The Competition World

The Arctic Council: Is There a Case for India? Dr Vijay Sakhuja It is an acknowledged fact that the melting of the Arctic sea-ice is offering both opportunities and challenges for the international community. The opportunities accrue in the form ofnewfound oil and gas deposits, unexploited marine living resources and shorter shipping routesconnecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. The challenges arise from the adversarialimpacts of the melting ice on the livelihoods of the peoples and communities of the Arctic,disturbance in the delicate marine biodiversity of the region and the shrinking of the permafrost(permanently frozen soil) that would release large volumes of greenhouse gases which could further aggravate global warming. The challenges also arise from competing territorial claims by the littoral states over the Arctic sea-ice, safety of shipping routes, restructuring of militariesto defend Arctic territory which have a major geopolitical and geostrategic focus. At another...

Obama Visit to India: Impressions from China The three-day state visit of the US President Barack Obama to India from 6 to  9 November 2010 was covered adequately by the Chinese media and several details  of the visit were reported except the President’s address to Indian Parliament.  Significantly, some of the important issues such as US support to India’s candidature  for a permanent seat in a reformed United Nations Security Council (UNSC) received  mixed reaction in Chinese media while other issues were reported without adding any  value judgment. The analysis in Chinese media and blogs indicated that the visit of  Obama was primarily aimed to help counterbalance the rise of China.   A study of a few important issues relating to President Obama’s visit to India  could be a more logical way to understand response from China. The announcement  of President Obama supporting India’s candidature for a permanent seat in a reformed  UN...

Pollution in Rivers             The pollution load on major rivers has increased over the years due to industrialization and  urbanisation . Use of water for irrigation, drinking, power and other purposes compound the challenge. Source of Pollution The rivers are polluted by the discharge of treated and untreated municipal waste and industrial effluent. All the large and medium industries have installed effluent treatment plants and are generally meeting the prescribed standards (30 mg / 1) with respect to Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand (BOD). However, the cumulative impact of many industrial point sources adds to higher concentration in some pockets of the country. In case of municipal wastewater, it is estimated that  Class-I cities (423) and Class –II towns (449) generate more than 33000 million  litres  of sewage per day against which the treatment capacity exists only for about 7000 million ...

Challenges of Infrastructure The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh declared that India should aim to grow by at least 10% annually during the 12th Five Year Plan which begins in 2012-13. To achieve this ambitious target what is crucial is infrastructure development. The Economy faces serious infrastructure bottleneck and if this is not handled swiftly, moving on to higher growth path will remain only a dream. One may argue growth is very important and infrastructure will grow by itself as we push growth. It does not work that way and if infrastructure growth does not keep pace with overall economic growth, there is every possibility that the economy gets overheated, which can have negative effect. Overheating of the economy means for example an industrial cluster is set up without adequate electricity in the area for round the clock operation. In such a scenario production will dip leading to inadequate supply of the product to meet the demand. This will overheat the economy resulting...

Effects Due to Carbon Emission              The adverse effects caused to environment due to carbon emission include increased frequency of extreme weather events, and variation in pattern of monsoons, rise in surface temperature, sea level rise and melting of glaciers along with other factors. Climate Change is also likely to affect agriculture and food production and result in increase incidence of vector borne diseases.             The effects on human life include increase in malnutrition and consequent disorders, with implications for child growth and development; increased deaths, disease and injury due to heat waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts; increased burden of diarrhoeal disease and altered spatial distribution of some infectious-disease vectors.             The Government follows the policy...