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.
It is the best time to pursue a truly transformative framework by prioritizing the goals, resetting targets with deadlines and setting the strategic actions to fruitfully implement SDGs and their gradual achievements, writes Dr. Mohammad Rezaul Karim for South Asia Monitor
With Afghanistan in an economic crisis, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has warned that 97 percent of Afghans could fall below the poverty line by mid-2022 unless the country's political and economic challenges are addressed promptly
Warning that terrorism continues to threaten Afghanistan, India has demanded that the Taliban keep its commitment to not allow the country to be used by terrorists
India has said that countries emerging into a phase of stability after UN peacekeeping operations should be allowed to set their priorities for nation-building with a “humancentric” approach
India has accused Pakistan of promoting a “culture of violence” and using the high-level UN meeting on the culture of peace for hate speech
Afghanistan's Permanent Representative Ghulam Isaczai created a diplomatic stir when he defied the new Taliban government, asked the international community to reject it and denounced its use of violence to reinstall the “so-called Islamic Emirate
The Taliban's overthrow of a democratically-elected government in Afghanistan has spillover effects in the region and the UN Security Council would like to hear from the people in the region, according to Ireland's Permanent Representative Geraldine Byrne Nason, who heads the Security Council this month
Displaying a soft tilt towards the Taliban, which has captured power in Afghanistan, a country in which it has developed a growing and strategic stake in recent years, China called for respecting the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the South Asian nation, and the rights of the Afghan people to determine their own future
The United Nations Security Council has demanded that the Taliban should not allow terrorists to use its territory for attacks against other countries and this would apply to the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, according to India's Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said that the situation in Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover last week “remains uncertain and may evolve rapidly,” with up to 515,000 new refugees fleeing
United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has said that she had received credible reports that the Taliban had committed serious violations, including summary executions of civilians, in Afghanistan
The Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan last week, are reportedly targeting the people and their families who had helped and worked with the US and NATO troops, a confidential document by the UN’s threat assessment consultants pointed
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that he is ready to talk to the Taliban that has taken over Afghanistan amid fears of widepread human rights abuses
India will assume a pivotal role in the global fight against terror when it takes over the chair of the Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) next year, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar announced on Thursday
As events in Afghanistan elevate concerns about international security, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Thursday the global community should call out the hyprocrisy of countries that protect terrorists “with innocents' blood on their hands.”
