G20 PODIUM
The BJP victory in the Big Battle of 2024 is a foregone conclusion; what Prime Minister Narendra Modi is aiming at is to get the kind of mandate that can help him clear all roadblocks to his development agenda for the nation. Looking at the deliberations of the BJP National Executive meeting from this angle, our Cover Story emphasises that an unqualified endorsement of the development-focused governance is PM Modi’s sole ambition.
The tone and tenor of his address on the concluding day of the meeting is an indication that his objective is beyond electoral victories, says our story. Asking party workers to reach out to every section of the society, PM Modi stressed, “We have to create history.” Against this backdrop, the party’s two-day meeting in New Delhi was much more than a stocktaking exercise to prepare for the coming electoral battles, according to the story.
On the Centrespread, we take you to a pictorial drive through Auto Expo 2023, among the most premier auto shows across the globe. Besides its expected focus on EVs, this year’s show also had on display the fact that mobility is no longer just about cars, says our introductory note. Today, it says, AI, analytics and robotics play an important role and visitors got a peek into all these and into the future of cars at the popular show. In the context of mobility, the launch of the world’s longest luxury river cruise MV Ganga Vilas is covered on the Rising India page. Expected to give a big boost to travel-tourism-hospitality sector in the country, the cruise will cover 50 tourist spots and 27 rivers in five Indian states, and Bangladesh, in 51 days. It has been curated to showcase the best of India to the world, says our story. A take-off on this development is a research-based report on Modi Government’s action plan for the development of waterways in the major rivers of the country.
A special G20 session with Foreign Ministers was held at the Voice of the Global South Summit and we include the deliberations of the entire virtual summit in our Podium section. The main report on the page is about PM Modi’s inaugural address, in which he said the eight-decade-old model of global governance was slowly changing and there was a need to shape the emerging order. The PM reassured the leaders of the developing world about India’s commitment to issues and concerns of the Global South and said these will find the rightful place during India’s G20 presidency. In an accompanying report, we cover the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s address. The other story, as part of the G20 package, is on the Think20 inception conference, which, too, had somewhat similar refrain as to how international institutions of the past have failed to keep pace with today’s world. We also cover in detail the last week’s Finance Track meeting in Kolkata.
With only a few days left for the Union Budget, we present a bouquet of reports related to this annual exercise. The announcement of poll schedule for three northeast states finds due mention in the news section.
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