1) ASEAN-India Summit :-
News:- ASEAN-India Summit is underway in Malaysia .
ASEAN :-
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a political and economic organization of ten Southeast Asian countries. It was formed on 8 August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Since then, membership has expanded to include Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Vietnam. Its aims include accelerating economic growth, social progress, and sociocultural evolution among its members, protection of regional peace and stability, and opportunities for member countries to resolve differences peacefully.
The ASEAN Way:-
The ‘Asean Way’ refers to a methodology or approach to solving issues that respects the cultural norms of Southeast Asia. Masilamani and Peterson summarise it as: “…a working process or style that is informal and personal. Policymakers constantly utilise compromise, consensus, and consultation in the informal decision-making process…it above all prioritizes a consensus-based, non-conflict way of addressing problems. Quiet diplomacy allows ASEAN leaders to communicate without bringing the discussions into the public view. Members avoid embarrassment that may lead to further conflict.”
India’s Perspective : –
- ASEAN forum has been a success management tool for conflict of the region. Diversity and Dispute management is the pillar of strength of this region.
- It is vital for India’s ACT EAST policy to embolden economic, cultural and political ties.This region sends a huge no. of Buddhist pilgrimage to India.
- India has troubled west , and it can’t afford a troubled east, hence ASEAN engagement is vital . It also helps in countering cross-border insurgency ,terrorism and smuggling.
- This forum provides platform for amicable solution to South China Sea disputes.
- This region particularly important for strengthening India’s naval presence and act as a geopolitical strength in case of a conflict.
2) Blue Revolution Scheme: Integrated Development and Management of Fisheries:-
- Blue Revolution: Integrated Development and Management of Fisheries
- Focused approach of this nature shall lead to ushering in Blue Revolution through an integrated development and management of fisheries and aquaculture sector and would ensure sustained acceleration and intensification of fish production beyond the projected annual growth rate.
- Fisheries are an important sector. Fisheries supports livelihood of almost 1.5 million peoples in our country. India is one of the leading producers of fish in the world, occupying the second position globally in terms of production.The contribution of Indian fish to the food basket of the world has been substantial.
- The export from fisheries earnings of Rs. 33,441 crore in 2014-15 (US$ 5.51 billion), equaled about 18% of the export earnings from the agriculture sector.
- India is the second largest producer (42. 10 lakh tonnes) of fish from aquaculture which contributes about 6.3 per cent to global aquaculture production. Keeping the recent developments and trends in fish production in view, and the previous Plan periods, it is expected that a growth rate of about 8.0 per cent can be achieved in the inland sector. The future demand for fish and fishery products has to be mostly sourced from aquaculture and culture based capture fisheries in reservoirs.
- India has over 8000 Km. of coastal line and nearly 2 million Sq Km of EEZ and half a million Sq Km. of Continental Shelf. From these marine resources, India has an estimated fisheries potential of 4.11 million tons. Similarly, 3.0 million hectares of reservoirs, 2.5 million hectares of ponds and tanks, 1.25 million hectares of brackish water area, cold water resources of hilly states and all other inland fishery resources offer a production potential of about 15 million tons. Against this potential, the production from inland sector was 6.58 million tonnes during 2014-15. In this context, optimum utilization of resources becomes pivotal to achieve the targeted production.
- While the required financial support is being provided to the farmers, fishermen and entrepreneurs connected with the fisheries sector through various ongoing programs namely, Centrally Sponsored Schemes, National Fisheries Development Board, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana etc. still, enhancement of productivity and production are the key challenges in achieving the targeted production
- The Blue Revolution, encompassing multi-dimensional activities, focuses mainly on increasing production from aquaculture and fisheries resources, both inland and marine. The vast fishery resources offer immense opportunities to enhance fish production through aquaculture-system diversification, species diversification, proper management, introduction of new and advanced technologies in both marine and inland sector, adoption of scientific practices and application of suitable fish health management strategies etc.
3)First Passenger Carrying Train Between Silchar – Guwahati Through The Newly Constructed Broad Gauge Section Lumbding –Silchar in Assam –
- The 210km Lumding-Silchar GC project was sanctioned in the year 1996-97 at an initial cost of Rs.648 crores. Declared as a National Project in 2004, the project connects the Barak Valley of Assam by broad gauge track fulfilling a longstanding demand of the people of this area
- Connection of Silchar by BG railway line would not only benefit the people of Barak Valley, but would lead to opening of new vistas in connection to the hitherto isolated states of Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur
4) Raman Effect :-
- Raman Research Institute, set up by C.V. Raman, who passed away 45 years ago, remains testimony to his love for science .
- At the start of the Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe, many people, including eminent Jewish scientists, were dislodged from their homes and were seeking a country to adopt. Herein, C.V. Raman saw an opportunity to attract the best of community towards Indian Institute of Science — a fledgling institute where the Nobel laureate had just been made the first Indian director in 1933. Quantum physicist Max Born was brought to India by Raman.
- With discontent brewing after the appointment of Raman, the Irving committee, which was set up to look into the functioning of the institute, found the scientist had “not done enough” to reduce the expenditures of the institute — a reference to the intensive gardening on IISc. campus and the appointment of Born. The report saw Raman leave IISc., while, Born left for England — a beautiful, heartfelt send-off letter from his “admirers and students” of the IISc. was recently found by the RRI Trust. The quantum physicist eventually won the Nobel Prize in the U.K
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Timeline: Raman’s Life
November 7, 1888: Born in present-day Tiruchirapalli district of Tamil Nadu
March 16, 1928: For a programme at Central College in Bangalore, C.V. Raman was invited as the chief guest. He announces the phenomenon discovered by him, the Raman Effect.
1930: Wins the Nobel Prize for his discovery; first from Asia to win the prize for sciences
1933: Becomes the director of the Indian Institute of Science. During his term, he undertakes extensive planting on the campus and attempts to bring in fleeing Jewish scientists from Nazi Germany.
1934: Founds the Indian Academy of Sciences (now on C.V. Raman Road). Starts to raise funds for what is now the Raman Research Institute.
1938: Irving committee reviews and removes C.V. Raman as IISc. director owing to his “inability to contain expenditure” on gardening and on a German scientist.
1943: Forms manufacturing companies, to fund the RRI
1948: On retirement from IISc., he forms the RRI. He remains its director till his death.
November 21, 1970: Dies in Bengaluru. His body is cremated in front of the Raman Research Institute main building.
Achievements:-
- During a voyage to Europe in 1921, Raman noticed the blue colour of glaciers and the Mediterranean sea. He was motivated to discover the reason for the blue colour. Raman carried out experiments regarding the scattering of light by water and transparent blocks of ice which explained the phenomenon.
- Raman also worked on the acoustics of musical instruments. He worked out the theory of transverse vibration of bowed strings, on the basis of superposition velocities. He was also the first to investigate the harmonic nature of the sound of the Indian drums such as the tabla and the mridangam.
- Raman’s work on acoustics was an important prelude, both experimentally and conceptually, to his later work on optics and quantum mechanics. He also investigated the propagation of sound in whispering galleries
5)UN approves resolution urging action against IS:-
- UNSC members vote on a French-sponsored counter terrorism resolution aimed at Islamic extremist on Friday at United Nations headquarters. The Security Council unanimously approved the resolution, calling on all nations to redouble and coordinate action to prevent further attacks by Islamic State terrorists and other extremist groups.
- The measure is the 14th terrorism-related resolution adopted yesterday by the UN’s most powerful body since 1999.
- This does not constitute an authorisation for military action, however, because the resolution is not drafted under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter which is the only way the United Nations can give a green light to the use of force.
6)Gujral Doctrine and India’s Neighbourhood:-
News:- Recently few editorials came that claim India-Nepal relationship deteriorated and most of the editorials tried to base their assessment on Gujral Doctrine.In this context , it is necessary to Understand the strength and weaknesses of Gujral Doctrine.
- The Gujral Doctrine is considered to have made a substantial change in the manner in which India’s bilateral relations were conducted with its immediate neighbours, especially the smaller ones. The latter too welcomed the doctrine and had a positive attitude towards the principles it spelt out
- The Gujral Doctrine is a set of five principles to guide the conduct of foreign relations with India’s immediate neighbours as spelt out by I.K. Gujral, first as India’s foreign minister and later as the prime minister. Among other factors, these five principles arise from the belief that India’s stature and strength cannot be divorced from the quality of its relations with its neighbours.
- It, thus, recognises the supreme importance of friendly, cordial relations with neighbours.
- These principles are:-
- Neighbours like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, India does not ask for reciprocity, but gives and accommodates what it can in good faith and trust
- No South Asian country should allow its territory to be used against the interest of another country of the region
- No country should interfere in the internal affairs of another
- All South Asian countries must respect each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty
- Settle all disputes through peaceful bilateral negotiation
According to Gujral , these five principles, scrupulously adhered to, would achieve a fundamental recasting of South Asia’s regional relationships, including the difficult relationship between India and Pakistan. Further, the implementation of these principles would generate a climate of close and mutually benign cooperation in the region, where the weight and size of India is regarded positively and as an asset by these countries.
Analysis and Criticism of the Doctrine:-
- An important question that arises is whether it is easy to implement these principles. It is evident that these principles not only reflect India’s attitude towards its neighbours, but also express the attitude which India would like its neighbours to adopt in conducting relations with India in particular and the countries of South Asia in general.
- Thus, it is a package as a whole whereby India has stated in one go what it will do on its part and similarly what it expects its neighbours to do. Those who agree, will have to adhere, fully and completely, to all the principles and not in parts, to one of the principles in isolation or in exception to the others.
- In this sense, it is implied that, to a great extent, the principles of the Gujral Doctrine can be successful only in a specific environment whereby the neighbours too perceive them as being beneficial to their country and the region as a whole. What follows from this, which is unstated, is that beyond a particular point whereby the neighbours do not adhere to these principles, India in its national interest may also not be able to adhere to them.
- Surely, India cannot continue to stick to its principle of non-reciprocity if any of the neighbouring countries believe either in internationalising bilateral issues or supporting elements inimical to India’s interests. Further, these principles are open to different interpretations as each country views them.
- The principle that all the disputes be settled through peaceful bilateral negotiations is a known stand which India has held for long. On the other hand, India’s neighbours have on many occasions internationalised bilateral disputes. The principle that none should interfere in the internal affairs of the others becomes difficult to define because the South Asian region has many similarities in terms of culture, language and other factors.
- Over the years, particularly after a series of terrorist attacks, the Gujral Doctrine came to be criticised particularly IK Gujral’s decision to dismantle India’s military ability to launch covert strikes against terrorust groups.
Conclusion:- It is true that this doctrine has all ingredients of Humanistic principles and largely drawn from India’s civilizational value of non-interference and pursuit of peace .This is a perfect doctrine in a perfect world – but to the dismay , the world is far from perfect and this decade has seen the most inhuman acts ever inflicted on mankind.Hence , given the geopolitical unrest around the world and threats of terrorism , India could not purse a doctrine in its entirety when its immediate neighbourhood are engaged in the activities inimical to the interest of India.This doctrine is a peace-time doctrine and should be pursed with the peace-loving nations , not otherwise.
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The United Nations has shaped so much of global co-operation and regulation that we wouldn’t recognise our world today without the UN’s pervasive role in it. So many small details of our lives – such as postage and copyright laws – are subject to international co-operation nurtured by the UN.
In its 75th year, however, the UN is in a difficult moment as the world faces climate crisis, a global pandemic, great power competition, trade wars, economic depression and a wider breakdown in international co-operation.
Still, the UN has faced tough times before – over many decades during the Cold War, the Security Council was crippled by deep tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. The UN is not as sidelined or divided today as it was then. However, as the relationship between China and the US sours, the achievements of global co-operation are being eroded.
The way in which people speak about the UN often implies a level of coherence and bureaucratic independence that the UN rarely possesses. A failure of the UN is normally better understood as a failure of international co-operation.
We see this recently in the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.
The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
Where states fail to agree, the UN is powerless to act.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the official formation of the UN, when 50 founding nations signed the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, we look at some of its key triumphs and resounding failures.
Five successes
1. Peacekeeping
The United Nations was created with the goal of being a collective security organisation. The UN Charter establishes that the use of force is only lawful either in self-defence or if authorised by the UN Security Council. The Security Council’s five permanent members, being China, US, UK, Russia and France, can veto any such resolution.
The UN’s consistent role in seeking to manage conflict is one of its greatest successes.
A key component of this role is peacekeeping. The UN under its second secretary-general, the Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjöld – who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace prize after he died in a suspicious plane crash – created the concept of peacekeeping. Hammarskjöld was responding to the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US opposed the invasion of Egypt by its allies Israel, France and the UK.
UN peacekeeping missions involve the use of impartial and armed UN forces, drawn from member states, to stabilise fragile situations. “The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war,” said then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, when the forces won the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize following missions in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe.
However, peacekeeping also counts among the UN’s major failures.
2. Law of the Sea
Negotiated between 1973 and 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) set up the current international law of the seas. It defines states’ rights and creates concepts such as exclusive economic zones, as well as procedures for the settling of disputes, new arrangements for governing deep sea bed mining, and importantly, new provisions for the protection of marine resources and ocean conservation.
Mostly, countries have abided by the convention. There are various disputes that China has over the East and South China Seas which present a conflict between power and law, in that although UNCLOS creates mechanisms for resolving disputes, a powerful state isn’t necessarily going to submit to those mechanisms.
Secondly, on the conservation front, although UNCLOS is a huge step forward, it has failed to adequately protect oceans that are outside any state’s control. Ocean ecosystems have been dramatically transformed through overfishing. This is an ecological catastrophe that UNCLOS has slowed, but failed to address comprehensively.
3. Decolonisation
The idea of racial equality and of a people’s right to self-determination was discussed in the wake of World War I and rejected. After World War II, however, those principles were endorsed within the UN system, and the Trusteeship Council, which monitored the process of decolonisation, was one of the initial bodies of the UN.
Although many national independence movements only won liberation through bloody conflicts, the UN has overseen a process of decolonisation that has transformed international politics. In 1945, around one third of the world’s population lived under colonial rule. Today, there are less than 2 million people living in colonies.
When it comes to the world’s First Nations, however, the UN generally has done little to address their concerns, aside from the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007.
4. Human rights
The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 for the first time set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, recognising that the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.
Since 1948, 10 human rights treaties have been adopted – including conventions on the rights of children and migrant workers, and against torture and discrimination based on gender and race – each monitored by its own committee of independent experts.
The language of human rights has created a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the individual, the state and the international system. Although some people would prefer that political movements focus on ‘liberation’ rather than ‘rights’, the idea of human rights has made the individual person a focus of national and international attention.
5. Free trade
Depending on your politics, you might view the World Trade Organisation as a huge success, or a huge failure.
The WTO creates a near-binding system of international trade law with a clear and efficient dispute resolution process.
The majority Australian consensus is that the WTO is a success because it has been good for Australian famers especially, through its winding back of subsidies and tariffs.
However, the WTO enabled an era of globalisation which is now politically controversial.
Recently, the US has sought to disrupt the system. In addition to the trade war with China, the Trump Administration has also refused to appoint tribunal members to the WTO’s Appellate Body, so it has crippled the dispute resolution process. Of course, the Trump Administration is not the first to take issue with China’s trade strategies, which include subsidises for ‘State Owned Enterprises’ and demands that foreign firms transfer intellectual property in exchange for market access.
The existence of the UN has created a forum where nations can discuss new problems, and climate change is one of them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess climate science and provide policymakers with assessments and options. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a permanent forum for negotiations.
However, despite an international scientific body in the IPCC, and 165 signatory nations to the climate treaty, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
Under the Paris Agreement, even if every country meets its greenhouse gas emission targets we are still on track for ‘dangerous warming’. Yet, no major country is even on track to meet its targets; while emissions will probably decline this year as a result of COVID-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will still increase.
This illustrates a core conundrum of the UN in that it opens the possibility of global cooperation, but is unable to constrain states from pursuing their narrowly conceived self-interests. Deep co-operation remains challenging.
Five failures of the UN
1. Peacekeeping
During the Bosnian War, Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed in the town of Srebrenica, declared a ‘safe area’ by the UN in 1993, failed in 1995 to stop the massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. This is one of the most widely discussed examples of the failures of international peacekeeping operations.
On the massacre’s 10th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that the UN had “made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality”, contributing to a mass murder that would “haunt our history forever”.
If you look at some of the other infamous failures of peacekeeping missions – in places such as Rwanda, Somalia and Angola – it is the limited powers given to peacekeeping operations that have resulted in those failures.
2. The invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, which was unlawful and without Security Council authorisation, reflects the fact that the UN is has very limited capacity to constrain the actions of great powers.
The Security Council designers created the veto power so that any of the five permanent members could reject a Council resolution, so in that way it is programmed to fail when a great power really wants to do something that the international community generally condemns.
In the case of the Iraq invasion, the US didn’t veto a resolution, but rather sought authorisation that it did not get. The UN, if you go by the idea of collective security, should have responded by defending Iraq against this unlawful use of force.
The invasion proved a humanitarian disaster with the loss of more than 400,000 lives, and many believe that it led to the emergence of the terrorist Islamic State.
3. Refugee crises
The UN brokered the 1951 Refugee Convention to address the plight of people displaced in Europe due to World War II; years later, the 1967 Protocol removed time and geographical restrictions so that the Convention can now apply universally (although many countries in Asia have refused to sign it, owing in part to its Eurocentric origins).
Despite these treaties, and the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees, there is somewhere between 30 and 40 million refugees, many of them, such as many Palestinians, living for decades outside their homelands. This is in addition to more than 40 million people displaced within their own countries.
While for a long time refugee numbers were reducing, in recent years, particularly driven by the Syrian conflict, there have been increases in the number of people being displaced.
During the COVID-19 crisis, boatloads of Rohingya refugees were turned away by port after port. This tragedy has echoes of pre-World War II when ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were refused entry by multiple countries.
And as a catastrophe of a different kind looms, there is no international framework in place for responding to people who will be displaced by rising seas and other effects of climate change.
4. Conflicts without end
Across the world, there is a shopping list of unresolved civil conflicts and disputed territories.
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. More recent, ongoing conflicts include the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The common denominator of unresolved conflicts is either division among the great powers, or a lack of international interest due to the geopolitical stakes not being sufficiently high. For instance, the inaction during the Rwandan civil war in the 1990s was not due to a division among great powers, but rather a lack of political will to engage.
In Syria, by contrast, Russia and the US have opposing interests and back opposing sides: Russia backs the government of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US does not.
5. Acting like it’s 1945
The UN is increasingly out of step with the reality of geopolitics today.
The permanent members of the Security Council reflect the division of power internationally at the end of World War II. The continuing exclusion of Germany, Japan, and rising powers such as India and Indonesia, reflects the failure to reflect the changing balance of power.
Also, bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are part of the UN system, continue to be dominated by the West. In response, China has created potential rival institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Western domination of UN institutions undermines their credibility. However, a more fundamental problem is that institutions designed in 1945 are a poor fit with the systemic global challenges – of which climate change is foremost – that we face today.