AlwaysIndian.com

Human trafficking is a major issue across the world nowadays. Recently Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “India is a source,destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation.” quoting the 2009 trafficking in Persons Report released by  June 16 as a source.

For the first time, India, China, Russia, Sri Lanka and Egypt and other countries that have been on the on Tier 2 watch list for two years, face the prospect of being automatically moved to the Tier 3 blacklist next year without a presidential waiver if they fail improve their trafficking record. India is among 52 countries on the watch list of nations that have failed to meet the minimum anti-trafficking standards but are making efforts to do so.

The blacklisted countries are subject to US sanctions if they don’t make greater efforts to fight trafficking. However, Home Minister for India P Chidambaram said he wasn’t too worried about the report. “We don’t take cognizance of the US report. There are 52 countries named. We don’t need to attach too much attention to the report,” Chidambaram said during question hour at the Rajya Sabha. “At the same time, we should do what is expected of us as an enlightened nation,” he added.Whether the report has its effect or no, India has decided to get cracking on the human trafficking problem. Mr. Chidambaram said the Home Ministry had formed a nodal cell through which it was coordinating on matters relating to trafficking in human beings with other Ministries and State governments. Noting that a bulk of human trafficking cases was directly related to women and girls, he said out
of 4,087 cases in 2007 related to trafficking, 3,568 cases were concerned with immoral trafficking. He said that States should take steps to address social reasons behind immoral trafficking and the Centre could help them. He also said “The ministry for women and child development is piloting amendments in the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1956 to enhance its scope for introducing stringent punishment against traffickers.” Hopefully the initiative taken by the Center and States will reduce the problem of Human Trafficking in India.

Sources: livemint.com, hindu.com, zeenews.com

Climate change is the new fear poised on everyone’s mind. Recently,the G8 which consists of the United States, Japan, Russia, Germany,Britain, France, Italy and Canada met to chart the future of the international community in matters regarding Global Warming, the Global Economic Crisis and other issues.

The G8 meetings provide an opportunity to discuss global issues in an informal setting and they are not a negotiating forum. The G8 that started out as an exclusive club of the industrial nations has over the years expanded its reach to bring in other countries into the dialogue process. The major dialogue partners are the G5 countries – Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. In addition, Egypt has been invited to this year’s meetings. Australia, Indonesia and South Korea are being brought into the meetings to constitute the major economies forum along with the European Commission and the major multilateral organisations. In all,the leaders meeting in Italy represent 90 per cent of the world’s economy. The G8 agreed on Wednesday to try to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius and cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent,but it failed to persuade China and India to join a bid to halve world emissions.

With only five months until a new U.N. climate pact is due to be agreed in Copenhagen, climate change organizations said the G8 had left much work to be done and ducked key issues. India and China,now part of a growing entity called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India,(China) are poised for a lot of growth. The take of India and China is simple. The developed countries have done their damage. They have the technology and resources to reduce pollution now that their levels have reached extremely high levels. In India however, fossil fuels are still required to give impetus to the nation. Cutting down on a lot of fuels in an attempt to reduce greenhouse gas reduction might pressurise the Government to cut down on a lot and with a growing fiscal deficit of 6.8%, further cost cannot be incurred by the Government. In the past, countries like the USA have often defied the Kyoto Protocol and other informal mandates. How India can influence the growing pollution rules and regulations remains to be seen.

Sources : hindu.com, reuters.com, economictimes.com

India seems barged with threats these days. Recently we had Indian students getting attacked in Australia, Pakistan threatening Dhoni’s Blue Gang in the warm-up match today and now something of more serious nature has been reported yesterday by in.com. According to the news Pakistan has hired a Chinese company to build a railway station on no man’s land near the Indian border at Barmer (Rajasthan).

The threat is simply obnoxious because the railway station which is being built by a Chinese company which is not only illegal but is just one of the many moves Beijing is making to unsettle New Delhi.

We wonder the way Mumbai terror attacks changed the equation between India and Pakistan, How seriously New Delhi is taking the matter? China is challenging the government from the front by building ports at Sittwe in Myanmar, Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Gwadar in Pakistan to counter any Chinese military adventurism, there by striking at its sea lines of communications in the Indian Ocean.

We condemn such threats time and again and they still keep popping up from our neighbour nations. The news comes as a shock to us, at a time when we are tackling with terrorism threats from allied terrorist organizations. We hope that what maritime experts describe has China’s String of Pearls Strategy is not successful because if it does then Indian Navy will be forced to change its concept of operations.

The Indian government is surely not taking this lightly this time and is already keeping a close watch on the Chinese involvement in various projects of the neighbouring countries.

Source: in.com

The reaction to North Korea nuclear test has seen India talking tough. The test conducted by North Korea is seen as a violation of the International commitments. The test is also seen to have a major impact on the peace and security of the region.

The test comes at a time when the new government of India is thinking on the lines that India has to be sincere on non –proliferation issues. Both North Korea and Pakistan trace their nuclear weapons to Chinese proliferation. The North Korean weapons are of Chinese origin. China has also helped Pakistan in its nuclear collection and also protected North Korea from the international community.

Post nuclear deal India has been active in linking nuclear disarmament to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The test would create a division between nuclear weapon states and non –nuclear weapon states. The Indian govt sees this as a dangerous trend. Strategic analyst K Subrahmanyam said, “So long as nuclear weapons grow and are a currency of power, there will be North Koreas, which will deem themselves immune from international punishment when they are armed with such weapons.”

Countries like Pakistan and North Korea are pushing themselves towards international isolation and India’s commitment to nuclear peace makes it a priority in the Obama administration.

Source- Times of India
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