Flights for india

NEW DELHI -- U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is likely to visit India next week, an Indian government source told Reuters on Sunday, as the two allies seek to deepen military ties to counter the growing power of China in the Asia-Pacific region. The first person visit by a top official of the new U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration will focus on enhancing cooperation, said the source, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. Austin plans to meet Defence Minister Rajnath Singh during his visit some time in the week of March 15, the official added. The first Black U.S. defence chief will join Secretary of State Antony Blinken on a visit to Japan and South Korea, sources told Reuters on Thursday. It was not immediately clear if Blinken will also visit India. The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi referred a request for comment to the Defense Department, which could not be reached outside regular business hours. For India, closer bilateral military ties could bring greater access to American technology, as New Delhi tries to modernise its defence system amid tensions with neighbouring China in the western Himalayas. India and China last month began to pull back troops and battle tanks from a bitterly contested lake area high in the Himalayas, in a breakthrough after a months-long standoff on the disputed border between the two nuclear-armed giants. The standoff began in April when India said Chinese troops had intruded deep into its side of the Line of Actual Control or the de facto border in the Ladakh area in the western Himalayas. U.S. defence manufacturers hope closer ties will boost their own prospects in India, which is one of the world’s biggest defence spenders but still has major gaps in its military capabilities. …

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Western nations have the capacity in terms of economic potential and the legal and moral aspects to promote access to vaccines on a global scale. The outlook for the Covid-19 vaccine today can be partly seen from the tragic picture of the AIDS pandemic in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when pharmaceutical firms developed effective diagnostic and treatment tools that could save the lives of millions in poor countries, but were unwilling to share them. India begins a nationwide campaign for Covid-19 vaccination. The movement to enable access to AIDS drugs in countries like Brazil, South Africa, India, and Thailand through mandatory patent sharing with multinational corporation helped antiviral drugs reach accessible levels, falling in price from more than $10,000 per year to over $300, saving the lives of tens of millions of people and repelling the spread of AIDS. Ethical conduct The current global vaccine crisis comes from supply scarcity. Markets and patents are the fundamental reasons for restricting access to vaccines, and they are deeply rooted in the global intellectual property order, even when a public health crisis is at a serious level. Last July, South Africa, and then India, submitted a proposal to the TRIPS (WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Council on intellectual property and public interest and a comprehensive and flexible approach to TRIPS to enable broad, flexible, and affordable access to vaccine patents and curative solutions in response to pandemics. South Africa also mentioned the World Health Organization's (WHO) COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) initiative. Since May 2020, C-TAP, launched by WHO in partnership with the Government of Costa Rica and 40 member state co-sponsors with the Solidarity Call to Action, has called to action the global community to voluntarily share knowledge, intellectual property and data necessary for COVID-19. C-TAP is intended to …

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The Vietnam Aviation Association is soliciting assistance from the Government. The Covid-19 pandemic has seriously hit the aviation industry. The Prime Minister has assigned the Ministries of Transport and Finance and relevant agencies to consider the Vietnam Aviation Association’s proposal for another aid package. In a letter submitted to the National Assembly Chair and the Prime Minister, the Vietnam Aviation Association said that the Covid-19 epidemic has adversely affected the economy and the local aviation industry and this will last for many years to come. The Vietnam Aviation Association proposed that the Government continue granting aid packages for airlines, including: a credit support package to improve solvency worth VND25 - VND27 trillion; restructuring of the foreign debt payment period for pandemic-hit firms until the end of 2024; reduction of fees and charges for a number of aviation services and activities; reduction of 50% of the concession fee for airport and airport operations; relaxation of tax and financial duty for some businesses; and further reduction of environmental protection tax on aviation fuel (at least 70% reduction) in 2021. Regarding the expansion of the international market, the Vietnam Aviation Association recommended step by step resuming commercial flights from countries with large numbers of passengers or with great potential for passengers, where the epidemic has been controlled, both from and to Vietnam. US$1 = VND22,900 Vu Diep …

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