Heena Sharma Blog

  Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged 2 billion doses of Chinese vaccines would be supplied to the world through this year, an increase that would add to country's efforts as the largest global exporter of COVID-19 vaccines . Xi's announcement was delivered at the International Forum on COVID-19 Vaccine Cooperation, state media reported Wednesday, which China hosted virtually. That figure likely includes the 770 million doses China has already donated or exported already since September last year, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Most of the Chinese shots have been exported under bilateral deals. It is unclear if the figure also includes the agreements with the COVAX mechanism where two Chinese vaccine manufacturers will provide up to 550 million doses. Xi also promised to donate $100 million to the UN-backed COVAX program, which aims to distribute vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wednesday night. Vaccine ...

  China honours citizen volunteers who helped during Covid-19 : In a pomp-filled ceremony in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Xi personally conferred medals on citizens deemed to have played instrumental roles in China’s fight against the virus identified in December in Wuhan. While other nations from India to the US grapple with ever-expanding outbreaks, China hasn’t reported a domestic infection in 22 days and Xi has increasingly turned his attention to bolstering the battered economy. Let’s look at the global statistics: Total Confirmed Cases: 27,339,132 Change Over Yesterday: 224,561 Total Deaths: 892,648 Total Recovered: 18,337,243 Nations hit with most cases: US (6,300,671), India (4,280,422), Brazil (4,147,794), Russia (1,027,334) and Peru (689,977). Read More

India's coronavirus caseload has surpassed the 100,000-mark, according to the the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Of the total 101,139 cases reported so far, 39,174 have been treated successfully while 3,163 died due to the infection, leaving behind 58,802 active cases. The count of cases continued to rise as the country entered lockdown 4.0 yesterday, with many states and UTs allowing reopening of markets, local transport and even salons in the areas that are considered safe from the pandemic. Read More

With coronavirus getting a tighter grip on the China and impacting world trade, most analysts have started lowering global growth forecasts as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter of calendar year 2020 (Q1-2020). Those at UBS, for instance, expect this would be the weakest quarter for global growth since the global financial crisis (GFC) and on par with the Asian crisis in the late 1990s. Global GDP, according to Arend Kapteyn, global head of economic research at UBS, will take a serious knock and slip to 0.7 per cent in the January 2020 quarter (Q1-2020) from 3.2 per cent in the December 2019 quarter (Q4-2019). Though he expects growth to rebound in the April – June 2020 quarter, the impact could slow the overall 2020 GDP growth by 20 basis points (bps) to 2.9 per cent. The main channel of economic disruption at this stage, according to UBS, is largely via reduced tourism flows (in/out of China), reduced import demand from China — particularly o...

The number of deaths from China's new coronavirus epidemic jumped to 902 on Monday after the hardest-hit province of Hubei reported 91 new fatalities. In its daily update, Hubei's health commission also confirmed another 2,618 new cases in the central province, where the outbreak emerged in December. There are now more than 39,800 confirmed cases across China, based on previously released figures from the government. The new virus is believed to have emerged last year in a market that sells wild animals in Hubei's capital Wuhan, the city at the centre of the outbreak, before spreading across the country. The World Health Organization (WHO) said Saturday that the number of cases being reported daily in China was "stabilising", although the health body warned it was too early to say if the virus had peaked. A WHO "international expert mission" left late Sunday for China, the agency's director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on T...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will accord a warm welcome to Chinese President Xi Jinping when he arrives in this coastal town on Friday for an informal summit during which the two leaders are expected to attempt a strategic re-balancing in bilateral ties, strained by a hardline approach on the Kashmir issue from both sides. The two leaders will hold talks at the 7th century Shore Temple complex overlooking the Bay of Bengal in an informal setting in the evening without aides or any agenda with a focus on charting a new roadmap for the overall expansion of ties. Modi, who landed in the Tamil Nadu capital of Chennai before proceeding to Mammallapuram, about 50 km away, by helicopter, expressed the wish that the summit will further strengthen ties between India and China. "Landed in Chennai. I am happy to be in the great land of Tamil Nadu, known for its wonderful culture and hospitality," he said in tweets in English, Tamil and Chinese. "It is gladdening that...

As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares for one of the most important meetings of his seven-year rule, he appears to have Donald Trump on the brain--even if he won’t say so directly. In conversations with other leaders ahead of his sit down tomorrow with the U.S. president on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi spared no opportunity to paint the U.S. as the bad guy in China’s spiraling trade conflict, while avoiding the provocative step of naming Trump personally. In remarks to African leaders this morning, Xi took a not-so-subtle swipe at Trump’s policy slogan, "America first." Warning against "bullying practices," Xi said that “any attempt to put one’s own interests first and undermine others’ will not win any popularity.” Xi then used remarks on the digital economy to call for a "fair and equitable market environment" and the "completeness and vitality of global supply chains." It comes as Trump singles out Chines...

India and China were locked in a face-off in the Doklam area of the Sikkim sector for over 50 days Current Affairs News : The India-China face-off over Doklam was resolved through "diplomatic maturity without losing any ground" and status quo has been maintained, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Wednesday. Swaraj told the Lok Sabha that the main objective of the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Wuhan was to ensure mutual comfort, mutual understanding and mutual trust between the two leaders and all the three objectives have been achieved. "We have resolved the Doklam issue with diplomatic maturity without losing any ground. There is no change in the status quo (on the ground). There is not an iota of change. The face-off at sight has been resolved on August 28, 2017," she said during Question Hour. The External Affairs Minister said the Wuhan informal summit was held witho...

The meeting between the two leaders comes after their informal meet in the Black Sea coastal city of Sochi, Russia in May Current Affairs News : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg and said the friendship between the two countries is deep-rooted. The meeting between the two leaders comes after their informal meet in the Black Sea coastal city of Sochi, Russia in May. The two leaders then met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Qingdao, China, in June. "Wide-ranging and productive talks with President Putin. India's friendship with Russia is deep-rooted and our countries will continue working together in multiple sectors. @KremlinRussia," Prime Minister Modi said in a tweet. During their meeting in Sochi, India and Russia had elevated their strategic partnership to a "special privileged strategic partnershi...