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Best Wishes, Jeywin Team
As 2010 draws to a close, we reflect on the year that was and the years that will be—who came to our attention this year (or who continued in our gaze) and will be making an impact on our lives in the years to come. The list of potential figures to make our group of 10 was long, and in the end we fudged, selecting seven individuals and three pairs for a total of 13 people. Still, left off the list are some people who will raise an eyebrow, we’re sure—and that’s the fun of it for both our readers and us. (Who know who they are) But, in this list we’ve drawn from various walks of life—some people who you know very well and who were in the media glare and others that perhaps are lesser known but who you should know. Creating lists such as these is entirely subjective, of course, and we invite you to offer your voice in the comment below on who we missed. Maybe they’ll make the class of 2011.
Julian Assange
Born July 3, 1971, in Townsville, Queensland, Australian computer programmer Julian Assange, the founder and public face of media organization and Web site WikiLeaks, made a splash earlier this year with the publication of almost half a million documents related to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last month, the clearinghouse for classified information began publishing secret U.S. diplomatic cables that covered, among other issues, U.S. policy toward Iran and detailed observations by U.S. diplomats of world leaders, including Vladimir Putin, Silvio Berlusconi, and Muammar al-Qaddafi. Some in the United States called him a terrorist and sought his extradition for criminal prosecution, but efforts to thwart WikiLeaks boomeranged, as his supporters began cyberattacks against credit card companies and Web sites that moved against Assange. Today, Assange is wanted by Swedish authorities for questioning in connection with sexual assault charges, and he was arrested in Britain earlier this month. What’s in store for Assange in the future—prison or freedom—may well be answered in 2011.
Kathryn Bigelow
Born on November 27, 1951, in San Carlos, California, the American film director and screenwriter Kathryn Bigelow became in March the first woman to win an Academy Award for best director, for her 2008 film The Hurt Locker, which won despite just an $11 million budget and a cast mostly devoid of stars. In winning the award, she beat out James Cameron, her ex-husband, who had been nominated for the special-effects extravaganza Avatar. Her previous credits included Point Break (1991), The Weight of Water (2000), and The Widowmaker (2002). Will she be able to follow-up this success with another? Possibly, since in 2011 she’ll be busy at work directing Triple Frontier, which will be starring Tom Hanks and possibly Johnny Depp and even Leo DiCaprio.
John Boehner
Some of his critics might deride him as the “weeper of the House,” because of his tendency to break into tears, and his “hell no you can’t” rant (about 3:30 into the video) on the House floor this past year was a YouTube sensation, but next year the Republican congressman, born on November 17, 1949, in Cincinnati, Ohio, will take the speaker’s gavel from Nancy Pelosi for the start of the 112th Congress. Two years ago, the Republicans looked like a spent force, as the Democrat had taken the White House and decisive majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, but behind the leadership of Boehner and others, the Republicans scored major victories in 2010, capturing a net of more than 60 seats in the House and winning back control. Boehner served as majority leader in the House in 2006 and as minority leader since 2007 and was previously perhaps best known for his role in passing No Child Left Behind in 2001 and for handing out checks from tobacco lobbyists on the House floor. Now, emboldened by Tea Party activists and sworn to try to repeal health care reform and to stop Barack Obama’s agenda, what’s next for American politics largely rests on the decisions that Boehner will make in 2011 and 2012.
Ursula Burns
Born on September 20, 1958, in New York, Ursula Burns made history in 2010 when she was appointed CEO of Xerox Corporation, thus becoming the first African American woman to serve as CEO of a Fortune 500 company and the first female to accede to the position of CEO of such a company from another female (Anne Mulcahy). Earlier in 2010 Burns had been appointed by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama to serve as vice-chair of the President’s Export Council (PEC), a group of labour, business, and government leaders who advise the president on methods to promote the growth of American exports. Burns was widely credited with increasing the company’s development, production, and sales of colour-capable devices. Whether the Columbia University-educated Burns will continue to lift Xerox’s fortunes in 2011 will be something worth watching.
David Cameron and Nick Clegg
For those observers predicting a hung Parliament in Great Britain for the May 6 general election, it was considered most likely that Conservative leader David Cameron would lead a minority government or perhaps Labour might cling to power as a minority government with support from Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats—or perhaps try to form a center-left coalition. When Nick Clegg and David Cameron emerged to announce that they would create a formal coalition government, with Clegg as deputy prime minister, the political establishment was stunned. While Cameron and Clegg appear to be getting on quite well, tensions have begun to become apparent, especially recently over the rise in tuition fees, and in 2011 the government will begin implementing its austerity budget, potentially fraying Clegg’s support among his own backbenchers. Indeed, 2011 may prove pivotal for the future of the Liberal Democrats and whether they will be able to retain their seats and position at the next election or whether they will fall back to where they were in the 1980s. For Cameron and his budget chief George Osborne, this is the year when they might see themselves solidify the position of the Conservatives or lose ground to Ed Miliband’s Labour Party.
Sylvie Kauffmann
Newspapers, like most traditional print publishers, have been going through a period of transition the past decades, and in France Sylvie Kauffmann was tapped in 2010 to leader the country’s leading newspaper, Le Monde, through its next period of transformation. Born in Marseilles on October 30, 1955, in 2010 Kauffmann became the first woman to lead Le Monde in the papers 66-year history. This decade, Le Monde suffered a series of woes, including a drop in sales, internal struggles, and the threat of recapitalization, which ultimately ended journalists’ long-standing majority ownership (2010). In 1987 she joined Le Monde, and in 1993 she was transferred to the United States, where she served as Washington correspondent and then New York bureau chief (1996–2001). She was widely noted for her objective reporting on American affairs, and in 2002 she wrote a prizewinning series of articles about life in the U.S. following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. After serving as deputy executive editor (2004–06), Kauffmann worked as a senior correspondent covering Southeast Asia.
Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Eun
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula boiled over in 2010, when North Korea began shelling a South Korean island following the commencement of South Korean military exercises. Reading North Korea is as much an art as a science, and some observers saw in that move an attempt by ailing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to strengthen the position of his youngest son and chosen successor Kim Jong Eun (also spelled Kim Jung Un). Not much is known of the younger Kim, who is thought to have been born in 1983, but by mid-2009 it became clear that he was being groomed to replace his father, being referred to within the country by the title “Brilliant Comrade.” In September 2010 Kim Jong-un was given the rank of four-star general, even though he was not known to have had any previous military experience. The timing of the appointment was considered significant, as it came shortly before the first general meeting of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party since the session in 1980 at which his father had been named Kim Il-sung’s successor. With North Korea’s nuclear program still under scrutiny from the outside, and after last year’s artillery shelling by the North and its torpedoing of a South Korean naval vessel—not to mention North Korea revealing a vast facility for the enrichment of uranium in November 2010 and the continued economic disaster in the North—the world will be reading the runes in North Korea to see how the transition is going.
Lady Gaga
On January 31, 2010, the now-24-year-old Lady Gaga opened the Grammy Awards telecast with an explosive production of her hit single “Poker Face” followed by a more subdued two-piano duet with Sir Elton John of a fusion of her “Speechless” and his “Your Song.” From her two Grammy wins (for best electronic/dance album and best dance recording [for “Poker Face”]) to her three Brit Awards in February, her eight wins at the Video Music Awards in September, her triumph as favorite female artist at the American Music Awards in November, and her selection as Billboard’s Artist of the Year in December, 2010 was in many ways the year of Gaga. With her sold-out concert tour, her headlining of Lollapalooza, and her concert in front of 20,000 of her “little monsters” on the Today show, it was almost inevitable that the flashy singer-songwriter would be named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People for the year and as one of the world’s most powerful women by Forbes magazine. Will her string of fortune continue in February 2011, when she’s up for six Grammys.
Liu Xiaobao and Xi Jinping
In October 2010 Liu Xiaobao, a Chinese literary critic, professor, and human rights activist who had helped draft Charter 08, a 19-point program that called for greater political freedoms in China, was selected as the recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize (the first Chinese citizen to win the award), setting off a firestorm in China, which condemned the Nobel committee’s decision. When the award was presented on December 10, Liu was absent from the ceremony, as he is serving 11 years in a Chinese prison on charges of subversion. In his absence, Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann read a statement that Liu had made to a Chinese court in 2009. It read, in part, “I have no enemies and no hatred. Hatred can rot away at a person’s intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation’s progress toward freedom and democracy.” That transition that Liu hopes for might be in the hands of Xi Jinping in the future. Little known in the West, Xi has been vice president of China since 2008 and was named in october vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. His elevation to the powerful Commission was widely seen as one of the last stepping stones on his path to the presidency of China when Pres. Hu Jintao leaves office in 2012.
Manny Pacquiao
Born on December 17, 1978, in Kibawe in Mindanao, Philippines, Manny Pacquiao is perhaps the most dynamic figure in the Philippines and in boxing today. He left home as a teen and stowed away on a ship bound for Manila where he became a boxer and made his boxing debut 15 years ago as a junior flyweight. Now, 15 years later, he has won world boxing titles in a record eight weight classes, having defeated WBC super welterweight champion Antonio Margarito on November 13 at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas (Pacquiao weighed in at the opening bell 17 pounds lighter than the champion). In 2007 Pacquiao had run unsuccessfully for a seat in the Philippines legislature, but in May 2010 he entered the political fray once again, this time winning a legislative seat for a district in Mindanao by an overwhelming majority. All eyes in the boxing world continue to be directed at a possible Pacquiao/Floyd Mayweather fight, but perhaps more important for Filipinos will be what he does in the political ring and whether he might one day make it to the presidency.
Union Law Ministry and the Election Commission started nation-wide consultations on 12.12.2010 with political parties, NGOs and other stakeholders on a proposal for making comprehensive reforms to electoral laws in India.
The consultations cover issues such as criminalisation of politics, financing of elections, conduct and better management of elections, regulating political parties, auditing and financing of political parties, adjudication of election disputes and review of the anti-defection law.
As the general elections in India are a mammoth exercise, with over 700 million voters, and about one million polling booths in the country, the Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India, felt the need for a Committee on Electoral Reforms and constituted it. The main purpose of the Committee is to recommend to the government concrete ways in which our electoral system can be strengthened. The Committee will take into account the opinions of political leaders, Government servants, legal experts, NGOs, scholars, academics, journalists, and other stakeholders.
The topic of electoral reforms has been taken up by numerous government committees in the recent past. They include Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms (1990), Vohra Committee Report (1993), Indrajit Gupta Committee on State Funding of Elections (1998), Law Commission Report on Reform of the Electoral Laws (1999), National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (2001), Election Commission of India – Proposed Electoral Reforms (2004), The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2008).
Civil society groups, journalists, and other observers of the process have been playing an important role in identifying a number of the weaknesses of our existing system. There have been efforts to use the courts to seek to push reform on this important issue. The widely known practice of every candidate having to declare their assets, liabilities and pending criminal cases came about as a result of a landmark court judgement.
Criminalisation of Politics
The Vohra Committee Report on Criminalisation of Politics was constituted to identify the extent of the politician-criminal nexus and recommend ways in which the menace can be combated. In Chapter 4 of the report of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution, cites the Vohra report as follows: “The nexus between the criminal gangs, police, bureaucracy and politicians has come out clearly in various parts of the country” and that “some political leaders become the leaders of these gangs/armed senas and over the years get themselves elected to local bodies, State assemblies, and national parliament.” This point becomes self evident when one looks at the number of elected representatives with pending criminal cases against them at all levels in our federal system.
Both the Election Commission and Law Commission of India recommend that a negative or neutral voting option be created. Negative/ neutral voting means allowing voters to reject all of the candidates on the ballot by selection of a “none of the above” option instead of the name of a candidate on the ballot. In such a system there could be a provision whereas if a certain percentage of the vote is negative/neutral, then the election results could be nullified and a new election conducted.
Financing of Elections
A Consultation Paper to the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution, 2001, noted that “the campaign expenditure by candidates is in the range of about twenty to thirty times the legal limits”.
There are many negative social impacts of this high cost. Chapter 4 of the Report of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution, 2001, notes that the high cost of elections “creates a high degree of compulsion for corruption in the public arena” and that “the sources of some of the election funds are believed to be unaccounted criminal money in return for protection, unaccounted funds from business groups who expect a high return on this investment, kickbacks or commissions on contracts, etc.” It also states that “Electoral compulsions for funds become the foundation of the whole super structure of corruption”.
The Election Commission, however, is also not in favour of state funding as it will not be possible to prohibit or check candidate’s own expenditure or expenditure by others over and above that which is provided by the State. The Election Commission’s view is that for addressing the real issues, there have to be radical changes in the provisions regarding receipts of funds by political parties and the manner in which such funds are spent by them so as to provide for complete transparency in the matter.
Conduct and better management of Elections
According to the Election Commission of India, the size of the electorate for the 2009 elections to the 15th Lok Sabha was more than 714 million. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution, 2001, noted in its report that “the holding of general elections in India is equal to holding them for Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia all put together.” Successful administration of the electoral process requires more than 50 lakh personnel and almost 1 million (10 lakh) polling booths. Millions of security personnel are required to promote a peaceful and incident-free voting experience. The Election Commission recommends that the Secretariat of the Election Commission, consisting of officers and staff at various levels is also insulated from the interference of the Executive in the matter of their appointments, promotions, etc., and all such functions are exclusively vested in the Election Commission on the lines of the Secretariats of the Lok Sabha, and Rajya Sabha, Registries of the Supreme Court and High Courts etc.
The Election Commission recommends that there should be a provision for penal action against those making any false declarations in connection with an election. Such a provision would provide for a similar punishment for false declarations in connection with conduct of elections, such as false complaints of booth capturing or false complaints about the conduct of election officials.
Section 10A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the Election Commission may disqualify a candidate for three years for failure to lodge the account of election expenses as per the requirement of the law. Thus, the period of disqualification may end by the time of the next general election to that House. Therefore, no effective purpose is served by the disqualification (except that the person cannot contest in the odd bye-election that may be held during the 3 year period).
The Election Commission recommends that the period of disqualification under Section 10A should be increased to 5 years, so that the disqualified person does not become a candidate at the next general election to the House concerned.
Regulating Political Parties
Proliferation of political parties is stated as a major concern by many previous committees. Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, allows for small groups of people to form political parties by making only a simple declaration.
In its 2001 report, the National Committee to Review the Working of the Constitution states that “it is a desirable objective to promote the progressive polarisation of political ideologies and to reduce less serious political activity.”
According to the Election Commission, a large number of non-serious parties create excessive load on the electoral system. Of the more than 1100 parties registered with the Election Commission in 2009, only about 360 actually contested the general election that year. The Commission also states that part of the problem is that there is no specific provision to de-register a party.
The Election Commission proposes that an amendment be made to Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, adding a clause “authorising the Election Commission to issue necessary orders regulating registration and de-registration of political parties.”
Auditing of finances of Political Parties
The high cost of elections provides logic for corruption in the public arena. This affects not only candidates, but parties as well.
In order to further transparency in the funding of political parties, the Election Commission recommends the following measures: (i) any receipt by a political party either directly or through the executives or the party functionaries should be deposited in the Bank Accounts of such parties, (ii) all payments by the political party exceeding Rs.20,000/- to a person should be made by crossed account payee cheque and (iii) all contributions or donations or gifts by any person to a party functionary other than those by his/her relative(s) shall be deemed as receipts of the political party and it will be accounted for by the political party.
Adjudication of Election Disputes
In practice, cases involving election petitions are rarely resolved in a timely manner. According to the report “Ethics in Governance” of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, “such petitions remain pending for years and in the meanwhile, even the full term of the house expires thus rendering the election petition in fructuous.
The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution recommended that special election benches designated for election petitions only should be formed in the High Court.
The Election Commission has also made a similar recommendation.
Review of Anti-defection Law
In the report “Ethics in Governance” of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, it is noted that “Defection has long been a malaise of Indian political life. It represents manipulation of the political system for furthering private interests, and has been a potent source of political corruption.” The report further notes that “there is no doubt that permitting defection in any form or context is a travesty of ethics in politics.”
The Anti-Defection provisions of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, enacted in 1985, fixed a certain number above which group defections were permitted. The National Committee to Review the Working of the Constitution noted that although individual defections became rare after this, group defection were “permitted, promoted and amply rewarded.”
The 91st Amendment to the Constitution, 2003, changed this by making it mandatory for defectors to resign their positions regardless of whether they defected as an individual or as part of a group.
Currently the issue of disqualification of members of Parliament or a State Legislature is decided by the Speaker or Chairman of the concerned House. Aside from those concerning the Tenth Schedule all other matters of post-election disqualification are decided by the President/Governor, on the advice of the Election Commission.
The Election Commission, in its 2004 report, noted that “all political parties are aware of some of the decisions of the Hon’ble Speakers, leading to controversies and further litigation in courts of law.” The National Committee to Review the Working of the Constitution noted that “some of the Speakers have tended to act in a partisan manner and without a proper appreciation – deliberate or otherwise – of the provisions of the Tenth Schedule.”
The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution recommend that “the power to decide on questions as to disqualification on ground of defection should vest in the Election Commission instead of in the Chairman or Speaker of the House concerned.”
The Election Commission and “Ethics in Governance” report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission also both recommended that the issue of disqualification on grounds of defection should be decided by the President/Governor concerned under the advice of the Election Commission, instead of relying on the objectivity of the decision from the Speaker.
Regional Consultations
The consultation starting on 12.12.2010 will be a starting point to renew a national dialogue on the important changes that need to be brought about to strengthen our electoral system.
There would be a total of seven regional consultations from December 12, 2010 to February 5, 2011 followed by national-level consultations on April 2 and 3, 2011.
The first of a series of regional consultations was in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. One of the suggestions by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan during the consultation was that the Rajya Sabha should be abolished since huge sums of money were being spent to become members, making the upper House like a “market.”
“Those who give funds make a sort of investment and seek to earn out of it later,” the BJP Chief Minister said.
“In my opinion the time has come to do away with the Rajya Sabha elections. In place of it, a quota should be reserved in the Lok Sabha for Rajya Sabha members,” Mr. Chouhan said at the regional consultation on electoral reforms organised in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly.
“There is open selling of tickets. It is a shame,” he added.
He stressed the need for conducting Lok Sabha and Assembly elections simultaneously and once in five years. Concerns over the use of “black money” during elections were also expressed during the consultations.
Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi said opinion polls should be banned because of the paid news problem. The need for check on advertisements that appear in the print media on the day of the polls to prevent influence on voters was also discussed. Saying that opinion polls seemed to be an interference with free and fair elections, Mr. Quraishi also pleaded for stringent punishment for malpractices in elections.
He said the commission had also received complaints that envelopes containing money were distributed among voters by the candidates after the campaigning was over.
According to him a system should be developed to ensure that votes of different areas are mixed before being counted. During the manual counting of the ballots earlier, the votes were mixed to ensure that the mandate in a given area was kept secret.
Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily said elections should be the festivals of democracy.
The ensuing consultations would be held in 2011 in Kolkata on January 9, Bangalore (January 16), Guwahati (January 21), Mumbai (January 22), Lucknow (January 30), and Chandigarh (February 5).
A nine-member core committee, headed by Additional Solicitor-General Vivek K. Tankha, has prepared the background paper, which form the basis of the discussions. This is the first time an attempt was being made to bring in a comprehensive reform of electoral laws and rules since the Constitution came into force.
The consultation would also cover issues such as whether a person should be restricted to contest from one seat, and whether, whenever a general election was due there should be a total ban on Central and State governments issuing advertisements in any manner for six months prior to the date of expiry of the term of the Lok Sabha.
Amendments made earlier were all piecemeal responses to contingencies. But, a comprehensive reform is being attempted for the first time in the country.
1. Interpersonal Skills Including Communication Skills
Interpersonal skills are the skills that a person uses to interact with other people. It is also sometimes called communication skills. Positive interpersonal skills increase the productivity of the organization since the numbers of conflicts are reduced. It also allows communication to be easy and comfortable.
Some ways to improve interpersonal skills are:
Think positive and maintain good relationship.
Do not criticize others or yourself and be patient.
Develop the practice of listening; 80% listening and 20% talking is excellent.
Be sensitive to others and treat others and their experience with respect.
Praise and compliment the people and subordinates when they deserve it.
Be cheerful and make the people smile.
Do not complain and look for solutions.
Treat your team members and colleagues as friends and not as strangers or subordinates.
Communication:
Communication is the transfer of information from a sender to a receiver. Communication is generally understood as spoken or written words. But in reality, it is more than that. It is the sum total of directly or indirectly, unconsciously or consciously transmitted words, attitudes, feelings, actions, gestures and tones. A slight lift in the brow is often more expressive disapproval than hundreds of words put together.
The importance of communication in administration can be judged from the following points:
Communication is required to disseminate the goals and the objectives of the organization.
It helps the administration in arriving at vital decisions.
Communication helps in planning and coordination.
It is a tool of supervision and control.
It is a basic tool for motivation and an increase in the morale of the employees.
It bolsters the maintenance of good human relations in the organization.
Sample Questions
Q1. Communication is commonly cited as being at the root of practically all the problems in administration. Which among the following is the most important after-effects of poor communication.
(a) Wrong decisions
(b) Poor policy formulation
(c) Isolation of the people at top
(d) Goals of the organization not properly served.
Q2. Communication is administration can be improved by:
(a) Compulsory training of personnel’s.
(b) Motivation of the work force.
(c) Asking for the feedback.
(d) Simplification of the language of communication.
Q3. Important factor for communication is:
(a) Communication should be in bold and assertive manner.
(b) It should be authenticated.
(c) It should be drafted by Senior officer himself.
(d) Communication should have all the details.
2. Decision Making and Problem Solving
No organization can be run without taking decisions. In every organization, decisions are made by persons and hence decision making in Govt. is a plural activity. One individual may have pronounced the decision, but many contribute to the process of reaching the decision. Seven factors have been thought to be important factors while taking the decisions.
Legal limitations
Budget
Mores (Conventions)
Facts
History
Internal programme and
Subordinates
Problems in decision making:
Involvement in routine
Priority of the problem
Bias
Bias is linked with:
Discretion
Public Interest
Strict adherence to rules may lead to red tape.
Caste, class, community, religion, language, profession, region, pressure group etc.
Decision making is linked with leadership quality. According to Barnard’s theory, four leadership qualities in order of priority are:
Vitality and endurance
Decisiveness
Persuasiveness and
Responsibility and intellectual capacity
Problem analysis must be done first, then the information gathered in that process may be used towards decisions making.
Problem Analysis:
Problem must be precisely identified and described.
Cause of the problem must be analyzed.
Whether such type of problem occurred previously and what was the solution.
People who were affected due to that problem can be approached for proper analysis.
Decision Making:
Objectives must be established first and placed in order of preference.
Alternative actions must be developed.
The alternative that is able to achieve all the objectives is the tentative decision.
The tentative decision is evaluated for more possible consequences.
Decision making steps:
1st Step: Outline your goal and outcome.
2nd Step: Gather data. This will help the decision makers having actual evidence to help them come up with a solution.
3rd Step: Brainstorm to develop alternatives. Coming up with more than one solution enables you to see which one can actually work.
4th Step: List pros and cons of each alternative, with the help of which, you can eliminate the solutions that have more cons than pros, making your decision easier.
5th Step: Make the decision by picking the one that has many pros, and the one that everyone can agree with.
6th Step: Immediately take action. Once the decision is picked, you should implement it right away.
7th Step: Learn from and reflect on the decision making. This step allows you to gauge where you were right or wrong while implementing the decision.
Sample Questions:
Q1: Land is acquired under the Land Acquisition Act 1894, the law provides for a reasonable compensation to be paid to the land loser. The present system of payment of compensation has come under criticism. What is the best alternative?
(a) Allocating a percentage of benefit to the development of area and to the individual who has been displaced.
(b) Provision of equity participation in the project which has come in the acquired land.
(c) Enactment of a new law with provision of people’s sustainable resettlement.
(d) Principle of land leasing designed to keep revenue accruing to the affected people for a long period rather than to make only a one time compensation payment and dislocate them.
Q2: In order to make the effective use of Acts regarding atrocities against S.C. & S.T. What is the most important step one can take as a D.M. of the Distt. ?
(a) Printing and distribution of booklets in local languages highlighting the theme of combating atrocities against S.C./S.T.
(b) Training of Police officers about the sensitivity of the issue and relating legal provision.
(c) Review of cases which are pending for disposal so as to ensure award of exemplary punishment.
(d) As majority of S.C. and S.T. population are wage labourers, the Minimum Wages Act be strictly enforced.
3. General Mental Ability
The other day, someone was asking me how IAS exam is changing from previous years. And how is this new version different from the previous versions. Most importantly, how should we prepare for this new avatar? I personally believe that this time, UPSC is forcing all its applicants for doing something which was always important but no one cared about it i.e. General Mental Abilities, Reasoning and command over English Language. If we look at last 5-6 years papers then we can easily realize that number of questions on these topics was always increasing but even then students never focused on these areas. And probably now, they have done something to ensure that each and every one start working on them.
Talking particularly about General Mental Ability, it is something which is feared by all the IAS aspirants. But, in the current scenario, one needs to master the art of General Mental Ability for cracking any good competition. We get good number of questions on Mental Ability in exams of Public Sector, Bank PO, big B-School entrance and now in IAS as well.
For mastering General Mental Ability, firstly we should know that what are the types of questions and what are the basics of the same. In mental ability, the prime thing which is being tested is your familiarity with the numbers. The commonly asked questions are the basics of Number Theory, basic Arithmetic, basic Algebraic formulas, Permutation and Combination and Probability. Now, if we look at these topics, all of us have read and practiced these topics in good length at high school level. But because of our habit and obligations of using calculator after that has forced us to forget all those basic concepts of arithmetic and has deviated us from the basics of mathematics. I am pretty sure that many of us who used to solve the same questions at tenth level will not be able to solve the same set of question now.
Regarding how to improve this, there is a very basic thing that we were taught by our parents was “practice makes a man perfect”. This is very true about the Mental Ability at this stage. We just need to practice these basic concepts religiously to master these concepts. And believe me, there is no other way to success. In this article, we will discuss all the areas which are tested by General Mental Ability.
Primarily, we will discuss about Number Theory. The concepts of Number Theory are the basic which we have studied in class 3rd to class 7th. This includes different types of number and most importantly prime-composite numbers and even-odd numbers. Other topic of number theory is LCM and HCF and their applications which mean one should not only know what is HCF-LCM but should also know how to use and in what type of questions, we should calculate them. Last but not the least; it includes divisibility rules, which means how can we identify that which number is divisible by 2, 3, 5, 8 and so on. These are the basics which are taught to everyone in our initial classes. But with time, we have forgotten all those basics.
Next thing to discuss is Arithmetic which includes basics of percentage, profit-loss and discount, ratio proportion, time speed and distance and time and work. These topics form and most of the class tenth syllabus. And if I am not wrong, many of us used to cherish these topics and used to solve these topics with a good amount of ease. The reason for our success in solving these questions at that point of time was our practice to do these questions at that time.
Talking about Algebra, it includes some basic formulas, different types of progressions, quadratic equations and simultaneous equations. Again, we have studied these topics again and again from class 6th to class 10th. And we all know the basics of these topics. It is just that we need to practice these topics a bit more and need to revise all these topics once again. But if we can practice these questions then Algebra can easily be solved.
And most important topic of General Mental Ability is Permutation and Combination and Probability. Talking about this particular topic, this is very interesting and conceptual where in most of the questions talk about the number of ways of doing some particular job or arranging certain number of things. And if we think about this topic, it can even check your ability to identify the different options and evaluation of the same. But again, it also requires some good clarity of the topic which can be earned only and only through practice and understanding of the basics.
To sum up all, if we want to ensure a good score in mental ability and a better second paper of IAS this year then probably, we need to start practicing today and we need to clear all our basics and concepts. NCERT class sixth to tenth is the best books suited for these preparation. Last but not the least, practice as many sample papers as you can along with a proper feedback and doubt clearing of each and every paper.
Sample Questions for General Mental Ability:
Q1. A managing committee of 7 members is to be constituted from a group comprising 8 gentlemen and 5 ladies. What is the probability that the committee would comprise 2 ladies?
(a) 10/249
(b) 56/429
(c) 392/429
(d) 140/429
Q2. One junior student is asked to divide half a number by 6 and the other half by 4 and then add the quantities. Instead of doing so, the student divides the given number by 5. If the answer is 4 short of the correct answer, then the actual number is?
(a) 320
(b) 360
(c) 480
(d) 400
Q3. There are 6 tickets to the theater, four of which are for seats in the front row. 3 tickets are selected at random. What is the probability that two of them are for the front row?
(a) 0.6
(b) 0.7
(c) 0.9
(d) 1/3
Q4. In how many ways 8 boys can be divided into two groups of 4 each?
(a) 280
(b) 140
(c) 70
(d) 35
Q5. 128 players start in the men’s singles at a tennis tournament, where this number reduces to half on every succeeding round. How many matches are played totally in the event?
(a) 63
(b) 48
(c) 127
(d) 144
Q6. When a heap of pebbles is grouped in 32, 40 or 72 it is left with remainders of 10, 18 or 50 respectively. What is the minimum number of pebbles that the heap contains?
(a) 1416
(b) 1418
(c) 1412
(d) 1420
Q7. A five digit number is formed by using 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 without repetition. What is the probability that this number will not be divisible by 4?
(a) 4/5
(b) 1/6
(c) 1/5
(d) None of the above
Q8. Inhow many ways letters of the word MISSISSIPPI can be arranged such that all the vowels always remain together?
(a) 28
(b) 56
(c) 84
(d) 112
Q9. How many 5 digit numbers are there which have 5 of the given digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
(a) 120
(b) 600
(c) 720
(d) None of the above
Q10. ‘A’ can run a circular track in 6 hours and ‘B’ can run the same circular track in 8 hours. If both of them start running together from the same point in the same direction, then after how much time, they will meet for the first time?
(a) 12 hours
(b) 24 hours
(c) 48 hours
(d) None of the above
Q11. A certain sum of money increases to 5 times in 5 years at certain rate of Simple Interest. At the same rate of simple interest the money will increase to 25 times in how many years?
(a) 10 years
(b) 25 years
(c) 30 years
(d) None of the above
Q12. What will be total number of terms in the expansion of (a+b+c)10?
(a) 45
(b) 66
(c) 310
(d) 120
Q13. Sixteen thousand men die of AIDS every day. How many men die of AIDS every minute?
(a) 11
(b) 9
(c) 7
(d) 5
Q14. A black and white photo contains 80% black and 20% white. Now if this photo is enlarged to double the size, then what percentage of the photo will be black?
(a) 64%
(b) 80%
(c) 84%
(d) None of the above
Q15. You are selecting 10 numbers randomly out of the first 100 add numbers. Sum of these 10 odd numbers is A. How many different values of A are possible?
(a) 100C10
(b) 1801
(c) 1800
(d) 901
Q16. The pages of a book are continuously numbered and it took 1200 digits (with repetitions) to write them. The number of pages in the book is:
(a) 425
(b) 433
(c) 436
(d) None of these
Q17. In how many ways 8 boys can be seated on 8 chairs put on a square table (2 chairs on all the 4 sides)?
(a) 7!
(b) 2 × 7!
(c) 8! / 2
(d) None of the above
Q18. If 38 people dig 38 trenches in 38 days, how long will 35 people take to dig 70 trenches?
(a) 19 days
(b) 35 days
(c) 70 days
(d) 76 days
Q19. Pooja buys 7 pencils for Rs. 6 and sells them. What should be the price marked on a pencil, if she gives 10% discount on it so that after discount there is no loss or gain?
(a) Re. 0.950
(b) Re. 0.935
(c) Re. 0.945
(d) Re. 0.855
Q20. Ramu went to market to buy 6 chairs and 3 tables and consumed all the money he had in the transaction. If he had to purchase 3 chairs and 6 tables then he would have been fallen short by 20%. Find the ratio of price of one chair and one table.
(a) 3 : 4
(b) 1 : 2
(c) 2 : 5
(d) Cannot be determined
4. Basic Numeracy & Data Interpretation:
One definition of numeracy is ‘to use mathematics effectively to meet the general demands of life at home, in paid work, and for participation in community and civic life’.
Basic numeracy could be defined as being able to count and to calculate with numbers.
Mathematics is the science that deals with numbers, quantities, shapes, patterns, measurements, concepts related to them and their numerous relationships. It includes arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, etc., where as quantitative techniques section in CSAT would be more of an application of the fundamental rules of mathematics in real life situations. The following illustration can help us understand the real facet of Quantitative techniques.
Suppose you watch a light flashing every 2 seconds, and another light flashing every 3 seconds, how would you calculate when the two lights would flash together? For someone devoid of the basic weapons of mathematics, this would be a labyrinth. But is it really? To unravel this enigma all we need to do is use simple logic. Let’s see how – the first light flashes after an interval of every 2 seconds, this implies that it would flash at the intervals of 2, i.e., after 2 seconds, 4 seconds, 6 seconds, 8 seconds and so on…. Likewise, the second light will flash after 3 seconds, 6 seconds, 9 seconds, and so on…. We, thus, observe that the two flash together after every 6 seconds. Now this is a direct application of a very simple concept the LCM, i.e., Least Common Multiple (LCM of 2 & 3 is 6), a concept which all of us have studied in our junior school. Obviously, as a CSAT aspirant you shouldn’t expect a direct question to calculate the LCM of 2 & 3. The questions would be application based, and therefore, be asked in a disguised manner. The real test is of one’s analytical skill to fathom what is being asked. There are similar illustrations of most basic concepts, which we have studied till our Xth grade and these questions check our ability to apply the concepts, which we have learnt to real life situations.
Preparation for CSAT will be an eye-opener for oneself. So many myths and prejudices about oneself just whisk away after a year-long preparation. One gets clarity about one self as to what he/she actually wants in life. So all it requires is smartness and aptitude.
Most of us tend to forget the concepts we have studied till Xth. So the real preparation starts with concept building. Once thorough with the concepts or the accuracy part; start practicing different type of questions on these topics.
Questions in this section can be from the following topics:
Arithmetic: Ratio & Proportion, Percentage, Profit & Loss, averages, Time Speed & Distance, HCF – LCM, Simple Interest etc.
Geometry: Triangles, Circles and Co – ordinate Geometry.
Other topics of Maths like – permutation & combination, binomial equation etc.
Numerical ability tests can be divided into tests of simple numeracy, where you are told which arithmetic operations to apply, and numerical reasoning tests where you are presented with some data and questions but the methods required to answer the questions are not specified. In all cases you need to prepare by practicing your mental arithmetic until you are both quick and confident. Your score in the simple speed tests will be very much influenced by your ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide quickly and accurately.
Even though you will need to do fewer arithmetic operations in the reasoning tests, there is no point in working out how to arrive at the answer if you make a simple mistake when calculating it. You should make a habit of mentally estimating your answers as a way of checking them.
Numerical Reasoning questions assess your ability to use numbers in a logical and rational way. The questions require a basic level of education in order to successfully complete and are therefore measuring numerical ability rather than educational achievement. The questions measure your understanding of such things as number series, numerical transformations, the relationships between numbers and your ability to perform numerical calculation.
Data Interpretation: In these questions data is presented either in the form of a table or a bar chart or a pie-chart or a line graph or as a combination of one of these formats. Following each of these data presentations, there will be 4 to 6 questions. You are expected to answer the questions by interpreting the data given in the table or graph.
The Data Interpretation section of C-SAT is probably closest in resemblance to the kind of problems one will be dealing in real life situations. It tests one’s decision-making ability and speed using limited input. Start off with topical tests in the initial stage of preparation.
This is the calculation intensive portion of the section. It consists of a myriad of graphs, charts and tables from which you will have to glean and analyze data. The key to cracking this area is to quickly identify the key pieces of data that you will require to work on the questions asked. Sometimes questions are formed to try and bewilder students with a large amount of data, most of it unnecessary. As a rule, the more the data presented, the easier the questions that follow, so don’t lose heart if you see a table with 10 columns occupying one whole page. On the other hand, several seemingly innocuous questions may trip you up.
Another interesting feature of DI that you as a student can use to your advantage is that, usually, not all questions in a set are of equal difficulty. Specifically, most sets have a ‘counting’ type of question (How many companies have profits more than x%, how many people have incomes less than Rs. Y etc.). Most of these questions can be solved without calculation but by close inspection of the data presented. These I would categorize as ‘gift’ questions designed to test a student’s presence of mind, and should never be missed out on. There are other similarly easy questions in most sets, and you should practice identifying the level of difficulty of questions so you know immediately would ones to attempt and which to avoid.
Information is provided that requires you to interpret it and then apply the appropriate logic to answer the questions. Sometimes the questions are designed to approximate the type of reasoning required in the workplace. These data interpretation questions will often use very specific illustrations, for example the question may present financial data or use information technology jargon. However, an understanding of these areas is not required to answer the question.
Below are some figures for agricultural imports from January to May. Answer the following questions using the data provided.
Q1. Which month showed the largest total decrease in imports over the previous month?
(a) March
(b) April
(c) May
(d) July
Q2. What percentage of rice was imported in April?
(a) 17%
(b) 19%
(c) 21%
(d) 18%
Q3. What was the total cost of wheat imports in the 5 month period?
(a) 27,500
(b) 25,000
(c) 22,000
(d) 29,000
5. COMPREHENSION:
Comprehension is the classic entry in CSAT syllabus as it is not to test your language skill, but to test your moral and ethical aptitude, understanding of government programmes and policies, social problems, ability to comprehend boring reports etc. However, language will play a bigger role in deciphering the hidden message of the text. Language is a very complex blend of nature. We have been brought up with a language usually our mother tongue and then we come across other language, dialects and versions of language as we grow in age, stature and maturity. A word can have innumerable connotations with respect to tone, context and reference, which impinge on comprehension and understanding infinitely.
Comprehension is an element of your exposure to different type of usage the kind of books you read or whether reading even features in your scheme of things on a regular day. As an IAS aspirant you are expected to read, assimilate reason, draw inferences and apply your learning to different situations. As administrator you will have to read reports, infer, make strategies and plan. As the time you spend on these documents impacts the efficiency and productivity of your division, you must find a way to work speedily and clear the tasks as per requirements and not be the bottleneck where work comes to a standstill.
You wonder how you can enhance your competence and reduce time spent, whether on deciphering reports, documents etc. the way to improve your reading comprehension is evidently making a habit of reading at least a few pages of editorials in daily newspapers such as the Hindu, the Economist or any other daily. Sift through them every day and watch your efficiency with paperwork improve exponentially.
In oral communication, individuals face one another, through which they can perceive the communication better due to: Facial expression, Context, Body language, Physical tone, pitch and voice variation, Verbal emphasis etc….
Comprehension, however, lacks the above aids and does not assist and the reader for an understanding have to go beyond the superficial aspect of mere words. Therefore, the reader has to learn to decipher the unspoken aspects such as the ideas, inferences, assumptions, opinions, etc to comprehend the passage’s real intent. The length and complexity of the passage also varies depending on the tests. To understand better we are giving few exercises:
Exercise -1
Homo sapiens may not have been responsible for the five distinct spasms of extinctions in geological time that began an estimated 440 million years ago, but humans are centrally implicated in the ongoing sixth wave of severe biodiversity loss. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was drafted in 1992 to stem the decline. It entered into force a year later with the avowed aim of significantly reducing loss of species and even using them where compatible to alleviate poverty. But nearly two decades later, the treaty has largely failed to meet its targets. There is now another opportunity available to make it work. The parties to the CBD are holding their 10th conference in the Japanese city of Nagoya and with sufficient political will they can reverse the tide of species losses. The member-countries have done well to acknowledge the all-round disappointment that their renewed commitment, made in 2002 to reduce biodiversity loss, remains a dead letter. They are now challenged to deliver on their assurances and act more intelligently on climate change, habitat loss and degradation, excessive exploitation, spread of invasive alien species, and pollution, all of which affect plant and animal survival. What provides some hope is the persistence of a large amount of biological diversity.
The key to conservation is to recognize the role of nature in providing ecosystem goods such as fodder, fibre, genetic resources, fresh water and services such as cleansing of air, nutrient flow, erosion prevention, flood control, pollination and disease regulation. That this economic dimension of nature is being increasingly accepted the world over is heartening. At the Nagoya conference, the Group of 77 and China have made the forward-looking suggestion that countries of the South should forge closer cooperation to protect biodiversity, and use financial resources available from developed-country partners. In particular, fast-developing China’s focus on protecting 35 priority conservation areas making up 23 per cent of the country is extremely promising. India is also focused on growth, but it needs to do more for ecosystems facing the onslaught of poorly planned development. It must begin by showing genuine recognition of nature’s value. National development policy cannot afford t ignore the central role played by biodiversity. At the global level, the CBD has the opportunity once again to arrive at a consensus on sustainable use of plant diversity. Such an agreement will help local communities access and benefit from use of invaluable genetic resources. The ethical imperative to save the world’s species is to restrict consumption of all natural resources to a sustainable level and allow for natural renewal.
Q1. Which of the following statements about the Convention on Biological Diversity is/are NOT correct?
(i). It is not legally binding.
(ii). The Convention entered into force on 29 December 1993.
(iii). It covers the field of biotechnology.
(a) (i) only
(b) (ii) only
(c) (ii) and (iii)
(d) (i), (ii) and (iii)
Now, the complexity of this section lies not in the passage alone (unfamiliar vocabulary etc) but also the manner in which the
questions and the options are framed. Therefore, no matter how simple the passage may appear to be, you might face a difficult situation, if the options have been framed in a complicated manner.
Exercise-2
The first-ever census of Marine Life (CoML), a mammoth decade-long exercise involving more than 2,700 scientists from over 80 countries, has been successfully completed. The painstaking research has unearthed nearly 250,000 marine species of an estimated one million. About 6,000 new species have also been discovered. The landmark exercise marks a remarkable beginning in identifying and mapping the diversity, distribution, and abundance of marine organisms. Though long-distance migration of many predators like tuna and sharks was tracked, large areas of the oceans, mainly the Indian Ocean, have not been fully explored. While ten marine hotspots were identified, including one in the Indian Ocean, many biodiversity hotspots await detailed investigation. This is because the oceans cover 75 per cent of the earth’s surface, and investigating their surface and depths requires tremendous scientific expertise and huge investments. The good news is that even though the census has been completed, several national and regional initiatives started during the CoML programme will continue to operate with support from government and non-government agencies. Unlike other major projects such as the mapping of the human genome, the scope of this study is undefined. Thus the CoML provides an ideal platform for incorporating diverse inputs from future studies to help us understand the big picture. It will also serve as the baseline for evaluating the future impact of human intervention on sea animals.
The CoML facilitated the use of diverse technologies on a large scale, technologies that are of continuing use. For instance, there are special sonar devices which allow us to see how marine life assemble in shoals and move both vertically and laterally over thousands of square kilometers. Thanks to the use of modern techniques, scientists were also able to have a glimpse of the hitherto unknown world of marine animals. One finding of the study which is a cause for concern is that the fate of many animals living in easily accessible habitats appears gloomy. Large fishes and marine mammals like sea turtles and tuna have declined by 90 per cent on an average due to over-fishing and/or pollution. Apart from being an invaluable source of food, the oceans produce 70 per cent of oxygen present in the atmosphere, and also absorb one-third of global carbon dioxide emissions. All these are warning signs that oceans, the lifeline for all things living on earth, may well turn into a watery grave if damage to marine life continues unabated.
Q2. Which of the following is/are true about the first census of marine life published in 2010?
(i). The Census used DNA bar-coding for the identification of marine life.
(ii). Coastal species showed maximum diversity in the tropical Western Pacific.
(iii). The Census database still has no records of for more than 20 percent of the ocean volume.
(iv). The census was an endeavour of scientists from USA and Japan only.
(a) (i) only
(b) (i) and (ii) only
(c) (i), (ii) and (iii) only
(d) (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv)
Unlike mathematical and computational skills, comprehension is not a core component of any program/course. Nevertheless,
The presence of comprehension is found in most aptitude tests. Any student, who is familiar with the section on comprehension in any aptitude test, will tell you the importance of active reading. You gradually realize that the emphasis is now linking new information to your previous knowledge base, having a mental dialogue with the text so as to ensure comprehension, questioning, critically evaluating the text etc.
Exercise-3
News 1
Jaipur: The beauty of the Aravali-flanked Sariska Reserve may soon be a thing of the past, with the Rajasthan government granting 40 new mining leases in the eco-sensitive zone, something that’ll leave the area pock-marked with quarries and pose a threat to an ambitious tiger reintroduction project.
The government sanctioned the leases on Tuesday on the plea that the Aravali range, where stone mining had been sanctioned, is less than 100m in height, which is not considered a hill as per state government norms.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court banned quarrying for stone in the Aravalis of neighbouring Haryana, holding mining companies guilty of violating zoning laws and not filling up excavated craters. Later it said some mining may be allowed but only when the Haryana government adopts a mining policy based on an SC-appointed panel’s guidelines.
While Rajasthan authorities have interpreted norms to their convenience to sanction fresh leases, mining could damage the ecology of the region and jeopardize survival of the big cats. Five tigers have already been relocated to Sariska from Ranthambore and forest officials plan to shift more in the coming months.
Leases cornered by Haryana Cos:
Reports suggest the new mining leases issued in the Aravalli flanked Sariska Reserve have gone to a few Haryana-based companies at villages like Jaisinghpura, Malana, Goverdhanpura, Palpura and Jamwa Ramgarh, in the vicinity of Sariska sanctuary. On October 12, TOI had carried a report about illegal mining in these areas.
“This shows how powerful and manipulative the mining lobby is. Even if the justification the department of mines and geology and forests is giving is that the hills are less than 100m in height, they should know that there is no such classification by the Supreme Court. This is the department’s own creation and a gross violation of Forest (Conservation) Act 1980,” said Y K Singh Chauhan, conservator of forests, ministry of environment and forests. However, V S Singh, principal secretary, forests and environment, who heads the special committee on Aravalli notification in Alwar, says, “These are all fresh case in Ramgarh area screened by a committee and don’t have the Aravalli hills portion. Based on the state government 100 meter yardstick and complying with the Supreme Court and MoEF guidelines, these leases will have to follow environmental norms.” He claimed new leases will not disturb forest areas and are not any water body.
News 2
Mumbai: Miners have been getting away with murder without either refilling the toxic craters or afforesting dead mining sites as prescribed under the law and according to environmentalists, this is one of the reasons why leases for mining in dense green zones, such as the Western Ghats, should not be given the nod.
The National Mineral Policy, 2008 rules that any abandoned mine should be made richer than what it was before through refilling the craters and afforestation. But most miners leave the dead mines in a state of decay. According to the data available with the Ministries and Indian Bureau of Mines, there are 297 abandoned mines across the country and most of them are yet to be rehabilitated.
With such carelessness on the part of miners, environmentalists do not seem to be too happy about the state sanctioning 49 mining leases in the eco-sensitive Sindhudurg district, where three are already operational. When TOI visited Kalane village, where mining has been on for the past nine months, the hills around the place resemble a half-eaten cake and the landscape has been stripped of its green cover. A few hundred meters downhill, the Kalane river flows through the forest and provides water to the neighbouring Goa. It is anybody’s guess what will happen when this hill is left like a dead crater and the river turns toxic, says D Stalin, project director of Vanashakti.
People of the Kalane even have an example of the environment horror close at hand. A part of Redi mines, situated about 20 km from Kalane, was abandoned more than two decades ago after extraction of iron ore. But even after so many years, not a single sapling has taken root here. The once green hillocks, that overlooked the pristine Sawantwadi beach, have given way to two huge craters one of them being filled with murky water and the other has turned into a rocky, dry stretch, with just one casuarinas plant standing in the barren pit.
Given the large scale destruction of flora and fauna around, a zero mining policy should be advocated in the Western Ghats, said Sumaira Abdulali of Awaaz foundation who has written to the Union Minister of environment and forests Jairam Ramesh.
Adds Claude Alvaris, an environmentalist from Goa, according to the agreement, all that miners have to do is deposit Rs. 25,000 per hectares and the amount is deducted it they do not comply with the rules. Mining firms make huge profits and the deposit amount is a pittance for them.
Issues Involved:
Project Tiger
Tiger Census
Regulations e.g. Protected areas, Reserved areas etc.
Desertification
Environmental Degradation
MCQs
Q1. Which of the following statements about the Forest (Conservation) Act is/are correct?
i. It extends to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
ii. “non-forest purpose” includes the clearing of any forest land for the cultivation of medicinal plants.
iii. It came into force on the 25th October, 1982.
iv. State governments can issue orders for the clearance of forests for the purpose of using it for reafforestation.
(a) (i) and (ii) only
(b) (i) and (iii) only
(c) (ii) and (iii) only
(d) (ii) and (iv) only
Q2. Read the following statements:
(i). Desertification has encroached upto the borders of New Delhi.
(ii). Aravali foothills have high instances of deforestation for mining purposes.
(a) Both are true and (ii) is the correct explanation of (i).
(b) Both are true and (ii) is not the correct explanation of (i).
(c) (i) is true and (ii) is false.
(d) (i) is false and (ii) is true.
Exercise-4
The earth receives short wave radiation from the sun, one-third of which is absorbed by the atmosphere, ocean, ice, land and living organisms. The energy absorbed from solar radiation is balanced, in the long term, by the outgoing radiation from the earth and atmosphere.
While short wave radiation from the sun can easily pass through the atmosphere, the long wave radiation emitted by the warm surface of the earth is partially absorbed by trace gases in the atmosphere called greenhouse gases (GHGs). The main natural greenhouse gases are water vapour (H2O), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), and Methane (CH4). In absence of these gases the temperature of the Earth would have been 33°C lower than it is today.
In the late 1980s, scientists began to suggest that the earth’s energy flux was no longer in balance. Earth’s surface was getting warmer, affecting the elements of the climate system. The climate itself was changing.
The problem is that human activity is making the blanket of gases “thicker” – or enhancing the greenhouse effect. By 1995, research concluded that the main culprit was CO2 emissions, produced by the burning of fossil fuels (coal, gas, and oil) in factories and power stations, and cars. When we burn coal, oil, and natural gas, we spew huge amounts of CO2, into the earth’s atmosphere filling it up with large amounts of greenhouse gases, much more than what is okay. When we destroy forests, the carbon stored in the trees escape to the atmosphere. Other basic activities, such as raising cattle and planting rice, emit methane, nitrous oxide, and other greenhouse gases.
If emissions continue to grow at current rates, it is almost certain that atmospheric level of CO2 will double from pre-industrial levels during 21st century.
If no steps are taken to slow greenhouse gas emissions, it is quite possible that levels will triple by the year 2100.
Poor developing nations, particularly small island nation states will be the worst hit. A 15-95 cm rise in sea level could turn these people into environmental refugees. Besides, poor countries are least prepared to face the wrath of floods and hurricanes. The lifestyles of future generations shall be compromised. Plants and animals around the world will be severely affected by changing weather patterns.
Industrialized countries are mainly responsible for the mess. They owe their present prosperity to years of ‘historical’ emissions that have accumulated in the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution and an extremely high level of current emissions. Developing countries, mean while, have only recently set out on the path of industrialization, and their per capital emissions are still comparatively low, though increasing.
In 1990, out of the 21 billion tones of emissions globally, 14 billion tones were emitted by rich developed countries, home to only one-fifth of world’s population. Of these 14 billion tones, the US alone contributed 5 billion tons of carbon. This is only 10 per cent of the US emissions (1,511 million tons) despite a population nearly four times over.
Scientists cannot prove what they say will eventually happen, argue some. Responding to the threat is expected to be expensive, complicated, and difficult, they add. Yet, if the nations of the world wait for the perfect science, until the consequences and victims are clear, it will probably be too late to act.
The issue is no longer whether or not climate change is a potentially serious problem. Rather, it is how the problem will develop and what its effects will be. The science will never be perfect when dealing with something as complicated as the planet’s climate system. But there is general agreement in scientific circles that climate change is indeed happening and that we have to act, and fast.
165 nations signed the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It is one of the series of recent environmental agreements through which countries around the world are putting their head together to meet this challenge.
Solving the problem of climatic change is going to be the biggest cooperative effort of nations and people around the world. Are we up to it?
According to scientists, the only way to escape the disastrous consequences associated with climate change is to reduce emissions by 50-70 per cent below 1990 levels. The use of fossil fuels, hence carbon emissions are closely linked to economic growth and lifestyle. The richer you are the more you emit. So someone has to put limits to their emissions, hence the way they live. Someone has to stop driving fuel guzzling sports utility vehicle. But few are willing to change the way they live.
The much awaited trip to the CoP-8 meeting finally came about on October 24, 2002. We headed straight to get our passes made. This barely took a few seconds, but out “photogenic” material!
When they split into three groups, our group of CT reporters had to focus on the conference, and tried to interview the various delegates that were “loitering” around the main hall, however finally, all of us ended up doing exactly that!
As we were scurrying around everywhere, we realized that this place had been really spruced up, beautiful art on the walls, and a giant sculpture outside hall five, where a conference was taking place between delegates from all countries, under the UN police’s strict scrutiny, of course! All the floors were carpeted in a beige shade, and the escalators and staircases were squeaky clean. People are everywhere people from every possible nation, of every possible colour and creed, and yet everyone was assembled in one hall to discuss this issue of global magnitude! Now it is over, it seems pretty overwhelming that this event was held right here, in apna New Delhi doesn’t it?
Q1. Large portion of Bangladesh will be submerged by the end of this century itself. Which is the direct reason of environmental refugee?
1. Frequently hit by Cyclone
2. Climate itself is changing
3. Melting of ice will lead to sea level change
4. Poor will migrate
Answer:
(a) 1, 2, 3
(b) 1, 3
(c) 1, 2
(d) 2, 3, 4
(e) None of the above
Q2. The problem of environmental refuge for the poor countries is like ‘ecological-time-bomb’. Why poor country will not be able to cope with any such crisis?
1. A 15-19 cm rise in sea level could give birth to the problem of environmental refuge
2. Appropriate alternate technologies are not sufficiently available
3. Industrialized countries are mainly responsible for the mess
Answer:
(a) 1,2, 3
(b) 1, 2
(c) None of the above
Q3. What are the possible limitations of India in mitigating the global warming at present and in the immediate future?
1. Appropriate alternated technologies are not sufficiently available.
2. India cannot invest huge funds in research and development.
3. Many developed countries have already set up their polluting industries in India.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer:
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Q4. Assertion : As we go up the atmosphere, temperature decreases.
Reason : Atmosphere gets heated by long wave radiation.
Q5. Assertion : Developed countries follow more mechanized life style.
Reason : Developed countries contribute more to the climate change.
Q6. Which of the following gases has the largest contribution in greenhouse effects?
(a) CO2
(b) Methane
(c) Ozone
(d) Water vapour
Q7. Statement I: Greenhouse effects are necessary for supporting life.
Statement II: Climate change can be controlled by sustainable development measures.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in New Delhi on a three day visit on December 15, 2010 at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, but his official engagements began only the following day, which include delegation-level talks with the Indian government and a lunch with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He is scheduled to give a major policy speech at the Indian Council for World Affairs (ICWA). The Chinese side has billed it as an important outreach event, and it will be attended by the movers and shakers of Delhi’s international circuit.
Promising a new atmosphere in India-China relations, Wen Jiabao, who will follow Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy to India, will attempt to signal that bilateral relations with India are more than stapled visas and boundary disputes. Or, even India’s attendance at Nobel ceremonies for Chinese human rights activists.
Let’s be sensitive to each other’s concerns
The “stapled visa” issue could not be unstapled during the two rounds of talks Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao held in New Delhi on 15.12.2010 night and 16.12.2010 morning but India and China — which reiterated their desire to cooperate and set an ambitious trade target of $100 billion by 2015 — have agreed on a mechanism to address the matter. They also agreed to address the pause in high-level defence exchanges — suspended as a result of the Chinese policy of issuing distinctive visas to Indian citizens domiciled in Jammu and Kashmir — by creating a basis for them to “continue without constraints.”
The main “constraint” is the stapled visa, which India says challenges its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Pending resolution of this issue, therefore, it refused to include in the joint statement issued on Thursday references to Chinese sovereignty in Tibet and ‘One China’ that have been part of the past three summit-level declarations.
Briefing journalists, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said the visa issue was raised by Mr. Wen himself, who said China took India’s concerns very seriously. “He suggested that officials from both sides should have in-depth consultations so that the issue can be resolved satisfactorily,” Ms. Rao said, adding, “The ball is in their court.”
There was forward movement on security cooperation, trans-border rivers and in addressing the imbalance in trade.
On the issue of dams on rivers, China changed its position slightly. Both sides agreed to further discuss India’s suggestion for increased cooperation on trans-border river issues over and above the expert level mechanism for the Brahmaputra and the Sutlej.
Delivering a lecture at the Indian Council of World Affairs later, Mr. Wen said China would pursue only those upstream river projects which had a proper scientific foundation and that it would take the interest of people in both the upper and lower riparian regions into consideration. He said the boundary issue was a historical problem and that it would take time to resolve.
Wen backs greater international role for India
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on 16.12.2010 said Beijing and New Delhi should seize opportunities to expand converging interests and backed India for greater role in international affairs.
“As a fast growing big country with over a billion people, India should and can play an increasingly important role in international affairs,” he said addressing the Indian Council of World Affairs. “China and India have shared interests and common views on the issue of U.N. Security Council reform. We both maintain that priority should be given to increasing the representation of developing countries,” he said.
Terming the boundary dispute between the two countries as a “historical legacy”, Mr. Wen said, “It would not be easy to completely resolve this question. “It requires patience and will take a fairly long period of time. Only with sincerity, mutual trust and perseverance can we eventually find a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution,” he said.
The two countries declared that next year would be the Year of China-India exchange which would see 500 Indian youths visiting the nation.
Dragon and elephant should tango: Wen
“The dragon and the elephant should tango,” Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao suggested on 17.12.2010.Mr. Wen came up with this quip to emphasise the need for the two Asian giants, whose rivalry has been compared to that between the dragon (China) and elephant (India), to come closer.
It’s for India, Pakistan to resolve terrorism, Kashmir: China
The Chinese government on 16.12.2010 indicated it would play no role in pressuring Pakistan to crack down on terrorist groups operating on its soil, reiterating its position that cross-border terrorism and Kashmir were issues for India and Pakistan to resolve.
Asked if China would be willing to work with India to combat terrorism as well as to pressure Pakistan to crack down on terrorist groups, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said: “Both India and Pakistan are important neighbours to China, and China’s friends. We hope India and Pakistan can strengthen cooperation and exchanges so as to improve relations, which is of great importance to peace and stability in South Asia.”
Asked if this meant China believed it had no role to play, Ms. Jiang said China’s position was that “the two sides should engage in friendly consultations and resolve the issues,” including Kashmir.
“We hope the two countries can co-exist in a friendly manner and jointly contribute to regional peace and development,” she said.
China’s official policy is that Kashmir is an issue for India and Pakistan to resolve and it would maintain a position of neutrality over the dispute. Indian officials have, however, expressed concern that China was recently recalibrating its position, citing its issuing of stapled visas to Indian citizens from Jammu and Kashmir and its increasing investments in infrastructure projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Chinese officials had reportedly told their Indian counterparts in recent talks that issuing stapled visas was an “administrative” problem and not a political statement. But Indian officials say by doing so, China has questioned Indian sovereignty, and effectively moved away from its stated position of neutrality on Kashmir.
India, China can propel global pharma market to $1.1 trillion
India and China should join hands for bidding of global tenders for pharma export orders and play on each other’s strengths, China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and health Products (CCCMHPIE) Vice President Liu Zhanglin said in New Delhi on 15.12.2010.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) would be signed between the Indian Drug Manufacturer’s Association (IDMA) and the China Pharmaceutical Industry Association (CPIA) in Mumbai on January 7, 2011.
IDMA Secretary General Daara Patel said the aim was to provide information, data and guidance to each other’s members. This is for registration, importation, distribution, marketing and administration of drugs and medicines besides information on statutory regulations.
“The collaboration between the two will give an edge over the developed countries. Together we can meet the generic drug requirements of the world,” he said. India and China were expected to propel the global pharma market to $1.1 trillion by 2014. India and China have reported trade worth $3.1 billion in the pharmaceutical sector, including medical devices, in the first ten months of the current fiscal. Trade during last fiscal stood at $2.8 billion.
India, China agree to raise bilateral trade to $100 billion
India and China agreed to raise the bilateral trade to USD 100 billion by 2015, step up investments and permit banks of other countries to open branches and representative offices.
The two sides also decided to reduce the trade deficit, which is in favour of China, said a joint communiqué issued after talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
“Set a new bilateral trade target of USD 100 billion by 2015. The two sides agreed to take measures to promote greater Indian exports to China with a view to reduce India’s trade deficit,” it said. The bilateral trade between India and China is expected to be around USD 60 billion in 2010. The bilateral trade imbalance was against India to the extent of USD 19 billion during 2009—10.
China agreed to support Indian participation in its national and regional trade fairs, enhance exchange and cooperation of pharmaceutical supervision and expedite completion of phytosanitary negotiations on agro products.
The two sides decided to grant permission to the banks of the other countries to open branches and representative offices, it said.
Earlier, RBI Deputy Governor Shyamala Gopinath and Vice Chairman of China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance cooperation in the banking and financial sectors between the two countries.
On the economic front, Mr. Wen said China understood India’s concerns on bilateral trade imbalance and was ready to take measures to facilitate access of Indian IT products, pharmaceuticals and farm produce to the Chinese market.
Mr. Wen announced that China would provide $1 million for the reconstruction of Nalanda University, the ancient seat of learning in Bihar which was a favourite of visiting Chinese scholars.
The “stapled visa” issue could not be unstapled during the two rounds of talks Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao held in New Delhi on 15.12.2010 night and 16.12.2010 morning but India and China — which reiterated their desire to cooperate and set an ambitious trade target of $100 billion by 2015 — have agreed on a mechanism to address the matter. They also agreed to address the pause in high-level defence exchanges — suspended as a result of the Chinese policy of issuing distinctive visas to Indian citizens domiciled in Jammu and Kashmir — by creating a basis for them to “continue without constraints.”
The main “constraint” is the stapled visa, which India says challenges its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Pending resolution of this issue, therefore, it refused to include in the joint statement issued on Thursday references to Chinese sovereignty in Tibet and ‘One China’ that have been part of the past three summit-level declarations.
Briefing journalists, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said the visa issue was raised by Mr. Wen himself, who said China took India’s concerns very seriously. “He suggested that officials from both sides should have in-depth consultations so that the issue can be resolved satisfactorily,” Ms. Rao said, adding, “The ball is in their court.”
There was forward movement on security cooperation, trans-border rivers and in addressing the imbalance in trade.
On the issue of dams on rivers, China changed its position slightly. Both sides agreed to further discuss India’s suggestion for increased cooperation on trans-border river issues over and above the expert level mechanism for the Brahmaputra and the Sutlej.
Delivering a lecture at the Indian Council of World Affairs later, Mr. Wen said China would pursue only those upstream river projects which had a proper scientific foundation and that it would take the interest of people in both the upper and lower riparian regions into consideration. He said the boundary issue was a historical problem and that it would take time to resolve.
Wen backs greater international role for India
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on 16.12.2010 said Beijing and New Delhi should seize opportunities to expand converging interests and backed India for greater role in international affairs.
“As a fast growing big country with over a billion people, India should and can play an increasingly important role in international affairs,” he said addressing the Indian Council of World Affairs. “China and India have shared interests and common views on the issue of U.N. Security Council reform. We both maintain that priority should be given to increasing the representation of developing countries,” he said.
Terming the boundary dispute between the two countries as a “historical legacy”, Mr. Wen said, “It would not be easy to completely resolve this question. “It requires patience and will take a fairly long period of time. Only with sincerity, mutual trust and perseverance can we eventually find a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution,” he said.
The two countries declared that next year would be the Year of China-India exchange which would see 500 Indian youths visiting the nation.
Dragon and elephant should tango: Wen
“The dragon and the elephant should tango,” Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao suggested on 17.12.2010.Mr. Wen came up with this quip to emphasise the need for the two Asian giants, whose rivalry has been compared to that between the dragon (China) and elephant (India), to come closer.
It’s for India, Pakistan to resolve terrorism, Kashmir: China
The Chinese government on 16.12.2010 indicated it would play no role in pressuring Pakistan to crack down on terrorist groups operating on its soil, reiterating its position that cross-border terrorism and Kashmir were issues for India and Pakistan to resolve.
Asked if China would be willing to work with India to combat terrorism as well as to pressure Pakistan to crack down on terrorist groups, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said: “Both India and Pakistan are important neighbours to China, and China’s friends. We hope India and Pakistan can strengthen cooperation and exchanges so as to improve relations, which is of great importance to peace and stability in South Asia.”
Asked if this meant China believed it had no role to play, Ms. Jiang said China’s position was that “the two sides should engage in friendly consultations and resolve the issues,” including Kashmir.
“We hope the two countries can co-exist in a friendly manner and jointly contribute to regional peace and development,” she said.
China’s official policy is that Kashmir is an issue for India and Pakistan to resolve and it would maintain a position of neutrality over the dispute. Indian officials have, however, expressed concern that China was recently recalibrating its position, citing its issuing of stapled visas to Indian citizens from Jammu and Kashmir and its increasing investments in infrastructure projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Chinese officials had reportedly told their Indian counterparts in recent talks that issuing stapled visas was an “administrative” problem and not a political statement. But Indian officials say by doing so, China has questioned Indian sovereignty, and effectively moved away from its stated position of neutrality on Kashmir.
India, China can propel global pharma market to $1.1 trillion
India and China should join hands for bidding of global tenders for pharma export orders and play on each other’s strengths, China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and health Products (CCCMHPIE) Vice President Liu Zhanglin said in New Delhi on 15.12.2010.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) would be signed between the Indian Drug Manufacturer’s Association (IDMA) and the China Pharmaceutical Industry Association (CPIA) in Mumbai on January 7, 2011.
IDMA Secretary General Daara Patel said the aim was to provide information, data and guidance to each other’s members. This is for registration, importation, distribution, marketing and administration of drugs and medicines besides information on statutory regulations.
“The collaboration between the two will give an edge over the developed countries. Together we can meet the generic drug requirements of the world,” he said. India and China were expected to propel the global pharma market to $1.1 trillion by 2014. India and China have reported trade worth $3.1 billion in the pharmaceutical sector, including medical devices, in the first ten months of the current fiscal. Trade during last fiscal stood at $2.8 billion.
India, China agree to raise bilateral trade to $100 billion
India and China agreed to raise the bilateral trade to USD 100 billion by 2015, step up investments and permit banks of other countries to open branches and representative offices.
The two sides also decided to reduce the trade deficit, which is in favour of China, said a joint communiqué issued after talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
“Set a new bilateral trade target of USD 100 billion by 2015. The two sides agreed to take measures to promote greater Indian exports to China with a view to reduce India’s trade deficit,” it said. The bilateral trade between India and China is expected to be around USD 60 billion in 2010. The bilateral trade imbalance was against India to the extent of USD 19 billion during 2009—10.
China agreed to support Indian participation in its national and regional trade fairs, enhance exchange and cooperation of pharmaceutical supervision and expedite completion of phytosanitary negotiations on agro products.
The two sides decided to grant permission to the banks of the other countries to open branches and representative offices, it said.
Earlier, RBI Deputy Governor Shyamala Gopinath and Vice Chairman of China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance cooperation in the banking and financial sectors between the two countries.
On the economic front, Mr. Wen said China understood India’s concerns on bilateral trade imbalance and was ready to take measures to facilitate access of Indian IT products, pharmaceuticals and farm produce to the Chinese market.
Mr. Wen announced that China would provide $1 million for the reconstruction of Nalanda University, the ancient seat of learning in Bihar which was a favourite of visiting Chinese scholars.
Kosovo held its first parliamentary election on 12.12.2010 since declaring unilateral independence from Serbia in 2008.
Profile:
POPULATION: Around 2.2 million people live in Kosovo, according to estimates by the statistics office, but the figures are unreliable as the last census was conducted 30 years ago. Albanians make up an estimated 92 percent of the population, Serbs 5.3 percent and other ethnic groups 2.7 percent. A fresh census is scheduled next year.
AREA: 10,908 sq km. Kosovo borders Serbia in the north and east, Macedonia in the southeast, Albania in the southwest and Montenegro to the west.
CAPITAL: Pristina.
LANGUAGE: Official languages are Albanian and Serbian.
RELIGION: Around 90 percent are Muslims. Two of the largest other religions include Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics.
HISTORY & PEOPLE:
– Kosovo became part of the Kingdom of Serbia in the early 13th century, with a mixed population of Serbs, Albanians and Vlachs. The Nemanjic dynasty made it the spiritual heartland of Serbia, giving lands to the Orthodox Church and building monasteries that still stand today.
– Many Serbs left in the five centuries after the Ottoman Empire defeated the Serbs at the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, while Albanians grew in number. Mutual expulsions and migrations to and from Albania in the early 20th century changed Kosovo’s ethnic makeup.
VIOLENCE & WAR:
– Ethnic tensions escalated in the 1980s as federal Yugoslavia began to crumble and conditions deteriorated. Populist Slobodan Milosevic stoked Serbian nationalism as a springboard to power in 1989, rescinding Kosovo’s autonomy and restricting Albanian rights in education and local government.
– After years of passive resistance, Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas launched an armed rebellion in the late 1990s, prompting a brutal crackdown by the Serbian-led Yugoslav army and police.
– The Western powers warned Milosevic they would not tolerate another wave of “ethnic cleansing” in the Balkans. Peace talks in France failed and in March 1999 NATO started bombing Serbia to force it to withdraw its forces from Kosovo.
– Some 800,000 Albanians fled or were expelled to Macedonia and Albania proper before Milosevic gave in, 78 days later. As his forces pulled out and NATO took over, up to 200,000 Serbs and other ethnic minorities left as well.
Following are brief profiles of the main parties. Advance opinion polls suggested no single party would win enough votes to form a government alone.
Voters were electing 120 members of parliament from 26 political parties and three movements. Eight parties are from the Albanian majority, nine from the Serb minority and the rest from other ethnic groups.
The constitution reserves 20 seats for minorities — 10 for Serbs, the biggest minority, and 10 for others. The threshold for parties to enter parliament is 5 percent of the vote.
Kosovo has around 1.6 million voters.
Main Parties
* DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF KOSOVO (PDK), led by Hashim Thaci
The PDK was the main party to emerge from the ethnic Albanian guerrilla units that battled Serbian forces in 1998-99. Thaci led the Kosovo delegation at the Rambouillet talks in France ahead of NATO’s 1999 air war that halted Serbia’s military crackdown. The PDK won the 2007 general election and he became prime minister in January 2008.
* DEMOCRATIC LEAGUE OF KOSOVO (LDK), led by Isa Mustafa
Founded by Kosovo’s pacifist president Ibrahim Rugova, the LDK dominated the drive for independence through the 1990s, before passive resistance gave way to guerrilla conflict. It has split into rival factions since Rugova’s death in 2006, when Fatmir Sejdiu, who recently resigned as Kosovo’s president, took over.
* SELF-DETERMINATION, led by Albin Kurti
Kurti led a nationalist student movement and mass protests against Serbian rule in the late 1990s. He was arrested by Serbian forces during the 1998-99 conflict and by Kosovo and U.N. police after it, in connection with violent unrest. His party wants to reduce international controls over Kosovo and to work for the unification of Kosovo with Albania.
* NEW KOSOVO ALLIANCE (AKR), led by Behgjet Pacolli
AKR founder Behgjet Pacolli is a Kosovo-born, Swiss-based construction millionaire. His party has a technocratic program promising investment and jobs for Kosovo’s many poor. Known as the man who renovated the Kremlin, Pacolli, 56, appears untarnished by his close business ties with Russia, which backs Serbia in opposing Kosovo’s independence.
* ALLIANCE FOR THE FUTURE OF KOSOVO (AAK), led by Ramush Haradinaj
Haradinaj is a former guerrilla commander on trial for war crimes at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague. He was prime minister for 100 days until he resigned in March 2005 when he was first indicted by the tribunal. The AAK has since struggled to make an impact in Kosovo politics. Haradinaj heads the party’s list of candidates, but his trial is expected to resume in early 2011.
Exit poll
An exit poll gave Mr Thaci’s Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) 31% of the vote.
Its main rival and ex-junior coalition partner, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), was second with 25%.
If the results are confirmed, Mr Thaci will need support from other parties to form a government.
Kosovo’s election results to be published next week – 21/12/2010
The Central Election Commission (CEC) will not publish the final results of the December 12th general elections before the end of next week as the majority of polling stations are undergoing a recount. Chief Executive of the CEC Secretariat Xhemajl Peqani said on December 20th 2010 that based on the recount findings, further decisions will be made. Problems surfaced at 745 polling stations, where miss-matches occurred between the voting material and votes in ballot boxes. (Zeri, Koha Ditore, Epoka e Re, Kosova Sot – 21/12/10)
Medical Council of India (MCI) on 13.12.2010 got the go ahead from the Supreme Court for holding a combined entrance test for All India Medical examinations. The apex court said that the MCI can frame rules for holding a combined medical entrance examination and that there was no case pending before it that had anything to do with MCI framing rules and regulations for conducting combined medical entrance exams for MBBS courses in India.
The MCI has already come out with a scheme for a common all India examination for MBBS. But many state governments have been opposing the move by MCI.
So the MCI went to the Supreme Court pleading that the court should give an approval for new policy.
The newly-constituted Board of Governors of MCI had on July 29, 2010, said it had approached the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to work out modalities for introduction of a common entrance exam system from 2011.
The Board, which was reconstituted after dissolution of the corruption-hit MCI, has also approached private medical colleges with the proposal which in turn have agreed to it.
Admission tests are conducted yearly for nearly 32,000 undergraduate seats and 13,000 post graduate seats in medical colleges across the country.
As the United Kingdom launched its first permanent hydrogen bus on a popular tourist route in London on 10.12.2010, efforts towards conceptual, fundamental and applied research in new combustion technologies in India is also gaining momentum.
Two centres of excellence being developed at IISc Bangalore and IIT Chennai would undertake research in new combustion technologies including those pertaining to hydrogen energy.
The future of aerospace, automobile and energy sectors will revolve around hydrogen fuel, as concerns of environmental pollution will put curbs on emissions and replenishment of fossil fuels is not possible, according to G. Madhavan Nair, former Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at the 8th Asia Pacific Conference on Combustion (ASPACC) organised by the Combustion Institute Indian Section (CIIS) in Hyderabad on 11.12.2010
Some facts about hydrogen:
Hydrogen is the lightest and the most abundant element in the universe and makes up about 90% of the universe by weight. Hydrogen as water (H2O) is absolutely essential to life and it is present in all organic compounds.
Hydrogen best fulfils the requirements of a surface transport fuel -lightness, highest energy density, versatility, clean and inexhaustible.
International covenant on Hydrogen element:
International Partnership on Hydrogen Economy was set up in Washington D.C. in November, 2003 and India is one of the 16 founder member countries of IPHE. China, India and Brazil are the three developing countries along with 13 advanced countries, including USA, UK and Japan. Large areas in India do not have access to electricity which can be provided decentralized power based on hydrogen energy.
Hydrogen and fuel cells vehicles can progressively replace petroleum based vehicles. Hydrogen holds major promise for ensuring sustainable energy security in India.
A lot of research has to be undertaken to master development and handling of hydrogen fuel before it is put to mass use. High-efficient combustion of fuels available now and development of new-age fuels are necessary to take up missions to Mars and Moon successfully.
The initiative in London has been described as a ‘stepping stone’ to rolling out the technology across the UK. The launch will also coincide with the opening of the UK’s largest hydrogen refuelling station in Leyton, east London.
The new bus produces water vapour from its tailpipe and can operate for more than 18 hours without needing to refuel.
The hydrogen buses are part of Cleaner Urban Transport for Europe project in 2003. The new buses were designed by the consortium of businesses that furnished Vancouver with a fleet of 39 buses in 2009.
More than 4,300 deaths are caused in London by air pollution every year, costing around £2bn a year. The new buses will go some way towards tackling this dire problem also.
The buses would emit water vapour instead of the nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides and particulate matter that diesel buses pump out into the air.
The buses may also reduce carbon emissions – but only if the hydrogen they run on is generated using renewable electricity rather than electricity produced by burning coal.
One key hurdle to rolling out the buses in India is the high cost as the technology is very new.
In May 2003, Madrid became the first city in the world to run a regular hydrogen bus service. Hamburg, Perth and Reykjavik are other cities. Berlin aims to put 14 hydrogen buses and 40 hydrogen cars on the road by 2016. The largest hydrogen project in the world – the Hydrogen Highway is based in California and has built 30 refuelling stations.
In December 2009, Amsterdam also launched Nemo H2, a hydrogen powered tour boat.
President Barack Obama in April 2010 signed the ‘Nationwide Hydrogen Highway Initiative’ into law.
The new initiative would mandate that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and Department of Energy (DOE) build up to 200,000 hydrogen fuelling stations across the U.S., not more than 5 miles apart in most regions.
The mandate will give subsidies of up to $2 million for building hydrogen fuelling station and $300,000 for adding a hydrogen pump to an existing gas station.
More public-private partnerships are required to speed up innovation and development of new technologies in India, as hydrogen is widely billed as the fuel of the future. For this to be a reality there is a pressing need for a safe, economic and reliable way to transport hydrogen, particularly for automotive applications. This has prompted a world-wide effort to develop novel materials that are re-usable and capable of storing and releasing significant quantities of hydrogen. Many companies are working hard to develop technologies that can exploit the potential of hydrogen energy.
The Notification for the 2011 UPSC Civil Services Prelim Exam based on the New CSAT syllabus will be issued on 19.02.2011. The Last date for receipt of Applications is on 21.03.2011 Monday. The Preliminary Examination for the year 2011 will be conducted for one day on 12.06.2011.
Please watch for the Notifications and other informations.
1712 – British ironmonger Thomas Newcomen invents the first widely used steam engine, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution and industrial scale use of coal.
1800 – World population reaches one billion.
1824 – French physicist Joseph Fourier describes the Earth’s natural “greenhouse effect”. He writes: “The temperature [of the Earth] can be augmented by the interposition of the atmosphere, because heat in the state of light finds less resistance in penetrating the air, than in re-passing into the air when converted into non-luminous heat.”
1861 – Irish physicist John Tyndall shows that water vapour and certain other gases create the greenhouse effect. “This aqueous vapour is a blanket more necessary to the vegetable life of England than clothing is to man,” he concludes. More than a century later, he is honoured by having a prominent UK climate research organisation – the Tyndall Centre – named after him.
1886 - Karl Benz unveils the Motorwagen, often regarded as the first true automobile.
1896 – Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius concludes that industrial-age coal burning will enhance the natural greenhouse effect. He suggests this might be beneficial for future generations. His conclusions on the likely size of the “man-made greenhouse” are in the same ballpark – a few degrees Celsius for a doubling of CO2 – as modern-day climate models.
1900 – Another Swede, Knut Angstrom, discovers that even at the tiny concentrations found in the atmosphere, CO2 strongly absorbs parts of the infrared spectrum. Although he does not realise the significance, Angstrom has shown that a trace gas can produce greenhouse warming.
1927 - Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach one billion tonnes per year.
1930 – Human population reaches two billion.
1938 – Using records from 147 weather stations around the world, British engineer Guy Callendar shows that temperatures had risen over the previous century. He also shows that CO2 concentrations had increased over the same period, and suggests this caused the warming. The “Callendar effect” is widely dismissed by meteorologists.
1955 – Using a new generation of equipment including early computers, US researcher Gilbert Plass analyses in detail the infrared absorption of various gases. He concludes that doubling CO2 concentrations would increase temperatures by 3-4C.
1957 – US oceanographer Roger Revelle and chemist Hans Suess show that seawater will not absorb all the additional CO2 entering the atmosphere, as many had assumed. Revelle writes: “Human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment…”
1958 – Using equipment he had developed himself, Charles David (Dave) Keeling begins systematic measurements of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa in Hawaii and in Antarctica. Within four years, the project – which continues today – provides the first unequivocal proof that CO2 concentrations are rising.
1960 – Human population reaches three billion.
1965 – A US President’s Advisory Committee panel warns that the greenhouse effect is a matter of “real concern”.
1972 – First UN environment conference, in Stockholm. Climate change hardly registers on the agenda, which centres on issues such as chemical pollution, atomic bomb testing and whaling. The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) is formed as a result.
1975 – Human population reaches four billion.
1975 – US scientist Wallace Broecker puts the term “global warming” into the public domain in the title of a scientific paper.
1987 – Human population reaches five billion
1987 - Montreal Protocol agreed, restricting chemicals that damage the ozone layer. Although not established with climate change in mind, it has had a greater impact on greenhouse gas emissions than the Kyoto Protocol.
1988 – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed to collate and assess evidence on climate change.
1989 - UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – possessor of a chemistry degree – warns in a speech to the UN that “We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere… The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto.” She calls for a global treaty on climate change.
1989 - Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach six billion tonnes per year.
1990 – IPCC produces First Assessment Report. It concludes that temperatures have risen by 0.3-0.6C over the last century, that humanity’s emissions are adding to the atmosphere’s natural complement of greenhouse gases, and that the addition would be expected to result in warming.
1992 – At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, governments agree the United Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its key objective is “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. Developed countries agree to return their emissions to 1990 levels.
1995 – IPCC Second Assessment Report concludes that the balance of evidence suggests “a discernible human influence” on the Earth’s climate. This has been called the first definitive statement that humans are responsible for climate change.
1997 – Kyoto Protocol agreed. Developed nations pledge to reduce emissions by an average of 5% by the period 2008-2012, with wide variations on targets for individual countries. US Senate immediately declares it will not ratify the treaty.
1998 - Strong El Nino conditions combine with global warming to produce the warmest year on record. The average global temperature reached 0.52C above the mean for the period 1961-1990 (a commonly-used baseline).
1998 - Publication of the controversial “hockey stick” graph indicating that modern-day temperature rise in the northern hemisphere is unusual compared with the last 1,000 years. The work would later be the subject of two enquiries instigated by the US Congress.
1999 – Human population reaches six billion.
2001 – President George W Bush removes the US from the Kyoto process.
2001 - IPCC Third Assessment Report finds “new and stronger evidence” that humanity’s emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause of the warming seen in the second half of the 20th Century.
2005 – The Kyoto Protocol becomes international law for those countries still inside it.
2005 – UK Prime Minister Tony Blair selects climate change as a priority for his terms as chair of the G8 and president of the EU.
2006 - The Stern Review concludes that climate change could damage global GDP by up to 20% if left unchecked – but curbing it would cost about 1% of global GDP.
2006 - Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach eight billion tonnes per year.
2007 – The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report concludes it is more than 90% likely that humanity’s emissions of greenhouse gases are responsible for modern-day climate change.
2007 - The IPCC and former US vice-president Al Gore receive the Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”.
2007 – At UN negotiations in Bali, governments agree the two-year “Bali roadmap” aimed at hammering out a new global treaty by the end of 2009.
2008 – half a century after beginning observations at Mauna Loa, the Keeling project shows that CO2 concentrations have risen from 315 parts per million (ppm) in 1958 to 380ppm in 2008.
2008 – two months before taking office, incoming US president Barack Obama pledges to “engage vigorously” with the rest of the world on climate change.
2009 - China overtakes the US as the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter – although the US remains well ahead on a per-capita basis.
2009 - 192 governments convene for the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
2010 – The United Nations Climate Change Conference took place in Cancun, Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December 2010. It encompassed the sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP) and the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), as well as the thirty-third sessions of both the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), and the fifteenth session of the AWG-KP and thirteenth session of the AWG-LCA.
2011 - The seventeenth session of the Conference of the Parties and the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol shall be held in Durban, South Africa, from 28 November to 9 December 2011
A standard Dictionary of Geography – preferably of the Penguin.
Khullar’s Geography
Suresh Prasad’s Intermediate Geography
One Atlas – T.T.K. or Orient Longman.
Census Report
Down to Earth (fortnightly magazine)
Yojana and Kurukshetra
Important areas of Life Science For Preliminary Test:
The cell: Shapes and size, cell structure, cell organelles, Difference between animal and plant cells.
Plant Physiology – Roots, Photo synthesis, Respiration in plants.
Circulatory system – Blood, The Heart, Lymphatic systems.
Respiratory system – Respiratory system of man, Mechanism of respiration, respiratory disorders.
Excretory system – Organ of excretion, internal structure of Kidney and Functions, Regulation of Urine formation, Artificial Kidney.
Nervous system – Structure of neuron, various nervous system, Reflex action, the eye – structure, function working and common defects of eye, the ear – structure and function, tongue, skin etc.
Reproductive system – Human reproductive system, fertilization, artificial inseminations, parturition.
Endocrine system – Endocrine glands in man and function of hormones.
Fundamental of Genetics.
Health organizations.
Nutrition – carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins etc. and deficiency diseases.
Muscles and joints.
Health and Disease – Cancer, T.B., Polio, Leprosy, Acids, Hepatitis, Dengue etc.
Animal Husbandry
General Science:
Science (NCERT) – VI th Std. of X th Std.
Applications of Biology (NCERT) – a chapter of XII th Std. Biology section.
History of Science – Ray & Moser, 5 vols. (University Press).
How? What? Why? – 3 Books by NSC, CSIR, Govt. of India.
The Human Machine (NBT) – Bijlani & Manchanda.
Life: From Cell to Cell (Pub. Div.) – Bal Phondke
His Master’s Slave (Pub. Div.) – Japan Bhattacharya.
Ek Se Bhale Do (CSIR, GoI) – N.S.K. Prasad (Hindi medium).
Marching Ahead with Science (NBT)
India (Pub. Div.) – Scientific & Technological Development, Environment and Defence chapters only.
Here are details about the process of uranium enrichment as world powers began talks with Iran on 6.12.2010, hoping the meeting will lead to new negotiations over a nuclear program the West believes is for making atomic bombs.
Western powers want Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activity, which can produce fuel for nuclear power reactors or provide material for bombs if refined to a higher degree.
What is enrichment?
Enrichment is a process of increasing the proportion of fissile isotope found in uranium ore (represented by the symbol ‘U’) to make it usable as nuclear fuel or the compressed, explosive core of nuclear weapons.
Why uranium must be enriched?
Uranium is found naturally in a variety of forms but only a particular adapted form of the mineral can be used to generate electricity or create explosives.
This type, called U-235 to represent its mass, is present in only about 0.7 percent of mined ore while most of the rest is U-238, which has a slightly heavier mass.
To generate electricity, the concentration of U-235 must be increased to between 3 and 5 percent. It must be refined to levels over 80 percent to create the core of an atom bomb.
Technologies:
The two most popular production techniques require uranium ore, known as “yellow cake,” to be converted into a gas called uranium hexafluoride (UF-6) before enrichment.
Diffusion method:
When gaseous uranium is pumped through a porous barrier, the lighter U-235 atoms traverse the pores at a quicker rate than U-238. This is like smaller grains of sand passing through a sieve quicker than the bigger ones. The process has to be repeated about 1,400 times to get U-235 at a concentration of 3 percent of the UF-6.
Centrifuge method:
Like the diffusion process, the centrifuge method exploits the slight difference in mass between U-235 and U-238. Uranium gas is fed into a cylindrical centrifuge. It spins at supersonic speeds, causing the heavier U-238 to move toward the cylinder’s outer edge while U-235 collects around the center. Enriched U-235 is removed and put through the same process many times to raise its concentration.
Around 1,500 centrifuges running non-stop for months would be needed to make the 20 kg (45 pounds) of highly-enriched uranium needed for one crude warhead.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s last report in November, 2010 Iran temporarily halted low-level enrichment work at Natanz in mid-November, without giving a reason, but the number of centrifuge sets — cascades — in operation had still increased in the last few months.
According to the report Iran started producing small batches of 20 percent enriched uranium with 164 centrifuges at Natanz in February, 2010 fuelling Western fears that Iran aims to develop nuclear bombs.
In August, 2010 the IAEA said Iran had begun using a second cascade of centrifuge machines to make the work more efficient.
Sources: Reuters/ Uranium Information Center www.uic.com/ Nuclear Policy Research Institute www.nuclearpolicy.org.
The protest against the 9900-MWe Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project, the largest engineering project ever conceived in Maharashtra, India, is gathering momentum. But the Rs.1 lakh-crore project is likely to be implemented as it has already received environmental clearance and the Union government is determined to double nuclear energy generating capacity by 2020. As part of the commitment to climate change, the government plans to change the proportion of energy mix. At present, nuclear energy accounts for nearly three per cent of our electricity generating capacity.
Today, 38 per cent of India’s greenhouse gas emission comes from the power sector and the government feels a pressing need for cleaner energy options.
Even though nuclear energy option reduces greenhouse gas emissions, the protest is mainly on account of other concerns.
The Jaitapur project will come up in collaboration with French giant Areva, which will supply uranium and reactor units, according to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited.
On 26.11.2010, the Ministry of Environment & Forests accorded environmental clearance for the 6×1650 MWe nuclear power project in Jaitapur, Maharashtra. Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh announced the environmental clearance with 35 conditions and safeguards.
Extensive opposition to the project, particularly from the Konkan Bachao Samiti (KBS), was overruled by the government in granting this clearance.
The Environment minister however clarified that it could take on board only the ecological objections raised by the protesters. It has asked the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited and its partner Areva to address the other economic, commercial, safety and technological issues. Areva is a predominantly state-owned nuclear power company in France, which has developed the 1650 MWe European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), based on the French N4 and the German Konvoi reactor types.
But concerns have been raised on the maturity of the EPR technology as no EPR has been constructed and commissioned for operation anywhere in the world. Four EPRs are in different stages of construction and two of them are facing serious problems. The construction of the first EPR to Finland started in 2005 and construction and design problems have delayed the start-up of this plant to the second half of 2013 which is a delay of 3.5 years and a cost escalation of 50 per cent.
The second EPR construction in France was in December 2007. Similar construction and safety issues have led to a 50 per cent cost increase and a delay of commissioning to 2014.
China bought two EPRs for which the completion dates are 2013 and 2014.
As the EPR is allegedly in trouble, the French government asked Francois Roussely, a former chairman of the Electricite de France (EDF), in October 2009 to evaluate the status of the EPR and the French nuclear industry. The Roussely Report of July 2010 has concluded that the credibility of the EPR has been seriously damaged by the problems of the two reactors under construction.
According to the report, the complexity of the EPR comes from (questionable) design choices, notably of the power level, containment, core-catcher, and redundancy of systems.
The first of the six units of 1650 MWe capacity each is expected to be commissioned by 2017-18. It will help Maharashtra reduce its energy deficit. Nearly 1000 hectares of land has already been acquired for the project.
To address the grievances of the local community, the State government had formed an Empowered Group of Ministers to enhance the compensation.
The process of environmental clearance by the union ministry of environment has tried to balance four objectives: the amount of energy required to sustain a growth rate of nine per cent; the proportion of fuel mix; strategic diplomacy, especially after the Civilian Nuclear Deal; and the environmental concerns raised by a large number of groups.
A new gun, the US military hopes will help take on the Taliban, has been unveiled.
This is the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, aka XM-25 Airburst weapon, otherwise known as a smart gun or smart grenade launcher, designed by Heckler and Koch, is what the US army expects to be a “game-changer” in Afghanistan. Program manager for the XM25 Lieutenant Colonel Chris Lehner had the following to say about this weapons epic abilities: “You get behind something when someone is shooting at you, and that sort of cover has protected people for thousands of years, … Now we’re taking that away from the enemy forever.”
It uses a laser guidance system and specially developed 25mm high explosive rounds which can be programmed to detonate over a target.
Richard Audette helped develop it for the US Army and says it’s a big leap forward because it’s the first small arms weapon to use smart technology.
Full solution
“The way a soldier operates this is basically find your target, then laze (laser) to it, which gives the range, then you get an adjusted aim point, adjust the fire and pull the trigger.
“Say you’ve lazed out to 543 metres… When you pull the trigger it arms the round and fires it 543 metres plus or minus one, two or three metres.”
The XM-25 is already being used by US soldiers in Afghanistan
It means the weapon can be used to target insurgents hiding behind walls or in ditches without the need to call in air strikes. “That makes it a full solution fire control weapon”.
It’s already been issued to soldiers in the US military serving in Afghanistan and could be used by British Special Forces too.
In a statement the MOD wouldn’t comment on the new gun but said it is committed to provide front line troops in Afghanistan with the best possible equipment. In addition it said it is always interested in evaluating emerging technology.
The Pentagon plans on purchasing a total of at least 12,500 of these guns at around $25,000 to $30,000 a piece, enough for one per Infrantry squad and Special Forces team in Afghanistan. According to GearDiary, each round fired from the gun costs around $25. Is it worth it? Very possibly. What this weapon is capable of is firing a 25mm High Explosive round at a target, knowing how far it has to be away from the target before it should explode. This ability to explode before or after a target (such as a covered position) allows much more accuracy for the troop and much less collateral damage for the area surrounding the target.
At the moment, troops are only able to basically blast through targets should their enemy high behind them. This weapon has a laser range finder that automatically finds “distance to target” and tells the warhead it launches when to blow. This weapon will be carried in addition to a soldier’s assault rifle, weighing in at around 14lbs in addition to ammunition. GearDiary reports additional features to be a 2X optical sight as well as a 4X thermal sight that’ll allow troops to view heat signatures. God help us if these become mainstream enough to find their way to both sides of these forever wars.
As delegates struggle to arrive at a consensus on key climate change issues at the 2010 Annual Climate Change Conference in Cancun, the World Meteorological Organization has released a report which says 2010 is the hottest year ever recorded.
“The year 2010 is almost certain to rank in the top 3 warmest years since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850,” WMO said in a report.
WMO, however, cannot make a final ranking for 2010 until the organization has factored in the date for November and December. Over the ten years from 2001 to 2010, global temperatures have averaged 0.46 C (0.82 F) above the 1961-1990 average, the report said.
According to WMO, the recent warming has been especially strong in Africa, parts of Asia, and parts of the Arctic.
The report also pointed out several instances of extreme weather conditions in the summer during which Pakistan, experienced the worst flooding in its history as a result of exceptionally heavy monsoon rains.
“The event principally responsible for the floods occurred from 26-29 July, 2010 when four-day rainfall totals exceeded 300 millimetres over a large area of northern Pakistan centred on Peshawar,” the report said.
“The most extreme heat was centred over western Russia, with the peak extending from early July to mid-August, 2010″ it said.
Meanwhile, no breakthroughs emerged after day 3 of negotiations in Cancun where negotiators are seeking a “balanced” set of outcomes, which should include progress on divisive issues like mitigation and financing.
The contentious climate meeting in Denmark, in 2009, yielded the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, which called on all countries to reduce greenhouse gases, 100 billion dollars in long term finance to developing countries and 30 billion dollars to short-term finance to the poorest and most vulnerable countries.
In 2010, 37 industrialised nations and 42 developing countries submitted mitigation targets and voluntary actions to reduce their carbon emissions.
Developed countries have already announced pledges of USD 28 billion for the fast track funding, according to the UN So far, delegates here indicated that progress is being made on issues like technology transfer and adaptation.
Meanwhile, the future of the Kyoto Protocol remains uncertain. Japan has already said that it opposes the extension of the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed in 1997.
“Japan will not inscribe its target under the Kyoto Protocol on any conditions or under any circumstances,” its delegate, said in an open meeting of all the countries on Wednesday.
While developing countries want to extend the only treaty that binds industrialised countries to reduce carbon emissions, Japan wants one treaty that should include legal obligations for emerging economies like China and India.
The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 by which rich nations committed to cut emissions by an average 5 per cent over 1990 levels.
However, US is not part of the Kyoto Protocol, which means that it would not have obligations to reduce emissions in the second commitment period, which is could potentially begin in 2013.
China and US are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Bangalore on 4.12.2010 on the first leg of his four—day visit that will seek to strengthen bilateral ties in key areas of space and civil nuclear cooperation.
Mr. Sarkozy is accompanied by his singer-model wife Carla Bruni and a high-level delegation, including several key ministers of his Cabinet and senior officials. Mr. Sarkozy, Carla Bruni and the delegation later drove to the nearby Leela Palace Hotel for a brief stay.
The highlight of his visit to the city will be his address to scientists at the India’s space research agency ISRO. During Mr. Sarkozy’s visit to ISRO, the focus is expected to be on Indo-French space collaborative projects, the Megha Tropiques and SARAL.
Megha—Tropiques (Megha meaning cloud in Sanskrit and Tropiques in French meaning Tropics), being jointly developed by ISRO and French National Space Agency (CNES), is expected to be launched by 2011 to study tropical climate.
Another ISRO-CNES mission to be launched next year is SARAL (Satellite for Argos and Altika) for seasonal forecast, oceanography and climate studies.
Mr. Sarkozy is likely to have a brief interaction with top officials of ISRO, who are expected to take him on a short visit around the ISRO facility.
The French President will visit Agra, Delhi and Mumbai during his India visit.
A 50—member business delegation and a 100—member team of journalists from France have already arrived in India for the President’s visit.
Sarkozy supports India’s UNSC bid
During his first stopover on his four-day visit to India in Bangalore on 4.12.2010, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a permanent seat for India in the U.N. Security Council.
It was “unthinkable” that a country of a billion people should have no representation in the Security Council, he said in his address at the Indian Space Research Organisation, where he arrived with his wife Carla Bruni and a large contingent of French ministers and executives.
India’s recent election to the Security Council for two years “must serve as the prelude to a permanent Indian presence within the UNSC,” Mr. Sarkozy said.
The UNSC must be expanded to include new permanent members — India, Brazil, Germany and Japan — and it must have representation from Africa and the Middle-East, he said, adding India should join the Security Council as a permanent member so that it could assume its full role in the G20.
Sarkozy, who is accompanied by his wife Carla Bruni said that terrorism emanating from Pakistan and Afghanistan is a major source of instability in the world.
Sarkozy is seeking to drum up business for French firms, with a deal expected on building nuclear plants India’s energy needs. He also said, “We need India to regulate the world monetary order; I believe Indian currency will be counted as one of major currencies”.
He expressed his happiness on N-plant in India. He said that France is delighted to set up nuclear plant in Jaitapur that will produce 10,000 MW of clean energy.
The French leader will hold talks on 6.12.2010 with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, after a private visit on 5.12.2010 with First Lady Carla Bruni to the Taj Mahal, the famed white marble monument to love in Agra.
His trip comes amid a rash of visits by world leaders to India. President Barak Obama visited in November 2010and the leaders of Russia and China are due by 2010 end.
Sarkozy is accompanied by his defense, foreign and finance ministers and nearly 60 CEOs of French companies. Although no defense agreements are expected during the visit, he is expected to push for French firms to win contracts to supply military hardware. French companies are negotiating to upgrade 51 Mirage-2000 jet fighters of the Indian air force. India is also in the market to buy 126 fighter jets, a deal worth $11 billion, and nearly 200 helicopters worth another $4 billion.
India, France sign nuclear power deal – 6.12.2010
India and France signed a multibillion agreement on 6.12.2010 to build two nuclear power plants in India as French President Nicolas Sarkozy worked to drum up business for his nation during his four-day visit in India.
Areva SA, one of France’s main nuclear power companies, will build two European pressurized reactors of 1,650 megawatts each at Jaitapur in Maharashtra.
The agreement, valued at about $9.3 billion, was signed in the presence of Mr. Sarkozy and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The deal marked the first two of 20 nuclear reactors the country wants to build to meet its soaring energy demand.
The talks were also expected to touch on plans for the structural reform of the international monetary system through the Group of 20 countries, currently headed by France.
Defence sales
No defence agreements are expected during the visit, but Mr. Sarkozy is likely to push for French companies to win contracts to supply military hardware.
French companies are negotiating to upgrade 51 Mirage-2000 jet fighters in the Indian air force. India is also in the market to buy 126 fighter jets, a deal worth $11 billion, and about 200 helicopters worth another $4 billion.
According to defence experts, India is expected to spend $80 billion between 2012 and 2022 to upgrade its military.
Bilateral trade
Mr. Sarkozy’s visit also coincides with at least two important meetings with Indian business leaders. The French president is keen to attract Indian companies to invest in France, even as French companies are seeking a slice of India’s booming economy.
Bilateral trade declined in 2009 due to global economic woes, but was on the upswing this year, said Vishnu Prakash, External Affairs ministry spokesman. The two countries have set a trade target of 12 billion euros for 2012.
France to invest Eur 10 billion in India by 2012 – Christine Lagarde
French companies are committed to invest euro 10 billion ($ 13.37 billion) in India by 2012, the country’s Minister of Economy and Finance Christine Lagarde said on 6.12.2010.
“This is not just a figure (Euro 10 billion). It is the commitment by French companies between 2008-2012,” Ms. Lagarde said while addressing India-France Business Forum at Ficci.
Adding that everything (business) worked on ‘give and take’ principle, she said, India has to reciprocate to its (France’s) interests in the country.
She emphasised on opening up sectors like insurance and retail, particularly, multi-brand retail, so that French companies can invest in these sectors.
Responding to the concern expressed by French minister, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said removing foreign direct investment (FDI) cap on insurance and multi-brand retail was very much on the government agenda.
Government is in the process of amending the insurance legislation to pave the way for allowing 49 per cent FDI in the sector, Mr. Ahluwalia said.
For opening up FDI in retail, particularly the multi-brand retail, several ministries have supported the idea, but the decision has to be taken by the government, he said.
France joins India in pressing Pak to prosecute 26/11 perpetrators – 6.12.2010
France on 6.12.2010 joined India in pressing Pakistan to actively prosecute the “authors” and their accomplices of Mumbai terror attacks expeditiously.
Terrorism emanating from Afghanistan and Pakistan was among the issues that were discussed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and French President Nicolas Sarkozy with both expressing concern over the continuing existence of safe havens and sanctuaries for terror groups in these countries. “With the tragic losses suffered in the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai particularly in mind, we call for the active prosecution of the authors of such crimes and their accomplices, and urge that they be brought to justice expeditiously,” a joint statement, issued after the meeting, said in an apparent reference to Pakistan.
Addressing a joint media interaction with Dr. Singh, Mr. Sarkozy said Pakistan should fight terrorism “determinedly“.
Terrorism strikes not only the people and the interests of our two countries but also imperils peace and stability of our respective regions and the world. We reaffirm our irrevocable condemnation of this scourge in all its forms and our will to intensify our cooperation to counter it, the statement said.
“Since our Joint Statement of 25 January 2008, we have aimed at intensifying bilateral consultations and exchanges with the objective of better assessing these threats and sharing relevant information. “Today, we have decided to make this cooperation a priority of the Indo—French security relationship,” it said.
The two leaders affirmed to continue enhanced bilateral operational cooperation as far as possible and ensure that the widest possible measure of mutual legal assistance is rendered, and that extradition requests are processed expeditiously.
The two governments will coordinate their endeavours in international bodies such as the Financial Action Task Force in order to define common positions and promote concrete initiative, the statement said.
“In the pursuance of our efforts to strengthen the international legal framework against terrorism, we resolve to intensify our efforts to urgently conclude the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism at the United Nations,” it said.
“France and India call on all countries to become part, as a matter of urgency, of all international counter- terrorism conventions,” it added.
Both sides also reiterated the importance of adhering to sanctions regime against Al Qaeda and Taliban as established by UNSCR 1267 and subsequent resolutions and the need to preserve its credibility.
India, France ink 2 MoUs on higher education
India and France on 6.12.2010 signed two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) on higher education, and also decided to take forward 2009 `Plan of Action for IIT-Rajasthan’ by setting up a French consortium that will help the institute gain expertise in areas like health technology, solar energy, aerospace, quantum computing and several other fields.
The MoUs were signed in the presence of Valerie Pecresse, French minister for higher education and research, and HRD minister Kapil Sibal. The first MoU proposes to set up an International Joint Laboratory, which will be called Cellule Franco-Indienne de Recherche en Sciences de l’Eau (CEFIRSE), or Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences (IFCWS). It will be developed by Institut De Recherche Pour Le Development of France and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The laboratory could enter into partnerships with other research structures and organisations in India, France and abroad.
The second one relates to academic collaboration between seven IITs and ParisTech — Paris Institute of Science and Technology, Paris. The seven IITs are located in Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Delhi, Guwahati and Roorkee. AgroParisTech, Arts et Mitiers ParisTech, Chimie ParisTech and a few others come under ParisTech. The MoU seeks to promote institutional exchanges; student exchanges, organising symposia, conferences, short courses and meetings on research issues; joint research and continuing education programmes; and exchange information pertaining to developments in teaching, student development and research at each institution. The IITs and ParisTech may collaborate to participate in the European Commission initiatives such as Erasmus Mundus, External Cooperation Window by partnering with other interested institutions.
In case of IIT-Rajasthan, the French consortium will help it in gaining expertise in systems integration and design; mechanical engineering; technologies for art, conservation and heritage; as well as any other areas to be decided by mutual consent. French higher education, research institutions and universities will all be a part of the consortium. When applicable, it will have French and Indian industrial partners.
Members of the consortium will be sending to the Institute faculty members/ experts for research or teaching purposes for a tenure of at least half a semester per faculty member. On a reciprocity basis, the Institute will also send Indian faculty members/research staff/students to the universities/ institutes/industries of the French consortium.
To his fans, Julian Paul Assange is a valiant campaigner for truth. To his critics, though, he is a publicity-seeker, who has endangered lives by putting a mass of sensitive information into the public domain.
Mr Assange is described by those who have worked with him as intense, driven and highly intelligent – with an exceptional ability to crack computer codes.
He is often on the move, running Wikileaks from temporary, shifting locations.
He can go long stretches without eating, and focus on work with very little sleep, according to Raffi Khatchadourian, a reporter for the New Yorker magazine who spent several weeks travelling with him.
Julian Paul Assange
Born on 3 July 1971 (1971-07-03) (age 39)
Birth Place: Townsville, Queensland, Australia
Nationality: Australian
Occupation: Editor-in-chief and spokesperson for WikiLeaks
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian journalist, publisher and internet activist. He is best known as the spokesperson and editor-in-chief for WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website. Before working with the website, he was a physics and mathematics student as well as a computer programmer. He has lived in several countries and has told reporters he is constantly on the move. He makes irregular public appearances to speak about freedom of the press, censorship, and investigative reporting; he has also won several journalism awards for his work with WikiLeaks.
Early Life
Assange was born in Townsville, Queensland, and spent much of his youth living on Magnetic Island. Assange’s parents ran a touring theatre company. In 1979, his mother, Christine, remarried; her new husband was a musician who belonged to a controversial New Age group led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne. The couple had a son, but broke up in 1982 and engaged in a custody struggle for Assange’s half-brother. His mother then took both children into hiding for the next five years. Assange moved several dozen times during his childhood, attending many schools, sometimes being home schooled, and later attending several universities at various times in Australia.
Hacking
The development of the internet gave him a chance to use his early promise at maths, though this, too, led to difficulties. In 1995 he was accused with a friend of dozens of hacking activities.
Though the group of hackers was skilled enough to track detectives tracking them, Mr Assange was eventually caught and pleaded guilty. He was fined several thousand Australian dollars – only escaping prison on the condition that he did not reoffend.
He then spent three years working with an academic, Suelette Dreyfus, who was researching the emerging, subversive side of the internet, writing a book with her, Underground, that became a bestseller in the computing fraternity.
Ms Dreyfus described Mr Assange as a “very skilled researcher” who was “quite interested in the concept of ethics, concepts of justice, what governments should and shouldn’t do”.
This was followed by a course in physics and maths at Melbourne University, where he became a prominent member of a mathematics society, inventing an elaborate maths puzzle that contemporaries said he excelled at.
In 1987, after turning 16, Assange began hacking under the name “Mendax” (derived from a phrase of Horace: “splendide mendax,” or “nobly untruthful”). He and two other hackers joined to form a group which they named the International Subversives. Assange wrote down the early rules of the subculture: “Don’t damage computer systems you break into (including crashing them); don’t change the information in those systems (except for altering logs to cover your tracks); and share information”.
In response to the hacking, the Australian Federal Police raided his Melbourne home in 1991. He was reported to have accessed computers belonging to an Australian university, the Canadian telecommunications company Nortel, and other organisations, via modem. In 1992, he pled guilty to 24 charges of hacking and was released on bond for good conduct after being fined AU$2100. The prosecutor said “there is just no evidence that there was anything other than sort of intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to—what’s the expression—surf through these various computers”.
Assange later commented, “It’s a bit annoying, actually. Because I cowrote a book about [being a hacker], there are documentaries about that, people talk about that a lot. They can cut and paste. But that was 20 years ago. It’s very annoying to see modern day articles calling me a computer hacker. I’m not ashamed of it, I’m quite proud of it. But I understand the reason they suggest I’m a computer hacker now. There’s a very specific reason.”
Child Custody Issues
In 1989, Assange started living with his girlfriend and soon they had a son. She separated from him after the 1991 police raid and took their son.] They engaged in a lengthy custody struggle, and did not agree on a custody arrangement until 1999. The entire process prompted Assange and his mother to form Parent Inquiry Into Child Protection, an activist group centered on creating a “central databank” for otherwise inaccessible legal records related to child custody issues in Australia.
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks was founded in 2006. That year, Assange wrote two essays setting out the philosophy behind WikiLeaks: “To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not.” In his blog he wrote, “the more secretive or unjust an organisation is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. … Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.”
Assange sits on Wikileaks’s nine-member advisory board, and is a prominent media spokesman on its behalf. While newspapers have described him as a “director” or “founder”[ of Wikileaks, Assange has said, "I don't call myself a founder"; he does describe himself as the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, and has stated that he has the final decision in the process of vetting documents submitted to the site. Like all others working for the site, Assange is an unpaid volunteer. Assange says that Wikileaks has released more classified documents than the rest of the world press combined: "That's not something I say as a way of saying how successful we are – rather, that shows you the parlous state of the rest of the media. How is it that a team of five people has managed to release to the public more suppressed information, at that level, than the rest of the world press combined? It's disgraceful." Assange advocates a "transparent" and "scientific" approach to journalism, saying that "you can't publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism."
In 2006, CounterPunch called him "Australia's most infamous former computer hacker." The Age has called him "one of the most intriguing people in the world" and "internet's freedom fighter." Assange has called himself "extremely cynical". The Personal Democracy Forum said that as a teenager he was "Australia's most famous ethical computer hacker." He has been described as being largely self-taught and widely read on science and mathematics,[25] and as thriving on intellectual battle. WikiLeaks has been involved in the publication of material documenting extrajudicial killings in Kenya, a report of toxic waste dumping on the African coast, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantánamo Bay procedures, the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrikes video, and material involving large banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer among other documents.
He has been involved in the publication of material documenting extrajudicial killings in Kenya, a report of toxic waste dumping on the African coast, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantánamo Bay procedures, and material involving large banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer among other documents. He has recently received widespread public attention for the publication of classified material from WikiLeaks documenting details about the involvement of the United States in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and its five media partners began publishing the United States diplomatic cables leak. According to The Guardian, this has placed Assange “at the centre of intense media speculation and a hate campaign against him in America”.
On 30 November 2010, Interpol placed Assange on its red notice list of wanted persons; concomitantly, a European Arrest Warrant was issued for him. He is wanted for questioning on suspicion of “sex crimes”; this does not refer to suspicion of non-consensual sex, but to a condom breaking during consensual sex. He has not been formally charged with any crime. Mark Stephens, a British legal representative of Assange, said “It is highly irregular and unusual for the Swedish authorities to issue a red notice in the teeth of the undisputed fact that Mr Assange has agreed to meet voluntarily to answer the prosecutor’s questions”.
Wikileaks has published material from a number of different countries, but really hit the headlines in April, 2010 when it released video taken from a US helicopter in Iraq in 2007. The images, carried by media outlets around the world, caused widespread shock.
Mr Assange emerged into the spotlight to promote and defend the video, as well as the massive releases of classified US military documents on the Afghan and Iraq wars, in July and October, 2010.
Awards
Assange was the winner of the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award (New Media), awarded for exposing extrajudicial assassinations in Kenya with the investigation The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances. In accepting the award, he said: “It is a reflection of the courage and strength of Kenyan civil society that this injustice was documented. Through the tremendous work of organisations such as the Oscar foundation, the KNHCR, Mars Group Kenya and others we had the primary support we needed to expose these murders to the world.” He also won the 2008 Economist Index on Censorship Award.
Assange was awarded the 2010 Sam Adams Award by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. In September 2010, Assange was voted as number 23 among the “The World’s 50 Most Influential Figures 2010″ by the British magazine New Statesman. In their November/December issue, Utne Reader magazine named Assange as one of the “25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World”.
On 12 November he was leading in the poll for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year, 2010″.
Swedish “Sex Crime” investigation and arrest warrant
On 20 August 2010, an investigation was opened against Assange in Sweden in connection with an allegation that he had raped a woman in Enköping on the weekend of 14 August, 2010 after a seminar, and two days later had sexually harassed a second woman he had been staying with in Stockholm. Shortly after the investigation opened, however, chief prosecutor Eva Finné overruled the prosecutor on call the night the report was filed, withdrawing the warrant to arrest Assange and saying “I don’t think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape.” He was still being investigated for harassment, which covers reckless conduct or inappropriate physical contact. The second woman was a member of the Swedish Association of Christian Social Democrats, a Christian affiliate of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, who organized a seminar and news conference in Sweden for Assange. She was acting as Assange’s spokeswoman and hosting him as a guest in her home during his stay in Sweden. Assange said “the charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing”; his supporters say he is the victim of a smear campaign. Assange denies any wrongdoing but admits to having had unprotected but, he says, consensual encounters with two women during a visit to Sweden in August. He was questioned by police for an hour on 31 August, and on 1 September a senior Swedish prosecutor re-opened the investigation saying new information had come in. The women’s lawyer, Claes Borgström, a Swedish politician, had earlier appealed against the decision not to proceed. Assange has said that the accusation against him is a “set-up” arranged by the enemies of WikiLeaks.
In late October, 2010 Sweden denied Assange’s application for a Swedish residency and work permit. Subsequently, on 4 November, Assange said that he is considering a formal request for political asylum in Switzerland as “a real possibility.” He would also move the WikiLeaks servers to Switzerland in order to “operate in safety.” However, according to the Swiss Refugee Council (Schweizerische Flüchtlingshilfe), his chances of obtaining asylum there are small. Assange would first need to claim protection from his native Australia, and then make a credible argument that Australia could not protect him. This would be extremely difficult, according to the organisation.
On 18 November, 2010 Stockholm District Court approved a request to detain Assange for questioning on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation, and unlawful coercion. Director of Public Prosecutions Marianne Ny, who had reopened the investigation in September, said she had requested the warrant because, “so far, we have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogation.” Assange’s British legal counsel, Mark Stephens, disputed this, saying “we were willing to meet at the Swedish embassy or Scotland Yard or via video link” and that “all of these offers have been flatly refused by a prosecutor who is abusing her powers by insisting that he return to Sweden at his own expense to be subjected to another media circus that she will orchestrate.” On 20 November, Sweden’s National Criminal Police force issued an international arrest warrant for Assange via Interpol; an EU arrest warrant was issued through the Schengen Information System. “We made sure that all the police forces in the world would see it”, a spokesman for the National Criminal Police said.
Stephens dismissed the charges, issuing a statement in which he called the allegations “false and without basis” and said “even the substance of the allegations, as revealed to the press through unauthorized disclosures do not constitute what any advanced legal system considers to be rape.”
Assange’s Swedish lawyer, Björn Hurtig, stated that the evidence against Assange was “very meager. It’s not enough to get him convicted for crime.”
On 24 November 2010, Assange lost an appeal against his detention, and thus remains under arrest in absentia and under an arrest warrant. The Svea Court of Appeal rejected his appeal and upheld the decision to remand him by the Stockholm district court. In late November, Assange escalated the process by appealing to the Supreme Court of Sweden, but the Court refused to hear the appeal.
On 30 November 2010, Interpol issued a red notice against Assange on behalf of Sweden for questioning on allegations of “sex crimes.” Interpol’s spokesman clarified, “if it wasn’t for a request from Sweden, we would not have changed the status of his warrant.” Initially the notice was marked “restricted” but made public only after Sweden said they should. British police rejected the arrest warrant. A spokeswoman for the Swedish National Police Board told the BBC that Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency had requested a new order as the original one had listed only the maximum penalty for the most serious crime alleged, rather than for all of the crimes. Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny admitted the procedural fault and immediately filed a new detention order.
Stephens argued that the Swedish attempts to extradite Assange have no legal force because so far he has not been charged. Formal charges are an essential precondition for a valid European Arrest Warrant. Stephens said, “Julian Assange has never been charged by Swedish prosecutors. He is formally wanted as a witness.”
WikiLeaks’ Acquisition of the Cables
It was reported in June, 2010 that the U.S. State Department and embassy personnel were concerned that Bradley Manning, who had been charged with the unauthorized download of classified material while he was stationed in Iraq, had leaked diplomatic cables. The report, written by Wired, was rejected as inaccurate by WikiLeaks: “Allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified U.S. embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect”. Manning was suspected to have uploaded all of what he obtained to WikiLeaks, which chose to release the material in stages so as to have the greatest possible impact.
On 22 November, an announcement was made by WikiLeaks’ Twitter feed that the next release would be “7× the size of the Iraq War Logs”. U.S. authorities and the media had speculated, at the time, that they could contain diplomatic cables. Prior to the expected leak, the government of the United Kingdom (UK) sent a DA-Notice to UK newspapers, which requested advance notice from newspapers regarding the expected publication. According to the Index on Censorship, “there is no obligation on [the] media to comply”. Under the terms of a DA-Notice, “Newspaper editors would speak to Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee prior to publication”.
The Guardian was then revealed to have been the source of the copy of the documents given to The New York Times in order to prevent the British government from obtaining any injunction against its publication. The Pakistani newspaper Dawn stated that the U.S. newspapers The New York Times and The Washington Post were expected to publish parts of the diplomatic cables on 28 November, including 94 Pakistan-related documents.
On 26 November, 2010 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sent a letter to the U.S. Department of State, via his lawyer Jennifer Robinson, inviting them to “privately nominate any specific instances (record numbers or names) where it considers the publication of information would put individual persons at significant risk of harm that has not already been addressed”. Harold Koh, the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, rejected the proposal, stating: “We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained U.S. Government classified materials”. Assange responded in turn by writing back to the State Department that “you have chosen to respond in a manner which leads me to conclude that the supposed risks are entirely fanciful and you are instead concerned to suppress evidence of human rights abuse and other criminal behaviour”.
Ahead of the leak of the documents, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton contacted officials in Afghanistan, Britain, the People’s Republic of China, France, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates about the impending release, while other diplomats apparently spoke with the leaders in India, Iraq, Turkey, Canada, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Pakistan, Denmark, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Colombia and Sweden.
WikiLeaks Release
On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks began the release of the cables on its site, stating that “The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice”.
WikiLeaks Contents by region
Information in the tranche of cables released by WikiLeaks on 28 November 2010 and subsequent days included the following:
Commonwealth Political Director Amitav Banerji said a Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) could recommend a full suspension of Fiji; he also suggested a constitutional crisis could have followed the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua; he further noted a succession question for the Head of the Commonwealth Queen Elizabeth II, though it was on the back burner while she was alive, as there was no rule that stipulated the British monarch must be the head of the body.
United Nations
Directives from the State Department ordered U.S. diplomats to gather intelligence on the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and top UN officials, including biometric information, passwords, and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications.
At a meeting in 2006 between the US Legal Advisor to the Secretary of State John B. Bellinger III and legal advisors of the European Member states, Bellinger warned European states that supporting a Cuba-sponsored resolution at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights against U.S. actions in Guantanamo Bay, would be a “serious setback to U.S.-EU cooperation against terrorism, and give the unacceptable impression that the EU was aligned with Cuba against the U.S.”
Afghanistan
According to a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul, Ahmad Zia Massoud, Vice President of Afghanistan, was found carrying $52 million in cash that he “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination”. The discovery was made in the United Arab Emirates by local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, was described in one cable as having a paranoid world-view.
A cable recounting meetings between American officials and Ahmed Wali Karzai, in September 2009 and February 2010, offered the following warning: “Note: While we must deal with AWK as the head of the Provincial Council, he is widely understood to be corrupt and a narcotics trafficker”. Noting several of Karzai’s statements known to be false, the cables explain that “He appears not to understand the level of our knowledge of his activities. We will need to monitor his activity closely, and deliver a recurring, transparent message to him”.
Albania
After accepting five Chinese Muslims of Guantánamo Bay in 2006, Sali Berisha offered to take three to six detainees extra. American diplomats portrayed his offer as “gracious, but probably extravagant. As always, the Albanians are willing to go the extra mile to assist with one of our key foreign policy priorities,” a cable said.
Armenia
The 2010 diplomatic cable leaks revealed US anger against Armenia for allegedly shipping arms to Iran. In late 2008, US diplomats came to the conclusion that the government of Armenia had supplied Iran with rockets and machine guns in 2003, which were subsequently sent by Iran to insurgents in Iraq and used to kill American soldiers there. The allegation was denied by Armenian President Serge Sargsyan. The cables contain an angry letter from John D. Negroponte to Sargsyan.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
The French government pushed for the closure of the Office of the High Representative despite conditions not being met, in opposition to the US.
US and Turkish officials pressured Haris Silajdžić, a former member of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to ease his rhetoric and desist from using the word “genocide” in relation to Serbs.
Milorad Dodik, then prime minister of the Republika Srpska entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, supported the Ahtisaari plan for the independence of Kosovo.
Brazil
Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães, Brazil’s Former Deputy Foreign Ministry was described as an “opponent” which adopts an “anti-American slant”.
The American Embassy in Brasília said that Brazil frames suspected terrorists on narcotics charges. High-level Brazilian officials “will vigorously reject any statements implying” that insurgents have a presence in Brazil.
Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim confirmed an earlier rumor that the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, is suffering from a serious sinus tumor.
Activities of organizations at the Amazon Rainforest and protection of oil reserves were considered “paranoia”, since there were “no international threats” over them.
Canada
Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director Jim Judd complained about Canada’s courts and general public to U.S. Counselor of the State Department Eliot A. Cohen in Ottawa on 2 July 2008. He ascribed an “Alice in Wonderland” worldview to Canadians and their courts, whose judges have tied CSIS “in knots”, making it ever more difficult to detect and prevent terror attacks in Canada and abroad.
Judd commented that cherry-picked sections of the court-ordered release of a DVD of Guantanamo detainee and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr would likely show three Canadian adults interrogating a kid who breaks down in tears. He observed that the images would no doubt trigger “knee-jerk anti-Americanism” and “paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty”, as well as lead to a new round of heightened pressure on the government to press for Khadr’s return to Canada. He predicted that Harper’s government would nonetheless continue to resist this pressure.
Judd is quoted as telling Cohen that Canadian spies had prior warning that an explosion at Sarpoza Prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan was being planned by the Taliban. However, Judd stated that the spies “could not get a handle on the timing”. An investigation headed by Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson, into intelligence failures leading to the prison break, claimed Canada did not suspect an attack. Former Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier stated in a committee hearing that “Obviously we would have liked to have known so we could have pre-empted or helped, more accurately, the Afghans pre-empt that kind of thing”.
CSIS officers have been “vigorously harassing” known Hezbollah members in Canada.
U.S. diplomats in Ottawa wrote to Washington that the CBC pushes “insidious negative popular stereotyping” with “anti-American melodrama” in its entertainment television programs, according to documents to be released by the website WikiLeaks.
People’s Republic of China
A Chinese official revealed that both public opinion in China and the government are “increasingly critical” of North Korea, stating that “China’s influence with the North was frequently overestimated”. The Chinese mentioned that they do not “like” North Korea, but “they are a neighbour”.
A Chinese contact told the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that the Politburo of the Communist Party of China was responsible for instigating the January 2010 Google hacking incident which was part of a wider “coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government” targeting the U.S. and its Western allies.
In February 2009, the US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan spoke to her Chinese counterpart, Zhang Yannian, after being notified that China had offered Kyrgyzstan $3 billion in return for the closure of Manas Air Base—an important US base in Bishkek handling flights into and out of Afghanistan. “Visibly flustered, Zhang temporarily lost the ability to speak Russian and began spluttering in Chinese.” He proceeded to ridicule the claim—avoiding a straightforward denial—and offered his own advice to the US on dealing with the Kyrgyz to keep the base open, during which his aide remarked: “Or maybe you should give them $5 billion and buy both us and the Russians out”.
Germany
A number of cables from the Berlin embassy reveal the U.S. concern on Germany’s position in the SWIFT-, TFTP- and the bilateral US-Germany data sharing agreement. A revealing cable from December 2009 (09BERLIN1528) describes how German Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière overruled Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and abstained from voting at the November 30 COREPER vote in Brussels on an interim U.S.-EU agreement to continue the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP).
US embassy personnel were very critical of German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle. He is regarded as incompetent and one cable ends with the comment “he’s no Genscher”. An embassy cable sent from Berlin on 22 September 2009 describes Mr. Westerwelle as having an “exuberant personality” and calling him an “enigma” who “remains sceptical about the US”.
American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for CIA officers involved in a bungled operation in which Khalid El-Masri, an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant, was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan.[
It is revealed that the US had an informant in the coalition talks between the CDU and FDP for Cabinet Merkel II.
German chancellor Angela Merkel is called Angela "Teflon" Merkel and it is said that she avoids risk and is uncreative.
Honduras
A cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, definitively characterizes the June 2009 ousting of President Manuel Zelaya as "an illegal and unconstitutional coup". The decisiveness of the cable was not reflected in US Secretary of State Clinton's reluctance to use such terminology in public statements and the US State Department's failure to cut off all aid save "democracy assistance", as required by law in the case of a coup. The cable is also seemingly at odds with relatively rapid moves by the U.S., the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank to normalize relations with Honduras.
India
A State Department cable called India a "self-appointed frontrunner for permanent UNSC seat".
The State Department solicited "Biographical and biometric information on key NAM/G-77/OIC Permanent Representatives, particularly India, China".
The U.S. conducted its own secret analysis of India's military contingency plans, which are codenamed Cold Start. India has said that if sufficiently provoked, it would mount a rapid invasion of Pakistan. The U.S. said in a cable that it doubted the Indian Army was capable of doing so: "It is the collective judgment of the mission that India would likely encounter very mixed results. Indian forces could have significant problems consolidating initial gains due to logistical difficulties and slow reinforcement". However, U.S. Ambassador to India Tim Roemer warned that for India to launch the Cold Start doctrine, would be to "roll the nuclear dice". It could trigger the world's first use of nuclear weapons since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Indian leaders no doubt realize that, although Cold Start is designed to punish Pakistan in a limited manner without triggering a nuclear response, the Indians cannot be sure whether Pakistani leaders will in fact refrain from such a response". To counter the Indian doctrine, U.S. diplomats in Islamabad were told Pakistan was working on producing smaller, tactical nuclear weapons such as nuclear artillery that could be used on the battlefield against Indian troops.
Iran
The cables reveal some Arab distrust for Iran, and encouragement from pro-US Arab leaders for a military strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran. Saudi King Abdullah has repeatedly urged the U.S. to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. In one diplomatic cable, King Abdullah said it was necessary to "cut the head of the snake", in reference to Iran's nuclear program.
Muhammad bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, urged the U.S. not to appease Tehran and said, "Ahmadinejad is Hitler".
King Hamad of Bahrain was quoted in 2009 as saying, "That program [the Iranian nuclear program] must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it”.
Maj-Gen. Muhammad al-Assar, assistant to the Egyptian defense minister, was quoted in 2009 saying that “Egypt views Iran as a threat to the region”.
U.S. intelligence has assessed that Iran obtained from North Korea advanced missiles (derived from a Soviet design) that are more powerful than publicly admitted by the U.S. to be in Iran’s possession. These missiles, designated the BM-25, have a range of up to 2,000 miles (3,200 km). However, another cable that has received less attention from mainstream press describes a meeting of US and Russian officials, where the latter dismissed the former’s claims, pointing out technical flaws in the evidence presented and inconsistencies in the story.
An unidentified ally of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani stated that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has terminal leukemia and is expected to die in months, and Rafsanjani’s unwillingness to act after the disputed Presidential election in 2009 comes from his wish to succeed Khamenei and annul Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election afterwards.
Reports that the Iranian Red Crescent was actively controlled by the government and was involved in illicit arms smuggling and intelligence gathering on behalf of Iran.
A cable from the U.S. State Department indicated that the U.S. was pushing for co-operation from its allies to impose further sanctions on Iran in response to its nuclear program.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and National Security in communication with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service agreed to “help” on Afghan issues, including sharing information regarding potential attacks. CSIS director Jim Judd had confided however that he had not “figured out what they are up to”, since it is clear that the “Iranians want ISAF to bleed…slowly”.
According to a cable sent from the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan in 2009, there is a “widespread rumor” that many Iranians in Baku conduct in illicit activities and that these activities are tied to the Iranian regime. These activities include sanctions-busting, money laundering, obtaining spare parts, equipment and revenue generation for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and management of narcotics trafficking originating from Iran. The cable mentions that many Iranians residing in Baku from different backgrounds, including students, business figures, and human rights activists are involved in these activities.
Ireland
A 2006 memo on Ireland featured when on 1 December 2010 it was revealed that American diplomats discussed the Irish Government’s attempts to oppose American use of Shannon Airport before the 2007 general election. After this release Amnesty International asked the Irish Government to tighten its legislation to counter use of Irish airspace by the Americans. Colm O’Gorman, the organisation’s executive director in Ireland, observed that concerns expressed by Irish citizens over the misuse of the airport by the Americans was “a problem to be managed rather than something to be taken seriously”.
According to a 2006 diplomatic cable sent from the US embassy in Ireland, “the Irish Government has informally begun to place constraints on US military transits” at Shannon Airport. The Irish government attempted to limit the transfer from weapons from the US to Israel via the Shannon Airport. James C. Kenny, US ambassador to Ireland at the time, said Irish officials were warned that the US would use other airports if the policy continued.
Israel
Israel was ready to attack a nuclear-armed Iran, and saw 2010 as a pivotal year.
In August 2007, Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan suggested to the U.S. to make use of local fringe groups to try and topple the Iranian regime. WikiLeaks documents also suggest that Dagan denied plans to attack a Syrian nuclear facility, just two months before an attack actually happened.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak consulted with Fatah of the Palestinian Authority and asked if they could take over control of Gaza Strip after expected Israeli victory during Operation Cast Lead, but met with refusal.
In a conversation with Congressman Gary Ackerman in 2007, Netanyahu said Shimon Peres had admitted to him that the Oslo peace process he helped initiate was based on a mistaken premise. Netanyahu said Peres had told him the European and US assistance to the Palestinian Authority had established a “bloated bureaucracy, with PA employees looking to the international community to meet their payroll”.
In the same document, Netanyahu described Kadima as a “fake party” and referred to the Second Lebanon War as “stupid” and criticized the approach of Ehud Olmert’s policies towards the conflict.
In one document from April 2007, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was opposition leader at the time, describes the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a “nice man who means well” and urges Washington to focus on toppling Hamas through an “economic squeeze” saying it would be “easier to weaken Hamas than to strengthen Abbas”.
In 2008, U.S. diplomats in the Middle East to secretly collect personal information on Palestinian leaders, and closely monitor Israeli military and telecommunication capabilities. One State Department directive orders U.S. diplomats to report on Israeli Military tactics, techniques, and procedures dealing with conventional and unconventional counterinsurgency operations.[
According to a cable from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, Benjamin Netanyahu supports the concept of land-swaps with the Palestinian Authority and does not want to govern the West Bank and Gaza but rather to stop attacks from being launched from there.
Netanyahu was described by Luis G. Moreno in one cable: "Netanyahu warned that when Israel left Lebanon it created a first Iranian base, that when it left Gaza it created a second Iranian base, and if Israel "promised" a third retreat from the West Bank it would see the same results. There were three options, according to Netanyahu - withdrawing to the 1967 borders (that would "get terror, not peace"); doing nothing ("just as bad"); or "rapidly building a pyramid from the ground up". Netanyahu suggested a rapid move to develop the West Bank economically, including "unclogging" bureaucratic "bottlenecks
Mossad director Meir Dagan told American diplomat Frances Fragos Townsend that "nothing will be achieved" in the peace process according to a secret cable the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv sent to the State Department. During a two-hour meeting, Dagan told Townsend that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would "likely move to Qatar and join his mysteriously wealthy son there" in the event Hamas took over the West Bank. In the same cable, Dagan was recorded accusing Saudi Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal of playing a "very negative role" and characterized Qatar as "a real problem", accusing its leader Sheikh Hamid bin Khalifa al-Thani of "annoying everyone". He also suggested the US should move its bases out of Qatar.
In 2007 Tzipi Livni said she "doubted that a final status agreement could be reached with Abbas, and therefore the emphasis should be on reforming Fatah so that it could beat Hamas at the polls
Italy
American officials voiced concerns over Berlusconi's extraordinary closeness to Putin, "including 'lavish gifts,' lucrative energy contracts and a 'shadowy' Russian-speaking Italian go-between". Diplomats consider him "to be the mouthpiece of Putin" in Europe.
The Georgian ambassador in Rome has told to the American officials that Georgia believes Putin has promised Berlusconi a percentage of profits from any pipelines developed by Gazprom in coordination with Eni S.p.A.
Jordan
A document dated from April 2, 2009 shows then-president of the Jordanian Senate, Zeid Rifai, saying “Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb. Sanctions, carrots, incentives won’t matter" in a conversation with US ambassador David Hale. According to the cable, “while Rifai judged a military strike would have ‘catastrophic impact on the region,’ he nonetheless thought preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons would pay enough dividends to make it worth the risks.”
Koreas
North Korea was behaving like a "spoiled child", according to Chinese officials, who were prepared to accept Korean reunification under South Korean leadership. They estimated they could cope with an influx of 300,000 North Korean refugees in the event of instability on the peninsula.
The U.S. and South Korea are planning to reunite the two Koreas, should the North ultimately collapse.
Kuwait
Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah referring to Kuwaiti Guantanamo detainees said "You know better than I that we cannot deal with these people (the Guantanamo detainees). I can't detain them. If I take their passports, they will sue to get them back. I can talk to you into next week about building a rehabilitation center, but it won't happen. We are not Saudi Arabia; we cannot isolate these people in desert camps or somewhere on an island. We cannot compel them to stay. If they are rotten, they are rotten and the best thing to do is get rid of them. You picked them up in Afghanistan; you should drop them off in Afghanistan, in the middle of the war zone".
Pakistan
Grave fears in the U.S. and the U.K. over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. Since 2007, the U.S. has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In the words of U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson, Pakistan had refused visits from American experts, while an official told her "If the local media got word of the fuel removal, they would certainly portray it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons".
In July 2009, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and de facto defence chief, said Zardari was "dirty but not dangerous" and that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was "dangerous but not dirty -- this is Pakistan".
Saudi King Abdullah called President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan the greatest obstacle to the country's progress. "When the head is rotten", he said, "it affects the whole body".
The Saudi Government is concerned about Pakistan's political fragility, and has worked hard through its embassy in Islamabad, to bring the Pakistani factions together. Saudi relations with Pakistan have been strained because the Saudis do not trust Zardari and see him and other leading Pakistani politicians as corrupt.
A new rail link between Pakistan and Iran would be delayed for the time being, owing to poor conditions, low freight-carrying capacity and unrest from Baloch insurgents in the Balochistan region of both countries.
Likewise, a natural gas pipeline agreement was also not expected to be fruitful because "the Pakistanis don't have the money to pay for either the pipeline, or the gas.
According to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel was concerned for the well-being of former president Pervez Musharraf and wanted him to stay in power in 2007. The director of Mossad, Meir Dagan, remarked: "...he is facing a serious problem with the militants. Pakistan’s nuclear capability could end up in the hands of an Islamic regime.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak described Pakistan as his "private nightmare". He said that a potential Islamic extremist threat in Pakistan could wake up the world "with everything changed". Barak also dismissed the idea of using force on Iran as backfiring upon moderate Muslims in Pakistan, saying that while the two countries were interconnected, such a causal chain could not be established.
In February 2010, a Turkish expert on South Asian Affairs, Engin Soysal, told U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs William J. Burns that the Pakistani military was unhappy with Zardari, though it was not leaning to intervene. Soysal added that the "senior officers' patience may not be infinite", and that "Zardari needs to increase the democratic legitimacy of parliament".
Jasmine Zerinini, a French specialist on Afghanistan-Pakistan affairs, said that Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had "learnt his lesson from Musharraf" by staying behind the scenes and not interceding in the country's political situation. At the same time, Zerinini claimed that Kayani was manipulating the government into preventing policy change on Pakistan's war-ridden tribal belt and he had a role in provoking controversy surrounding the contentious Kerry-Lugar bill. She also added that the West had not adequately targeted Pakistan's military to take on the Afghan Taliban hiding in Pakistan, saying militant leaders had been allowed to create networks funded by Gulf donors which were difficult to be defeated.
The cables reveal that Vice President Biden told British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in March 2009 that Mr. Zardari had told him he feared an army coup and that the “ISI director and Kayani will take me out.
In a conversation with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he found it "astonishing" that President Zardari was still in power in 2010 and that the Pakistani military's operations against militants along the Afghan border had been striking. Kouchner concurred and added that political and military changes in Pakistan were "nothing short of a miracle." Gates and Kouchner also discussed the improving image of the Pakistan Army after its "aggressive campaign against the insurgency.
Fearing attempts on his life, Zardari told ambassador Anne W. Patterson that in the event he were to be assassinated, he had instructed his son Bilawal Zardari Bhutto (who along with Zardari is the co-Chairman of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party) to appoint his sister Faryal Talpur as President and he had informed the United Arab Emirates of his intent to allow the family to continue living there.
In November 2007, Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, a politician and leader of the Islamist party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, invited Patterson to a dinner in which he sought her support in becoming Prime Minister and expressed a desire to visit America. According to Rehman's personal aide, "All important parties in Pakistan had to get the approval" of the US. Referring to Rehman, Patterson mentioned "He has made it clear that....his still significant number of votes are up for sale. The cables also highlighted the contradictions of other prominent figures. Amin Fahim, a Bhutto follower hoping to run for Prime Minister, led an Islamic religious party "while enjoying an occasional bloody mary.
According to a document from October 2009, head of Pakistan's intelligence agency Ahmad Shuja Pasha provided intelligence on potential terrorist attacks in India to Israel. According to the cable, "He had been in direct touch with the Israelis on possible threats against Israeli targets in India
Kayani is described in American interactions as "direct, frank, and thoughtful" and has "fond memories" of time spent on a military training course in the US. He also "smokes heavily and can be difficult to understand as he tends to mumble." ISI chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha was said to be "usually more emotional" than Kayani.
In February 2009, Zardari's spokesperson Farahnaz Ispahani said the president was "very unhappy" with the way Prime Minister Gillani had "gone off the reservation" (in relation to Gillani's talks with Shahbaz Sharif that the government would not try to remove the Sharifs from power in Punjab). In 2008, Zardari also commented on Fahim, saying he "had spent most of the [ election ] campaign in Dubai (with his latest 22 year-old wife) and was simply too lazy to be prime minister”.
In 2008, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani personally consented American drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas along the Afghan border to combat the Taliban. When Interior Minister Rehman Malik recommended the US to hold back “alleged Predator attacks until after the Bajaur operation,” Gillani dismissed the remarks and was heard saying: “I don’t care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it.
There are revelations that small teams of elite US special forces may have been dispatched in the tribal belt to help coordinate the Pakistani military’s operations. One record indicates that up to 16 US soldiers had been deployed to help Pakistani troops in 2009. Their role is primarily training-oriented and to provide “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” support – ISR in military jargon – “general operational advice” and set up live satellite feed from presumably CIA-operated American drones flying overhead.
Russia
Alleged links between the Russian government and organised crime. Russia was labelled as a Mafia-state.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev often acts under the influence of former Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and “plays Robin to Putin’s Batman.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi donors remain chief financiers of militant groups like Al-Qaeda.
Saudi King Abdullah has repeatedly urged the U.S. to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. In one diplomatic cable, King Abdullah said it was necessary to “cut the head of the snake”, in reference to Iran’s nuclear program.
King Abdullah proposed that Guantanamo detainees could be monitored through the use of “electronic chips”.
Serbia and Kosovo
In 2009, French diplomat Jean-David Levitte said that EULEX has diplomatic issues with the Kosovo government and public, and that Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić “makes promises that he never keeps”. He also criticised Jeremić for inaction in encouraging “Serb return or participation in the Kosovo government”.
The Guardian suggested that cables regarding Serbia awaiting publication could refer to reasons why Ratko Mladić has not yet been arrested.
Slovenia
According to the cables the State Department ordered to spy on people connected with Slovenia, that includes gaining their credit card numbers and phonebooks. It was also ordered to research the diplomacy of Slovenia, including various agreements and projects connected to Russia, U.S. also wanted to gain information on money laundring, organised criminal, etc. U.S. were also searching for information about locations of various chemical factories, secret underground military bases, evacuation plans of hospitals and buildings of the goverment and how much really is Slovenia interested in cooperating in War in Afghanistan.
Spain
U.S. officials tried to pressure Spain into dropping court investigations into the CIA’s extraordinary rendition, torture at Guantanamo Bay, and the 2003 killing of José Couso, a Spanish journalist, in Iraq by American troops.
Sri Lanka
Secretary of State of United Kingdom David Miliband directed much of his attention on the final stages of Sri Lankan Civil War to win votes of Tamils in UK stated Tim Waite, a Foreign Office team leader on Sri Lanka, quoted in one US embassy cable. “He [Tim Waite] said that with UK elections on the horizon and many Tamils living in Labour constituencies with slim majorities, the government is paying particular attention to Sri Lanka, with Miliband recently remarking to Waite that he was spending 60 per cent of his time at the moment on Sri Lanka” the cable revealed.
Verifying the accountability for alleged crimes in the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War has been very difficult. “There are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power”. “Most Tamils in Sri Lanka appear to think it is both unrealistic and counter-productive to push the issue too aggressively”.
Syria
Increased Syrian arms shipments to Hezbollah despite their claims that new shipments have ceased.
A Syrian foreign minister was alleged to have fallen for a “tabloid-like story” regarding the death of Princess Diana. An American ambassador stated that this displayed the Syrian government’s “’stark ignorance’ of the outside world”.
Turkey
Turkey deliberately did not invite India for a meeting on Afghanistan to appease Pakistan, reflecting Islamabad’s insistence at every international forum that India be kept out of any meeting on Afghanistan.
Former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, during a meeting with Turkish Foreign ministry undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu, promised to shut down the controversial Denmark-based Kurdish TV-station Roj TV, in order to prevent Turkish obstruction to his appointment as Secretary General of NATO.
Turkey complained to British diplomats that Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, wanted to ruin Turkey’s chances to join the European Union by filming a documentary revealing the plight of disabled children in Turkey. The UK foreign secretary responded by saying that “as a private citizen, her activities could not ‘be controlled’.
Turkish military officials have pressured the U.S. for Predator B drones, to use against the Kurdistan Workers Party in Iraq. Due to American concerns over a potential rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey, the “State Department has warned that the purchasing process promises to be ‘long and complex.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is no fan of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party despite both countries maintaining fraternal relations publicly. Aliyev criticised Turkish foreign policy by calling it ‘naive’. He also revealed that he had sold gas to Russia in order to impede Turkey’s ability to “create a gas distribution hub”.
United Arab Emirates
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, referred to as MBZ in the cables, urged the US not to appease Iran and said, “Ahmadinejad is Hitler”.
Muhammad bin Zayed supported the U.S. decision to sell F-16 aircraft to Pakistan to strengthen the Musharraf government, saying the sale would not alter the balance of strength between India and Pakistan.
Diplomats in the UAE revealed that Muhammad bin Zayed, Abdullah II of Jordan and the UK’s Prince Andrew, Duke of York, are “close friends” that “frequently hunt – in Morocco and Tanzania”.
UAE military officials have pressured the U.S. for Predator B drones, to be used in countering Iran. As Iran is known to be developing its own drones, a UAE general stated “That’s why we need it first…give me Predator B”.
Muhammad bin Zayed believes that an Israeli strike will not be successful in stopping Iran’s nuclear programme, and therefore a new plan is required. He also believes that Israel will strike Iran, causing Iran to launch missile attacks including hits on the UAE and to unleash attacks worldwide. In his view, the map of the Middle East would change
Muhammad bin Zayed apparently runs the United Arab Emirates. While he is officially only the Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and his only federal title is Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, he is said to be the key decision maker on national security issues. He was observed to be unlike his elder half-brother President Khalifa, who is reported to be a distant and uncharismatic personage. ‘MBZ’ has authority in all matters except for final decisions on oil policy and major state expenditures.[
MBZ described a nuclear armed Iran as absolutely untenable. He believes that ‘all hell will break loose’ if Iran attains the bomb, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey developing their own nuclear weapons capability and Iran instigating Sunni-Shia conflict.
MBZ said Iran is surrounding Israel driven by ideological conviction and will threaten Israel’s existence should it go nuclear. At the same time, he described Iran’s ambitions as reflecting a desire to restore Persia’s great-power status, rather than driven by religious convictions.
MBZ suggested that the key to containing Iran revolves around progress on the Israel–Palestinian conflict. He argued that it will be essential to bring Arab public opinion in line with the leadership in any conflict with Iran and that roughly 80% of the public is amenable to persuasion. To win them over, the U.S. would have to quickly bring about a two state solution over the objections of the Netanyahu government. He suggested working with moderate Palestinians that support the road map, and forget about the others as there is no time to waste.
United Kingdom
Foreign Office officials concealed from Parliament a loophole in the ban on use and storage of cluster bombs, allowing the US to store the munitions on UK territory
The Ministry of Defence’s director general for security policy told US under-secretary of state Ellen Tauscher that the UK government had “put measures in place to protect your interests during the UK inquiry into the causes of the Iraq war”.
Prince Andrew, Duke of York, was noted as saying “The Americans don’t understand geography. Never have. In the U.K., we have the best geography teachers in the world!”[
Venezuela
A cable sent from the U.S. embassy in Brasilia on 13 November 2009 reported that Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim “all but acknowledged presence of the FARC in Venezuela”.
Spanish newspaper El País released some information about the remaining Venezuelan cables, not released yet at the WikiLeaks webpage. These cables supposedly deal with issues related to Cuban intelligence in Venezuela working together with the Venezuelan government.
A cable sent from the US embassy in Caracas on 14 December 2009 explains what the embassy considers to be the situation of Venezuelan public health system and the government actions related to the public health sector. This in the context of raised protests in private and public hospitals with motivation in the alleged failure of Barrio Adentro, a social welfare program, with support of Cuban doctors, that seeks to provide comprehensive publicly-funded health care, dental care, and sports training to poor and marginalized communities in Venezuela.
Yemen
Yemen’s deputy Prime Minister Abdulkarim Al-Arhabi said if the U.S. attacks Al-Qaida bases in Yemen, he will tell the people of Yemen that it was the Yemeni military that has carried out the attacks rather than the U.S. He also joked about lying to Parliament on U.S. involvement of bombings.
Other issues
A rogue shipment of enriched uranium was nearly the cause of an environmental disaster in 2009.
The U.S. used bargaining to move prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to other countries. In one case, U.S. officials allegedly offered to Slovenia a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, if the country accepts one of the Guantanamo Bay detainees. Offers to other countries include economic incentives or a visit from Obama.
December 3rd 2010
Guardian
The British military was criticised for failing to establish security in Sangin by the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and the US commander of Nato troops, according to diplomatic cables.
Rampant government corruption in Afghanistan is revealed by the cables, including an incident last year when the then vice-president, Ahmad Zia Massoud, was stopped and questioned in Dubai when he flew into the emirate with $52m in cash.
Gordon Brown was written off as prime minister by the US embassy in London a year into his premiership. It concluded that an “abysmal track record” had left him lurching from “political disaster to disaster”, according to cables released by WikiLeaks. He briefly earned some praise when he led the recapitalising of banks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers but within months his government was deemed a “sinking ship”. Brown’s international initiatives, from food summits to global disarmament and a UK national security council, were treated with indifference bordering on disdain by the Americans, according to US embassy cables.
The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is erratic, emotional and prone to believing paranoid conspiracy theories, according to frustrated diplomats and foreign statesmen. He has also been accused by his own ministers of complicity in criminal activity, including ordering the physical intimidation of the top official in charge of leading negotiations with the Taliban.
US diplomats have reported suspicions that Silvio Berlusconi could be “profiting personally and handsomely” from secret deals with the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, according to cables released by WikiLeaks. They centre on allegations that the Italian leader has been promised a cut of huge energy contracts. Another memo quoted a friend of Berlusconi saying the Italian prime minister’s fondness for partying had taken a physical and political toll on him.
American officials dismissed British protests about secret US spy flights taking place from the UK’s Cyprus airbase, amid concerns from Labour ministers, upset about rendition flights going on behind their backs, that the UK would be an unwitting accomplice to torture.
The British Foreign Office misled parliament over the plight of thousands of islanders who were expelled from their Indian Ocean homeland – the British colony of Diego Garcia – to make way for a large US military base, according to secret US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks. It has privately admitted its latest plan to declare the islands the world’s largest marine protection zone will end any chance of them being repatriated. Publicly ministers have claimed the proposed park would have no effect on the islanders’ right of return.
The cables reveal Washington’s opinion on Gordon Brown’s potential successors. David Miliband was deemed “too brainy”, Alan Johnson had a “lack of killer instinct” and Harriet Harman was a “policy lightweight but an adept interparty operator”.
A scandal involving foreign contractors employed to train Afghan policemen who took drugs and paid for young “dancing boys” to entertain them in northern Afghanistan caused such panic that the interior minister begged the US embassy to try to “quash” the story, according a US embassy cable. The Afghan government feared the story, if published, would “endanger lives” and was particularly concerned that a video of the incident might be made public.
The US military has been charging its allies a 15% handling fee on hundreds of millions of dollars being raised internationally to build up the Afghan army. Germany has threatened to cancel contributions, raising concerns that money is going to the US treasury.
Iran is financing a range of Afghan religious and political leaders, grooming Afghan religious scholars, training Taliban militants and even seeking to influence MPs, according to cables from the US embassy in Kabul.
The US has lost faith in the Mexican army’s ability to win the country’s drugs war, branding it slow, clumsy and no match for “sophisticated” narco-traffickers.
The US is convinced that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Afghan president’s younger half-brother and a senior figure in Kandahar, is corrupt, according to embassy cables. He is described as dominating access to “economic resources, patronage and protection”. Two of Hamid Karzai’s brothers planned to ask for asylum in the US, while other family members stayed away and kept their money out of Afghanistan – so anxious were they that the Afghan president would lose last year’s election.
The Obama administration and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, are determined to reject talks with Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, and have consistently worked to split his movement, according to US diplomatic cables. Karzai has sometimes publicly floated the idea of dialogue with Omar and other top Taliban, but the cables show his private position is the opposite.
Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Colombia’s Álvaro Uribe “almost came to blows” at a Latin America unity summit, according to a US memo, which described it as “the worst expression of banana republic discourse”.
A Kremlin campaign to airbrush Stalin’s role in Russian history by dictating how academics write about the past is only half-hearted, US diplomats believe. They also feel there are enough Russians striving to remember the purge victims to combat any rewrite. The cable concerns the so-called “history wars”, a nationalist campaign to defend Russia’s honour.
Turkmenistan’s president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, is “vain, suspicious, guarded, strict, very conservative”, a “micro-manager” and “a practised liar”, US diplomats say.
Four months before his death the Nobel-prize winning writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn offered qualified praise for Vladimir Putin, arguing that he was doing a better job as Russia’s leader than Boris Yeltsin or Mikhail Gorbachev. Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974 and returned to Russia 20 years later.
Moldova’s president offered a $10m (£6.4m) bribe to a political rival in a desperate bid to keep his defeated communist government in power, according to a secret US diplomatic cable.
New York Times
Afghanistan emerges as a land where bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the norm. Describing the likely lineup of Afghanistan’s new cabinet last January, the US embassy noted that the agriculture minister, Asif Rahimi, “appears to be the only minister that was confirmed about whom no allegations of bribery exist”.
Der Spiegel
Berlin was irritated by a 15% administration fee the US sought to charge Germany on a €50m donation made to a trust fund set up to improve the Afghan army. A top German diplomat complained the fee would be a tough sell to taxpayers.
Mistrust between the US and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is very deep. Karzai is convinced the US has thrown its backing behind his rival Abdullah Abdullah.
The close relationship between Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin is a source of unease for the US state department. The leaked cables contain allegations of personal business interests that both politicians deny.
US diplomats are concerned about the growing power of Russian organised crime and believe it has contacts with the highest levels of government in Moscow.
Le Monde
France is committed to staying the course in Afghanistan even though public opposition to the war and electoral considerations have weighed heavily on Nicolas Sarkozy. Amid concerns that the French president was trying to distance himself from the US to improve his popularity, Barack Obama was advised that a phone call to him could have a decisive impact. The US president was told: “Flattery would lead very far.”
Iran is extending its influence in Afghanistan in the same way it did in Iraq. It has been supporting insurgent groups as well as financially backing politicians.
Following the Wikileaks release of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables, the deputy foreign minister of Ecuador – a strong opponent of US policy – said it would offer Mr Assange residency “without any conditions”.
However, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa later said the offer had “not been approved by Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino – or the president”.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested in U.K – 7.12.2010
Police Said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has surrendered to British police as part of a Swedish sex-crimes investigation, the latest blow to the secret-spilling website that faces legal, financial and security challenges.
Mr. Assange was arrested at 9.30 a.m. (930 GMT) on 7.12.2010 and was due to appear at Westminster Magistrate’s Court later in the day.
The founder of the whistle-blower website, Mr. Assange, has been hiding out at an undisclosed location in Britain since WikiLeaks began publishing hundreds of U.S. diplomatic cables on the Internet last week.
The organisation’s room for manoeuvre is narrowing by the day. It has been battered by web attacks, cut off by Internet service providers and is the subject of a criminal investigation in the U.S., where officials say the release jeopardised national security and diplomatic efforts around the world.
US-based Indian origin researcher Shuvo Roy has created the world’s first implantable artificial kidney. What’s sensational about Roy’s creation is that the organ, no larger than a coffee cup, will be able to mimic the kidney’s most vital functions like filtering toxins out of the bloodstream, regulate blood pressure and produce the all- important vitamin D.
The artificial kidney has been tested successfully on a small number of animals. Large-scale trials on animals and humans are expected over the next five years. Once available, and if affordable, this creation by the Roy-led team at University of California will do away with the need for kidney dialysis.
This will be a boon for all patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). At present in India, of the 1.5 lakh new patients who suffer from end-stage renal failure annually, only 3,500 get kidney transplants and 6,000-10,000 undergo dialysis. The rest perish due to an acute shortage of dialysis centres and nephrologists to man them.
CKD is rising at a rapid pace in India and the majority of those who perish are either unable to find a suitable organ for transplantation or are unable to pay for the high dialysis costs.
According to Roy, the device has a filtration section to remove toxins from the blood, alongside a compartment with renal cells to conduct other functions of a kidney. He believes the artificial kidney could last for decades and require no pumps or batteries. Patients wouldn’t require anti-rejection drugs (as is required after transplants) either because there would be no exposed natural tissues for the immune system to attack.
The University of California team is awaiting approval to conduct larger scale animal and human trials. Already, it has successfully tested the implant in a few rats and pigs.
“The payoff to the patient community is tremendous,” said Roy. “It could have a transformative impact on their lives…With the right financial support, I think we could reach clinical trials in five years. But it’s hard to say how long after that it becomes commercially available due to the uncertainties of the FDA and commercialization prospects.”
So what would this artificial kidney mean for India? ”It will be a real boon,” said Dr S C Tiwari, director of nephrology and renal transplantation medicine at Fortis health care. He added: ”The biggest problem with CKD patients in India is that majority of them are diagnosed in the final stages where they would either require constant dialysis or a transplant. They would require dialysis three times week. However, of the two lakh CKD patients requiring dialysis, only 10,000 get it, mainly because they can’t afford it. Maybe only 1,000 such patients get it for free or at a subsidized rate in government hospitals. The artificial kidney, when available and if affordable, will be a miracle.” Dr Madan Bahadur, nephrologist with Mumbai’s Jaslok Hospital added, ”Work on creating tubular cells (that perform the biochemical work of the kidney) began a decade back. But bio-chemical engineering has so far not managed to replicate the kidney.”
According to Dr Jitendra Kumar, head of nephrology at Asian Institute of Medical Sciences, the main reason why this artificial kidney will be a real breakthrough is because it will be able to mimic the vital functions of a kidney like regulate BP and produce vitamin D — things a dialysis can’t do.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference is taking place in Cancun, Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December 2010. The opening day of the conference laid great emphasis on achieving a package of decisions at the end of the 10-day deliberations. Currently, there are 194 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and 193 Parties to its Kyoto Protocol.
The Cancun summit encompasses the sixteenth COP and the sixth CMP, as well as the thirty-third sessions of both the SBI and the SBSTA, and the fifteenth session of the AWG-KP and thirteenth session of the AWG-LCA.
COP (Conference of the Parties), is the supreme body of the UNFCCC (United National Framework Convention on Climate Change). COP currently meets once a year to review the Convention’s progress. The word ‘conference’ is not used here in the sense of ‘meeting’ but rather of ‘association.’
CMP is the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
The sessions of the COP and the CMP are held during the same period to reduce costs and improve coordination between the Convention and the Protocol. The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention encouraged industrialised countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so.
The UNFCCC was one of three conventions adopted at the 1992 ‘Rio Earth Summit.’
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The most important aspect of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.
SBI is the Subsidiary Body for Implementation. It makes recommendations on policy and implementation issues to the COP and, if requested, to other bodies.
SBSTA is the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice. The SBSTA serves as a link between information and assessments provided by expert sources (such as the IPCC) and the COP, which focuses on setting policy.
AWG-KP is the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments Parties under the Kyoto Protocol. The AWG-KP was established by Parties to the Protocol in Montreal in 2005 to consider further commitments of industrialized countries under the Kyoto Protocol for the period beyond 2012.
AWG-LCA is the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention. The AWG-LCA was established in Bali in 2007 to conduct negotiations on a strengthened international deal on climate change. At its fifteenth session In Copenhagen, the COP extended the mandate of the AWG-LCA to enable it to continue its work with a view to presenting the outcome to COP 16 for adoption.
The real task, worldwide economic progress combined with reduced emissions, has yet to be accomplished. It will be challenging.
Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Kyoto Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities.’
Under the Treaty, countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures. However, the Kyoto Protocol offers them an additional means of meeting their targets by way of three market-based mechanisms.
The Kyoto mechanisms are: Emissions trading (carbon market), Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI).
The mechanisms help stimulate green investment and help Parties meet their emission targets in a cost-effective way.
Under the Protocol, countries’ actual emissions have to be monitored and precise records have to be kept of the trades carried out.
The UN Climate Change Secretariat, based in Bonn, Germany, keeps an international transaction log to verify that transactions are consistent with the rules of the Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol is generally seen as an important first step towards a truly global emission reduction regime that will stabilize GHG emissions, and provides the essential architecture for any future international agreement on climate change.
By the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, a new international framework needs to have been negotiated and ratified that can deliver the stringent emission reductions indicated by the intergovernmental panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The Cancun talks, from Nov. 29 to Dec. 10, are aimed at finding solutions to global climate change. It has attracted thousands of participants from governments, businesses, nongovernmental organizations and research institutions in almost 200 countries.
The result of the summit may not be significant in terms of emission reduction agreements; but focus could be on forestry issues and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).
Cancun Agreements signed by 193 Nations
Delegates from 193 nations agreed 11.12.2010 on a new global framework to help developing countries curb their carbon output and cope with the effects of climate change, but they postponed the harder question of precisely how industrialized and major emerging economies will share the task of making deeper greenhouse-gas emission cuts in the coming decade.
The package known as the Cancun Agreements has salvaged a U.N.-backed process that was close to failure, delivering a diplomatic victory to the talks’ Mexican hosts. But it also highlighted the obstacles that await as countries continue to grapple with climate change through broad international negotiations.
After an all-night session that included a face-off between Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa and Bolivia’s U.N. ambassador, Pablo Solon, members of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) agreed to create a “Green Climate Fund” that will transfer money from rich countries to poor ones; research centers that will ease the transfer of clean-energy technology; and a system in which developing nations can be compensated for keeping rain forests intact.
The outcome left some gaping holes, including spelling out exactly how the new pot of international aid will be funded and whether the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the current global climate pact, will be extended once its first commitment period expires in 2012. Signatories such as Japan and Russia oppose an extension because the United States, China and India are not bound to mandatory emission reductions under Kyoto.
Akira Yamada, Japan’s deputy director general for global issues, said the current Kyoto framework amounted to having big emitters act as “spectators” while the rest of the industrialized world played a soccer match. “We would hope they would come down to the field to play with us, to score against global warming,” Yamada said.
The new framework encapsulates the current commitments that both industrialized and developing nations have made to cut their carbon emissions over the next decade, though it notes that these will not meet the agreed-upon goal of keeping the rise in global temperatures from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels. To achieve that, industrialized countries would have cut their emissions between 25 and 40 percent compared with 1990 levels in the next decade, as opposed to the 16 percent they have promised.
Still, the agreement cemented and fleshed out key elements of the Copenhagen Accord, the controversial deal brokered among President Obama and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa in a closed meeting last year. That pact was not formally adopted by the U.N. body after a handful of Latin American countries raised objections, but it established the idea that major developing countries would subject voluntary emissions cuts to international scrutiny while the industrialized world would mobilize $100 billion in climate aid for poor nations by 2020.
Michael Levi, senior follow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an e-mail that while “most of the important work of cutting emissions will be driven outside the U.N. process,” the Cancun agreement “should be applauded not because it solves everything, but because it chooses not to: it focuses on those areas where the U.N. process has the most potential to be useful, and avoids others where the U.N. process is a dead end.”
Some elements of the deal, including one known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, could have an immediate impact on curbing carbon emissions. The new language establishes rules for calculating how much carbon is stored in forest stocks vulnerable to logging or burning, along with safeguards for rain-forest dwellers and biodiversity.
In the end, Mexico was able to pull off what the president of the Center for Clean Air Policy, Ned Helme, called a negotiating “tour de force” by asking delegates what was most important to them and what they could compromise on. The Mexicans finally won over everyone – except Solon, who complained about everything from future climate targets to his treatment by checkpoint security guards.
Cancun ends with a comma
The UN climate conference in Cancun (COP16) concluded on December 11, 2010.
The decisions reached included those on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), technology transfer, a climate fund and adaptation. Bolivia refused to endorse any document without binding emission cuts. COP president Patricia Espinosa called the agreements a landmark outcome. The agreements will enable the UNFCCC negotiations to continue working towards a binding climate deal in South Africa next year. Many groups described the outcome as progress but underlined the need for a speed-up of global climate diplomacy. The agreement is clearly better than what had seemed possible earlier during the conference but clearly falls far short of what is necessary to prevent climate change. The decisions acknowledge some of the measures to be taken to prevent an increase of global temperature of 2°C or more. However, there remains a major gap between the pledged climate action of UNFCCC parties and the 2°C goal. The slow pace at which the UN climate talks are progressing is a matter of concern.
India’s role and view on Cancun summit
Union Environment minister Jairam Ramesh has been appreciated for his role as a bridge-builder on contentious issues at the UN climate conference in cancun.
“The minister (Ramesh) has been instrumental in bridging gaps,” Moamed Aslam, the environment minister of Maldives, said.
“He has been reaching out to the AOSIS nations as well as to developed countries,” he added.
AOSIS means Alliance of Small Island States, are most vulnerable to climate change and want developed countries as well as emerging economies, especially China and India, to take on hefty legally binding emission cuts.
The major emerging economies — Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) — had welcomed the decision.
Agreements reached on Cancun summit
UN climate conference on Dec 11, 2010 reached a package titled “Cancun Agreements” to set up a $100 billion ‘Green Fund’ to fight global warming, a decision India described as a “crucial step forward”, but there was no agreement on extending the landmark Kyoto Protocol on emissions cuts beyond 2012.
This is not the end, but it is a new beginning. It is not what is ultimately required but it is the essential foundation on which to build greater, collective ambition, said Ms. Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC.
Industrialised country targets are officially recognised under the multilateral process and these countries are to develop low-carbon development plans and strategies and assess how best to meet them, including through market mechanisms, and to report their inventories annually.
The responsibility for this piecemeal progress lies with the politicians and not the process. Particularly those countries who are serial offenders in blocking progress, the US and some emerging economies, are to be blamed.
A new beginning – Editorial by The Hindu
The United Nations Climate Conference at Cancun has done well to strengthen the multilateral process and restore much-needed momentum to negotiations on one of the biggest challenges faced by all countries. The preceding summit at Copenhagen dealt a severe blow to consensus-building by allowing rich countries to dominate the proceedings but Mexico has commendably steered the discussions at Cancun, providing an opportunity to the developing world to articulate its concerns.
No major breakthrough was expected but the outcome of the conference is forward-looking. Two important decisions set the stage for measures to be taken beyond 2012, when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends. Under the Cancun Agreements, the targets set by industrialised countries for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions are recognised as part of the multilateral process. They must now draw up low-carbon development plans and strategies and also report their inventories annually. In the case of developing countries, actions for emissions reduction will be recognised officially; a registry will record and match their mitigation actions to finance and technology support from rich countries; and they will report their progress every two years. These form a good preamble for target-setting for all member-countries under an agreed framework at Durban next year.
India’s Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh has suggested at the Cancun conference, apparently taking the long view, that some form of binding cuts on carbon emissions would have to be accepted by all countries in legal form. It would be wrong to read too much into this statement, since India has not acceded to any agreement. Both India and China have responsibly recognised their absolute carbon emissions and pledged voluntarily to transit to a green development path. India wants to cut its intensity of emissions relative to GDP. There is a grand national solar power generation plan for 2022 and a goal to double the share of nuclear power in a decade. That is positive — but much more has to be done in policy terms to raise efficiency and reduce emissions in, say, building and transport. China backs up climate goals with active support for low carbon technology development. Beijing recognises quite rightly that carbon cannot be cheap and that the bar for efficiency must rise constantly.
For perspective, it needs to be borne in mind that by one measure, the United States is responsible for 27 per cent of historical emissions and China for 9.5 per cent. This underscores the point that the U.S. must lead the developed world in technology transfer and funding through the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Only then will big players such as Japan and Russia, which have misgivings about a future role for the Kyoto Protocol, remain in the fold.
The elections on 28.11.2010 for the People’s Assembly (Parliament) of the Arab Republic of Egypt are not likely to bring any major change. The elections had a very low turnout. According to print media reports, analysts point out President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) is expected to win with a wide margin. This is likely to be a move that could strengthen the hands of present administration in conducting the more important presidential elections in 2011.
Description of Government Structure:
Chief of State: President Mohamed Hosni MUBARAK
Head of Government: Prime Minister Ahmed NAZIF
Assembly: Egypt has a bicameral Parliament consisting of the Advisory Council (Majilis Al-Shura) with 264 seats and the People’s Assembly (Majlis Al-Sha’b) with 454 seats.
Population:
Population: 80,471,869 (July 2010 est.)
The People’s Assembly exercises the legislative power and approves the State’s general policy.
A total of 41 million registered voters were eligible to vote for candidates running for 508 seats in parliament. In the 2005 elections, the turnout was 22 per cent, according to the official records. The election campaign saw clashes between the opposition and security forces and indications suggest victory for ruling NDP party.
Questions on the likelihood of the officially banned Muslim Brotherhood retaining its position as the biggest opposition grouping seem to be the most crucial for observers. In 2005, its supporters won about a fifth of the seats, standing as independent candidates.
Voting took place under heavy security cover in anticipation of possible violence. Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif stated, in a press conference, the importance of the national participation in elections. In this concern, Dr.Nazif expressed his longing for intensive participation by all categories in the electoral process to show the world that Egypt is able to undergo free and fair elections.
The Prime Minister wished that elections would lead to strong People’s Assembly Council working for Egypt’s internal and external interest, noting that woman will play important role in the new parliament.
Regarding the legislative agenda of the new parliament, the Prime Minister clarified that the government would present a number of legislations to the Council towards achieving economic and social development; topped by the health insurance draft law, investment facilitation legislation as well as public jobs legislation.
However, human rights groups have alleged that the current elections have been deeply flawed. The government has rejected the presence of international monitors to supervise the elections, citing the request as an infringement on national sovereignty. Further, the government has severely restricted presence of local observers, according to civil society groups.
The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidates contesting as independents had won over 20 per cent of the seats in the 2005 elections, is allegedly the target of the government clampdown. At least 1200 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested in the run-up to the polls.
According to media reports, its leaders acknowledge that on account of the prevailing circumstances, their candidates during the current elections are unlikely to match their 2005 performance.
According to a government portal, the assembly’s current term involves 454 members, 10 of whom are appointed by the Egyptian President. The elected members to The People’s Assembly must be at least 350 members. At least half of the Assembly’s members must belong to workers and peasants. The duration of the People’s Assembly term is five years starting from the date of its first meeting. Elections for the renewal of the Assembly shall take place within the sixty days preceding the termination of its term. During the latest parliamentary elections in October/November 2004, Egypt has applied judicial supervision on all polling stations throughout the three stages of the elections. The People’s Assembly carries out its legislative and supervisory missions through 18 committees which are: Constitutional and Legislative, Planning and Budgeting, Economic Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Arab Affairs, Defence and National Security, Suggestions and Complaint, Man Power, Industry and Energy, Agriculture and Irrigation, Education and Scientific Research, Religious, Social and Waqfs (Endowments), Culture, Media and Tourism, Health and Environment Affairs, Transport and Communication, Housing, Public Utilities and Construction, Local Government and Public Organization and Youth Committees.
The Central Auditing Agency (CAA), as an independent public corporate body ensuring control over governmental funds and those of other public bodies, assists The People’s Assembly in financial monitoring at both the legal and auditing levels.
Egypt’s permanent constitution (issued in September 1971and later amended on May 22 1980) regulates the State’s political system and determines general authorities and reference terms. The Egyptian constitution hereby enforces the pillars of the democratic, parliamentary system, stresses the supremacy of the law and the independence of judicial authorities based on the basic fundamentals of Islamic Sharia’a (Islamic laws) and Arabic as the official language of Egypt. The Egyptian political system entails six authorities: legislative, executive, judiciary, press, political parties, local administration and civil society organizations.
The new assembly will have 518 after 64 women-only seats were added. Women can and do run for seats outside the quota. Only 508 seats will be contested. The president appoints the remaining 10.
In the last elections, the Brotherhood’s candidates, who had to run as independents, won 88 seats (20% of the total) to form the largest opposition. Its leader Mohammed Badie said he wanted to encourage civic duty and confront unfairness.
One of the main obstacles to the Egyptian economy is the trickle down of the wealth to the average population, many Egyptians criticise their Government for higher prices of basic goods while their purchasing power remains stagnant. Corruption is often cited by Egyptians as the main impediment to further economic development.
Outcome of this election will certainly be a stepping stone for appropriate policy making.
Parliamentary Elections : Stage Two – December 5, 2010
The Bihar legislative assembly election, 2010 has established that people of the State have started to support development and economic growth by overcoming other impediments. The Janata Dal (United)-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance overcame constraints such as region, caste and gender to post the biggest-ever victory in an Assembly election in Bihar.
The weak Opposition was no match for the colossal wave in favour of the development orientation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the leader of the Opposition Rabri Devi lost both Raghopur and Sonepur seats.
The mandate is likely to give an impetus to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s works towards growth and development of the backward state.
Although exit polls had predicted a landslide for the ruling combine and a second innings for the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the magnitude of victory exceeded the most optimistic estimates, with the JD (U) and the BJP together capturing four-fifths of the seats (206) in the 243-member Legislature. The ruling alliance fought on the issues of development and rule of law. The Chief Minister was projected as the mascot of a ‘modern, forward-looking Bihar.’
The JD(U) won 115 of the 141 seats it contested, while the BJP was relatively more successful, bagging 91 of the 102 seats it contested. The BJP’s performance in the State is said to be its best since independence. The Rashtriya Janata Dal-Lok Jan Shakti Party alliance finished second with 25 seats (RJD 22; LJP 3).
The Congress bagged four seats, five less than that of the previous assembly. The Congress campaign was spearheaded by Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi. Winning the Chakai seat, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha opened its account in the State. The Communist Party won one seat and independents/others won six seats.
The JD(U)-BJP combine retained its traditional strongholds in the Magadh-Bhojpur regions and breached the RJD-LJP strongholds both in the Kosi-Seemanchal belt and the Naxal-plagued districts in Buxar, Kaimur and Rohtas.
The ‘caste-religion factor,’ once a crucial aspect in the backward State’s elections, was discounted, judging from the ruling alliance’s successes in regions dominated by the so-called RJD votebank of Muslims and Yadavs. Meanwhile, Nitish Kumar’s programmes to uplift depressed communities from the backward castes appeared to work in the ruling alliance’s favour. The chunk of 26 per cent votes brought in by over 100 communities which collectively form the Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) was also said to be the reason for the success. The Dalits also contributed towards the JD(U)-BJP combine, in support of initiatives such as the Maha Dalit Commission.
Voter surge and a 10 per cent increase in the number of women voters went in favour of the ruling alliance, which introduced progressive measures in the rural hinterland. One among them is 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayats and the ‘Chief Minister’s bicycle scheme.’
Most of the leaders of national parties agree that the politics of development has worked in the State and people have braved Naxal violence with the high turnout in the Naxal-afflicted districts.
The Bihar elections result has shown a positive sign for the Tami Naduand other states which are going to conduct assembly elections within a short span of time.
Political Analysts say that, theprospect of ruling parties gettingreelected in Tamil Nadu and other states which are going to face the assembly electionsare bright, provided the election agenda of the ruling parties focus on development and inclusive growth.
2010 Bihar Result Status
Party
Won
Leading
Total
Janata Dal (United)
115
0
115
Bharatiya Janata Party
91
0
91
Rashtriya Janata Dal
22
0
22
Lok Janshakti Party
3
0
3
Independents
6
0
6
Indian National Congress
4
0
4
Others
2
0
2
A Profile of Shri Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar
Father’s Name
:
Late Shri Kaviraj Ram Lakhan Singh
Mother’s Name
:
Smt. Parmeshwari Devi
Date of Birth
:
1st March, 1951.
Place of Birth
:
Bakhtiarpur, District – Patna, State – Bihar.
Marital Status
:
Married.
Date of Marriage
:
22nd February, 1973.
Spouse’s Name
:
Late Manju Kumari Sinha.
No. of Children
:
One.
Educational
:
B.Sc. (Engineering)
Qualifications
Educated at Bihar College of Engineering, Patna, Bihar.
Profession
:
Political & Social Worker, Agriculturist, Engineer.
Permanent Address
:
Village – Hakikatpur, PO – Bakhtiarpur, District – Patna, Bihar.
Present Address
:
Patna, Bihar.
Positions Held
1985-89
:
Member, Bihar Legislative Assembly.
1986-87
:
Member, Committee on Petitions, Bihar Legislative Assembly.
1987-88
:
President, Yuva Lok Dal, Bihar.
1987-89
:
Member, Committee on Public Undertakings, Bihar Legislative Assembly.
1989
:
Secretary-General, Janata Dal, Bihar.
1989
:
Elected to 9th Lok Sabha.
1989-16/7/1990
:
Member, House Committee (Resigned).
4/1990-11/1990
:
Union Minister of State, Agriculture and Co-operation.
1991
:
Re-elected to 10th Lok Sabha (2nd term).
1991-93
:
General-Secretary, Janata Dal.
Deputy Leader of Janata Dal in Parliament.
17/12/91-10/5/96
:
Member, Railway Convention Committee.
8/4/93-10/5/96
:
Chairman, Committee on Agriculture.
1996
:
Re-elected to 11th Lok Sabha (3rd term).
Member, Committee on Estimates.
Member, General Purposes Committee.
Member, Joint Committee on the Constitution (Eighty-first Amendment Bill, 1996).
1996-98
:
Member, Committee on Defence.
1998
:
Re-elected to 12th Lok Sabha (4th term).
19/3/98-5/8/99
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Railways.
14/4/98-5/8/99
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Surface Transport (additional charge).
1999
:
Re-elected to 13th Lok Sabha (5th term).
13/10/99-22/11/99
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Surface Transport.
22/11/99-3/3/00
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Agriculture.
3/3/00-10/3/00
:
Chief Minister, Bihar.
27/5/00-20/3/01
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Agriculture.
20/3/01-21/7/01
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Agriculture with additional charge of Railways.
22/7/01-21/5/04
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Railways.
2004
:
Re-elected to 14th Lok Sabha (6th term).
Member, Committee on Coal & Steel.
Member, General Purposes Committee.
Member, Committee of Privileges.
Leader Janata Dal (U) Parliamentary Party, Lok Sabha.
From 24/11/2005
Chief Minister, Bihar.
Countries visited, widely traveled in various capacities:
Singapore, Thailand.
Havana (Cuba) and Moscow (Russia) – as a member of Indian Delegation to the World Youth Festival in 1978.
Australia and France – as a Member of Indian Parliamentary Delegation to the IPU Conference.
France, Switzerland and UK – as the Railway Minister.
Japan – as the Agriculture Minister to attend Regional Conference of FAO in Yokohama.
Other Information
Activist of J.P. Movement (1974-77); was detained in 1974 under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (M.I.S.A.) and also during Emergency in 1975; Founder-member, Samata Party Movement.
The Bihar legislative assembly election, 2010 has established that people of the State have started to support development and economic growth by overcoming other impediments. The Janata Dal (United)-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance overcame constraints such as region, caste and gender to post the biggest-ever victory in an Assembly election in Bihar.
The weak Opposition was no match for the colossal wave in favour of the development orientation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the leader of the Opposition Rabri Devi lost both Raghopur and Sonepur seats.
The mandate is likely to give an impetus to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s works towards growth and development of the backward state.
Although exit polls had predicted a landslide for the ruling combine and a second innings for the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the magnitude of victory exceeded the most optimistic estimates, with the JD (U) and the BJP together capturing four-fifths of the seats (206) in the 243-member Legislature. The ruling alliance fought on the issues of development and rule of law. The Chief Minister was projected as the mascot of a ‘modern, forward-looking Bihar.’
The JD(U) won 115 of the 141 seats it contested, while the BJP was relatively more successful, bagging 91 of the 102 seats it contested. The BJP’s performance in the State is said to be its best since independence. The Rashtriya Janata Dal-Lok Jan Shakti Party alliance finished second with 25 seats (RJD 22; LJP 3).
The Congress bagged four seats, five less than that of the previous assembly. The Congress campaign was spearheaded by Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi. Winning the Chakai seat, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha opened its account in the State. The Communist Party won one seat and independents/others won six seats.
The JD(U)-BJP combine retained its traditional strongholds in the Magadh-Bhojpur regions and breached the RJD-LJP strongholds both in the Kosi-Seemanchal belt and the Naxal-plagued districts in Buxar, Kaimur and Rohtas.
The ‘caste-religion factor,’ once a crucial aspect in the backward State’s elections, was discounted, judging from the ruling alliance’s successes in regions dominated by the so-called RJD votebank of Muslims and Yadavs. Meanwhile, Nitish Kumar’s programmes to uplift depressed communities from the backward castes appeared to work in the ruling alliance’s favour. The chunk of 26 per cent votes brought in by over 100 communities which collectively form the Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) was also said to be the reason for the success. The Dalits also contributed towards the JD(U)-BJP combine, in support of initiatives such as the Maha Dalit Commission.
Voter surge and a 10 per cent increase in the number of women voters went in favour of the ruling alliance, which introduced progressive measures in the rural hinterland. One among them is 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayats and the ‘Chief Minister’s bicycle scheme.’
Most of the leaders of national parties agree that the politics of development has worked in the State and people have braved Naxal violence with the high turnout in the Naxal-afflicted districts.
The Bihar elections result has shown a positive sign for the Tami Naduand other states which are going to conduct assembly elections within a short span of time.
Political Analysts say that, theprospect of ruling parties gettingreelected in Tamil Nadu and other states which are going to face the assembly electionsare bright, provided the election agenda of the ruling parties focus on development and inclusive growth.
2010 Bihar Result Status
Party
Won
Leading
Total
Janata Dal (United)
115
0
115
Bharatiya Janata Party
91
0
91
Rashtriya Janata Dal
22
0
22
Lok Janshakti Party
3
0
3
Independents
6
0
6
Indian National Congress
4
0
4
Others
2
0
2
A Profile of Shri Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar
Father’s Name
:
Late Shri Kaviraj Ram Lakhan Singh
Mother’s Name
:
Smt. Parmeshwari Devi
Date of Birth
:
1st March, 1951.
Place of Birth
:
Bakhtiarpur, District – Patna, State – Bihar.
Marital Status
:
Married.
Date of Marriage
:
22nd February, 1973.
Spouse’s Name
:
Late Manju Kumari Sinha.
No. of Children
:
One.
Educational
:
B.Sc. (Engineering)
Qualifications
Educated at Bihar College of Engineering, Patna, Bihar.
Profession
:
Political & Social Worker, Agriculturist, Engineer.
Permanent Address
:
Village – Hakikatpur, PO – Bakhtiarpur, District – Patna, Bihar.
Present Address
:
Patna, Bihar.
Positions Held
1985-89
:
Member, Bihar Legislative Assembly.
1986-87
:
Member, Committee on Petitions, Bihar Legislative Assembly.
1987-88
:
President, Yuva Lok Dal, Bihar.
1987-89
:
Member, Committee on Public Undertakings, Bihar Legislative Assembly.
1989
:
Secretary-General, Janata Dal, Bihar.
1989
:
Elected to 9th Lok Sabha.
1989-16/7/1990
:
Member, House Committee (Resigned).
4/1990-11/1990
:
Union Minister of State, Agriculture and Co-operation.
1991
:
Re-elected to 10th Lok Sabha (2nd term).
1991-93
:
General-Secretary, Janata Dal.
Deputy Leader of Janata Dal in Parliament.
17/12/91-10/5/96
:
Member, Railway Convention Committee.
8/4/93-10/5/96
:
Chairman, Committee on Agriculture.
1996
:
Re-elected to 11th Lok Sabha (3rd term).
Member, Committee on Estimates.
Member, General Purposes Committee.
Member, Joint Committee on the Constitution (Eighty-first Amendment Bill, 1996).
1996-98
:
Member, Committee on Defence.
1998
:
Re-elected to 12th Lok Sabha (4th term).
19/3/98-5/8/99
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Railways.
14/4/98-5/8/99
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Surface Transport (additional charge).
1999
:
Re-elected to 13th Lok Sabha (5th term).
13/10/99-22/11/99
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Surface Transport.
22/11/99-3/3/00
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Agriculture.
3/3/00-10/3/00
:
Chief Minister, Bihar.
27/5/00-20/3/01
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Agriculture.
20/3/01-21/7/01
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Agriculture with additional charge of Railways.
22/7/01-21/5/04
:
Union Cabinet Minister, Railways.
2004
:
Re-elected to 14th Lok Sabha (6th term).
Member, Committee on Coal & Steel.
Member, General Purposes Committee.
Member, Committee of Privileges.
Leader Janata Dal (U) Parliamentary Party, Lok Sabha.
From 24/11/2005
Chief Minister, Bihar.
Countries visited, widely traveled in various capacities:
Singapore, Thailand.
Havana (Cuba) and Moscow (Russia) – as a member of Indian Delegation to the World Youth Festival in 1978.
Australia and France – as a Member of Indian Parliamentary Delegation to the IPU Conference.
France, Switzerland and UK – as the Railway Minister.
Japan – as the Agriculture Minister to attend Regional Conference of FAO in Yokohama.
Other Information
Activist of J.P. Movement (1974-77); was detained in 1974 under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (M.I.S.A.) and also during Emergency in 1975; Founder-member, Samata Party Movement.
