Morning Brief: Rafale Deal To Be Signed Soon; Modi Skips NAM Meet; Bumper Crop On Cards

Finally!

India is expected to sign the long-delayed deal to buy 36 fighter jets from France’s Dassault Aviation on 23 September. The Union Cabinet will meet next week and give its nod for the price. Currently, it is expected to settle for $8.84 billion.

President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had intervened in the procurement for the Rafale jets in 2015. Both had agreed to scale back an original plan to buy 126 Rafale planes to just 36 in fly-away condition to meet the Indian Air Force’s urgent needs.

Salvaging Ties

Nepal’s newly sworn-in Prime Minister Pushpa Kumar Dahal ‘Prachanda’ arrived in India on Thursday. This is his first visit abroad since assuming the charge. He attended a big reception at the Nepal Embassy yesterday which was also attended by Union Minister of State for External Affairs, V.K. Singh.

Today, Prachanda will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discuss various issues including Indian infrastructure projects in Nepal and the post-earthquake reconstruction. He will meet separately with Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Piyush Goyal.

Bumper Crop

On the back of a good, well-distributed monsoon, the government is expecting a bumper crop this time. 5.3 million hectare more area has been planted this season under foodgrains compared to the year before. The area under pulses has grown up by 22 percent and the production could touch 22 million tonnes this year, up 33 percent from last year.

India’s production of pulses fell to the lowest in six years in 2015-16. However, this time, farmers have moved away from cash crops like cotton and sugarcane and moved towards pulses, maize and oilseeds.

All-Aligned

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be attending the Non-Aligned Meet (NAM) being held in Venezuela. This is the first time that the summit that will not be attended by an Indian Prime Minister since 1979 when caretaker Prime Minister Charan Singh skipped the summit, which was held in Havana. Instead, Vice President Hamid Ansari will represent India. He left for the meet yesterday.

India is one of the five founding countries of the movement which currently boasts of 120 members.

Killer As Prez?

In a Filipino Senate hearing yesterday, the President of the Philippines— Rodrigo Duterte— was accused of ordering several killings while he was mayor of Davao City, including feeding a man to a crocodile and even conducting some of the killings himself.

The witness who accused Duterte claims to be one of his former hitmen. Duterte denies the allegations. The Filipino Senate is inquiring into alleged extrajudicial killings under Duterte in Davao City.

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