A genuinely regional approach could eventually include - besides Nepal, China and India - Bhutan and, where relevant, downstream institutions in Bangladesh. Organisations with established Himalayan expertise, particularly the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu, could offer scientific and institutional support.
The Himalayas are not collapsing because humanity exists, but humanity is creating a warmer world in which the Himalayas are becoming less predictable. The real question is no longer whether climate change will alter the mountains. It already is.
My eldest aunt was swept away. So was her son, my dai Madhu, and his wife. My other aunt — gone too, they told me. Her grandson Sijan and his wife, caught in the same water. His own son and daughter-in-law, unreachable, unaccounted for. My maternal uncle had gone out that morning to cut grass for the cattle. He never came back.
No technology can stop an avalanche. But the tragedy of events like Wednesday's is that the fatal interval between the trigger high in the mountains and the flood wave reaching villages downstream is often 20 minutes to a few hours. That window is exactly where artificial intelligence, coupled with sensors and satellites, earns its keep.
After abstaining, India’s Permanent Representative Ruchira Kamboj called the move a “mockery” of the UN sanctions on terrorist groups and warned, “Such exemptions must not facilitate 'mainstreaming' of terror entities in the political space in our region”.
“We don't need to be told what to do on democracy”, she said here on Tuesday when an Italian journalist raised the criticism that press freedom was being eroded in the country.
At the Security Council, Kamboj is the chair of its high-profile Counter-Terrorism Committee and organised in India a rare special session outside the headquarters to bring home the dangers of international terrorism.
India last presided over the Council in August last year when T.S. Tirumurti was the permanent representative and before that in 2011 and 2012 during current Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri’s tenure as the envoy to the UN.
Several countries have pulled out of or announced plans to withdraw from the peacekeeping operations in Mali. MINUSMA is one of the deadliest operations having claimed the lives of 292 peacekeepers.
Kamboj’s mention of nuclear and missile technology proliferation putting India at risk is a reference to the well-documented swap of Pakistan's clandestine nuclear technology for North Korea's missile technology, although she did not name the countries.
The paralysis of the Council, the UN’s highest decision-making body that is charged with taking action to end conflicts and ensure international peace, has brought a sense of urgency to the reform process.
We keep mentioning and talking about our unpleasant experiences often. They are also frequently important to bring focus on specific issues, but it is also equally important to speak about the good ones - ones that make you happy and amazed at the same time.
The barrier to UN reforms is a group of 13 countries led by Italy and which included Pakistan that has blocked the adoption of a negotiating text on which to base the discussion.
This was at least the 11th time India had abstained on a substantive resolution at the Security Council and the General Assembly involving Ukraine.
An Amnesty International investigation found that “up to 99 Hindu women, men, and children” had been massacred by ARSA fighters, who also abducted Hindu villagers in August 2017 in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
A small group of countries - which includes Pakistan - have so far blocked the reform process by preventing the adoption of a negotiating text which has meant that the IGN functions without a proper agenda or a record of the negotiations.
US and India have asked the Security Council committee dealing with sanctions on the Islamic State and al-Qaeda along with affiliated groups like the L-e-T to impose sanctions on Mahmood, who runs its international operations.
At the Ekta Nagar in Gujarat's Kevadia, Gutteres is to join Modi to launch the Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment), the MEA said. Gujarat is Modi’s home state.
The Assembly session also witnessed a sideshow by Pakistan, which stuck to its gimmick of bringing up Kashmir regardless of the topic on the agenda. Kamboj dismissed it as an attempt to misuse the UN forum with “frivolous and pointless remarks”.
