Maldives Financial News

India should certainly be alert about the proximity of Maldives to China and the government must be aware of the danger that this represents, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said here on Sunday. China has been attempting to expand its influence throughout India's periphery, he said at the 54th annual day of 'Thuglak' magazine here.

Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Lakshadweep and derogatory remarks by three Maldivian ministers against India and PM Modi have led to a resurgence of interest in visiting the island chain, despite 2023 recording the lowest number of aircraft movements to the archipelago since 2015, excluding the archipelago 2020, according to AAI data. The Agatti Island airport in Lakshadweep registered the lowest number of flights during the April-November 2023 period, the lowest in eight years, according to the Airports Authority of India (AAI).

SunOnline newspaper. Ibrahim Khaleel, the Minister at the President's Office for Strategic Communications, told SunOnline newspaper that both the countries had agreed to set up a high-level core group during the meeting between President Muizzu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the COP28 in Dubai in December. Khaleel said besides the withdrawal of Indian military personnel, the group also discussed expediting India-backed development projects in the island nation.

Indian vs Chinese tourists in Maldives: The rise and fall in last 10 years As per the local paper Adhadhu, Azim was the former CEO of the Maldives Transport and Contracting Company (MTCC) during the last government. He started his career as an internal auditor at Coopers & Lybrand and apart from running his own business, held several government positions, ANI reported.

Maldives said Saturday that his country's small size doesn't give anyone the license to bully it, in a sign of defiance toward India, the archipelago state's giant neighbor. President Mohamed Muizzu, speaking to the media on his return from India's regional rival China, said the Maldives is not in any country's backyard and that the Indian Ocean does not belong to a single country — a reference to a recent tiff between the Maldives and India.

Salaar box office collection Day 23: Prabhas' Salaar: Part One- Ceasefire' saw a box office collection of ₹0.55 crore on Day 23 in the fourth week since its release. This is the fourth Saturday run for the movie. The film, available in Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Hindi has performed well in the first 23 days at the box office, earning ₹475.1 crore in India, according to data by Sacnilk.

boycott Maldives trend as Indians expressed displeasure on the remarks made against PM Modi. Maldives took action against the 3 ministers and suspended them from their positions, but many Indians canceled their plans to visit Maldives with influential celebrities requesting people of the country to visit our islands like Lakshadweep instead. In his address, the Maldives President asserted that the ocean does not belong to any specific country and Maldives has one of the biggest shares of the ocean.

state visit to China, Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu on Saturday struck a defiant note saying that his country may be small but «doesn't give them the license to bully us». His comments came amid a diplomatic row with India over derogatory social media posts by three of his ministers against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. «We may be small but this doesn't give them the license to bully us,» Muizzu, who is regarded as a pro-China leader, said without naming any country.

Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu said on Saturday that China, largest external creditor to the country, has agreed to consider restructuring the repayment of loans taken by his country and the governments will initiate negotiations soon. He told the media in Male after his return from a five-day high-profile state visit to China that he has directly appealed to Chinese President Xi Jinping to restructure the loans provided to the Maldives. He said that the loans were direct loans and that a technical team from China's Finance Ministry will travel to Maldives soon «to research and decide the way to offer a grace period in loan repayments over next five years, Maldives news portal Sun online reported.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday. Diplomacy continues and sometimes solutions to difficult situations do not come in haste, he said while speaking on 'Bharat's Rise in Geopolitics' at an event here, during which he took questions from the audience.

Alliance Air, which is the only Indian airline that operates flights to Lakshadweep, has started additional flights to the island amid the India-Maldives row.

India-Maldives row, Alliance Air the only airline that operates to Lakshadweep has started additional flights. Due to a surge in the number of passengers willing to visit Lakshadweep, Alliance Air, the only Indian airline that operates to Lakshadweep, has started additional flights to Kochi-Agatti-Kochi. A senior official of Alliance Air informed that the additional flights will operate two days a week i.e.

₹55,000 to cancel a pre-booked honeymoon trip to the Maldives. "Pre-booked Maldives honeymoon trip. Costs 55k for Cancellation.

₹45,000-crore investment to develop river cruise tourism, aiming to leverage India's inland waterways for economic growth. The government is considering an allocation of ₹2.2 trillion for food subsidy in the upcoming budget, which would be a 10% increase from the previous year, Mint reported. The allocation would align with the government's focus on ensuring food security and keeping food inflation in check.

Ill-advised comments by Maldivian ministers against India sparked a diplomatic row, led to their ejection from authority in Maldives and set off social media calls here to develop Lakshadweep, a Union territory off the coast of Kerala, as an alternative tourist destination. While they hold parallel appeal as holiday isles with white-sand beaches amid dreamscape waters, replicating Maldives’ model of high-end resort exclusivity may not be possible at that scale, given Lakshadweep’s smaller size, even if new infrastructure can support an enlarged influx of tourists.

Indian commandos hunting pirates after an attack in the Arabian Sea illustrates New Delhi's «significant» expansion of a muscular maritime force reflecting global ambitions, analysts say. The commandos, deployed this month from an Indian-built warship after an attempted hijacking of a merchant bulk carrier, are part of a major increase of naval forces in seas where rival neighbour China has already long expanded its reach. «It's significant given the geopolitical context» and the aggressive «use of naval assets», said Uday Bhaskar, head of the New Delhi-based Society for Policy Studies think tank. In recent years Beijing has negotiated infrastructure deals with countries around the Indian Ocean as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, including Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bangladesh and Djibouti, where it opened its first overseas military base in 2017, raising concerns among Indian officials. Now Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expected to be re-elected later this year, is looking to raise the global heft of India, the world's fifth-largest economy, which last year displaced China as the most populous country.

parliamentary polls on March 17. Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), the main opposition which has a majority in the Maldivian parliament, is expected to put up a strong fight in polls, ET has learnt. The elections will test Muizzu's policy, including his approach towards big powers like India and China, according to observers of Maldivian politics.

Lakshadweep, a tropical archipelago located 406km west of Kochi in Kerala, has gained attention in recent times. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi's visit and a viral snorkelling picture sparked interest in this unexplored destination. Lakshadweep, consisting of 36 atolls and coral reefs, has become a popular choice for many celebrities. Out of the 36 islands, 10 are inhabited and open for tourism.

Times of India report, tour operators have seen a noticeable decline in enquiries and a significant drop in prices for Maldives holiday packages despite multiple long weekends in January. The ToI report cited the example of Hyderabad, wherein a three-day package from Telangana's capital city to Maldives would cost between ₹55,000 and ₹70,000, now costs ₹45,000. Or even lower! The ToI report also said one-way flight tickets from here to Male are now going between ₹12,000 and ₹15,000, down from the previous average of ₹20,000.

derogatory remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Maldives Deputy Youth Ministers Mariyam Shiuna, Mahzoom Majid and Malsha Shareef have been suspended indefinitely, but all three will continue to receive their salaries, the President's Office has said, Maldives local media Adhadhu reported. Providing further information about the suspensions, Maldives President's Office Communications Minister Ibrahim Khaleel told Adhadhu that the three deputy ministers were suspended indefinitely as a measure taken to look into the matter.

Xi Jinping told Maldivian counterpart Mohamed Muizzu that he supported the strategically located archipelago in protecting its "sovereignty", state media reported, after the two countries signed a number of infrastructure and other agreements. Muizzu was elected in September as a proxy for a pro-China predecessor jailed on corruption charges, vowing to cultivate «strong ties» with Beijing.