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This content originally appeared on AlternativeRadio and was authored by info@alternativeradio.org.
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Following the news that the sixth submarine of the Kalvari-class has commenced sea trials; Kandlikar Venkatesh, Defense Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view: “The commencement of sea trials for the sixth Kalvari-class submarine marks a significant milestone, as it moves closer to its induction into the Indian Navy. With […]
The post Sea trials of sixth Kalvari-class submarine to boost India’s self-reliance in building maritime capabilities, says GlobalData appeared first on Asian Military Review.
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This content originally appeared on Amnesty International and was authored by Amnesty International.
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This content originally appeared on Amnesty International and was authored by Amnesty International.
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Indra’s Lanza 3D radar continues to strengthen itself as one of the most advanced surveillance systems on the market and continues its international expansion. Indra is currently installing its naval version, Lanza-N 3D, on one of the Indian Navy’s destroyer ship, beginning the delivery of the 23 radars that it will provide to the Indian […]
The post Indra Installs the Naval Version of Lanza 3d Radar on an Indian Navy Front Line Ship appeared first on Asian Military Review.
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By Joeli Bili in Suva
A partnership forged between the Indian government and the University of the South Pacific (USP) will see the establishment of a new Fiji-based centre for climate change, coastal and ocean management in the region.
The Sustainable Coastal and Ocean Research Institute (SCORI) at USP’s Suva campus was launched on May 22 by India’s High Commissioner to Fiji, Palaniswamy Subramanyan Karthigeyan, who described the initiative as a “celebration of the future”.
“This is a meeting of the best minds from both sides in the scientific, technology world and possibly being on the frontline of climate action,” Karthigeyan said.
He added that the institute would have India’s unstinted support and the way forward was going to be more critical.
“Unfortunately, due to the [covid] pandemic, we have lost quite a bit of time in taking this initiative forward and we have the momentum to make sure that this is not lost sight of and we make it a benchmark project not just for the region but the entire world,” he said.
“The onus of responsibility is on all of us to make sure that we do justice to that. The best way to do that is to make it a benchmark project in the shortest possible time, and to make it a sustainable model of excellence.”
Karthigeyan echoed similar sentiments made earlier in the day by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 3rd India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) Summit in Papua New Guinea.
Focused on Global South problems
Modi focused on the problems faced by the Global South, including the issues of climate change, natural disasters, hunger, poverty, and various health-related challenges among others.
“I am glad to hear that the Sustainable Coastal and Ocean Research Institute has been established at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. This institute connects India’s experiences in sustainable development with the vision of Pacific Island countries,” he told the summit.
“In addition to research and development, it will be valuable in addressing the challenges of climate change. I am pleased that SCORI is dedicated to the well-being, progress, and prosperity of citizens from 14 countries,” Modi added, drawing attention to India’s desire to partner the region in tackling issues that regional countries have placed priority on.
Prime Minister Modi said Pacific Island countries were not Small Island States, but rather, “large ocean countries”. He noted it was this vast ocean that connected India with the Pacific region.
“The Indian philosophy has always viewed the world as one family. Climate change, natural disasters, hunger, poverty, and various health-related challenges were already prevalent.
“Now, new issues are emerging. Barriers are arising in the supply chains of food, fuel, fertiliser, and pharmaceuticals,” Modi said.
India, he said, stood with its Pacific Island friends during challenging times, whether it was vaccines or essential medicines, wheat or sugar.
‘Unwavering’ support for SCORI
USP’s vice-chancellor and president, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, said the “unwavering support” and endorsement of SCORI by PM Modi and the Fiji government underscored the significance of the institute in advancing climate change and oceans management in our region.
“With the establishment of SCORI, we embark on a new chapter of cooperation between India, Fiji, and the University of the South Pacific,” he said.
“This institute will serve as a hub for the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and cutting-edge technologies, ensuring that our work in climate change and oceans management remains at the forefront of global research.”
Through the collaboration of esteemed scholars from India and Fiji, Professor Ahluwalia said the university aimed to publish ground-breaking research and set new agendas in the field of coastal and ocean studies.
“This institute will greatly enhance our research activities and capacity building, contributing to the sustainability of the Pacific Ocean and aligning with the Blue Pacific 2050 Strategy launched by our Pacific leaders,” he said.
USP deputy vice-chancellor and vice-president (education) Professor Jito Vanualailai said that SCORI would serve as a hub for research and development to meet the needs of Pacific Island countries.
“SCORI will spearhead research and development initiatives that address pressing issues in the region,” he said.
“Together, we strive to develop policies for sustainable management and protection of marine and coastal ecosystems while effectively tackling coastal hazards and vulnerabilities stemming from global warming, ocean acidification and climate change.”
‘Remarkable individuals’
USP’s director of research, Professor Sushil Kumar, said the project was a reality due to the integral role played by some “remarkable individuals and organisations”.
Professor Kumar thanked the governments of Fiji and India for their support to foster collaboration and partnership under SCORI.
He said apart from the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Indian government, several Institutes such as the National Center for Coastal Research are part of the collaborations.
The center will have a dedicated focus on areas of common interests such as coastal vulnerability, coastal erosion and coastal protection, monitoring and mapping of marine biodiversity, ocean observation systems, sea water quality monitoring and capacity building.
SCORI will be funded and maintained by the Indian government for five years until it is handed over to USP.
Joeli Bili is a final-year student journalist at the University of the South Pacific’s Suva campus. He is a senior reporter for Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s training newspaper and online publication. This article is republished through a partnership between Asia Pacific Report and IDN-InDepthNews and Wansolwara.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Rachael Nath, RNZ Pacific journalist
In a significant step toward preserving and commemorating Fiji’s rich history, efforts are underway to establish the country’s first living museum.
This unique institution will focus on capturing the era of the British colonial government’s indentured system in Fiji, shedding light on the arrival of Fijians of Indian descent to the Pacific Ocean.
The initiative aims to honour the contributions and struggles of the indentured labourers, known as Girmitiyas, who played a pivotal role in shaping Fiji’s economy.
Behind the vision is the Global Girmit Institute, whose board of trustees chair Dr Ganesh Chand told RNZ Pacific the museum had great significance for Fiji.
Dr Chand said that many Fijians were unaware of their country’s history and the way of life under British rule in Fiji, noting that Fiji-Indians were even unaware of their origins — the Girmitiyas.
Fijian-Indians make up about 37 percent of the country’s population.
“For Girmitiyas, there has been a total silence of material in our curriculum all the way up to now,” Dr Chand lamented.
“There is nothing in the texts, and students don’t learn their history.”
He said that if schools fail to teach local history, it could be detrimental to that nation as a whole.
“If they don’t learn in these in schools, then they grow up thinking that their house and day-to-day life is their entirety in the country.
“But that is not a very good state for nation-building. For nation-building, people need to know the history,” Dr Chand said.
The museum aims to rectify this by providing a “comprehensive and immersive experience” that educates visitors about the Girmit era.
The Global Girmit Institute living museum will be co-located within the GGI Library at its headquarters in Saweni, Lautoka, on the country’s main island.
Work has already begun, with the collection of artefacts intensifying in preparation for the anticipated opening of phase one next year.
Travellers who crossed two oceans
The gallery will feature a range of artefacts and recordings of the oral history of people from different linguistic backgrounds and cultures.
Objects relating to farming and the sugar industry, lifestyle, music, food, clothing and religious events will also be displayed, along with objects that record the impact of colonialism on the islands.
Dr Chand said visitors will have the opportunity to witness and understand first hand the living conditions and lifestyle of the Girmitiyas.
“The living museum will feature a fully furnished residence from the era, and our workers will live there and depict how life was in those days under British rule,” he said.
So, how did a group of South Asian people — the Girmitiyas — arrive in the Pacific Ocean?
It was the abolition of slave labour in the early 19th century that gave rise to the Indian indenture system.
This saw an influx of labourers transported from India to various European colonies, including Fiji, to work in plantations.
The system was established to address the labour shortage that followed, explained academic and linguist Dr Farzana Gounder, a direct Girmitiya descendant and a representative of Fiji on the UNESCO International Indentured Labour Route Project.
“The term ‘Girmit’ is derived from the word ‘agreement’ and was used to refer to the system of indentured labour that brought Indians to Fiji between 1879 and 1916,” she said.
“Under this system, Indian labourers were recruited from British India to work on sugar plantations in Fiji, which was then a British colony. During this period, more than 60,000 Indians were brought to Fiji under indenture and became known as Girmitiyas.”
The indenture was seen as an agreement between the workers and the British government, and over the next three decades Girmitiyas were shipped across two oceans to work the lands in Fiji, where a jarring reality awaited them, explained Dr Gounder.
“The Girmitiyas faced many challenges when they arrived in Fiji, including harsh working conditions, cultural and linguistic barriers, and discrimination from both European and indigenous Fijian populations.
“They worked long hours in difficult and often dangerous conditions on the sugar plantations and were paid very low wages.”
The Girmitiyas were instrumental in the development of Fiji’s sugar industry, and this museum aims to tell these stories.
Fiji’s Peace Village to host historical stories
The government of Fiji is also commissioning a living museum in the central province of Navilaca village in Rewa.
Assistant Women’s Minister Sashi Kiran announced that this gallery would pay homage to the relationship between the Girmitiyas and iTaukei people.
“Navilaca village is significant to the history of both the indigenous people and the Indo-Fijians,” she said.
Kiran recounts the heroic efforts of the indigenous people in 1884 who, in the absence of immediate assistance from the colonial authorities, led the rescue operations, saving many lives when a ship named Syria, carrying around 500 Girmitiyas, became wrecked on the Nasilai Reef.
This village thus served as an apt location for the museum, paying homage to the resilience and humanity displayed during that challenging time, she said.
“The village of Navilaca had done the rescue when the Syria was wrecked, and villages there had not only rescued the people but buried the dead in their chiefly ground. They had also looked after all the injured until they healed.
“The fisherfolk had been rescuing people, and the archives also say that there were only about 100 out of almost 500 passengers left by the time the colonials came, so most of the rescue was actually done by the indigenous people.”
The village has since been declared a place of peace with an offer extended to host teaching of each other’s rituals, ceremonies, and customs.
“It will be a space where both cultures can be taught through artefacts and storytelling,” she added.
It will also be open to tourists and the diaspora.
Both living museums promise to be vital cultural institutions, providing a platform to remember and honour Fiji’s history.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Are you worried about the rising political power of violent white nationalists in America? Well, you’ve got plenty of company, including U.S. national security and counterterrorism officials. And we’re worried, too — worried enough, in fact, to feel that it’s time to take a look at the experience of India, where Hindu supremacist dogma has increasingly been enforced through violent means.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
By Sanjeshni Kumar in Port Moresby
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the Pacific Islands nations consider the Indian premier as the leader of the Global South and will rally behind India’s leadership at international forums.
Highlighting the problems faced by Pacific Islands nations due to the Russia-Ukraine war, Marape pledged the support while addressing the third India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) Summit which was co-chaired by Prime Minister Modi.
“We are victims of global powerplay . . . You [PM Modi] are the leader of Global South. We will rally behind your [India] leadership at global forums,” said Marape.
He pointed to the inflationary pressure on his country due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Marape said that Pacific Islands nations had to face the brunt of the war as they had high costs of fuel and power tariffs and suffered as a result of big nations at play in terms of geopolitics and power struggles.
“The issue of Ukraine war with Russia, or Russia’s war with Ukraine rather, we import the inflation to our own small economies,” said Marape.
“These nations sitting before you, Prime Minister [PM Modi], have high costs of fuel and power tariffs in their own countries and we suffer as a result of big nations at play in terms of geopolitics and the power struggles out there,” said Marape.
‘You are the voice’
He urged Modi to be an active voice for the small island nations at global forums such as G20 and G7, adding, “You are the voice that can offer our issues at the highest [level] as advanced economies discuss matters relating to economy, commerce, trade and geopolitics.”
Marape prompted India to use the FIPIC summit to be the strong voice and advocate the challenges of the region.
“We ask you, using this moment where I am co-chairing and I speak for my small brother and sister nations of the Pacific. While our land may be small and the number may be small, our area and space in the Pacific are big.
“The world uses [us] for trade, commerce and movement.”
Marape urged Modi to be an advocate for Pacific Island nations, adding, “We want you to be an advocate for us. As you sit in those meetings and continue to fight for the rights of small emerging nations and emerging economies.
“Our leaders will have a moment to speak to you. I want you, Prime Minister, for you to spend time hearing them.
“And hopefully, at the end of these dialogues, may India and the Pacific’s relationship is entrenched and strengthened,” said Marape.
“But more importantly, the issues that are facing the Pacific island nations, especially the smaller ones among us ahead in its right context and given support by you, the leader of the Global South,” the Papua New Guinea leader said.
Shared history
Marape also highlighted the shared history of India and Papua New Guinea.
He said: “People have been travelling for thousands of years. Just like your people have lived in India for thousands of years. We all come from a shared history.
“A history of being colonised. History that holds the nations of Global South together. I thank you (PM Modi) for assuring me in the bilateral meeting that as you host G20 this year you will advocate on issues that relate to the Global South.”
He said that Global South had development challenges and raised concern over the use of its resources while its people are kept aloof from sharing its fruits.
“In the Global South, we have development challenges. Our resources are harvested by tones and volumes. And our people have been left behind,” said Marape.
Prime Minister Modi highlighted India’s assistance to Pacific Island nations during the covid-19 pandemic.
“The impact of the covid pandemic [impacted] most on the countries of the Global South. Challenges related to climate change, natural disasters, hunger, poverty and health were already there, now new problems are arising . . . I am happy that India stood by its friendly Pacific Island countries in times of difficulty,” said Modi.
Supply chain disruption
He also talked about disruption in the supply chain, saying that countries of the Global South had been impacted by the global crisis and also called for UN reforms at the Pacific meet.
“Today we are seeing disruption in the supply chain of fuel, food, fertiliser and pharma. Those whom we trusted, didn’t stand with us when needed,” said Modi.
Modi added that India would put aspirations of the Global South to the world via its G20 presidency, adding, “This was my focus at the G7 Outreach summit.”
This article was first published by Asian News International/Pacnews. Republished with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
ANALYSIS: By Barbara Dreaver in Port Moresby
When I was growing up in Kiribati, then known as the Gilbert Islands, New Zealand divers came to safely detonate unexploded munitions from World War II.
Decades on from when US Marines fought and won the Battle of Tarawa against Japan, war was still very much a part of everyday life.
Our school bell was a bombshell. We’d find bullet casings.
In fact, my grandmother’s leg was badly injured when she lit a fire on the beach, and an unexploded ordnance went off. There are Japanese bunkers and US machine gun mounts along the Betio shoreline, and bones are still being found — even today.
Stories are told . . . so many people died . . . these things are not forgotten.
That’s why the security and defence pacts being drawn up around the Pacific are worrying much of the region, as the US and Australia partner up to counter China’s growing influence.
You only have to read Australia’s Defence Strategic Review 2023 to see they are preparing for conflict.
The battle is climate change which is impacting their everyday life. The bigger powers will most certainly go through the motions of at least hearing their voices.
— Barbara Dreaver
Secret pact changed landscape
While in the last few years we have seen China put big money into the Pacific, it was primarily about diplomatic weight and ensuring Taiwan wasn’t recognised. But the secret security pact with the Solomon Islands changed the landscape dramatically.
There was a point where it stopped being about just aid and influence — and openly started to become much more serious.
Since then, the escalation has been rapid as the US and Australia have amped up their activities — and other state actors have as well.
In some cases, lobbying and negotiating have been covertly aggressive. Many Pacific countries are concerned about the militarisation of the region — and whether we like it or not, that’s where it’s headed.
Tuvalu’s Foreign Minister Simon Kofe said he understands why his country, which sits between Hawai’i and Australia, is of strategic interest to the superpowers.
Worried about militarisation, he admits they are coming under pressure from all sides — not just China but the West as well.
“In World War II, the war came to the Pacific even though we played no part at all in the conflict, and we became victims of a war that was not of our making,” he said.
Important Pacific doesn’t forget
“So it’s important for the Pacific not to forget that experience now we are seeing things that are happening in this part of the world, and it’s best we are prepared for that situation.”
Academic Dr Anna Powles, a long-time Pacific specialist, said she was very concerned at the situation, which was a “slippery slope” to militarisation.
She said Pacific capitals were being flooded with officials from around the region and from further afield who want to engage.
Pacific priorities are being undermined, and there is a growing disconnect in the region between national interest and the interest of the political elites.
Today in Papua New Guinea, we see first-hand how we are on the cusp of change.
They include big meetings spearheaded by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, another one by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a defence deal that will allow US military access through ports and airports. In exchange, the US is providing an extra US$45 million (NZ$72 million) in funding a raft of initiatives, some of which include battling the effects of climate change.
Equipment boost
The PNG Defence Force is also getting an equipment boost, and there’s a focus on combatting law and order issues — which domestically is a big challenge — and protecting communities, particularly women, from violence.
There is much in these initiatives that the PNG government and the people here will find attractive. It may well be the balance between PNG’s national interest and US ambitions is met — it will be interesting to see if other Pacific leaders agree.
Because some Pacific leaders are happy to be courted and enjoy being at the centre of global attention (and we know who you are), others are determined to do the best for their people. The fight for them is not geopolitical, and it’s on the land they live on.
The battle is climate change which is impacting their everyday life. The bigger powers will most certainly go through the motions of at least hearing their voices.
What that will translate to remains to be seen.
Barbara Dreaver is TV1’s Pacific correspondent and is in Papua New Guinea with the New Zealand delegation. Republished with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Since the elevation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power on the national level, India has been witnessing a state-driven clampdown on the rights of its citizens in furtherance of the ruling disposition’s ideological agenda. The BJP- a right-wing, Hindu Nationalist party that believes in replacing India’s pluralistic, secular democracy with an ethnocratic Hindu state, secured an absolute electoral majority on its own for the first time in the 2014 General Elections under the leadership of strongman Narendra Modi and replicated its performance in the 2019 elections. Under its watch, arrests of dissidents, activists, journalists and intellectuals, who refuse to toe the regime’s line, have become increasingly more common, with scant regard paid to evidence and guidelines enshrined in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). Religious minorities have become especially vulnerable as they routinely face systematic state persecution and violence from vigilantes. Draconian laws, such as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), in effect, sanction preventive detention by making bail well-nigh impossible to procure. These laws initially aimed to combat criminal activities, such as terrorism and money-laundering. However, the present government has since amended the statutes to bypass some of the most fundamental principles of fairness, such as the presumption of innocence and the right to be heard. The process has thus become the punishment, making these laws a handy tool for the state to crack down on dissent. The continued incarceration of activists from diverse backgrounds pertaining to a civil society gathering at Bhima Koregaon and journalists like Siddique Kappan whose bail plea was rejected in October last year, are some of the most egregious instances of the misuse of these laws. In the former case, following the breaking out of violence at a gathering called by activists belonging to the Dalit community, a group of intellectuals and human rights activists affiliated with different institutions from all across India were linked to the incident on sketchy evidence and arrested. One of them, Fr. Stan Swamy, died in incarceration, whereas others had to spend more than three years in prison before securing bail. Repression of civil society organisations, independent media houses, and think tanks using investigative agencies has become commonplace under the Modi regime.
This state of affairs is prevalent despite judicial decisions over the years that have characterized detention for long periods without trial as a violation of the right to life and personal liberty as provided under Article 21 of the Indian constitution. The Supreme Court has also provided a set of guidelines in D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal, for police officers to follow, concerning arrests. In Joginder Kumar v. State of U.P., the court stressed the need for sufficient justification for arresting the accused. Acknowledging that most of the arrests in the country were either unnecessary or unjustified, the court established a set of safeguards such as immediately informing the relatives and friends of the accused about his arrest.
However, judicial diktats have failed to dissuade the state from committing unlawful arrests, primarily due to the absence of a legal framework to affix accountability. In the face of repeated instances of non-compliance with its directions and recognizing the need to provide the victims with a remedy, the apex court, in Rudal Sah v. State of Bihar, observed that true relief didn’t simply constitute a release from imprisonment; instead, compensation had to be provided to the victims to mitigate, in some measure, the harm suffered by them as a result of spending long periods in incarceration. The court has since then, unequivocally asserted multiple times that compensation is the ‘only appropriate remedy’ in cases of violation of Article 21.
Despite past decisions, recent actions of the judiciary reflect a change in its stance, as exhibited in the Akshardham case, in which the Supreme Court decided not to grant compensation to people who had wrongfully faced prosecution and detainment, even while acknowledging that the accused had been the scapegoats of a conspiracy. This particular decision of the judiciary shows that giving compensation is still a matter of judicial discretion in India, and depends on the deliberations of individual benches. However, the Akshardham case decision is in stark contrast to the protections that are supposed to be provided by Articles 9 (5) and 14 (6) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 5 (5) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Specifically, these sections lawfully outline that there should be an enforceable right to access these payments in cases of unlawful prosecution and detention. While ratifying the former covenant, the Indian government confessed that no such right existed in India. Conversely in Spain, a statutory right to compensation exists in cases where there is proven judicial or procedural error concerning arrests. Spanish courts have applied this principle to even those cases where the accused is made to undergo detention by the authorities after following every safeguard and gets acquitted after the trial. Such a position avers that rights can’t be curtailed by the state simply on the suspicion of guilt, or by maliciously imputing guilt on the basis of flimsy evidence- principles that desperately need to be incorporated into Indian criminal jurisprudence.
As of now, the absence of a clear statutory or constitutional right to compensation in cases of unlawful prosecution and detainment encourages the state to continue to abuse its power and disobey expressly laid out judicial directions. The arbitrary arrests of dissenters and journalists are the most glaring evidence of the abusive repression. Such actions not only intimidate the regime’s critics, but also whip up public support for the BJP’s ideological project, as the government misrepresents these actions as strong measures intended to maintain national security. Seen together with the attempts to erode the autonomy of democratic institutions, discriminatory laws, and policies targeting religious minorities, undermining of federalism, and widespread proliferation of hate speech and fake news, such acts of repression threaten the foundations of Indian constitutionalism. One possible solution, therefore, would be to elevate the right to compensation for violation of Article 21 to the stature of a fundamental right; the legislature can viably incorporate this right into Article 32 of the Constitution, which provides for the right to secure remedies for the enforcement of fundamental rights by approaching the Supreme Court. Adopting such a measure would bind the state to legally having to compensate individuals who have had to endure long years of wrongful imprisonment, thereby serving both as a remedy for the victims and an effective deterrent against such actions in the future.
This post was originally published on LSE Human Rights.
This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.
This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.
This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.
This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.
To avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis, the world must stop building new coal plants and shut down existing ones at nearly five times the current rate.
That’s according to an analysis published Wednesday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and nearly a dozen other groups, including Reclaim Finance, the Sierra Club, and the Alliance for Climate Justice and Clean Energy.
GEM’s ninth annual survey of the world’s existing and proposed supply of coal-fired power—the largest single source of energy-related CO2 emissions—found that “outside China, the global coal pipeline is drying up,” albeit not at a quick enough pace.
“Urgent action is necessary to ensure an end to coal and a fighting chance at a livable climate.”
Seventeen countries retired a combined 26 GW of operating coal capacity in 2022. Meanwhile, 25 GW of operating coal capacity received an announced close-by date of 2030.
However, to meet the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels—beyond which the climate emergency’s impacts will grow even deadlier, especially for humanity’s poorest members who bear the least responsibility for the crisis—coal power must be phased out completely by 2040. To stay on track while giving developing countries extra time to switch to renewables, high-income countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) must shutter their coal plants by 2030.
This “would require an average of 117 GW of retirements per year, or four-and-a-half times the capacity retired in 2022,” according to the report. “An average of 60 GW must come offline in OECD countries each year to meet their 2030 coal phaseout deadline, and for non-OECD countries, 91 GW each year for their 2040 deadline. Accounting for coal plants under construction and in consideration (537.1 GW) would require even steeper cuts.”
Lead author Flora Champenois, the project manager for GEM’s Global Coal Plant Tracker, said in a statement that “the transition away from existing and new coal isn’t happening fast enough to avoid climate chaos.”
“The more new projects come online, the steeper the cuts and commitments need to be in the future,” she noted.
Last year, the world added 45.5 GW of new coal capacity, meaning that the operating coal fleet grew by 19.5 GW overall.
“Fourteen countries commissioned new coal power in 2022,” the report notes. “More than half (59%) of the newly commissioned capacity was in China (25.2 GW), with a remaining 16% in South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh), 11% in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, and Cambodia), 9% in East Asia (Japan and South Korea), and 5% in other regions.”
Outside China, the global coal fleet continued to shrink in 2022 as planned projects were canceled and old plants closed. But coal retirements slowed down compared with previous years due in large part to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which sent gas prices soaring.
\u201c\ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddfa retired only 2.2 GW last year after a record 14.6 GW, but coal is not making the comeback many expected from the energy crisis. The rebound in retirements in the next few years could make up for the lower than expected retirements in 2022.\u201d— Global Energy Monitor (@Global Energy Monitor) 1680739205
“While coal under development—or coal in pre-construction and construction—has collapsed by two-thirds since the Paris agreement, nearly 350 GW of new capacity is still proposed across 33 countries, and an additional 192 GW of capacity is under construction,” the report notes. “China’s pre-construction and construction capacity surpassed the rest of the world’s in 2021, and the gap widened in 2022. New coal capacity under development in China increased by 38% (266 GW to 366 GW), while the capacity in the rest of the world decreased by 20% (214 GW to 172 GW). China now accounts for two-thirds (68%) of global capacity under development, up from 55% a year ago.”
Wednesday’s analysis follows the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest warning that burning existing fossil fuels will consume the world’s remaining “carbon budget,” or the maximum amount of planet-heating pollution compatible with preventing temperature rise from exceeding 1.5°C. The IPCC has made clear the need for “rapid and deep, and in most cases immediate greenhouse gas emission reductions.”
Upon the publication of the IPCC’s assessment two weeks ago, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres outlined “an ‘Accelerated Agenda‘ renewing calls for an immediate end to new coal, and for a phaseout of existing coal by 2030 in developed countries and 2040 in the rest of the world,” GEM’s new report points out. “Under such a scenario, only 70% of OECD operating coal capacity is currently on pace (330 GW), and outside the OECD, only 6% of coal capacity has a known closure date before 2040 (93 GW).”
“Urgent action is necessary to ensure an end to coal and a fighting chance at a livable climate,” the report adds. “To accomplish this, countries need to translate announcements into plant-by-plant retirement plans as well as ramp up phaseout commitments. Details on how current and future policies and funds will be implemented to impact coal retirement dates and ensure a swift and equitable end to new coal will be essential.”
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.
Gandhi is likely to remain present in the sessions court when the plea will be filed challenging the lower court’s order
This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.
Indian farmers held a successful march to demand crop price guarantees, land ownership rights for tribal farmers, immediate financial relief and loan waivers, reports Peoples Dispatch.
The Indian Patent Office rejected pharmaceutical company Janssen’s application for an extension of its patent on a drug used in the treatment of tuberculosis, reports Peoples Dispatch.
This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.
Thousands of community health workers — known as ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activists) — held a huge protest in Patna, in Bihar state, on March 21 calling for higher pay, recognition as workers and access to employment benefits, reports Kerry Smith.
What a coup. Nakedly amoral but utterly self-serving in its saccharine minted glory. India’s showman Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who otherwise appears to have clerkish, desk-bound qualities, had what he wanted: an accommodating, possibly clueless guest in the form of the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese; a common interest in India’s national sport cricket, and a show illuminating him as supreme Hindu leader presiding over a new age of politics. For Albanese, this was ill-fitting and disturbing but all in keeping with the occasion.
This month, Albanese, who has been held to the bosom of great powers of late, found himself at the mercy of cricket diplomacy at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad. He had been placed upon an improvised golf car with Modi prior to the start of the fourth cricket test between Australia and India. But Albanese was not merely Modi’s guest; he was also appearing in a stadium named after the prime minister he was keeping company with. Modesty had been exorcised; pomp and narcissism had taken its place.
The cricketers of the national sides were not spared florid manipulation and flowery exploitation. In India, cricket makes the god fearing, beer swilling followers of soccer look like mild agnostics of some reserve and domestic sensibility. In the Indian cricket canon, players are sanctified from across the globe, added to a sanctuary of permanent adoration in something reminiscent of ancient tradition. Much like the deities of the Roman Empire, all great cricket players, from Antigua to Sydney, find their spiritual holy ground on Indian soil, forever assimilated.
For Modi, this all meant opportunity and glory. He is the classically dangerous politician for those of the broadly described West who think they understand him. Supple, gentle, oleaginous, Modi is both unscrupulous and prone to wooing. And Albanese was there to keep him company. The teams of two great cricket nations were effectively shoehorned into the show, with Modi and Albanese giving the captains of their respective countries their caps before the game’s commencement.
The nexus of power in world cricket – and its link Modi – was also affirmed by the presence of officials from the enormously powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). They were on hand to give Modi that most vulgar of gifts: a gaudily framed photo of himself.
The scenes should have made Albanese feel uncomfortable. While Australian officials, business types and opportunists dream of market opportunities in India, it is also worth appreciating what Modi is. This is only relevant given the mighty, moral bent Canberra takes on such matters: the Chinese and Russians are seen as barbarians hammering away at the rules-based order and shredding human rights – or some such – and there lies India, promising, vast and nominally democratic.
Things, however, are not well in the world’s largest democracy. Only in February, the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai were paid a less than friendly visit from tax officials intent on conducting a “survey”. This came just weeks after the organisation’s release of a documentary that shone a light less than rosy upon the dear leader.
For all this, Australian governments can hardly complain: the Australian Federal Police engaged in similar acts against the national broadcaster in June 2019, and even went so far as to suggest that two journalists from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation might be prosecuted for national security violations.
Modi also had a superb distraction to be used against the Australian PM. He could chide his guest and prod him about what was happening regarding recent acts of vandalism against Hindu temples in Melbourne. “It is a matter of regret that attacks on temples have been regularly reported in Australia over the last few weeks.”
These have primarily featured slogans of support for the pro-Khalistan Sikh separatist movement. The wall of the ISKCON temple located in the suburb of Albert Park, for instance, featured the words “Khalistan Zindabad (Long Live the Sikh Homeland)”, “Hindustan Murdabad (Down with India)”, and “Sant Bhindranwale is martyred”. Another incident at Carrum Downs featured, according to Victorian Police, damage that “included graffiti slogans of what appear to be [of] a political nature.”
Albanese, caught up in the role of being the good guest, could only say that such acts had “no place in Australia. And we will take every action through our police and also our security agencies to make sure that anyone responsible for this faces the full force of the law. We’re a tolerant multicultural nation, and there is no place in Australia for this activity.”
In India, on the other hand, there is more than enough space for intolerance when PM Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) authorities egg it on. The rights of Muslims, for instance, have been curtailed by the Citizenship Amendment Act, an instrument that enables non-Muslim communities originally from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan to apply for Indian citizenship if they had arrived in India prior to December 31, 2014.
Violence against Muslims and Islamophobic statements from officials has also become more common, with India’s Supreme Court warning that mob attacks risked being normalised in the current environment.
None of this came up in the Modi-Albanese discussions. Nor did the conduct of India’s premier port-to-power conglomerate, the Adani Group, which has extensive mining, rail and port interests in Australia. To add to its inglorious environmental report card, Adani was found by the activist short-seller Hindenburg Research earlier this year to be allegedly responsible for accountancy fraud and stock manipulation. To keep that off the agenda was yet another mighty coup for the Indian leader.
The post Narendra Modi’s Cricket Coup first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
What a coup. Nakedly amoral but utterly self-serving in its saccharine minted glory. India’s showman Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who otherwise appears to have clerkish, desk-bound qualities, had what he wanted: an accommodating, possibly clueless guest in the form of the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese; a common interest in India’s national sport cricket, and a show illuminating him as supreme Hindu leader presiding over a new age of politics. For Albanese, this was ill-fitting and disturbing but all in keeping with the occasion.
This month, Albanese, who has been held to the bosom of great powers of late, found himself at the mercy of cricket diplomacy at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad. He had been placed upon an improvised golf car with Modi prior to the start of the fourth cricket test between Australia and India. But Albanese was not merely Modi’s guest; he was also appearing in a stadium named after the prime minister he was keeping company with. Modesty had been exorcised; pomp and narcissism had taken its place.
The cricketers of the national sides were not spared florid manipulation and flowery exploitation. In India, cricket makes the god fearing, beer swilling followers of soccer look like mild agnostics of some reserve and domestic sensibility. In the Indian cricket canon, players are sanctified from across the globe, added to a sanctuary of permanent adoration in something reminiscent of ancient tradition. Much like the deities of the Roman Empire, all great cricket players, from Antigua to Sydney, find their spiritual holy ground on Indian soil, forever assimilated.
For Modi, this all meant opportunity and glory. He is the classically dangerous politician for those of the broadly described West who think they understand him. Supple, gentle, oleaginous, Modi is both unscrupulous and prone to wooing. And Albanese was there to keep him company. The teams of two great cricket nations were effectively shoehorned into the show, with Modi and Albanese giving the captains of their respective countries their caps before the game’s commencement.
The nexus of power in world cricket – and its link Modi – was also affirmed by the presence of officials from the enormously powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). They were on hand to give Modi that most vulgar of gifts: a gaudily framed photo of himself.
The scenes should have made Albanese feel uncomfortable. While Australian officials, business types and opportunists dream of market opportunities in India, it is also worth appreciating what Modi is. This is only relevant given the mighty, moral bent Canberra takes on such matters: the Chinese and Russians are seen as barbarians hammering away at the rules-based order and shredding human rights – or some such – and there lies India, promising, vast and nominally democratic.
Things, however, are not well in the world’s largest democracy. Only in February, the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai were paid a less than friendly visit from tax officials intent on conducting a “survey”. This came just weeks after the organisation’s release of a documentary that shone a light less than rosy upon the dear leader.
For all this, Australian governments can hardly complain: the Australian Federal Police engaged in similar acts against the national broadcaster in June 2019, and even went so far as to suggest that two journalists from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation might be prosecuted for national security violations.
Modi also had a superb distraction to be used against the Australian PM. He could chide his guest and prod him about what was happening regarding recent acts of vandalism against Hindu temples in Melbourne. “It is a matter of regret that attacks on temples have been regularly reported in Australia over the last few weeks.”
These have primarily featured slogans of support for the pro-Khalistan Sikh separatist movement. The wall of the ISKCON temple located in the suburb of Albert Park, for instance, featured the words “Khalistan Zindabad (Long Live the Sikh Homeland)”, “Hindustan Murdabad (Down with India)”, and “Sant Bhindranwale is martyred”. Another incident at Carrum Downs featured, according to Victorian Police, damage that “included graffiti slogans of what appear to be [of] a political nature.”
Albanese, caught up in the role of being the good guest, could only say that such acts had “no place in Australia. And we will take every action through our police and also our security agencies to make sure that anyone responsible for this faces the full force of the law. We’re a tolerant multicultural nation, and there is no place in Australia for this activity.”
In India, on the other hand, there is more than enough space for intolerance when PM Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) authorities egg it on. The rights of Muslims, for instance, have been curtailed by the Citizenship Amendment Act, an instrument that enables non-Muslim communities originally from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan to apply for Indian citizenship if they had arrived in India prior to December 31, 2014.
Violence against Muslims and Islamophobic statements from officials has also become more common, with India’s Supreme Court warning that mob attacks risked being normalised in the current environment.
None of this came up in the Modi-Albanese discussions. Nor did the conduct of India’s premier port-to-power conglomerate, the Adani Group, which has extensive mining, rail and port interests in Australia. To add to its inglorious environmental report card, Adani was found by the activist short-seller Hindenburg Research earlier this year to be allegedly responsible for accountancy fraud and stock manipulation. To keep that off the agenda was yet another mighty coup for the Indian leader.
While the home minister will be landing late Thursday night, the Prime Minister is expected to visit the state on Saturday
This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.
‘India was only a user of telecom technology before 4G, but today it is moving towards being the biggest exporter of telecom technology’
Women with disabilities in India suffer two-fold discrimination based on gender and disability. Often stigmatized and isolated by society, over 93% of women with disabilities are denied their reproductive rights and are forced into procedures like sterilization to regulate their fertility. In a joint statement released by the United Nations (UN) agencies forced sterilization was emphasized as a “form of torture and a violation of the right to be free” yet the practice continues to prevail in the country.
Across the globe, the practice of Forced sterilization can be linked to the eugenics theory where people with disabilities are excluded from society and are often considered genetically inferior from the rest of the human population. A similar mindset can be observed in India, where the guardians or family members frequently associate disability with a burden, especially when it comes to the reproductive autonomy of a disabled woman. Social prejudice envelops the society where a disabled woman is often considered incapable of understanding her sexuality and the family feels the need of making decisions on behalf of her often leading to violation of the rights such as Article 21 enshrined in the Indian Constitution that guarantees protection of Personal Liberty. Another facet of this problem can be traced back to the state-sponsored population control camps that have been organized by the government since 1975 when the then prime minister Indira Gandhi ordered mass sterilization of over a million people in the country. With a growing population of more than 1 billion people, even today successive Indian governments have been accused of performing involuntary sterilization camps in unsanitary and unsafe conditions that often target the poor and vulnerable sections of society as a method of population control. Governments at the state and district level are allocated funds for family planning, which often assigns certain numbers or targets for sterilizing the population as a mode of permanent contraception. In 2020, the state of Madhya Pradesh issued a circular to multi-purpose health workers (MPHWs) to persuade at least 5 willing male beneficiaries for sterilization, and any failure to complete the given task would result in consequences ranging from their salaries being withheld to a compulsory retirement. While the government repealed the order after strong backlash from citizens and opposition political parties, this target oriented approach towards population control still poses a threat to the vulnerable population, particularly the disabled community. In order to achieve these targets, health workers on the ground are forced to impose coercive conditions without providing adequate information to the concerned population, as was seen during the pandemic when an ASHA ( Accredited Social Health Activist) worker in the state of Uttar Pradesh left a deaf and mute man sterilized without his knowledge on the pretext of getting the COVID vaccination in order to complete the target assigned by the district health department.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2006 and ratified by 185 countries, addressed the problem of forced sterilization among the disabled abled community. Under Article 23 (1)(c) persons with disabilities including children have equal reproductive rights to retain their fertility. Additionally, Article 25 emphasizes providing health care to persons with disabilities after taking their free and informed consent. While India has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities the question of ensuring equal rights still remains a challenge.
In India, the Right to Persons with Disabilities Act (RPWD), 2016 was introduced to legally address the problems faced by the disabled community and ensure equitable access to justice for all members of society. While the RPWD Act took a step towards recognizing the issue of forced abortions under Section 92(f)[1] which states that any medical procedure performed on a disabled woman without her express consent that leads to the termination of pregnancy is punishable with an imprisonment term, there is still no specific mention of forced sterilization as a problem. Another contentious factor is the need for “express consent”. While consent forms a crucial factor in developing reproductive autonomy there is no mention regarding the procedure to take this consent free from any undue influence from the disabled woman.
Like in the case of Suchita v Chandigarh (2009) where a mentally ill orphaned woman expressed clear consent to have a child but was opposed by the guardian welfare institution where she was admitted. In this case, the Supreme Court emphasized that the requirement for consent cannot be diluted solely by what society deems to be in the woman’s best interests. The case further argued for a limited guardianship approach, whereby the state could not extend its power to the point of breaching a woman’s reproductive autonomy. While this principle of limited guardianship is present even in the Rights to Persons with Disabilities Act under Section 14, the law on paper and the law practiced shows a stark difference. In 2012, when almost 53 women from the state of Bihar were forced to undergo sterilization in a state-run camp inside school premises in unsanitary conditions, the case of Devika Biswas v Union of India was moved to the Supreme Court of the country. The apex court emphasized the need for informed consent in the case of sterilization, it also considered that such informal incentive schemes of fixing “sterilization targets” by the state impacts the socially and economically vulnerable the most. While these judgments have tried to take a progressive stance, access to justice remains a struggle for many. According to a Human Rights Watch report, 15 out of 17 women with disabilities in India were either left neglected by the authorities or suffered additional sexual violence while trying to file a complaint.
Internationally, groups like The Women Enabled International have collaborated with the United Nations Population Fund and have issued guidelines to increase accessibility to sexual and reproductive health services for women and young people with disabilities who have experienced gender-based violence like forced sterilisation. Further in India, local advocacy initiatives like Project Samarth organize menstrual awareness sessions for young girls with disabilities who are often sterilized by their guardians because of difficulties in menstrual management and the risk of sexual abuse.
Finally, it becomes the need of the hour to implement a systematized change against the problem of forced sterilization amongst disabled women. It is time for the judiciary to be more accessible to the needs of such vulnerable groups, which can be achieved by facilitating remedial action and creating an independent grievance redressal mechanism for reporting such cases, and for the government to be more responsive to the needs of the disabled community by ensuring their due inclusion in the social health benefit schemes and family planning programs.
Lastly, bringing a shift in the mindset of the society cannot be achieved without public discourse because it is equally important for people to acknowledge this problem rather than dismissing it as a subject too taboo for Indian society.
This post was originally published on LSE Human Rights.