Cyclone threatens to hamper Rudd's trip

Cyclone Phyan is threatening to blow Kevin Rudd's trip to India off course.
Cyclonic winds and pelting rain hammered Mumbai just hours before Mr Rudd was to
touch down on Wednesday for his first visit to the subcontinent as prime minister.

Mr Rudd had been due to start his whistlestop visit with an appearance on Wednesday
night at the one-day international cricket match between India and Australia.
But the cricket was cancelled because of the approach of Cyclone Phyan, which is
threatening India's west coast.
In its lunchtime bulletin, the India Meteorological Department was reporting the
cyclone was a red alert - expected to cause storm surges of about a metre in the
Greater Mumbai region when it makes landfall.
It was about 250km south-southwest of Mumbai and was heading in a north
north-easterly direction.
Mr Rudd has twice before had to postpone visits to India, which was flagged as a
foreign policy priority by Labor when it won government in 2007.
A meeting with business leaders, due to take place on the sidelines of the cricket,
is expected to be moved to another venue.
Australia is eager to grow its economic and strategic links with India, the biggest
democracy in the world with a population of 1.2 billion and a growing middle class.
India is already Australia's fifth biggest customer and is crucial to its growth
prospects over the coming decades.
From Mumbai Mr Rudd will fly to New Delhi, where he has a packed schedule of
meetings during his only full day in India.
The highlight of the day will be a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, after which the leaders are expected to announce a number of climate change
and agriculture-related projects.
Australia is expected to inject $50 million over five years into the Australia-India
Strategic Research Fund.
"The fund supports 50 joint projects in a range of priority areas agreed by the two
governments including renewable energy, agricultural research and vaccines," a
spokesman for Mr Rudd said.
Another $1 million is expected to go to a joint solar cooling project, while $20
million will be spent on a five-year research project into dryland farming.
Mr Rudd is also due to meet India's External Affairs Minister SM Krishna.
The meetings with Mr Krishna and Dr Singh will give the Rudd government another
opportunity to reassure New Delhi that Australia is taking steps to deal with
problems in its international education sector.
The industry, worth $15.5 billion a year, is being threatened by a spate of attacks
against Indian students during the past year that focused attention on problems in
the rapidly growing sector.
India is second only to China in the number of students it sends to Australia.
While the government is keen to shore up the tertiary education industry, it was
younger Indians who were treated to a visit on Wednesday by Mr Rudd's wife, Therese
Rein.
Ms Rein visited youngsters at a kindergarten in the Dharavi slum, the biggest in Asia.
She danced and sang with the children before reading a book to them.