Significantly, in a recent interview to WION TV, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that Beijing hadn't responded to Colombo's request for the debt restructuring.
India’s Fast Breeder Reactor Success Strengthens Energy Security Vision
India maintains a separation between civilian and military nuclear programmes and remains outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Consequently, the PFBR is not under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.
India's Fast Breeder Reactor: A Civilisational Bet on Nuclear Self-Reliance and Sustainability
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.
Disruptive Diplomacy: Why India and China Must Lead Humanity Beyond Fossil-Fuel Chokepoints
If India and China choose collaboration by setting aside strategic suspicion in the climate domain, they could fundamentally reshape the trajectory of the 21st century, as they have already demonstrated individually through their pursuit of clean energy over the past decade. More importantly, such a coalition could revive the COP28 fossil-fuel phase-down pledge, which stalled at COP29 in Baku and appears to be drifting further at COP30 in Belém.
Dying Rivers, Disappearing Species: Zoological Cost of Pollution in Pakistan and India
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.
More on Climate, Sustainability and Energy
Guterres appoints ex Indian diplomat as tech envoy; important appointments for Pakistani and Bangladeshi diplomats as well
Dujarric said that Gill “ helped secure high-impact international consensus recommendations on regulating artificial intelligence (Al) in lethal autonomous weapon systems in 2017 and 2018, the draft Al ethics recommendation of UNESCO in 2020, and a new international platform on digital health and Al”.
Warning of threat to ‘social cohesion’, UN launches $47.2 mn appeal for Sri Lanka
Asked about the causes of the crises, Singer-Hamdy said that while the Ukraine conflict had a ripple effect, there were other factors like the Covid pandemic, the tax cuts that cut the government revenue, the foreign exchange shortage, the currency devaluation and the ban on chemical fertilisers which cut agricultural production by 50 per cent.
UN appoints Rabab Fatima of Bangladesh as High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States
Fatima joined her country’s diplomatic service in 1989 and served in various capacities in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in Bangladesh Missions in New York, Kolkata, Geneva and Beijing.
UN to organize worldwide appeal for international assistance to Sri Lanka
After taking power, the new government of Ranil Wickremesinghe has been reaching out to the international community. The relative political stability that his government has brought following the resignation of the previous government of Mahinda Rajapaksa has also boosted the confidence of the international community.
India regrets state sponsors of cross-border terrorism go ‘scot-free’
Singh said, “The tools to address the serious violations of international law need to be used judiciously, without any selectivity, in line with principles of the UN Charter”. He stressed that countries should primarily be responsible for prosecuting serious violations of international law.
India reminds Pakistan of its ‘shameful history' of genocide in Bangladesh
During the debate, Pakistan’s Acting Permanent Representative Aamir Khan had accused India of “grave breaches of international criminal law” in Kashmir and of trying to change its demographics from Muslim majority to Hindu majority by cancelling its special constitutional status.
India, Nepal spotlight risk of terrorists using bioweapons and WMDs; Pakistan seeks democratisation of export-control regimes
“The growing capabilities of terrorist and other non-State groups to access delivery systems like missiles and unmanned/uncrewed aerial systems [drones] have compounded the risks of terrorism using WMDs”, the Indian representative said.
TTP is a persistent threat to Pakistan's security, warns UN report, as TTP makes impossible demands on Islamabad
The report comes amid ongoing peace talks between the TTP and the Pakistan government as the violence has increased since August last year. Earlier attempts of peace talks, mediated by the Afghan Taliban, had failed to produce any significant result. This year alone, the TTP carried out 46 attacks, mostly targeting security forces, and killed 79 people, according to the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies data.
India votes for US-sponsored UNSC resolution to raise North Korea sanctions; China, Russia veto it
Without naming the two countries, India’s Permanent Representative T. S. Tirumurti told the Council on March 25, “India also believes that there is a pressing need to address the proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies related to DPRK (North Korea) in our region. These linkages have an adverse impact on peace and security in the region, including on India”.
Taliban must reverse restrictions on women in Afghanistan, respect human rights, urges UN special envoy
At a press conference in Kabul on Thursday, the UN envoy said that the advancing erasure of women from public life was especially concerning and urged the authorities to immediately reverse policies and directives that negatively impact women and girls.
Bangladesh’s explanation in enforced disappearance cases ‘insufficient’, says UN working group
Bangladesh’s move to respond to the UN group’s queries came almost two months after the US State Department sanctioned seven top serving and retired RAB officials in December last year, citing human rights violations and other abuses by it, a move that was viewed very disapprovingly by Dhaka as an unfriendly act.
UN refugee chief visits Bangladesh, seeks continued international support for Rohingyas
For Bangladesh, the challenges of hosting the Rohingyas are only growing amid the resource crunch, a growing rate of crimes, and drug smuggling in the refugee camps.
UN to honor four Nepali peacekeepers posthumously
Nepal is the second largest contributor of uniformed officers to UN Peacekeeping, as over 5,700 of its military and police personnel are deployed to the UN operations in different conflict zones, according to the United Nations.
UNSC expresses ‘deep concern’ over the erosion of rights and freedom in Afghanistan
Recent reports showed how inspectors from the Taliban’s moral policing ministry had now intensified patrolling around public spaces like malls, bazaars, and other places, enforcing their socially conservative codes.
