against the company. Coffee Day Global runs a coffee chain named Café Coffee Day in the country.
The counsel appearing for Coffee Day Global Limited and IndusInd Bank on Wednesday told the Chennai bench of NTLAT about the agreement reached between the company and the bank. Also appealed to withdraw the bankruptcy case.
Bankruptcy order canceled
A two-member bench of Justices M Venugopal and Srisha Merla heard the arguments given by the lawyer and after completion of the arguments, canceled the order declaring Coffee Day Global Limited bankrupt.
Earlier, NCLAT had put an interim stay on an order of NCLT, in which it had ordered a bankruptcy process against CDGL.
Let us tell you, on July 20, IndusInd Bank had given an application in the NCLT bench of Bengaluru, in which the outstanding amount of Rs 94 crore was claimed.
Coffee Cafe Day business
Coffee Café Enterprises Limited (CDEL) operates 469 cafes and 268 CCD Value Express kiosks across 154 cities in the country. Along with this, the company operates 48,788 vending machines in hotels and workplaces. The company’s income in the financial year 2022-23 was Rs 869 crore. During this period the company had registered a loss of Rs 67.77 crore.
Umax Auto Spares (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. has appeared as a true leader in the automotive component manufacturing industry. With over a decade of experience, the company has consistently delivered exceptional solutions to its domestic and international customers, earning a solid glory for its commitment to quality and innovation. This remarkable journey has been under the visionary leadership of CEO Umesh Kumar.
Umax Auto Spares is known for its ability to provide tailored solutions that meet the unique requirements of its diverse customer base. Whether it’s components for two-wheelers, stationary engines, or transmission systems, the company ensures optimal performance and functionality through custom-made solutions. Quality assurance is deeply ingrained in their operations, with stringent testing procedures to ensure that every component meets the highest industry standards.
CEO Umesh Kumar, a seasoned professional with 13 years of experience in the automotive industry, has been instrumental in driving Umax Auto Spares towards its ambitious goal of becoming the global leader in automotive component manufacturing. Under his leadership, the company places a strong emphasis on innovation, ethical practices, and sustainability, with significant investments in research and development.
Challenges in the automotive industry have not deterred Umax Auto Spares. They have addressed supply chain complexities, customization limitations, quality concerns, innovation gaps, and ethical sustainability issues with unwavering determination. By leveraging advanced manufacturing processes and establishing a global footprint, the company ensures seamless solutions for customers across continents.
Umax Auto Spares offers a diverse range of products, including indicators, clutch plates, brake shoes, engine oil, air filters, LED lights, and more. Their strong market presence extends across Europe, the UK, the US, and the ASEAN region. Strategic partnerships with leading delivery services like Amazon, DTDC, Ecom Express, and Blue Dart guarantee efficient product distribution.
As the automotive components market continues to grow, Umax Auto Spares is well-positioned for a promising future. With the global market projected to achieve a 3.2% compound annual growth rate and the Indian auto components industry poised for exponential growth from $46 billion to $200 billion by 2026, Umax Auto Spares is prepared to capitalize on these opportunities.
Umax Auto Spares (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. and its visionary leader, Umesh Kumar, are pioneers in the automotive component manufacturing sector. Their unwavering commitment to innovation, quality, and customer satisfaction has solidified their position as a driving force in the industry. As they continue to expand their global presence, we anticipate even greater achievements from this remarkable company and its inspirational leader.
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The law, named after English financier Thomas Gresham, came into play most recently during the economic crisis in Sri Lanka last year, during which the Central Bank of Sri Lanka fixed the exchange rate between the Sri Lankan rupee and the U.S. dollar.
Gresham’s law refers to the dictum that “bad money drives out good.” Gresham’s law comes into play when the exchange rate between two moneys or currencies is fixed by the government at a certain ratio that is different from the market exchange rate. Such price fixing causes the undervalued currency — that is, the currency whose price is fixed at a level below the market rate — to go out of circulation. The overvalued currency, on the other hand, remains in circulation but it does not find enough buyers.
It should be noted that the market exchange rate is essentially an equilibrium price at which the supply of a currency is equal to the demand for the currency. Also, the supply of a currency in the market rises as its price rises and falls as its price falls; while, on the other hand, the demand for a currency falls as its price rises and rises as its price falls. So, when the price of a currency is fixed by the government at a level below the market exchange rate, the currency’s supply drops while demand for the currency rises. Thus price cap can lead to a currency shortage with demand for the currency outpacing supply.
Origins of the term
Gresham’s law is named after English financier Thomas Gresham who advised the English monarchy on financial matters. It applies not just to paper currencies but also to commodity currencies and other goods. In fact, whenever the price of any commodity — whether it is used as money or not — is fixed arbitrarily such that it becomes undervalued when compared to the market exchange rate, this causes the commodity to disappear from the formal market. The only way to get hold of an undervalued commodity in such cases would be through the black market. Sometimes, countries can even witness the outflow of certain goods through their borders when they are forcibly undervalued by governments.
Gresham’s law can be seen at play whenever a government fixes the exchange rate (or price) of a commodity (such as gold and silver coins) far below than the market price of the commodity backing them. In such cases, people who hold commodity money would stop offering the money at the price fixed by the government. They may even melt such commodity money to derive pure gold and silver that they can sell at the market price, which is higher than the rate fixed by the government.
The law came into play most recently during the economic crisis in Sri Lanka last year, during which the Sri Lankan central bank fixed the exchange rate between the Sri Lankan rupee and the U.S. dollar. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at a certain point, mandated that the price of the U.S. dollar in terms of the Sri Lankan rupee should not rise beyond 200 rupees per dollar even though rates in the black market suggested that the U.S. dollar should sell for far more than 200 rupees. In effect, people were banned from paying more than 200 Sri Lankan rupees for a dollar, thus causing the rupee to be overvalued and the U.S. dollar to be undervalued when compared to the market exchange rate. This caused the supply of dollars in the market to fall and the U.S. dollar to be gradually driven out of the formal foreign exchange market. People who wanted U.S. dollars to purchase foreign goods then had to purchase dollars from the black market by paying far more than 200 Sri Lankan rupees for each U.S. dollar.
Gresham’s law, however, holds true only when the exchange rate between currencies is fixed under law by the government and the law is implemented effectively by authorities. In the absence of any government decree fixing the exchange rate between currencies, it is good money that eventually drives bad money out of the market and not the other way round. When the exchange rate between currencies is not fixed and people have the choice to freely choose between currencies, people gradually stop using currencies that they consider to be of poor quality and adopt currencies that are found to be of better quality. This phenomenon wherein “good money drives out bad” is called Thiers’ law (named after French politician Adolphe Thiers) and it is seen as a complement to Gresham’s law. The rise of private cryptocurrencies in recent years has been cited by many analysts as an example of good money issued by private money producers driving out bad money issued by governments.
Huawei, the Chinese smartphone giant, has created ripples within the strategic and business community with its newly unveiled Mate 60 Pro which houses the Kirin 9000 processor. The chipset reportedly used Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC)’s second-generation 7nm fabrication technique, thereby demonstrating China’s capability to manufacture a 7nm chip.
Challenges before China’s quest
Consequently, observers have claimed that the capability marks a major breakthrough in Beijing’s drive to attain self-sufficiency in manufacturing advanced chips. The fact that China succeeded in achieving this feat despite American sanctions on key semiconductor technologies has led many to even question the efficacy of the sanctions. However, while China’s technology demonstration deserves appreciation, the capability itself might not mean much as several challenges besiege its self-sufficiency drive.
To begin with, the fabrication technique used by Huawei-SMIC to manufacture the Kirin 9000 processor is highly inefficient. The wafer yield (a metric of efficiency) of the deployed technology is way less than 50%. In contrast, Taiwan’s Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC)’s 7nm fabrication technique has a wafer yield in excess of 90%. This makes the SMIC’s process extremely expensive — up to 10 times the costs incurred by other players in the market, and therefore highly uncompetitive.
Second, the 7nm fabrication technique represents the zenith of China’s capabilities with the available Deep Ultraviolet (DUV) lithography tools. The United States’s sanctions that cut off Beijing’s access to the most advanced lithography tool in the market — the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUVs) — meant that China had to rely on DUVs to fabricate the Kirin 9000 chipset. While DUVs can technically be used to make 7nm chips, the process is extremely messy and inefficient, thus lowering its yield. For instance, the SMIC technique used multiple rounds of masking or layering on the wafer to manufacture a 7nm chipset, leading to multiple exposures. On the other hand, the TSMC with the EUVs can perform the same task of high complexity with a single exposure.
Third, it is doubtful that Huawei-SMIC could produce the current chipsets on a large scale. The fact that the U.S. and its allies have restricted China’s access to even DUVs lately means that large-scale production of 7nm chips would be a challenge for Chinese companies.
Thus, low yield rates, inefficient and costly procedures along with difficulty in achieving the scale are likely hurdles in Huawei’s attempt to commercialize its new technology product. This is significant because the failure to achieve commercialisation will impact incremental innovation as they reinforce each other. And products that fail to innovate alongside their competition eventually fade away.
The U.S. and China systems, a comparison
Besides, there are several other challenges that plague China’s chip ecosystem compared to the U.S.-led ecosystem. The fact that America’s encompasses the most advanced economies of the world confers upon it several advantages that China’s isolated ecosystem will find nearly impossible to compete with.
First, the extensive and distributed nature of the U.S.-led tech ecosystem allows individual countries to achieve functional specialization according to their respective comparative advantages. The existing supply chain — where the U.S. specializes in EDA tools and designing, the Netherlands in producing lithography tools, Japan in manufacturing specialized materials, and Taiwan and South Korea in fabrication — corroborates the claim.
China, on the other hand, not only has the mandate to become self-sufficient in each segment of the value chain but has to also achieve sophistication in each of these to remain competitive. Achieving specialization in any one segment of the chip value chain itself is highly capital intensive; to achieve so in each of them is impossible. It is also important to remember that advanced chips are only one of the many core technologies that China aims to become self-sufficient in. Given that the Chinese ecosystem is not as elaborate as the U.S.’s and is rather isolated, there are limits to Beijing’s potential with its finite resources.
As for the U.S.-led ecosystem, the costs can be distributed among the participating countries, most of which have much higher per-capita income than China. Therefore, to compete with a larger pool of resources, China will need to strike a higher success rate on every dime it spends on research, which is difficult to achieve given that breakthroughs in basic research are capital intensive and may not yield success as often. If that alone is not enough to burden the scientific community, the pressure to perform and deliver in China’s authoritarian system further compounds the problem. To sum it up, China’s appetite to absorb failures is extremely limited when compared to the U.S. and its allies.
This makes for quite an unconducive environment for innovation given that it thrives best in a free environment. Finally, the U.S.-led tech ecosystem allows it to source talent from diverse regions, owing to its open immigration policy and distributed network. China, on the contrary, will have to solely rely on its national or overseas talent pool as the movement of human capital to China becomes more difficult due to deepening rivalry in the high-tech sectors.
Going forward, China’s tech ecosystem faces a daunting challenge to succeed in everything all by itself. It may score a victory in odd areas, but replicating the feat in every single domain is impractical.
While China’s technology demonstration deserves appreciation, its self-sufficiency drive faces several hurdles.
India may be the fastest growing large economy of the world, but it is also facing accelerating food-price inflation. The rise in the price of food first accelerated sharply in 2019, and has climbed in most years thereafter. In July this year, annual inflation exceeded 11%, the highest in a decade. An implication of continuing high food-price inflation is that a section of the population could be facing hardship in consuming food of adequate nutritional value.
food insecurity
We now have some evidence to this effect. The ‘State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’ of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates the proportion of the population across countries unable to afford a healthy diet (reported in this newspaper on August 31, 2023, under a datapoint). The figure for India in 2021 is devastating to note — an estimated 74% of the population cannot afford a healthy diet. Given a population of 1,400 million, this makes for approximately one billion Indians. A shrinking ability of households to finance their food requirement is evident also in studies undertaken in India itself.
Why this finding is plausible
A study reported in this daily (August 30, 2023 under a datapoint), of the trend in the price of food in Mumbai city over 2018-2023 found that while the cost of preparing a thaali at home has risen by 65%, in this period, the average wage of a manual worker rose by 38% and that of a salaried worker by 28%. The implied reduction in purchasing power is considerable, and it would be reasonable to expect that food consumption has been impacted. This would be in line with the reported rise in the prevalence of anemia, mostly induced by nutrient deficiency, in the latest National Family Health Survey undertaken over 2019-21. Over 50% of adult women were estimated to be anemic. This suggests that the FAO’s finding, that over half of India cannot afford a healthy diet, is plausible. Even if we were to assume that the agency has overestimated numbers by 100% we would be left with 500 million people in this category. This is larger than the population of all the countries of the world other than China.
food insecurity :
Ensuring that Indians have access to a healthy diet is the most important task of economic policy today. Macroeconomic policy, relied upon to control inflation, has proved to be useless in the context. The Reserve Bank of India has failed in this task, with the inflation rate mostly higher than the target for four years by now. Its approach of contracting output when the inflation rate rises — misleadingly termed “inflation targeting” — does nothing to manage food inflation stemming from the supply side.
Central banks are incapable of solving this problem, it must be said within any time frame. It is necessary to intervene on the supply side to ensure that food is produced at a steady price by raising the yield on land.
The significance of the Green Revolution
India has rich experience in this area, having engineered a Green Revolution in the 1960s, but it is not being tapped. At the time, reeling under extreme food shortage following two successive droughts, the government orchestrated a supply-side response by providing farmers with high-yielding seeds, cheap credit, and assured prices through procurement. This succeeded spectacularly. Within a few years India was no longer dependent on food imports.
If there was a single event that aided India’s quest to be self-reliant in the highly polarized climate of the Cold War, it was this. Western economists have pointed to the success of the United States’ mission to land a human on the moon as an example of an entrepreneurial state. However, to have engineered the Green Revolution in India at a time when it was a desperately poor country challenged by having to ensure food security to a staggeringly large number is perhaps more significant.
With hindsight, we can see that mistakes were made, among them the rampant use of chemical fertilizer, fuelled by subsidy, which degraded the soil. There was also the reliance on procurement prices rather than productivity increase to ensure farm incomes, which fuelled inflation. We also see that the policy was almost exclusively focused on cereals rather than pulses, the main source of protein for most Indians. However, rather than caring about the errors made in an extraordinarily successful economic policy intervention, we should be correcting them now.
At the same time, we should focus on the specific goal of lowering the cost of producing food. The first Green Revolution had a specific agenda — of making India self-sufficient in food. In this it succeeded eminently, and in a remarkably short time, but without paying any attention to the cost of producing food. For this, a second agricultural revolution is needed now. To contain the rising price of food would require action on many fronts; a mission mode is necessary. As for policy, it is clear that procurement prices, cash transfers, the Public Distribution System, and priority lending required of public sector banks are not sufficient.
Yield increasing interventions on the farm are needed to at least contain the cost of production, if not to actually lower it. Agricultural yield is lower in India than in East Asia, pointing to the potential for an increase. Attention is needed to extend irrigation to 100% of the net sown area, an end to restrictions on leasing of land, a quickening of agricultural research and the re-institution of extension.
Initiatives to work on
Expanding on each of these proposals would be in order. It has been pointed out for some time that increased public expenditure on irrigation is not reflected in an increase in irrigated area — whether due to waste or the diversion of funds has not been established. The ongoing fragmentation of already small land holdings lowers the capacity for productivity-enhancing capital investment, for which leasing is a solution. India’s network of public agricultural research institutes needs to be energised to resume the sterling role they had played in the 1960s. Finally, extension has now more or less vanished from where once the gram sevak was a familiar figure in the village, playing a crucial role in the dissemination of best practices. It must be revived. These initiatives should be dovetailed into a programme for the manifold increase of protein production, which India is severely deficient in.
In all the areas identified above, the role of States is crucial. In the 1960s, the States that were chosen for the spread of the new technology worked closely with the central government. This would have to be replicated in order to make a difference to the country as a whole, with the central government taking the States along in a spirit of co-operative federalism. At the same time, it may be asked if the States are playing their part to enhance agricultural productivity rather than relying on food allocations to their Public Distribution System from the central pool.
But, a non-ideological approach would be needed, whether at the Centre or in the States, if a difference is to be made. A noticeable feature of the first Green Revolution was that by relying on private enterprise, the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, chose a capitalist approach (with the objective of making India self-sufficient in food), unmindful of any damage that would be caused to her socialist image. It was the Green Revolution that made the first dent on poverty in India. So, the poor did benefit from this strategy. Similarly, now, in order to ensure that all Indians have permanent access to a healthy diet, no approach consistent with ecological security must be off the table.
Ensuring that Indians have permanent access to a healthy diet is the most important task of economic policy today.
Two days after the launch of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday described Saudi Arabia as “one of the most important strategic partners of India”.
The exchange between the two sides took place during the state visit of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia when they agreed to set up a joint task force to fast-track the West Coast refinery project.
West Asia economic corridor:
“As two of the world’s fastest growing countries, our partnership is important for the stability of the entire region. Yesterday, we took the historic step to connect India, West Asia, and Europe through an economic corridor. Apart from connecting the two countries, the corridor will help in the increase of economic growth, energy sector and digitisation,” said Mr. Modi, conveying India’s gratitude for the Kingdom’s initiatives to ensure welfare of the resident Indian expats.
Significant visit
Mr. Modi and Prince Bin Salman also co-chaired the first meeting of the India-Saudi Strategic Partnership Council (SPC).
West Asia economic corridor:
The State visit of the Crown Prince is significant as it comes months after Saudi Arabia ended hostility with Iran through a deal that was negotiated by China. It has also come weeks after Saudi Arabia became a member of the BRICS during the Johannesburg summit. The discussion focused on defence, energy, security, education, technology, transportation, healthcare, tourism and culture, space, and semiconductors as areas of possible cooperation.
