The reactor that has now gone critical at Kalpakkam, on the Bay of Bengal coastline in Tamil Nadu, is not the end of that journey. It is, more precisely, the end of the beginning. The real test is whether India can now scale fast breeder capacity rapidly enough to make a material difference to its energy-mix building on the Kalpakkam template, the industrial supply chains it has validated, and the engineering confidence it has earned.
The Indus and the Ganges are dying slowly, and with them disappear species that evolved over thousands of years within these waters. If current patterns continue, future generations may inherit rivers that exist geographically but are biologically empty. South Asia still has an opportunity to reverse this trajectory, but only if environmental protection becomes a shared regional priority rather than an afterthought.
Climate migration isn’t just about the loss of land. It is about the loss of memory, culture and home. When people are driven out of the places where they were born, few things that matter are merely economic. Over the next decades, the world will confront a fundamental dilemma. Can humankind handle the climate crisis in a surer way? Or will the future consist of millions searching for a new place to call home?
The constraint on India’s expansion is fissile inventory, particularly between 2035-2045. At present, the breeder program depends on plutonium from a limited set of eight unsafeguarded reactors. Meanwhile, India has accumulated spent fuel from uranium imported for its safeguarded reactors. This significant plutonium is lying idle because we lack safeguarded reprocessing facilities.
Various victim groups of Nepal have made a joint submission to the 37th Session of the Working Group on Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council, drawing its attention to Nepal’s persistent failure to deliver truth, justice, reparation and institutional reforms
As the world designs and implements Covid-19 recovery plans, it has a choice of either going back to where it was, or investing in a better, more sustainable future, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday
Sri Lanka has taken measures to ensure the Sri Lankan peacekeepers are well trained and equipped to maintain peace in conflict situations while upholding human rights, the United Nations Security Council was told
The United Nations Aids Control Programme says AIDS-related deaths are rising in Pakistan as late diagnosis and poor adherence to treatment are missed opportunities to prevent onward transmission and related mortalities
The Gross National Happiness Commission and UNDP Bhutan signed a partnership agreement on July 2 to mark the start of a new UNDP-supported COVID-19 response and recovery project funded by the Government of Japan (GoJ)
The UN refugee agency UNHCR’s Representative Steven Corliss has hailed Bangladesh’s efforts to strangle the spread of the novel coronavirus in the Rohingya camps
An independent court of the United Nations has held Italy guilty of breaching India's freedom of navigation in the 2012 naval dispute between the two countries and rejected Italy's claim of compensation from India
European Union and UNICEF have expanded their partnership on nutrition to prevent malnutrition in children due to the socio-economic impact of the pandemic
The UN Security Council (UNSC) has adopted a resolution on COVID-19, demanding a general and immediate cessation of hostilities
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay has asked Indian authorities to prosecute the killers of journalist Shubham Mani Tripathi in order to end “gunpoint censorship
The world organisation has honoured an army lieutenant colonel who died while trying to save a fellow peacekeeper from drowning and four other Indians at a ceremony honouring those who lost their lives while serving it last year
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has reiterated calls seeking international lenders to grant debt relief to developing countries
United Nations experts have called on the international community to take collective and decisive action to ensure that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime ends violations of its international obligations and human rights of its citizens
The top UN envoy for Afghanistan has expressed optimism about the peace prospects in the war-torn country, saying talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban could begin in July
For more than a decade, Dechen Wangmo, 11, from Tsangkhar village in Phongmey, Trashigang has learned to live on whatever little she had
