world news

BSP candidate attacked in Delhi, receives minor injuries




world news

U.S. to deport 161 Indians this week

Among those on the list to be deported, the maximum 76 are from Haryana, followed by 56 from Punjab; 12 from Gujarat; five from Uttar Pradesh; four from Maharashtra ; two each from Kerala, Telengana and Tamil Nadu; and one each from Andhra Pradesh and Goa.




world news

Data | 2021 Monsoon session: LS passed 14 Bills after discussing each less than 10 minutes

The average time spent on discussing a Bill dropped from 213 minutes in 2019 to 85 minutes in 2021




world news

Data | How election fund was spent during 2021 State polls

The AIADMK spent the highest share in spreading the party’s propaganda (99.5%) and relied only on media and advertisements




world news

Data | How regional parties in India are funded?

Total income for the selected regional parties in FY20 amounted to ₹803.24 crore, of which 55% was from unknown sources




world news

Data | Lok Sabha in a "tearing hurry"

The Farm Laws Repeal Bill was discussed in the LS for two minutes - the joint second-lowest time for discussion of a bill since 2014




world news

Data | Anonymous donations to parties in FY21: Congress tops list, BJP close second

In FY21, national parties and regional parties received ₹427 crore and ₹264 crore worth of funds, respectively, from unknown sources




world news

Two migrant labourers shot at, injured in Pulwama: Police

The victims were identified as Shamshad and Faizan Qasri from Bihar's Batya Zila




world news

Explained | How is the Congress president elected?

As leaders mull over who will head the party next, the Congress Working Committee announced that elections will be held on October 17.




world news

Explained | Centre and State powers over water resources

Who controls India’s water resources: Centre, States or both? How are inter-State river disputes settled? Who supplies drinking water to Indian citizens?




world news

Data Point | Looking back at the contributions of Indian women leaders

The Data Point is a bi-weekly newsletter in which The Hindu’s Data team decodes the numbers behind today’s biggest stories.  




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Data | Andheri East: Not a NOTA notable, just a blip amid falling vote shares

NOTA continues to be salient in Naxalite areas, but its share has fallen in recent elections




world news

Data | Unknown sources of political income spiked after electoral bond entry, BJP cornered lion’s share

National parties’ unknown income rose from 66% to 71% in the three years before and after the scheme’s introduction




world news

66% of councillors elected to MCD in 41-70 age group, 53% women: Report

Polling was held on December 4 and the results were announced on Wednesday.




world news

Pakistan raised Mujahideen and now they are terrorists, says Pakistan Interior Minister in National Assembly

The Pakistani Taliban on Monday claimed responsibility for the January 30 mosque attack in Peshawar which left 100 people dead and over 220 injured




world news

Kerala Muslim bodies lambast Jamaat-e-Islami Hind for secret talks with RSS in Delhi

Several Muslim leaders in the State expressed displeasure at the parleys that a group of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind leaders held with their RSS counterparts in New Delhi in January.




world news

Data | India’s democratic values have eroded significantly: V­Dem

The debate around India’s erosion of democratic values has surfaced again after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s remarks in the U.K.




world news

Data | MLAs in poll-bound Karnataka have average assets worth ₹34.6 crore, highest among all States

MLAs in Karnataka have on average assets worth ₹34.6 crore, the highest among all the States




world news

Data | BJP had the edge in the recent bipolar contests in Karnataka

Elections in Karnataka have increasingly become bipolar, with 77% of the seats recording bipolar contests in 2018




world news

Cyrus Broacha on Indian wrestlers’ protest, IPL taking over sports and Ding Liren becoming the world chess champion

The columnist puts the spotlight on India’s star female wrestlers who have accused Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of serial sexual harassment



  • Life & Style

world news

Odisha political parties urge ECI to ensure neutrality of government machineries during elections

As many as 3.32 crore voters will cast their votes in 37,809 polling stations across State




world news

ISP Research Fellow Apekshya Prasai Selected as a 2023 HFG Emerging Scholar

Apekshya Prasai, a political science doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was recently named a 2023 Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Emerging Scholar.   The Emerging Scholars (nine in all) are doctoral candidates who are in the final year of writing dissertations on the nature of and responses to violence around the world.




world news

'China Marching with India': India's Cold War Advocacy for the People's Republic of China at the United Nations, 1949–1971

Recent scholarship on Sino-Indian relations in the 1950s has emphasized cooperation, revising previous narratives of an inexorable march towards the 1962 border war. This article reassesses that cooperation by focusing on India's role as an intermediary between the unrecognized government in Beijing and the United Nations (UN). Chinese sources reveal that Sino-Indian cooperation over UN affairs was complicated by competing conceptions of how the decolonizing world should fit into the international system and who should be at the helm. Despite such disagreements, the Cold War UN provided a setting where divergent post-colonial visions could be sublimated into meaningful international cooperation.




world news

Navigating China’s Opportunistic Approach to Overseas Naval Base Acquisition

This report, by Maxwell Simon (MPP '23) and Jayaram Ravi (MPP '23), explores the drivers of setback and success that China has encountered in the process of developing dual-use and military-dedicated naval installations abroad. It looks at cases where China has considered or actively pursued military-dedicated installations to characterize Beijing’s general approach to overseas naval base acquisition.




world news

Judging Henry Kissinger

Joseph S. Nye writes that evaluating ethics in international relations is difficult, and Kissinger's legacy is particularly complex. Over his long tenure in government, he had many great successes, including with China and the Soviet Union and the Middle East. Kissinger also had major failures, including in how the Vietnam War ended. But on net, his legacy is positive. In a world haunted by the specter of nuclear war, his decisions made the international order more stable and safer.




world news

For the Common Defense Study Group: Key Themes from the Fall 2023 Seminar Series

The Belfer Center's National Security Fellows (NSFs), as part of the Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy (DETS) program, developed and taught the "For the Common Defense" study group throughout the Fall 2023 semester. Each “Common Defense” seminar is an in-depth exploration of a national security or defense-related subject taught by senior defense officials. Over the course of eight seminars, this study group examined key foreign policy topics, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and great power competition.

 




world news

Stephen Walt Looks Ahead to 2024

Stephen Walt elaborates on what he is expecting for 2024:  the Israel-Gaza conflict widening, the 75th anniversary of NATO, the possible re-election of Donald Trump, and the election results from other populous democracies, to name a few.




world news

Indian Election Was Awash in Deepfakes – But AI Was a Net Positive for Democracy

As India concluded the world’s largest election on June 5, 2024, with over 640 million votes counted, observers could assess how the various parties and factions used artificial intelligence technologies – and what lessons that holds for the rest of the world.




world news

Is Stopping the War Between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Russia’s (Vital) Interest?

Simon Saradzhyan writes that the benefits that discontinuing the war on Russia’s terms can generate for defending or advancing Russia’s vital interests will exceed the costs of doing so.




world news

Putin’s Nagorno-Karabakh Calculus Can Undermine Russian Clout in FSU

Simon Saradzhyan writes that Russia’s decision not to employ leverage to stop the conflict in its early stages made a lasting impression on its allies.




world news

The U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism Newsletter: November 2019 - November 2020

 

  • Elbe Group Discusses Strategic Stability, Hybrid Warfare and Terrorism.
  • Mowatt-Larssen’s Book Details Lessons He Learned While Tracking Al-Qaida’s WMD Programs.
  • Experts on New START Extension and Other Nuclear Priorities of Biden Presidency.
  • Kazakhstan’s Last HEU Eliminated.
  • William Potter Joins Russian Academy of Sciences.
  • COVID, Nuclear Security On Agenda of IAEA’s 64th General Conference.
  • Mayak Aims to Process Entire range of SNF.
  • Atomguard Reports Foiling Unauthorized Access.
  • Allison: US Vital Interest in Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism Will Continue to Guide Its North Korea Policy.
  • Learning from COVID-19 to Prepare for Nuclear Attack.
  • Hecker, Kassianova Encourage Young US and RF Professionals to Explore Lessons of Nuclear Accidents.
  • Experts Weigh in on 75th Anniversary of Hiroshima Bombing.
  • A New Look at IAEA’s Nuclear Security Recommendations.
  • Azerbaijan Has Threatened to Strike Armenia’s NPP With Missiles.
  • IAEA Notified of 189 Incidents Of Material Being Out Of Regulatory Control in 2019.
  • Russia To Retrieve More Radioactive Debris from Bottom of Ocean.
  • Researchers Propose Fast Way to Detect Weapons Grade Materials.
  • Keeping Nuclear Power Plants Out of Reach of Terrorists During the Coronavirus Pandemic.
  • Bunn, Tobey and Roth Testify on Prevention of Nuclear Theft, Call for Cooperation With Russia.
  • Budapest Memorandum Parsed.
  • IAEA Holds A Ministerial on Nuclear Security.
  • Assessing Progress on Nuclear Security.
  • 12th GUMO Officer On Trial for Embezzlement.
  • Lukashenko: Pompeo Alerted Me to Nuclear Materials at Border.
  • US and Russia Reported HEU and Plutonium to IAEA.
  • IAEA Bank Receives LEU.
  • GICNT Hosted 8 Multilateral Activities in 2019.

 

 




world news

Potential Fruits of the Biden-Putin Summit

The last time Joe Biden met Vladimir Putin, the two did not exactly hit it off. During the March 2011 meeting the-then vice president of the United States urged the then-prime minister of Russia not to return to the Kremlin, and then claimed to have reached unflattering conclusions about his Russian counterpart’s soul after the meeting was over. Putin too seems to have no love lost for Biden, even if he has been less blunt in showing it.




world news

US-Russian Contention in Cyberspace

The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”




world news

6 Months On: Does the Biden-Putin Summit Get a Passing Grade?

One of the few things America’s Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin had agreed upon prior to their first summit almost half a year ago was that they would not hold a joint press conference after their June 16 huddle at an 18th century villa in Geneva. The two presidents’ decision to talk to press separately came as no surprise, given how many major issues they publicly disagreed on at the time.




world news

The U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism Newsletter: November 2020 - November 2021

 

  • U.S.-Russia Elbe Group Maintains Focus on Threat of Nuclear Terrorism.
  • Former Chernobyl Plant Manager Bryukhanov Dies.
  • Matthew Bunn on Threat to Nuclear and Radiological Transports.
  • On 9/11 Anniversary Russian Officials Call for Resumption of U.S.-Russian CT Cooperation.
  • Experts Weigh in on 9/11 Anniversary.
  • U.S. and Norway Agree to Eliminate All of Norway’s HEU.
  • Two Soviet Nuclear Submarine Reactors Located.
  • Russian Security Council: Terrorists Remain Interested in NBC.
  • IAEA Adopts Resolutions on Nuclear Security, NS Center Planned.
  • Allison on Risk of Mega-terrorist Attack After U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan.
  • Arbatov Warns of Enduring Threat of Nuclear Terrorism to Russia in His New Volume.
  • Russia’s New Security Strategy Drops References to CT Partnership With U.S.
  • NNSA’s Non-Proliferation Budget to Decrease in ’22, Provides for US and Russian Visits.
  • Should U.S.-Russian Interaction in Cyberspace Involve CT? 
  • Russia’s NPP Operator Conducts Emergency Preparedness Exercise.
  • Putin and Biden Discuss Terrorist Threat Emanating from Afghanistan, but No Deal.
  • U.S. Experts on Ensuring Access to Neutrons While Reducing Nuclear Terrorism Risks.
  • Beebe Weighs in on U.S.-Russian CT Interaction.
  • Duo Detained for Alleged Attempt to Sell Americium-241.
  • 12th GUMO Guard’s Sentence Upheld.
  • NDAA-Mandated Group to Identify Nuclear Terrorism Risks.
  • Belfer’s MTA Hosts Conference on Lessons of Fukushima and Chernobyl.
  • Russia Withdraws from Uranium Hexafluoride Transportation Deal with U.S.
  • Bell: U.S. Needs to Convince Russia on Contending With Nuclear Terrorism Threat.
  • U.S. and Canada Complete Repatriation of HEU Material.
  • Siegfried Hecker Outlines his Vision of Future for Nuclear Security Cooperation.
  • Hackers Breach U.S. Nuclear Agency.
  • Tobey on Assassinations of Nuclear Scientists and Terrorists.
  • Rosatom Has Checked Nuclear Sites, Following a Tip on Terrorism from U.S.




world news

Dynamics of Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism Threats to Post-Soviet Russia

Simon Saradzhyan was invited to publicly brief the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee addressing the adequacy of strategies to prevent, counter, and respond to nuclear terrorism, and identify technical, policy, and resource gaps. The consensus study is a congressionally mandated analysis included in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (Section 1299I) sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy).  Nearly 60 stakeholders concerned about this topic from the Department of Defense, US Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, State Department, National Security Council, US Congress, the National Labs, and many non-governmental organizations were in attendance. The briefings are available at the NAS event website. Video of the presentation can be found here.




world news

The Benefits of Africa's New Free Trade Area

The creation in June 2015 of a free trade area from Cape Town to Cairo is possibly the most significant event in Africa since the formation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. It is a grand move to merge existing regional organization into a single African Economic Community.




world news

What Africa Can Learn from China about Growing its Agribusiness Sector

There is growing evidence that the Chinese economic miracle is a consequence of the rural entrepreneurship which started in the 1980s. This contradicts classical interpretations that focus on state-led enterprises and receptiveness to foreign direct investment....The lesson from China's experience is that development must be viewed as an expression of human potentialities, not as a product of external interventions.




world news

Local Start-ups Hold the Key to Transforming Africa's Seed Industry

"The seed industry in sub-Saharan Africa is informal in nature, with approximately 80% of farmers saving and replanting seeds from year to year. This gives them security of access. But improved varieties — including high-yielding and hybrid crops — will increase productivity and income. To get these seeds into the hands of farmers, a better marketing and distribution system is needed. Local small and medium-sized seed enterprises have a comparative advantage in reaching this underserved market due to their size and market reach."




world news

The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa

The New Harvest argues that Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security despite its history of persistent food shortages and the rising threat of climate change. This new edition provides ideas on how to place agriculture at the center of the continent's long-term economic transformation. It demonstrates how policy coordination can help realize agriculture's full potential as a motherboard for other economic activities.

The full text of The New Harvest is available here.




world news

Pest-resistant Maize Variety Opens Way for Technological Advancement

"It is estimated that the spotted stem borer and the African stem borer reduce Kenya's maize crop by 13 per cent or 400,000 tonnes annually. Controlling the pest using biotechnology will not only reduce Kenya's food imports, it will also equip the country with new techniques that can be redeployed for other sectors such as drug and vaccine development."




world news

Why Executive Leadership Matters in African Agriculture

In a poignant comment, Albert Einstein once said that "an empty stomach is not a good political adviser." African leaders are starting to appreciate this message by paying more attention to the importance of high-level political support for agricultural transformation.




world news

How the EU Starves Africa into Submission

"African leaders would like to escape the colonial trap of being viewed simply as raw material exporters. But their efforts to add value to the materials continue to be frustrated by existing EU policies."




world news

Education, Research, and Innovation in Africa: Forging Strategic Linkages for Economic Transformation

Africa is a youthful continent: nearly 41% of its population is under the age of 18. To address the unique challenges of this demographic structure, the African Union (AU) hopes to reposition the continent as a strategic player in the global economy through improved education and application of science and technology in development. The paper proposes the creation of “Innovation Universities” that combine research, teaching, community service and commercialization in their missions and operations. They would depart from the common practice where teaching is carried out in universities that do little research, and where research is done in national research institutes that do not undertake teaching. Under this model, there is little connection with productive sectors. The idea therefore is not just to create linkages between those activities but to pursue them in a coordinated way under the same university structure. Innovation universities can be created in diverse fields such as agriculture, health, industry, services, and environment to advance sustainable development and inclusive growth.




world news

How Can Africa Master the Digital Revolution?

For a summary of Prof. Juma's Twitter Q&A on this topic, click here. #AskCJuma

Digital connectivity has the potential to do for Africa what railroads did for Western economies in the 19th century. The digital revolution is not just about communication. It is about recognizing that information is the currency of all economic activities.




world news

Why Our Stereotypes of African Agriculture Are All Wrong

Calestous Juma (@calestous) will host a joint Twitter chat with the Elumelu Foundation on June 18, 2016, at 9:00 AM (EDT). Ask questions via #AskCJuma or #TEEPagricReport!

From newspaper editors to TV anchors to bloggers, the default symbol of African agriculture is an African woman holding a hand hoe. This imagery highlights the drudgery African women face in farming. But it also conflates family farming with the broader agricultural enterprise.




world news

Rebooting African Economies: The Place of Science and Technology in Society

"African countries are already at the forefront of harnessing these technologies. For example, Rwanda has set itself the ambitious goal of building the first drone airport in the world. An increasing number of African countries are leveraging drone technology to address a variety of resource mapping, delivery and agricultural services. It is through such efforts that salient basic research challenges are likely to emerge."




world news

Rebooting African Development: Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa

As the African Union develops its long-term agenda 2063 for the continent, science, technology and innovation will play a bigger part in development goal setting, especially in the context of social and economic growth.




world news

If Africa Learnt to Feed its Chickens it Could Feed its People

"South Africa is the continent's largest chicken producer. According to the South African Poultry Association, chicken imports from Brazil, the European Union and the US are destroying the domestic sector....This has led to oversupply and price reduction. This may benefit consumers, but it undercuts incentives for local production."




world news

Lessons from 'The New Harvest' on How Academics Can Turn Their Work into Policy

"The goal of the book was to invest in thinking. It doesn't have a list of recommendations but generates options for action that are backed by evidence. We chose to forgo credit by adopting this approach, but it’s been very encouraging to see some key impacts that acknowledge the book."