Major power polarization is today the wider structural reality that is shaping the contours of the emerging global order, and it is a warning sign for all nations, including India, of what is likely to come.
Beginning his three-day state visit to Moscow on March 20, China’s President Xi Jinping stated that relations with Russia are based on “no-alliance, no-confrontation and not targeting any third party”, even though “in a world of volatility and transformation, China will continue to work with Russia to safeguard the international system”. The joint statement issued after talks stated that bilateral relations have “reached the highest level in history”. President Vladimir Putin and President Xi have met 40 times so far.
The government of India on August 15, 2021, announced the implementation of a project that encourages the use of green hydrogen. The objective of the project is to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and focuses on de-carbonization. For this, a project has been launched with an estimated budget of around ₹19,744 crores that will create a boom in the production of green hydrogen. With the implementation of this project, the country is expected to witness a surge of investments worth Eight lakh crores rupees with the creation of Six lakh jobs and a cumulative reduction in fossil fuels imports worth Rs One lakh crore.
The union territory administration of Jammu and Kashmir notified rules for levying property tax in towns and cities in the region. The Lieutenant Governor and the officers of urban development are leaving no stone unturned in convincing the people that this is a ‘progressive tax’, and the values are abysmally low and hence there will be hardly any burden on the people.
Do not ban plastic; the costs are too high for society, in particular for the less well-off. Instead, invest heavily in technologies to degrade the plastic not already amenable to biodegradation and deploy these to solve the problem. India has the worker capacity to collect all plastic waste and recycle it or treat it with chemical or biological agents to convert it into simpler compounds such as carbon dioxide, water and methane. India also has the brain power to innovate novel solutions to the problem of plastic persistence in the ecosystem
Rarely is a handshake the same as a slap in the face. But when the national security advisers of Saudi Arabia and Iran shook hands in Beijing last Friday, it delivered a stinging blow in Washington DC that echoed in the world’s capitals.
As the United States stays bogged down in its efforts to degrade Russia as a world power, at the expense of Western treasure and Ukrainian lives, not to speak of global growth and deprivation in swathes of Africa, China, identified by the Americans as their systemic rival, has won a decisive round in West Asia in its ongoing contestation of US hegemony of the global order.