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Background The negotiating process on climate change revolves around the sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP), which meets every year to review the implementation of the Convention. This year this process culminates in Copenhagen. At Bali, Parties agreed to jointly step up international efforts to combat climate change and get to an agreed outcome in Copenhagen in 2009. Thus, an ambitious climate change deal will be clinched to follow on the first phase of the UN’s Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Why is a deal so important? We know the world is warming, on average by 0.74ºC during the past century, with most of that since 1970. The IPCC has reported regularly on climate change science for 20 years. Its last report was “unequivocal” that climate change is with us, and is set to get drastically worse unless we take urgent action. Nature, through both oceans and forests, currently absorbs ab...

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions . These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention  encouraged  industrialised countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol  commits  them to do so. Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December...

December 29, 2014 The Bodo areas in Assam are witnessing bloodshed once again. The National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Songbijit faction) [NDFB-S] is alleged to have targeted the  Adivasi  settlers in the two districts of Sonitpur and Kokrajhar, killing nearly 78 and leaving many seriously injured. It appears that this carnage started in retaliation to the death of three NDFB (S) cadres during a counter-insurgency operation conducted by the Mahar Regiment on December 21 against the outfit’s camp in the Chirang District along the Assam-Bhutan border. Information from the ground reveal that the NDFB-S may have targeted the  Adivasi  settlers near the forest areas suspecting them of providing intelligence about their movement to the counter-insurgency forces. The faction is known to have regularly targeted people both from Bodo and non-Bodo ethnicities on suspicion of being police informants, like the case of a 16-year old Bodo school girl who was dragg...

India has announced its participation in the development of Chabahar port of Iran. This port is just 76 km from Pakistan's Gwadar port which is operated by China. Prospects and consequences: 1. Afghanistan has a strategic position in Middle, South and East Asia - especially for India and Pakistan, and for China via Pakistan. Pakistan wants to have strategic control by providing its port facility of Gwadar as Afghanistan is a land-locked country. By giving China operating rights, Pakistan virtually made Afghanistan to submit to China. By participating in development of Chabahar port, India successfully tried to nullify Pakistan-China effort to solely utilize the strategic position of Afghanistan. a. It provided an alternative to Afghanistan to reach Arabian Sea. b. This way, India can strengthen its relation with Afghanistan. c. This also strengthens its relation with energy-rich Iran 2. China, by obtaining operating rights of Gwadar, strengthene...

Basics:  CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is the intelligence agency of USA meant for combatting external threat. FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) is the one which is responsible for combating internal threat. MI5 (Military intelligence 5) works for UK the same way the CIA works. MI6 works the way FBI works. IB (Intelligence Bureau) is India's intelligence agency which keeps and eye on internal threat. RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) is India's intelligency agency taking care of external threat. CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) is the criminal investigation body of India. NIA (National Intelligence Agency) is a federal agency to combat terror in India. Story goes like this: Before 9/11 United States CIA had Counter Terrorism Center (CTC) for terrorist threat. It was actually meant for external threat. On the same ground, Bajpayee Govt. formed CTC under an executive order as a part of IB and named it Multi Agency Center (MAC). As IB its...

Advanced bio-fuels could create millions of jobs while greening the economy Transforming agricultural residues into advanced bio fuels could create millions of jobs worldwide, economic growth, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and energy security by 2030, according to a report by Novozymes, the world leader in bio innovation and industrial enzymes. The Bloomberg New Energy Finance report “Moving towards a next-generation ethanol economy'' was commissioned by Novozymes. It estimates the socio-economic prospects of deploying advanced bio fuels in eight of the highest agricultural-producing regions in the world, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, EU-27, India, Mexico and US. “A huge global resource of agricultural residues can be harvested sustainably every year without altering current land use patterns and without interfering with the food chain,'' according to Steen Riisgaard, CEO of Novozymes. According to the report, an estimated 17.5 per cen...