The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi on Saturday attended the first anniversary celebration of the Smart Cities Mission and AMRUT, in Pune.

Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister said that a fresh trend is now noticed where cities are moving forward to compete on the path of development.

He said there is a positive atmosphere of competing on development works through the spirit of Jan Bhaagidaari. He emphasized that people in the cities must decide about the development of their urban spaces, adding that these decisions cannot be taken in Delhi. He said that the spirit of participative governance is vital.

The Prime Minister said that the days when urbanization was seen as a problem are now over; it is now seen as an opportunity.

Narendra Modi said that cities are growth centres which have the capacity to mitigate the problems faced by the people.

The Prime Minister also stressed on the need for cities to focus on solid waste management.

British Prime Minister David Cameron says he will step down following defeat in Brexit Referendum. He said by October a new Prime Minister will be in office.

Here is the full speech of David Cameron:

The country has just taken part in a giant democratic exercise – perhaps the biggest in our history. Over 33 million people – from England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar – have all had their say.

We should be proud of the fact that in these islands we trust the people with these big decisions.

We not only have a Parliamentary democracy, but on questions about the arrangements for how we are governed, there are times when it is right to ask the people themselves, and that is what we have done.

The British people have voted to leave the European Union and their will must be respected.

I want to thank everyone who took part in the campaign on my side of the argument, including all those who put aside party differences to speak in what they believed was the national interest.

And let me congratulate all those who took part in the Leave campaign – for the spirited and passionate case that they made.

The will of the British people is an instruction that must be delivered. It was not a decision that was taken lightly, not least because so many things were said by so many different organisations about the significance of this decision.

So there can be no doubt about the result.

Across the world people have been watching the choice that Britain has made. I would reassure those markets and investors that Britain’s economy is fundamentally strong.

And I would also reassure Brits living in European countries, and European citizens living here, that there will be no immediate changes in your circumstances. There will be no initial change in the way our people can travel, in the way our goods can move or the way our services can be sold.

We must now prepare for a negotiation with the European Union. This will need to involve the full engagement of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland governments to ensure that the interests of all parts of our United Kingdom are protected and advanced.

But above all this will require strong, determined and committed leadership.

I am very proud and very honoured to have been Prime Minister of this country for 6 years.

I believe we have made great steps, with more people in work than ever before in our history, with reforms to welfare and education, increasing people’s life chances, building a bigger and stronger society, keeping our promises to the poorest people in the world, and enabling those who love each other to get married whatever their sexuality.

But above all restoring Britain’s economic strength, and I am grateful to everyone who has helped to make that happen.

I have also always believed that we have to confront big decisions – not duck them.

That’s why we delivered the first coalition government in 70 years to bring our economy back from the brink. It’s why we delivered a fair, legal and decisive referendum in Scotland. And why I made the pledge to renegotiate Britain’s position in the European Union and hold a referendum on our membership, and have carried those things out.

I fought this campaign in the only way I know how – which is to say directly and passionately what I think and feel – head, heart and soul.

I held nothing back.

I was absolutely clear about my belief that Britain is stronger, safer and better off inside the European Union, and I made clear the referendum was about this and this alone – not the future of any single politician, including myself.

But the British people have made a very clear decision to take a different path, and as such I think the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction.

I will do everything I can as Prime Minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months, but I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination.

This is not a decision I have taken lightly, but I do believe it is in the national interest to have a period of stability and then the new leadership required.

There is no need for a precise timetable today, but in my view we should aim to have a new Prime Minister in place by the start of the Conservative Party conference in October.

Delivering stability will be important and I will continue in post as Prime Minister with my Cabinet for the next 3 months. The Cabinet will meet on Monday.

The Governor of the Bank of England is making a statement about the steps that the Bank and the Treasury are taking to reassure Financial Markets. We will also continue taking forward the important legislation that we set before Parliament in the Queen’s Speech. And I have spoken to Her Majesty the Queen this morning to advise her of the steps that I am taking.

A negotiation with the European Union will need to begin under a new Prime Minister, and I think it is right that this new Prime Minister takes the decision about when to trigger Article 50 and start the formal and legal process of leaving the EU.

I will attend the European Council next week to explain the decision the British people have taken and my own decision.

The British people have made a choice. That not only needs to be respected – but those on the losing side of the argument, myself included, should help to make it work.

Britain is a special country.

We have so many great advantages.

A Parliamentary democracy where we resolve great issues about our future through Peaceful debate.

A great trading nation, with our science and arts, our engineering and our creativity respected the world over.

And while we are not perfect, I do believe we can be a model of a multi-racial, multi-faith democracy, where people can come and make a contribution and rise to the very highest that their talent allows.

Although leaving Europe was not the path I recommended, I am the first to praise our incredible strengths. I have said before that Britain can survive outside the European Union, and indeed that we could find a way.

Now the decision has been made to leave, we need to find the best way, and I will do everything I can to help.

I love this country – and I feel honoured to have served it.

And I will do everything I can in future to help this great country succeed.

Union Minister for Science & technology, Dr. Harsh Vardhan led the Indian delegation at the 5th Indo-UK Science and Innovation Council Meeting (SIC) held at London earlier last week, co-chaired by Mr. Jo Johnson, Minister of State for Universities and Science, UK.

After the event, Dr. Harsh Vardhan stated that India and UK have agreed to work together in two major initiatives in the fields of Solar energy and Nano Material Research, inter alia.

The SIC is the apex body which oversees the entire gamut of the India-UK science, Technology and Innovation cooperation and meets once in two years.

The last meeting of the SIC was held in New Delhi in November 2014 during which both countries had launched the Newton-Bhabha Programme to support the bilateral Science & Technology cooperation.

Currently, the value of investment in Indo-UK Research and Development cooperation from multiple Indian and UK agencies exceeds 200 million pounds of co-funding. UK stands amongst the top three collaborating countries in science and technology with India.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan informed that as a part of the commitment to the Solar Alliance, the India-UK networked Centre on Solar Energy would be established. It would be linked to India’s renewable energy mission and UK’s Supergens Programme.

The research projects will focus on systems level design and development covering Solar energy generation, storage systems and grid integration particularly for micro-grid systems. India would be investing Rs.50 crores over a period of five years with matching contribution from Research Council UK (RCUK) under the Newton-Bhabha Programme.

As a result of this strengthening of the Indo-UK Science & Technology cooperation, the SIC announced access to Indian researchers to the Neutron Scattering facility of the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxford.

This unique facility, based on the use of neutron scattering and muon spectroscopy, is a world class facility at Oxford to carry out fundamental research on understanding a wide range of matter at the fundamental level.

This will help to enhance Indian capability to fabricate structures at Nano scale level for creating interesting and technologically important materials through research in fundamental science. As a part of the Nano mission program, the Department of Science & Technology would be investing Rs.26.5 crores.

The Minister also noted that the Ministry of Earth Sciences of Government of India and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK are working on large observational campaign involving UK aircraft, Indian ships accompanied by surface observations primarily to address role of small scale processes to address variability of Indian monsoon leading to improved prediction of monsoon from short range to seasonal time scale.

Both nations have also agreed to address a gamut of societal challenges in the fields of food, energy and water Security; health and well-being; smart cities and rapid urbanization with increasing access and sharing of expertise, resources and facilities. The cooperation is aimed to yield high quality and high impact research outputs having industrial relevance, targeted towards addressing societal needs.

In the area of life and health sciences, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), India and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), UK have agreed to provide continued support to the virtual joint centers on Agricultural Nitrogen. The two agencies are also supporting research collaboration under Global Research Partnership in Aquaculture. In the area of health sciences, the focus is to address health needs of women and children.

In the field of Water Quality Research, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and NERC-UK will initiate a collaborative research program to improve water quality in India. The program would address the problem of natural, geogenic contaminants such as arsenic and fluoride as well as man-made pollutants like Pharmaceutical and personal care products increasingly being found in ground water. This program is being developed to support implementation of the goals of the National Mission for Clean Ganga.

Further, both sides would work towards augmenting the India-UK Centre of Advanced Manufacturing through DST-RCUK cooperation linked to the Make In India Program and UK’s Catapult Centre program. The projects will be designed to deliver industry-relevant results that can be readily applied to current challenges in manufacturing supply chain.

Under the Newton-Bhabha Programme, the two sides have also agreed on a collaborative program on Energy Efficiency in Built Environment as a part of the Smart Cities mission. Both the countries have agreed on common research agenda focused on energy-efficient building envelop, low energy cooling and thermal comfort as well as energy efficient technologies for city and community level.

The Industrial R&D program was initiated in 2014 to support industry-led projects aimed to develop new intellectual property, technologies, processes and prototypes under the translation strand of the Newton-Bhabha Programme. In addition to the five ongoing projects, five new projects were identified for support in the areas of affordable health care, clean technology, electronic design and internet of Things.

Besides the Newton-Bhabha Programme, the two countries have also been involved in promoting partnerships through the UK-India education and Research Initiative (UKIERI).

Acknowledging the success in building new scientific partnership through R&D projects and networking, the two governments concluded the implementation arrangement for the Phase III (2016-2021) of the UKIERI.

In its thirty sixth flight (PSLV-C34), ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle successfully launched the 727.5 kg Cartosat-2 Series Satellite along with 19 co-passenger satellites on Wednesday morning.

This is the thirty fifth consecutively successful mission of PSLV and the fourteenth in its ‘XL’ configuration.

The total weight of all the 20 satellites carried on-board PSLV-C34 was 1288 kg.

After PSLV-C34 lift-off at 0926 hrs (9:26 am) IST from the Second Launch Pad with the ignition of the first stage, the subsequent important flight events, namely, strap-on ignitions and separations, first stage separation, second stage ignition, heat-shield separation, second stage separation, third stage ignition and separation, fourth stage ignition and cut-off, took place as planned.

After a flight of 16 minutes 30 seconds, the satellites achieved a polar Sun Synchronous Orbit of 508 km inclined at an angle of 97.5 degree to the equator (very close to the intended orbit) and in the succeeding 10 minutes, all the 20 satellites successfully separated from the PSLV fourth stage in a predetermined sequence.

After separation, the two solar arrays of Cartosat-2 series satellite were deployed automatically and ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore took over the control of the satellite.

In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration following which it will begin to provide remote sensing services using its panchromatic (black and white) and multispectral (colour) cameras.

The imagery sent by the Cartosat-2 series satellite will be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, precision study, change detection to bring out geographical and manmade features and various other Land Information System (LIS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) applications.

Of the 19 co-passenger satellites carried by PSLV-C34, two – SATHYABAMASAT weighing 1.5 kg and SWAYAM weighing 1 kg – are University/Academic institute satellites and were built with the involvement of students from Sathyabama University, Chennai and College Of Engineering, Pune, respectively.

The remaining 17 co-passenger satellites were international customer satellites from Canada (2), Germany (1), Indonesia (1) and the United States (13).

With today’s successful launch, the total number of satellites launched by India’s workhorse launch vehicle PSLV has reached 113, of which 39 are Indian and the remaining 74 from abroad.

The Union Government of India on Monday (June 20) has radically liberalized the FDI regime, with the objective of providing major impetus to employment and job creation in India. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today. This is the second major reform after the last radical changes announced in November 2015.  Now most of the sectors would be under automatic approval route, except a small negative list. With these changes, India is now the most open economy in the world for FDI.

In last two years, Government has brought major FDI policy reforms in a number of sectors viz. defence, Construction Development, insurance, Pension Sector, broadcasting Sector, Tea, Coffee, Rubber, Cardamom, Palm oil Tree and Olive Oil Tree Plantations, Single Brand Retail Trading, Manufacturing Sector, Limited Liability Partnerships, Civil Aviation, credit Information Companies, Satellites- establishment/operation and Asset Reconstruction Companies.

Measures undertaken by the Government have resulted in increased FDI inflows at US$ 55.46 billion in Financial Year 2015-16, as against US$ 36.04 billion during the financial year 2013-14. This is the highest ever FDI inflow for a particular financial year.

However, it is felt that the country has potential to attract far more foreign investment which can be achieved by further liberalizing and simplifying the FDI regime.

India today has been rated as Number 1 FDI Investment Destination by several International Agencies.

Accordingly the Government has decided to introduce a number of amendments in the FDI Policy. Changes introduced in the policy include increase in sectoral caps, bringing more activities under automatic route and easing of conditionalities for foreign investment.

These amendments seek to further simplify the regulations governing FDI in the country and make India an attractive destination for foreign investors.

Details of these changes are given in the following paragraphs:

1. Radical Changes for promoting food Products manufactured/produced in India

It has now been decided to permit 100% FDI under government approval route for trading, including through e-commerce, in respect of Food Products manufactured or produced in India.

2. Foreign Investment in Defence Sector up to 100%

Present FDI regime permits 49% FDI participation in the equity of a company under automatic route.  FDI above 49% is permitted through Government approval on case to case basis, wherever it is likely to result in access to modern and ‘state-of-art’ technology in the country. In this regard, the following changes have inter-alia been brought in the FDI policy on this sector:

1. Foreign investment beyond 49% has now been permitted through government approval route, in cases resulting in access to modern Technology in the country or for other reasons to be recorded.  The condition of access to ‘state-of-art’ technology in the country has been done away with.
2. FDI limit for defence sector has also been made applicable to Manufacturing of Small Arms and Ammunitions covered under Arms Act 1959.

3. Review of Entry Routes in broadcasting Carriage Services

FDI policy on Broadcasting carriage services has also been amended. New sectoral caps and entry routes are as under:

    4. Pharmaceutical

The extant FDI policy on pharmaceutical sector provides for 100% FDI under automatic route in greenfield pharma and FDI up to 100% under government approval in brownfield pharma. With the objective of promoting the development of this sector, it has been decided to permit up to 74% FDI under automatic route in brownfield pharmaceuticals and government approval route beyond 74% will continue. 

5. Civil Aviation Sector

(i)  The extant FDI policy on Airports permits 100% FDI under automatic route in Greenfield Projects and 74% FDI in Brownfield Projects under automatic route. FDI beyond 74% for Brownfield Projects is under government route.

(ii)   With a view to aid in modernization of the existing airports to establish a high standard and help ease the pressure on the existing airports, it has been decided to permit 100% FDI under automatic route in Brownfield Airport projects.

(iii) As per the present FDI policy, foreign investment up to 49% is allowed under automatic route in Scheduled Air Transport Service/ Domestic Scheduled Passenger airline and regional Air Transport Service. It has now been decided to raise this limit to 100%, with FDI up to 49% permitted under automatic route and FDI beyond 49% through Government approval. For NRIs, 100% FDI will continue to be allowed under automatic route. However, foreign airlines would continue to be allowed to invest in capital of Indian companies operating scheduled and  non-scheduled air-transport services up to the limit of 49% of their paid up capital and subject to the laid down conditions in the existing policy. 

6. Private Security Agencies

The extant policy permits 49% FDI under government approval route in Private Security Agencies. FDI up to 49% is now permitted under automatic route in this sector and FDI beyond 49% and up to 74% would be permitted with government approval route.

7. Establishment of branch office, liaison office or project office

For establishment of branch office, liaison office or project office or any other place of business in India if the principal business of the applicant is Defence, telecom, Private Security or Information and Broadcasting, it has been decided that approval of Reserve Bank Of India or separate security clearance would not be required in cases where FIPB approval or license/permission by the concerned Ministry/Regulator has already been granted.

8. Animal Husbandry

As per FDI Policy 2016, FDI in Animal Husbandry (including breeding of dogs), Pisciculture, Aquaculture and Apiculture is allowed 100% under Automatic Route under controlled conditions. It has been decided to do away with this requirement of ‘controlled conditions’ for FDI in these activities.

9. Single Brand Retail Trading

It has now been decided to relax local sourcing norms up to three years and a relaxed sourcing regime for another five years for entities undertaking Single Brand Retail Trading of products having ‘state-of-art’ and ‘cutting edge’ technology.

The latest amendments to the FDI Policy are meant to liberalise and simplify the FDI policy so as to provide ease of doing business in the country leading to larger FDI inflows contributing to growth of investment, incomes and employment.