India in Global Media: Weekly Foreign Media Digest (June 11-June17)

WebDesk
Updated: June 17, 2023 14:45

Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Rajnikant Patel in a review meeting with senior officials Image Source : https://cmogujarat.gov.in

By TNV Desk

This is a weekly foreign media digest that tells you how India has been covered in the global media from June 11, 2023 to June 17,2023

Reuters – India cyclone: casualties averted with early warnings and timely evacuation

Early warnings, accurate identification of vulnerable areas and timely evacuations helped India to avert major casualties from cyclone Biparjoy, which battered the west coast near Pakistan late on Thursday, authorities said.
Biparjoy, which means ‘calamity’ in Bengali, hit the state of Gujarat with speeds of up to 125 kph (78 mph), blowing roofs off houses and uprooting trees and electricity poles.
In 1998, a major storm in Gujarat killed about 4,000 people, according to local media, while in 2021, close to 100 people died in an ‘extremely severe cyclone’ named Tauktae.
“Early identification of areas that were likely to be impacted by the cyclone and timely evacuation of people living within 10 km of the coasts are the biggest reasons” for low casualties, said Kamal Dayani, a senior Gujarat official.
“Our focus from the beginning was on preventing loss of lives, not just human lives but even animals.”
More than 100,000 people were evacuated from eight coastal districts and moved to shelters in school auditoriums and other government buildings a day before the cyclone struck.
Authorities also suspended fishing, shut schools and closed beaches. Many offshore oil installations and major ports suspended operations days earlier.
In addition, 30 teams of national and state disaster responders were deployed.

BBC – Cyclone Biparjoy: At least two people dead after storm hits India

At least two people have been killed and 22 injured after Cyclone Biparjoy made landfall in western India near the Pakistan border.
The storm weakened after hitting the Gujarat state coast on Thursday night, but is still moving across the state bringing strong winds and rains.
It has uprooted trees, ripped out electricity poles, and damaged roads in some districts.
The full extent of the damage is still yet known, say authorities.Local media reported two cattle farmers in Bhavnagar city- a father and son – were swept away as they entered a flooded ravine to save their goats.
No other cyclone-related deaths have been reported by Indian officials.

Reuters – India’s Modi to address FedEx, MasterCard, other US CEOs at Kennedy Center

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet the CEOs of top American companies including FedEx (FDX.N), MasterCard (MA.N) and Adobe (ADBE.O) during his trip to the United States for an official state visit, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
The CEO reception with more than 1,200 participants, including business leaders from U.S. and Indian companies such as Tech Mahindra (TEML.NS) and Mastek (MAST.NS), will be held on June 23 at Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the source added.
It will follow the official state dinner on June 22 at the White House with President Joe Biden – a celebration billed as a milestone in relations between the two democracies.
S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who recently visited India to make final preparations ahead of Modi’s visit, said the United States is set to remove obstacles that prevent smoother trade with India in critical areas such as defense and high technology.

BBC – India students facing Canada removal over fake documents get reprieve

Canada has offered a temporary reprieve for a group of Indian students facing removal from the country over alleged fake college admission letters.
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser says “genuine students who are the victims of fraud” will be allowed to stay in Canada after investigations.
The students say they were unaware of the forgeries and were duped by an immigration agency in India. They have been holding protests to bring attention to their situation.
A number of international students have come forward in recent months in Canada to say they received removal orders after one of the documents – their college admission letter – was found to be fraudulent.
Any pending removals will now be halted while the federal government sets up a task force to conduct case-by-case analysis of all students facing a removal order, Mr Fraser said at a news conference in Ottawa on Wednesday.
The minister said he expects the process will take a few months.
Mr Fraser said some students have already been removed from Canada and “they will have access to the same remedies as those who are here”.
The students say they were the victims of fraud themselves, duped by an immigration consultation agency run in Jalandhar, a city in the Punjab region of India.

REUTERS – Canada freezes deportation of Indian students who used fraudulent university letters

Canada will freeze the planned deportation of dozens of students who entered the country using fraudulent university letters of acceptance, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said on Wednesday.
Fraser spoke after the Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported in March that several students from India had been served deportation papers for using forged documents to enter Canada in an alleged immigration scheme.
The acceptance letters appeared to have been written by universities but the Canada Border Services Agency informed the students the documents were fake and warned them that they could face deportation, according to the CBC report.
Students say they were unaware the documents were forged and have blamed the alleged fraud on the India-based immigration agents who helped them apply. Advocates and the students have petitioned for a halt to the deportations.
Fraser told reporters that a special task force would look at every case of a student who had been told to leave. He did not give an exact number of people facing deportation.

Reuters – India denies threatening Twitter shut down over farmer protests

Allegations by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey that the company was threatened with a shut down in India were an “outright lie”, the country’s deputy minister for information technology said on Tuesday.
Twitter was threatened with shut downs in India, Nigeria and Turkey unless it complied with orders to restrict accounts, with India wanting to curb journalists’ and protesters’ use of the social media platform, Dorsey said on Monday in an interview to Youtube news show Breaking Points.
Twitter was in repeated violations of Indian law and started complying with Indian laws only from June 2022, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, India’s federal deputy minister for information technology, said on Tuesday.

(The report has been compiled by Dr Vinay Nalwa)

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