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.
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.
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.
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.
Twelve rights groups, including Amnesty International, had privately written to the United Nations (UN) two months ago seeking a ban on the deployment of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite paramilitary force, in UN peacekeeping missions
The era of classifying terrorists as "your terrorist" and "my terrorist" was over, said India
The Taliban through a “wave of measures” are attempting to “erase" women and girls from public life, UN rights experts have said, highlighting what they call “collective punishment” of women by enforcing "gender-biased and harmful" policies
A United Nations report said on Thursday that the deadly wave of Covid-19 Delta variant led to the loss of 240,000 lives in India in three months between April and June in 2021 and disrupted economic recovery, and warned that “similar episodes” could take place in the near term
"Freezing temperature and frozen assets" are a “lethal combination" for the people of Afghanistan, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, warning millions in the country are on the “verge of death” and requesting for the release of frozen assets to avert a complete collapse
“India's recovery is on a solid path,” the UN said on Thursday, reporting that the country recorded the highest estimated growth rate among the major economies last year and is set to be on the same trajectory during this year and the next
The Taliban has suggested the formation of joint teams, including their own officials, to the United Nations' agencies for the distribution of billions of dollars of aid that foreign governments are planning to send in Afghanistan to steeve off the escalating humanitarian crisis
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Dr Fernand de Varennes, Wednesday condemned the surfacing of a hate app in India on which doctored photographs of hundreds of Muslim women were uploaded for “auction” and said such incidents need to be prosecuted as soon as they occur
The United Nations (UN) has been seeking $5 billion in aid for Afghans —the largest so far for any aid program in UN history—as the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, following the Taliban’s takeover, now threatens the entire population
TS Tirumurti, India's permanent representative to the United Nations, was named the new Chair of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) on Tuesday
India on Wednesday voted in favour of a UN Security Council resolution to grant exemption from sanctions for humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, even as it stressed that the assistance should be without any hindrance
The United Nations is proposing paying the Taliban - under UN sanctions for terrorist activities - almost $6 million to subsidize the wages of its fighters who are guarding United Nations facilities
The people of Afghanistan are facing a profound humanitarian crisis that threatens the most basic of human rights, the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UN) warned on Tuesday
India has opposed a UN Security Council draft resolution on climate change, saying that attempts to link climate with security seek to obfuscate the lack of progress on critical issues under the UNFCCC process
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rohingya crisis Tom Andrews began a week-long visit to Bangladesh on Monday, saying "the world must not forget the roughly one million Rohingya from Myanmar"
