The Prime Minister has warned that India cannot afford to rest on technological advancements as there is net deterioration in the international strategic and security environment.Dr. Manmohan Singh asserted that the political uncertainties in the immediate and extended neighbourhood, civil strife and turmoil in West Asia, terrorism and threats to cyber security present complex challenges that require both conventional as well as technological responses. Giving away the DRDO awards for the year 2011-12 in New Delhi today, Dr. Manmohan Singh re-iteratd that government is fully committed to modernise country's armed forces and provide them with whatever they need to secure the frontiers.
Expressing concern hat the share of indigenous content in defence procurement continues to be low ,Dr.Singh said that there is a need to deliver projects within reasonable time and cost. Emphasising that the country has to have its own domestic defence industry the Prime Minister said that both public and private sectors, have to come to a level where they can compete with global players.
Lauding the role of DRDO in critical innovations, the Prime Minister suggested that steps have to be taken for better partnership between public and private entrepreneurs in defence production. He said, the challenge now is to create greater incentives for domestic industry to develop capabilities for system integration, which at present only a few companies have. He said that the domestic industry need a boost to quicken the pace of development.
The Prime Minister informed that the Government is currently examining the Naresh Chandra Committee Report, which has also made a number of important recommendations with regard to defence procurement. It calls for a long term policy for increasing indigenization of defence production and high tech industries in consultation and collaboration with the private sector. A committee led by Ravindra Gupta is looking into this specific aspect.
On the Rama Rao Review Committee Report on Redefining DRDO , Dr. Singh that the current bureaucratic system of administering scientific and technical departments have to be changed to inspire young scientists to participate enthusiastically in the task of building India into a scientific and technological powerhouse.
The Prime Minister also gave away DRDO Lifetime Achievement Award to Professor P. Ramarao and Technological leadership award to Scientists A.K. Chakarbarty, Dr. K.Sekhar and Dr. K. Tamilmani , Academy excellence award to Professor V.G. Idichandy and team besides other awards.

The first ever Asia Pacific conference on giftedness in the gulf region got underway in Dubai. The five day long conference is aimed at promoting the world class standards and best practices for the gifted and the talented students from the region.

Focus is on the empowerment of youth and encourage the gifted and talented among them, The theme this year is “Nurturing Talent, Growing potential “ to capitalize on the human potential at an early stage and nurtuting the talent through education.

One of the highlights is the Children and Youth Summit ,where the gifted or talented children in the 9-18 year age group are groomed to excel in their respective fields. These include engineering exploration, new inventions program, robotic systems design, innovation house, high tech chamber for 12 plus age group with an Intelligence Quotient ,IQ of 130 plus. 

In addition there are special sessions for those who wan to excel in leadership , dance, music ,arts and crafts and wild life activities .These sessions are being conducted by renowned experts from all over the world.

The event has been organized by Asia Pacific Conference on Giftedness for the development and education of gifted and talented children in Asia-Pacific region. APFG consists of scholars, teachers, parents of gifted or talented children, and those interested in development of gifted and talented children and gifted education. Members of the APFG are from Australia, China. India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand ,United Arab Emirates etc.

The Government has taken up a series of measures to promote investment opportunities in India. These include the new Qualified Foreign Investors, QFI route, recent changes in the external commercial Borrowing Guidelines and initiatives to encourage investments in the infrastructure sector.

The new QFI route was launched recently as the access option for investors in India and investors have shown keen interest in knowing the details.Gulf region is one of the important destinations to seek investments in India. 

In order to reach out to the investors in the gulf region, the Ministry of Finance is holding a series of road shows in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait.

The first road show gets underway in Riyadh on Sunday. A high level delegation led by the Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, R. Gopalan, representatives from the Securities and Exchange Board of India SEBI, the Reserve Bank of India RBI, Senior Officials from Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue and Department of Disinvestment would engage in a series of interactions with the captains of industry and business leaders in the gulf region to explain the investor friendly business opportunities in India.

Capital flows in the form of FDI from GCC to India have gathered pace in recent years and were around $2.6 billion by January 2012 and it is expected that it has a lot of potential to pick up in the times to come.