Indian firms employ

Noting that India's direct investment in the US has grown by an average of 33 percent each year since 2005, a top US official has acknowledged that Indian companies employ tens of thousands of Americans.

In the decade between 2000 and 2010, Indian investment has increased from a negligible $96 million to over $3.3 billion, deputy secretary of state Bill Burns said at the 3rd FICCI-Brookings Dialogue on 'Is there a future of India-US strategic dialogue' here Tuesday.
India-US bilateral economic relationship is anchored in the realisation that their long-term interests are essentially congruent and mutually reinforcing, he said at the event organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry with the Washington think tank.
'Together, we are drawing the best from both of our societies to make better products that compete and win in the global economy,' Burns said noting Tata Steel has a plant in Ohio, while Boeing uses engineers in Bangalore to design 787s whose parts are manufactured across America.
Noting 'the modernisation of India and the lifting up of hundreds of millions of Indians out of poverty necessarily remains the focus of the Indian government', he said India has no more important partner than the US in this endeavour.
'This extraordinary -- and so far extraordinarily successful -- effort requires India to sustain its high rate of economic growth, open markets for its goods and services, and attract the investment needed to realise its vision of inclusive development,' he said.
'There is no more important partner for India in this endeavour than the United States,' Burns said.
Over the past decade, India-US bilateral trade has doubled and then almost doubled again, he said while US total direct investment in India rose 10-fold, from $2.4 billion in 2000 to $27.1 billion in 2010, he noted.

Strong quake hits India

A strong earthquake shook northeastern India and Nepal, killing at least 18 people, damaging buildings and sending lawmakers in Nepal's capital running into the streets.

The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.9, struck at 6:10 p.m. Sunday local time. The epicenter was in Sikkim state near the border with Nepal, and shaking was felt across northern and eastern India, including in the capital of New Delhi. It triggered at least two aftershocks of magnitude 6.1 and 5.3, Indian seismology official R.S. Dattatreyan said. He warned more aftershocks were possible.
At least five people in Sikkim were killed and more than 50 were injured, according to the state's top official, Chief Secretary Karma Gyatso. The north Indian state of West Bengal reported four deaths, and Bihar state reported two. Nepal's government said five people died and dozens were hurt there, including two men and a child who were killed when a brick wall toppled outside the British Embassy in Nepal's capital, Katmandu.
The full extent of damage was not immediately known because the region is sparsely populated with many people living in remote areas now cut off by mudslides triggered by the quake, state police Chief Jasbir Singh told The Associated Press.
TV stations reported buildings buckled, sidewalks cracked and two major roads collapsed in Sikkim's state capital of Gangtok, 42 miles (68 kilometers) southeast of the quake's epicenter near the border with Nepal. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police said two of its buildings had collapsed in Gangtok.
Small army columns fanned out across the city of some 50,000 overnight to search for anyone pinned under fallen debris.
"We have sounded a high alert. Police are on the streets in Gangtok and other major towns," he said.
Electricity and some phone service was interrupted in the area.
Power lines snapped in the West Bengal cities of Darjeeling and Kalimpong, which "are now in total darkness," state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, according to Press Trust of India.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh offered to send troops to help, and summoned the National Disaster Management Authority for an emergency meeting. The air force sent five planes to help with rescue efforts.
The region has been hit by major earthquakes in the past, including in 1950 and 1897.
In neighboring Nepal and Bangladesh, the quake Sunday night sent residents rushing out of their homes, offices and shopping centers.
In Katmandu, members of parliament who were debating the national budget ran out of the assembly hall into a parking area. They returned 15 minutes later and resumed their session.
The quake was also felt as far as the Indian capital, with New Delhi residents also rushing out of shaking buildings, and in the Chinese-ruled Himalayan region of Tibet. According to China's official Xinhua News Agency, the quake caused three houses in Tibet to collapse, injured one person and suspended a border county's telecommunications services.

solutions to euro-zone

Expressing concern on the simmering economic turmoil in global markets, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday hoped that the upcoming G-20 Summit of world leaders will offer feasible solutions to end the euro-zone crisis.

"I am expecting, at the margin of the World Bank meeting, the problem of the euro-zone crisis, high sovereign debt and also other related issues will be discussed," Mukherjee told mediapersons on the sidelines of a function marking the foundation day of a bank here.
"I am confident that when we meet again in Paris at the G-20 Finance Ministers conference to make recommendations for the leaders in the summit which will be held in early November, it would be possible for the world leaders to work out the solutions which can dissolve the crisis," he added.
Mukherjee had in an earlier statement warned that unlike during the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, global policy coordination would be difficult now as most countries are at different stages of the economic cycle at present.
Finance Ministers of the BRICS countries-Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa-will take a call on supporting the euro zone at a meeting in Washington later this month.
The meetings are scheduled from September 23-25 at Washington.
Mukherjee would head the Indian delegation comprising Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor, D. Subbarao, apart from senior officials of the finance ministry.
The objective of the meet is to discuss the steps that they need to taken with an aim to effectively overcome the imminent global economic slowdown.