india-australia

Australian schools to teach Hindi; Australia releases the Asian Century White Paper

November 1st, 2012

Announcing that Asia’s rise is“unstoppable”, Australia brought out a challenging plan aimed at fortifying its links with India and other booming economies of the Asian region. The Australian plan includes teaching languages like Hindi and Mandarin in its schools. All Australian schools will engage with at least one school in Asia to support the teaching of a priority Asian language — Mandarin, Hindi, Indonesian or Japanese. Australia also released ‘Asian Century White Paper’ with an aim to extend and strengthen it links with Asia.

What is the aim of ‘Asian Century White Paper’?

Australia intends to take advantage of a booming Asian region. The Australian Government commissioned a White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century on September 28, 2012. It released this white paper to consider the likely economic and strategic changes in the region and what more can be done to position Australia for the Asian Century. The white paper lays a strategic framework to guide Australia’s navigation of the Asian Century. It includes:

• Current and likely future course of economic, political and strategic change in Asia, including China, India, the key ASEAN countries as well as Japan and South Korea.
• Domestic economic and social opportunities and challenges of the Asian Century for Australia, including in the economy, science and technology collaboration, clean energy, education, business-to-business and people-to-people links and culture;
• Political and strategic implications of the Asian Century for Australia
• Role of effective economic and political regional and global cooperation.
• Actions that will be taken over the next 5 years and further policy initiatives to be developed over the next 10 to 15 years.

The Hyderabad-based GVK Power and Infrastructure Limited in Second week of October received Australian federal government's approval for its Terminal-III (T3) development at the port of Abbot Point, near Bowen in Australia, under the environment protection and biodiversity conservation Act 1999.

The approval for GVK's Alpha Coal Port Project at Abbot Point follows a separate approval for the Alpha mine and rail projects which was made on August 23 2012.

The Project approval came after a rigorous and thorough assessment process by the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.







India brings to light carbon tax issue with Australia
India CEOs, led by Forum co-chair Naveen Jindal, conveyed concern over the proposal of the Australian Govt to inflict a 30% tax on big mining companies. The act come into effect in July 2012 and will apply to mining giants.Indian CEOs
have latched on with their Australian counterparts the matter of imposition of carbon tax on mining activities in
Australia and has conveyed the desire that a resolution would be found to settle the issue. Nevertheless, the Australian
side has also conveyed concern over the fresh mining law purported in India that entails profit sharing by mining companies to the tune of 26% to tribal development fund. These issues was taken up at the first meeting of the India-Australia CEOs Forum held in New Delhi.
Both sides also expressed the desire that the negotiations for the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) would be concluded shortly to put in place a apparatus for improved economic engagement b/w the two nations.















India, Austria ink pact on Technology Cooperation in
the Shipping and Ports Infrastructure Sector
2012-10-06 02:10:18 Puneet
India and Austria signed an MoU on Technology Cooperation in
the Shipping and Ports Infrastructure.
There has been regular exchange of high level visits b/w the two
nations during which the special emphasis is put on
strengthening economic and commercial cooperation and
scientific cooperation.
How Austria is important for India?
Austria has importance as it plays active role in international organizations.
Geographically, as the country is centrally located in the heart of Europe and
historically, linkages and legacy with the countries of the region, Austria can serve
as a gateway to upcoming market economies in Central & East Europe. High-end
technology is Austria`s bastion in several specialized areas of interest to us,
particularly in infrastructure.
India can utilize Austria’s technology in the areas like implementation of
International Ship & Port Security code, use of radio frequency identification
in logistics and transport planning and optical character recognition in terminals
to speed up the processing of containers in and out are the areas












Indian billionaires shove for coal in Australia
Impelled by an insatiate requirement for energy back home, a number of Indian billionaires are thrusting to get their
hands on Australian coal mines.
G.V.K. Reddy-led and Gautam Adani-led conglomerates have already invested billions in various Australian coal mining
projects. The names of other Indian coal barons include Anil Ambani, Aditya Birla and Madhusudhan Rao who are have
a presence in Australia. Adani Enterprises Ltd and GVK Group are in the headlines in recent times in Australia as they
have put forward plans to construct a 500-km railroad to connect Queensland’s coal-rich Galilee Basin to the coast.
Current Affairs Published on www.gktoday.in from January 1, 2012 to
September 10, 2012
Carmichael is expected to produce 60 million tonnes of coal and is projected to be Australia’s largest coal mine. The
Galilee Basin covers more than 247,000 sq km in Queensland and reportedly contains more than 14 billion tonnes of
coal.
Various other Indian Companies also showed coal mining interests in Australia as they attempt to pump their
operating or under-construction Power Plants in India.
March 5, 2012