Jaitley's Australia visit starting March 29 amidst continued controversy around $16 billion Adani mining project

By Neeraj Nanda*
India’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is visiting Australia on a four-day official when he lands in Sydney on March 29. The visit also takes him to Canberra and Melbourne. He will meet the Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria, among others during his visit.
The visit comes at a time when the biggest ever proposed Indian investment in Australia, the Queensland Carmichael coalmine project, is facing determined opposition from environmentalists and the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) people, traditional owners of the proposed mine site in QLD’s Galilee Basin. The Queensland Parliament had recently unanimously passed a resolution to support the mega-mine with the Indian mining giant Adani.
A Tweet by the Indian Finance Ministry says he is on a mission “mainly to attract investment and hold bilaterals”. His engagements include addresses at the CEOs Forum and the ‘Make in India’ conference in Sydney.
A Press Information Bureau, New Delhi, media release says “one of the main objectives of the Finance Minister’s visit to Australia is to attract foreign investment in India especially in Infrastructure sector among others.”
An expert on the subject, who does not want to be named, says, “The fact is that Australia is a capital importing country and so is India. How can two capital importing countries export capital to each other?”
But media reports indicate Jaitley aims to entice cash-rich Australian super funds to invest in India.
The Indian Finance Minister will in Sydney address and have an interactive session at the Sydney Campus of the SP Jain School of Global Management. He will also have a meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. Later, Jaitley will inaugurate the Sydney branch of the Union Bank of India.
Next day, on March 30, the Finance Minister will deliver the Key Note Address at the ‘Make in India’ Conference in Sydney. He will also have a meeting with prominent CEOs of Australia. Thereafter, he will have a bilateral meeting with The Hon. Scott Morrison, MP, and Treasurer. In the afternoon, Jaitley will have an interaction with the local Indian community.
During his stay in Canberra (March 31), the Finance Minister will have bilateral meetings with Senator Mathias Cormann, Minister for Finance and Peter Vergese, Foreign Secretary. In the afternoon, the Indian Finance Minister will have a meeting with the Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU) followed by an interaction with ANU Economists and participation in the KR Narayanan Oration at the University.
In the evening, Arun Jaitley will address the Indian community at a reception hosted by the High Commissioner of India in Australia in which leading members of Indian community from all major cities of Australia have been invited.
On the last leg of his Australia visit, the Indian Finance Minister will be in Melbourne (April 1) where he will meet Peter Coastello, Chairman, Future Fund and will participate in the ‘Invest in India Round Table Conference’.
He will also attend a signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between FICCI and Australia-India Business Council and have one to one meeting with CEOs of various companies.
And in the evening Jaitley will visit the University of Melbourne for participating in a town hall lecture with Professor Craig Jeffrey, CEO and Director of the Australia India Institute and Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor of ‘The Australian’ newspaper. The public lecture will include a lively discussion between the three panel members, with time for questions from the audience.

---
*Editor, South Asia Times, Melbourne. SAT News Service

Comments

Gujarat Information Commission issues warning against misinterpretation of RTI orders

By A Representative The Gujarat Information Commission (GIC) has issued a press note clarifying that its orders limiting the number of Right to Information (RTI) applications for certain individuals apply only to those specific applicants. The GIC has warned that it will take disciplinary action against any public officials who misinterpret these orders to deny information to other citizens. The press note, signed by GIC Secretary Jaideep Dwivedi, states that the Right to Information Act, 2005, is a powerful tool for promoting transparency and accountability in public administration. However, the commission has observed that some applicants are misusing the act by filing an excessive number of applications, which disproportionately consumes the time and resources of Public Information Officers (PIOs), First Appellate Authorities (FAAs), and the commission itself. This misuse can cause delays for genuine applicants seeking justice. In response to this issue, and in acc...

'MGNREGA crisis deepening': NSM demands fair wages and end to digital exclusions

By A Representative The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (NSM), a coalition of independent unions of MGNREGA workers, has warned that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is facing a “severe crisis” due to persistent neglect and restrictive measures imposed by the Union Government.

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

Gandhiji quoted as saying his anti-untouchability view has little space for inter-dining with "lower" castes

By A Representative A senior activist close to Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar has defended top Booker prize winning novelist Arundhati Roy’s controversial utterance on Gandhiji that “his doctrine of nonviolence was based on an acceptance of the most brutal social hierarchy the world has ever known, the caste system.” Surprised at the police seeking video footage and transcript of Roy’s Mahatma Ayyankali memorial lecture at the Kerala University on July 17, Nandini K Oza in a recent blog quotes from available sources to “prove” that Gandhiji indeed believed in “removal of untouchability within the caste system.”

Targeted eviction of Bengali-speaking Muslims across Assam districts alleged

By A Representative A delegation led by prominent academic and civil rights leader Sandeep Pandey visited three districts in Assam—Goalpara, Dhubri, and Lakhimpur—between 2 and 4 September 2025 to meet families affected by recent demolitions and evictions. The delegation reported widespread displacement of Bengali-speaking Muslim communities, many of whom possess valid citizenship documents including Aadhaar, voter ID, ration cards, PAN cards, and NRC certification.

Subject to geological upheaval, the time to listen to the Himalayas has already passed

By Rajkumar Sinha* The people of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, who have somehow survived the onslaught of reckless development so far, are crying out in despair that within the next ten to fifteen years their very existence will vanish. If one carefully follows the news coming from these two Himalayan states these days, this painful cry does not appear exaggerated. How did these prosperous and peaceful states reach such a tragic condition? What feats of our policymakers and politicians pushed these states to the brink of destruction?

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Rally in Patna: Non-farmer bodies to highlight plight of agriculture in Eastern India ahead of march to Parliament

P Sainath By A Representative Ahead of the march to Parliament on November 29-30, 2018, organized by over 210 farmer and agricultural worker organisations of the country demanding a 21-day special session of Parliament to deliberate on remedial measures for safeguarding the interest of farm, farmers and agricultural workers, a mass rally been organized for November 23, Gandhi Sangrahalaya (Gandhi Museum), Gandhi Maidan, Patna. Say the organizers, the Eastern region merits special attention, because, while crisis of farmers and agricultural workers in Western, Southern and Northern India has received some attention in the media and central legislature, the plight of those in the Eastern region of the country (Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Eastern UP) has remained on the margins. To be addressed by P Sainath, founder of People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), a statement issued ahead of the rally says, the Eastern India was the most prosperous regi...

'Centre criminally negligent': SKM demands national disaster declaration in flood-hit states

By A Representative The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) has urged the Centre to immediately declare the recent floods and landslides in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, and Haryana as a national disaster, warning that the delay in doing so has deepened the suffering of the affected population.

Counterview

Search This Blog