Current affairs

The parliamentary elections will be held on 18 March 2007 in Finland. In India the advance voting will be organised 7.-10.3. in New Delhi and 7.-8.3. in Chennai, Goa, Kolkata and Mumbai and in Sri Lanka in Colombo. Finland's national public service broadcasting company YLE will carry the Parliamentary Elections results service programmes via satellite and the internet,

The aim of the programme is to encourage academic mobility between Finland and India, and to support the internationalisation of research and education by strengthening the cooperation between Finnish and Indian universities and research institutes.

President Tarja Halonen’s party also included Minister of Trade and Industry Mauri Pekkarinen and a business delegation. Discussions on Finnish-Indian economic relations were held on Tuesday. Key note address by President Halonen at Finland-India CEO Round Table on 23 January 2007 attached.

President Halonen attends the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit DSDS, where she spoke and took part in the panel discussion. Later President Halonen will meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Speech by the President attached.

President of the Republic of Finland Tarja Halonen met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi on Monday 22 January. The President and the Prime Minister discussed bilateral relations between Finland and India, including economic relations and air traffic. Finnair announced on Monday that the number of weekly flights to India will increase from the current three to 12.

Finnair, the fastest Airline to Northern Europe has started new route between Helsinki and Delhi with three flights a week with Finnair’s Boeing MD-11 fleet. Thanks to Helsinki’s optimal geographical position, the flight time from Helsinki to Delhi is only 6 hours and 30 minutes.

For the first time ever, more than 100 European higher education institutions from more than 20 European countries gathered in New Delhi for the European Higher Education Fair on 24–26 November. The European Union had taken this initiative to provide an opportunity for the Indian students to get a close and direct insight into the diversity of European higher education, research, the high quality of education, and Europe in general.

Finland and India have many unused opportunities for cooperation, said Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja and India´s Deputy Foreign Minister Anand Sharma at their meeting on October 13 after the EU-India summit meeting held in Helsinki. Matters brought up in the discussions included bilateral agreements, and new forms of cooperation such as exchanges of experts and investments.