Jyotiraditya Scindia extends invitation to Montreal-based UN agency to join ISA

|HT|

As he interacted with executives and representatives of various nations at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), India’s civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia extended an invitation to the Montreal-based United Nations agency to join the International Solar Alliance (ISA). That came as Scindia met with the president of the Executive Council of ICAO Salvatore Sciacchitano on Wednesday. He also met with ICAO’s secretary-general Juan Carlos Salazar.

Several international and multilateral organisations are partners of the ISA, which was launched by India and France in 2015. Among them are UN agencies like United Nations Development Programme, UN Environment, and others like the World Bank, European Union, and the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Following his meeting with Sciacchitano, Scindia tweeted, “Together with other ICAO members, India is committed to play an instrumental role in growing the global civil aviation market.”

After the meeting with the secretary-general, Salazar tweeted, “India has made decisive contributions to the safe, secure and sustainable development of global #aviation, & plays a key role in today’s recovery.” Scindia also met with representatives from various nations, including those from Canada, the United States, some European and African nations as well as members of the BRICS group, Brazil, Russia and China.

As he met ICAO representatives, Scindia focused on the “democratisation of civil aviation.”

As he tweeted later, they “discussed issues related to making civil aviation more inclusive and affordable, along with the way forward for the sector”.

He outlined measures in India to improve access to the sector.

Scindia pointed out there was approximately 9% penetration in India with regard to the section of the flying population, about 144 million.

Among those he met was US representative to ICAO Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, renowned for his heroic safe landing in adverse conditions of a US Airways aircraft on the Hudson river in New York in 2009, leading to all the passengers aboard surviving. That became the subject of the 2016 film Sully, starring Tom Hanks. On Tuesday evening, Scindia interacted with the Indo-Canadian community in Montreal. He also reacted favourably to request from the national president of the Canada India Global Forum Dr S D Dwivedi for direct flights connecting Vancouver to Chandigarh and Amritsar. That matter, of direct flights connecting Canadian cities with Amritsar, was also discussed when Scindia met with Canada’s Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra on Tuesday afternoon in Ottawa.

Scindia concluded his three-day visit to Canada on Wednesday with his engagements at ICAO in Montreal.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)