• India, Canadian FMs agree to deepen cooperation.
• Both sides seek to repair trust after two years of tensions.
• Emphasise partnership to counter global economic vulnerabilities. 

India and Canada agreed on Monday on a new roadmap for their relations after talks between their foreign ministers in New Delhi, as both countries seek to mend ties strained over the killing of a Canadian Sikh separatist.

The two countries, both of which are looking to diversify trade away from the United States due to tariff announcements, agreed to collaborate on areas like critical minerals, trade and agricultural value chains, a joint statement said.

“Reviving this partnership will not only create opportunities for enhanced economic cooperation but also help mitigate vulnerabilities arising from shifting global alliances,” it said.

Almost two years of strained relations

The statement came after Canada’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and her counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Monday.

“Both of our governments agree on the importance of elevating the relationship,” Anand said in her opening remarks at the meeting with Jaishankar.

Relations between New Delhi and Ottawa were strained for almost two years after then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused New Delhi in 2023 of involvement in the killing of a Canadian Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

India denied Canada’s allegations of involvement in the murder and, in turn, accused Ottawa of fostering separatist groups on its soil.

In June this year, Trudeau’s successor Mark Carney hosted Modi at the G7 summit in Kananaskis in the Canadian province of Alberta.

India is Canada’s top source of temporary foreign workers and international students, as well as an important market for pulses such as lentils and yellow peas.

Canada is home to an influential Sikh community. Indian leaders say there are some fringe groups there that are still sympathetic to the cause of an independent Sikh state called Khalistan to be carved out of Hindu-majority India.

Chaos briefly erupted inside Israel’s Knesset on Monday when two lawmakers interrupted US President Donald Trump’s speech — shouting for Palestine’s recognition before being dragged out by security.

Hadash Party leader Ayman Odeh and fellow MP Ofer Cassif were removed from the chamber after holding up signs reading “Recognise Palestine!” during Trump’s address, which celebrated the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal.

As the pair stood holding their placards, the Knesset speaker banged the gavel and ordered: “Expel this Knesset member!”

Security officials quickly surrounded the protesters and escorted them out as other lawmakers stood and applauded their removal.

“That was very efficient,” Trump quipped, before smoothly continuing his remarks about his envoy, Steve Witkoff.

Outside, Odeh defended his protest on X (formerly Twitter): “They removed me just because I raised the simplest demand — to recognise a Palestinian state. There are two peoples here, and neither is going anywhere.”

Cassif echoed the sentiment, writing that true peace “will only come with the end of the occupation and apartheid and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.”

Trump, the first US president since 2008 to address Israel’s parliament, had hailed a “historic dawn for the Middle East” moments before the disruption — marking the Gaza ceasefire and a major exchange of prisoners between Israel and Hamas as part of the peace deal.

The Nobel prize in economics was awarded on Monday to American-Israeli Joel Mokyr, France’s Philippe Aghion and Canada’s Peter Howitt for work on technology’s impact on sustained economic growth.

Mokyr, 79, won one half of the prize “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Aghion, 69, and Howitt, 79, shared the other half “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction”, it added.

John Hassler, chair of the prize committee, told reporters their work answered questions about how technological innovation drives growth and how sustained growth can be maintained.

“During almost all of humankind’s history, living standards did not change noticeably from generation to generation. Economic growth was, on average, zero, and stagnation was the norm,” Hassler said.

But over the last two centuries “things have been very different.”

‘Creative destruction’

“During the last 200 years, the world has seen more economic growth than ever before in human history,” Kerstin Enflo, a member of the economics prize committee, explained to reporters.

However, she cautioned that “200 years is still just a short period compared to the long run history of stagnation that we saw before.”

“The laureates’ work reminds us that we should not take progress for granted. Instead, society must keep an eye on the factors that generate and sustain economic growth,” Enflo said.

Mokyr, who is a professor at Northwestern University in the United States, “used historical sources as one means to uncover the causes of sustained growth becoming the new normal”, the jury said in a statement.

Aghion and Howitt then created a mathematical model for “creative destruction”, which refers to the process “when a new and better product enters the market, the companies selling the older products lose out”.

‘Openness’

“I can’t find the words to express what I feel,” Aghion told reporters via telephone during the prize announcement.

“I’m still speechless. It came really as a huge surprise,” he continued.

Speaking about what could risk upsetting growth, he mentioned the threats of steep tariffs introduced since US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

“Openness is a driver of growth. Anything that gets in the way of openness is an obstacle to growth,” Aghion said.

The economist also warned Europe not to let the United States and China dominate technological innovation.

“I think European countries have to realise that we should no longer let (the) US and China become technological leaders and lose to them,” he said.

The economics prize is the only Nobel not among the original five created in the will of Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896.

It was instead created through a donation from the Swedish central bank in 1968, leading detractors to dub it “a false Nobel”.

But like the Nobels in chemistry and physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences chooses the winner and follows the same selection process.

The economics prize wraps up this year’s Nobel season which honoured research into the human immune system, practical applications of quantum mechanics and the development of new forms of molecular architecture.

The literature prize went to Hungarian author Laszlo Krasznahorkai whose works explore themes of postmodern dystopia and melancholy.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was given the highly watched Nobel Peace Prize.

In a surprise move, Machado dedicated the prize to Trump, who had made no secret that he thought he deserved it.

The Nobel economics prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1.2 million cheque.

The laureates will receive their prizes at formal ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10.

That date is the anniversary of the death in 1896 of scientist Alfred Nobel, who created the prizes in his will.