WHO REPORT ON AIR POLLUTION

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has pegged air quality in most cities worldwide below its guidelines for safe levels, but India appears among the worst.
• According to the UN agency’s latest pollution data, Delhi (not Beijing) tops the list of most polluted cities.

 HIGHLIGHTS:

•  Other cities with high pollution levels are in Pakistan and Bangladesh while those with the lowest levels of pollution are in Canada, the US, Finland, Iceland and Sweden.
• India is in the group of countries that has the highest particulate matter (PM) levels. Its cities have the highest levels of PM10 and PM2.5 (particles with diameter of 10 microns and 2.5 microns) when compared to other cities
• Among the world’s 20 most polluted cities in the world, 13 are in India.
• Of the 13, three are in Punjab: Amritsar (no. 14), Ludhiana (no. 15) and Khanna (no. 20). {Ludhiana is an industrial hub, Khanna is Asia’s biggest grain market}
• Last year, the Global Burden of Disease study pinned outdoor air pollution as the fifth largest killer in India after high blood pressure, indoor air pollution, tobacco smoking, and poor nutrition. About 6.2 lakh early deaths occurred in India from air pollution-related diseases in 2010. A whopping 18 million years of healthy lives are lost due to illness burden that enhances the economic cost of pollution. Half of these deaths have been caused by ischemic heart disease triggered by exposure to air pollution and the rest due to stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lower respiratory tract infection and lung cancer

INDIA, US DIFFER OVER N-ACCORD

• Differences between India and the US over the implementation of the historic civil nuclear energy accord came to the fore at the energy dialogue held between the two countries
• The Indian side at the dialogue was led by: Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia
• The US team was headed by: Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz
• This was the first high-level contact between the two countries after the unsavoury incident in December in which Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade was arrested in New York in a visa fraud case, leading to tension between them.
• The US insisted that India bring its civil nuclear liability law in line with international conventions while New Delhi hoped a way could be found to address Washington’s concerns within the ambit of the existing act.

FORWARD POLICY

•  Military circles in India often debate that the India-China conflict was caused due to wrong forward policy and its wrong implementation by India.
•  The report uploaded by Neville Maxwell narrates how it all started on August 26, 1959, when the Chinese overran an Indian Army post at Longju in North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) in October and in the same year; a post at Kongka la in Eastern Ladakh had been overrun. Both times China claimed the posts were in Chinese territory even though these were inside the Indian Territory.
•  India responded to Chinese actions with a forward policy. The 3,488-km-long boundary is not demarcated and once China invaded Tibet in the late 1950s, a peaceful border had become live. The dispute of boundary demarcation is pending since 1846 when the British signed the Treaty of Amritsar with the Dogra rulers of Jammu and Kashmir and went about demarcating the eastern limits of Ladakh. The Tibetans, who were sometimes backed by the Chinese, stalled the demarcation in five separate attempts made by the British between 1846 and 1914.
•  India, in 1961, advocated a policy which entailed patrolling as far forward as possible from India’s present positions. This was to be done with a view to establishing additional posts that would then stop the Chinese and dominate the heights. The report raises the question if India was in a position to implement the ‘forward policy’ with the kind of resources and poor logistics it had. The report blames the Army headquarters of ‘deliberately’ carrying out the policy in a wrong manner without the government backing.

SAARC MEET

• After a hiatus of more than two years, the SAARC process is being revived. Maldives is set to host the 25th session of the SAARC Council of Ministers’ meeting on February 20.
• No high-level meeting of the eight-member grouping has taken place since the 17th summit was held in Addu City in Maldives in November 2011.
• This was primarily due to the turmoil in Maldives and the fact that most of the countries in the region were witnessing elections or were about to go to the polls.
• India to be represented by: External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid
• The next summit of the grouping is scheduled to be held in Nepal.

 AGENDA:

• Discussion will be held on the scope for turning the grouping into a vigorous organization like the European Union or the ASEAN
• Ways and means to streamline, rationalise and restructure various SAARC mechanisms will also be debated
• Economic matters such as the implementation of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA). Afghanistan has also now joined SAFTA. About 20 per cent of intra-SAARC trade is governed by SAFTA. 

• The meeting in Maldives assumes significance against the backdrop of a growing realisation among SAARC member states that the association has failed to fulfill the vision for which it was created in 1985 because of the rivalry between its two most important players-India and Pakistan. Other member states have often accused India and Pakistan of turning the grouping into a bilateral forum to settle their political battles and hijacking an institution that was created to ensure speedy development of the region. However, the member countries still believe that there is tremendous scope for turning the grouping into a vigorous organization like the European Union (EU) or the ASEAN.

INDO-JAPAN TIES

• Amid increasing Chinese assertiveness in the region, India and Japan decided to intensify defence and maritime cooperation, but made little headway in wrapping up the much-anticipated civil nuclear deal.
• The two countries signed eight agreements in various fields after wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe at the annual India-Japan Summit.

 HIGHLIGHTS:

• Japan announced a loan of $2 billion for the expansion of the Delhi Metro project. 
• Expansion of the bilateral currency swap arrangement from $15 billion to $50 billion.
• Japan extends full support to India in becoming a member of the four international export control regimes -- the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG), the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement.
• India had invited the Japan Maritime Self Defence Force for the next edition of the ‘Malabar’ maritime exercise conducted annually by Indian and US forces.
• New Delhi also lent its support to Tokyo in its ongoing tussle with Beijing over China’s controversial decision to set up an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea that requires its neighbours to give advance notice while overflying the territory.
• Japan also lowered non-tariff barriers to import of shrimps that will help Indian fishermen.

 NPT HURDLE:

• A section of Japanese policymakers wants India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
• India wants to have a deal with Japan on the basis of its existing strong anti-proliferation credentials
• Japan wants India to clarify its nuclear liability law that prevents suppliers from making themselves immune to compensation claims in the event of an accident. The two sides had held three rounds of talks before the 2011 Fukushima N-plant disaster

•  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the first Japanese chief guest at the Republic Day parade and his visit is a demonstration of the positive ties that India and Japan have developed in the recent times. It is easy to agree with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that Japan is at the heart of India's "Look-East Policy," which brought in four Asian leaders as chief guests at the Republic Day parade in the last five years. Japan will help with the expansion of the Delhi Metro, and of the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor. Japanese companies will build roads; help with agriculture and forests, water supply and other infrastructure projects in the North-East. They will also help develop a new port in Chennai. India and Japan have much in common, including concerns at the developing geopolitical realities of the region. The elephant in the room is always the relationship with China. Both, India and Japan, have reason to be wary of China asserting itself as its economic might makes it more and more powerful. Indeed, there was a veiled reference to China's air defence identification zone in the joint statement issued after talks between the two Prime Ministers.

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