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US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to arrive in India today:
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will arrive in India on Sunday for a two-day visit to discuss ways to expand bilateral strategic engagement ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington.
According to people familiar with Austin’s visit, he and Defense Minister Rajnath Singh will discuss a series of new defense cooperation projects to be unveiled after Modi’s talks with President Joe Biden in Washington two weeks later.
General Electric’s proposal to share fighter engine technology with India, as well as India’s plan to buy 30 MQ-9B armed drones from US defense major General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc (GA -ASI) for more than $3 billion, are likely to be discussed during the Singh-Austin talks on Monday.
Air India Express to start Haj flights from Kannur, Kozhikode on June 4:
Air India Express will start operating Haj flights from Kannur and Kozhikode on June 4.
According to a press release on Friday, the Haj cards will take place in two stages. In a first phase, it will operate 44 flights from Kozhikode to Jeddah and 13 flights from Kannur to Jeddah, carrying 8,236 Haj pilgrims.
The company will operate 44 flights from Medina to Kozhikode and 13 flights from Medina to Kannur in the second phase.
“This is the first time the airline is operating Haj services after winning the tender issued by the government for the two cities in Kerala,” the statement said. The airline has introduced color-coded bags so that elderly pilgrims can carry their boarding passes and brightly colored luggage tags for easy identification and to prevent mishandling of luggage, he said.
The G20 health working group meeting in Hyderabad begins on Sunday:
An official announced on Saturday that the third meeting of the G20 Health Working Group (HWG) will be held in Hyderabad from June 4-6.
The third meeting of the HWG will include a main event and a side event focused on R&D collaboration in medical countermeasures (MCM). Co-branded events with the Global Vaccine Research Collaborative and a meeting of the Joint Finance Health Task Force are also planned, according to Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Additional Secretary Lav Agarwal at a press conference in Hyderabad.
Besides India, delegates from 19 G20 member countries, 10 invited countries and 22 international organizations will attend the third meeting of the HWG, he said.
