Manoj Misra Dilli ki Sardi (Delhi’s winter) has over the years turned from being a cheerful season to a toxic time of a frothy Yamuna and hazardous air. How did this happen? Having spent 20 years in Delhi I decided…
Srikanth Kondapalli India should not let its guard down as China is likely to up the ante by furthering militarisation, construction of dual-use ‘well-off society’ villages across the LAC and diverting waters of Yarlung Zangbo Despite the expectations that China’s…
Chintamani Mahapatra The meeting turned out to be just a conversation between ‘old friends’ over their critical differences over strategic, economic, and political developments in recent years. America’s allies, strategic partners, the international business community, and traders were eagerly watching…
In March 2020 I wrote about how Ladakh, India’s northernmost region bordering Tibet, faces a stark choice between succumbing to the dominant logic of ‘development’ that would erase its ecological and cultural uniqueness, and forging its own path of well-being building on this uniqueness. The context was that in August 2019, Ladakh went from being a region within the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), to a union territory (UT), administered directly by the central government in New Delhi. This was part of a decision by Delhi to make a dramatic change in the status of Jammu and Kashmir as a whole, from being a state with relative independence guaranteed under special provisions in the Indian constitution, to being two union territories under central government control (J&K as one, Ladakh as the other). The consequences of this action for J&K have been serious, but here I focus on Ladakh.
On 2nd November, at the 26th Climate Conference of Parties, 124 countries issued a Declaration on Forests and Land Use. It contains a bold commitment to “halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation.” Such a goal, it recognizes, is essential to meet the Paris Agreement to limit global average temperature increase to below 2 degrees and if possible, to 1.5 degrees.
Urvashi Prasad The health sector is information intensive. Over the last few years, India has announced several policy measures to usher in a new era of technology-enabled healthcare delivery. Following a pilot in six Union Territories, the Prime Minister recently announced…