World Petroleum Congress (WPC)
8-Jul-2017: 22nd World Petroleum Congress at Istanbul, Turkey
Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan will be visiting Istanbul, Turkey from 10 - 12 July 2017 to represent India at the 22nd World Petroleum Congress (WPC) International Conference.
During his participation at the Conference, Shri Pradhan will be chairing a Ministerial Session on the subject “Current Economic Strategies in Indian Oil & Gas Sector” and a Plenary Session on ‘Supply and Demand Challenges for Oil, Gas and Products’. He is scheduled to hold several bilateral meetings with visiting Petroleum Ministers.
The Minister will be launching an event on Hydrocarbon Exploration & Licensing Policy (HELP) as a part of process of promoting the upcoming oil & gas bidding rounds in India.
The tri-annual WPC Conference is widely recognized as the `Olympics` of the oil and gas industry. It attracts Ministers, CEOs of Oil and Gas MNCs, experts and academics from the hydrocarbon sectors and provides an ideal forum to showcase potential of India’s hydrocarbon sector, highlight the recent policy reforms to international investors and interact with policy makers, technologists, scientists, planners and management experts, entrepreneurs, service providers and vendors in order to attract foreign investments into India’s growing oil and gas sector.
India-Japan civil nuclear agreement
21-Jul-2017: India, Japan civil nuclear deal comes into force
The landmark India-Japan civil nuclear agreement came into force. The India-Japan Agreement for Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy entered into force on July 20, 2017 with the exchange of diplomatic notes between Dr. S. Jaishankar, Foreign Secretary and H.E. Mr. Kenji Hiramatsu, Ambassador of Japan to India.
The pact was signed in Tokyo during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Japan on November 11, 2016. This Agreement is a reflection of the strategic partnership between India and Japan and will pave the way for enhanced cooperation in energy security and clean energy. It seeks to promote full cooperation between the two countries in the development and uses of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes on a stable, reliable and predictable basis.
The deal is essential for bringing a network of nuclear energy cooperation for India, especially with the U.S. as prominent American nuclear companies are owned by the Japanese nuclear majors like Toshiba.
G20 Hamburg Action Plan
8-Jul-2017: G20 Hamburg Action Plan
The two-day G-20 summit that took place in Germany’s Hamburg city ended with the leaders proposing the Hamburg Action Plan to address major global challenges, including climate change, harnessing digitalisation, and to contribute to prosperity and well-being. The Hamburg Action Plan sets out the G20's strategy for achieving strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth. Closer partnership and action by G20 members will boost confidence and contribute to shared prosperity. Actions laid out here aim to contribute to meeting the aspirations of our citizens for a better quality of life for their families, communities and future generations.
Highlights of the action plan:
The leaders pledged to progress towards their joint objective in the G20, which is strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth. They resolved to tackle common challenges to the global community, including terrorism, displacement, poverty, hunger and health threats, job creation, climate change, energy security, and inequality including gender inequality, as a basis for sustainable development and stability.
In order to improving sustainable livelihoods, the G-20 leaders collectively committed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions through, among others, increased innovation on sustainable and clean energies and energy efficiency, and work towards low greenhouse-gas emission energy systems.
The Leaders of the other G-20 members also agreed that the Paris Agreement is irreversible reiterated the importance of fulfilling the UNFCCC commitment by developed countries in providing means of implementation including financial resources to assist developing countries with respect to both mitigation and adaptation actions in line with Paris outcomes.
The leaders stressed on the importance of harnessing the benefits of globalisation, reaffirm the importance of transparency for predictable and mutually beneficial trade relations, harness digitalisation to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The leaders underlined to boost employment by improving sustainable global supply chains, which have been recognised as an important source of job creation and balanced economic growth.
The leaders resolved to make a resilient global financial system in agreed international standards, to support sustainable growth.
The G-20 leaders also called for safeguarding against health crises and strengthening health systems. The leaders called on the United Nations to keep global health high on the political agenda and strive for cooperative action to strengthen health systems worldwide, including through developing the health workforce.
The leaders also stressed on combatting Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR), which is a growing threat to public health and economic growth.