Han Asia Times

           

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Korean President Park Geun-hye in Seoul on Monday [Credit: PTI] Narendra Modi, who has visited 17 countries in the one year that he’s been Prime Minister, made his latest stop in South Korea at the end of a three-nation Asian tour that took him to China and Mongolia. In Korea, he talked about ‘Make in India’. He talked about Asian Unity. He talked about defence cooperation. He talked about international institutions and the need to reform them. He talked about security dialogues. India and Korea signed seven agreements, described in the MEA’s usual way as ‘wide-ranging’. But the question now is: What are they worth and will India meet Korean expectations, especially on the economic side? If the past is anything to go by, the Koreans may well be in for a disappointment. After all, P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh in their time had also invited Korea’s small and medium scale firms to come and invest in India. To date, however, there are only...

Around 60% of the investment for setting up transmission infrastructure goes towards equipment with the market size estimated to be around Rs. 14,000 crore. Photo: Indranil Bhoumik/Mint New Delhi: Attracted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’s ‘Make in India’ programme, and, more pertinently, to meet conditions that make it mandatory for foreign companies wishing to sell equipment to large Indian government projects to have factories in India, China’s Baoding Tianwei Group Ltd (BTW) and South Korea’s Hyosung Corp. plan to set up electricity transmission equipment manufacturing facilities in the country. India and China have been at odds over the supply of cheap Chinese equipment to Indian firms in sectors such as telecom and power generation over security and quality concerns. “Due to the mandatory requirement that one needs to have a manufacturing base in India and the size of the electricity transmission equipment market here, firm such as BTW and ...

Hae-lck Lee, executive director of the Korea Automotive Industry Globalization Foundation, spoke to Jaishankar Jayaramiah on the sidelines of the recent ACMA Automechanika New Delhi 2015 trade fair about the Korean automotive industry and its bilateral trade with India. How many companies from Korea participated in the expo and what was their main agenda? This is the first time that we participated in ACMA Automechanika New Delhi. We had as many as 15 companies including our foundation. Almost all are manufacturers and exporters and a few are into trading. They are mainly looking to tap the market for their products in India and export. We have earlier participated at the Auto Expo with 16 companies and are satisfied with the results. I think ACMA Automechanika New Delhi will also satisfy the Korean exhibitors. How important is Indian market is for you and why? As you see in the world market, China is very developed as they are producing many cars while Eu...

                                Diplomatic soiree is held after Park’s visit and before Modi’s Indian Ambassador Vishnu Prakash, center; Jeong Kab-yoon, right, the National Assembly vice speaker; and Kim Ki-jai, the former minister of government administration and home affairs, light a traditional Indian lamp on Jan. 26 at the 66th Republic Day of India celebration held at the Millennium Seoul Hilton in Jung District, central Seoul. By Park Sang-moon The Embassy of India last week commemorated the country’s 66th Republic Day with an event at the Millennium Seoul Hilton in Jung District, central Seoul, which was attended by approximately 400 people. Republic Day commemorates the adoption of India’s constitution and is one of the three national holidays celebrated in the South Asian country, along with the Independence Day on Aug. 15,...

Amid the growing partnership between India and Korea, a group of students from the Hindi Department of Busan University of Foreign Studies (BUFS) visited JNU to learn Hindi and about Indian Culture. The Centre for Korean Studies (CKS), School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University organizes basic courses on Hindi Language and Indian Culture for the Korean students every year. Group of students from the Hindi Department of Busan University of Foreign Studies (BUFS) visited JNU to learn Hindi and about Indian Culture. The basic level course aims at catering to the needs of those students who have had very little exposure to Hindi in Korea. The course the helps the students speak Hindi confidently and communicate effectively. The students are introduced with the basic sound system, syntactic structure and vocabulary of Hindi. They are taught about Indian culture through audio-visual aids. They also get to learn the informal Hindi. The overa...

Hyundai Heavy Industries’ dockyard in Ulsan. Korea’s largest shipbuilder has set goal of collecting 22.9 billion dollars worth of orders this year. Provided by the company   The world’s largest shipbuilder, Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), has established an agreement to build submarines for India as part of a 40-year program to strengthen the nation’s naval forces. The financially struggling company said it signed an MoU with Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) last week stating that the Korean shipbuilder will work with the Indian company to build six submarines that the nation’s navy is preparing to order. “Since HSL wants to be a part of the submarine manufacturing project by the navy, they asked us for help,” said a spokesman for HHI. “Because they are the largest shipbuilder in their country, the possibility that they will win the order is big.” If HSL wins the contract, HHI will dispatch a work force to give technical support that the company needs to build the submarine...