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Urban infrastructure projects using brownfield or greenfield development can cause damage to natural habitats. To achieve the Agenda 2030 goal of “leaving no one behind” while mitigating the destruction of habitats, an integrated approach towards infrastructure development must be adopted. This paper outlines the current paradigms of sustainable infrastructure provision, highlighting how and why sustainability outcomes are overlooked at diffe
A shift in India’s policy towards Nepal’s power trade is proving to be favourable for the latter
After a groundbreaking visit to India, which focused on strengthening the Indo-US ¿strategic partnership¿, US Secretary of State Colin Powell was supposed to take a tough message to Pakistan¿s Gen. Musharraf. Nuclear proliferation and Pakkistan¿s reluctance to clean up its tribal areas were slated to be on the cards in
The key challenge PM Modi would face in China is to completely debunk the hypothesis, which some people suspect, that a key objective of Modi's 'Act East' policy is to contain China, in covert or overt support with the U.S., Japan and other affected nations. This task is not surely going to be easy.
The Modi government is encouraging less dependence on agriculture and the creation of smart cities. To make agriculture more remunerative and attractive, especially for the youth, a lot has to be done - farm credit, access to farm machinery and use of IT. So many villages even today are without power and many more do not have internet connectivity.
In response to increasing criticism of the existing international investment regime, various countries, including India, have been revising their model investment treaties. is paper analyses India's recently approved Model Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). It makes an assessment of the text's practical implications from the perspective of ongoing negotiations of investment agreements with several countries, as well as India's transition towards
Building a set of flexible Asian coalitions that do not include America or China should become a critical element of India's strategy of coping with the historic power shift in Asia and the uncertain evolution of US-China relations.
There were four more explosions in London on July 21,2005, but of a much lower intensity as compared to those of July 7,2005. The target again was the public transportation system. As on July 7,2005, there were three explosions in the underground railway system and one in a bus. Apart from injuries to one person, no other human casualty has been reported. Material damage was also very little as compared to July 7.
An ORF study report on the neglect of the Mumbai river Mithi, and how it can be reclaimed effectively was jointly released by Mr. Suresh Prabhu, former Union Minister of Environment and Forests, and Mr. Rajendra Singh, the Ramon Magsaysay Award winner and a noted water activist.
Governments will have to work with private corporations to provide them with a framework for making profit a public good through a long-run vision of
In the current economic climate, making a positive social impact in a developing country is not for the faint-hearted.
At the top, communication between the senior leadership on both sides is very good. But, once you get past that, the real engine of any bilateral relationship -- the mid-levels of the bureaucracies -- do not communicate consistently well yet. A large part of this lack of communication is a paucity of 'strategic messaging' from the US in India.
The Andhra Pradesh Smartcard Project was India’s first large scale attempt to implement a biometrics payment system.
Until the lions write their own history, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. The sentiment of this famous African proverb came out repeatedly during an interactive session with African journalists at Observer Research Foundation on January 24, 2011.
If India is unable to call the shots in Maldives, who will even take it seriously as a player in the region?
Three weeks well into the constitutional deadlock that has stalled governmental functioning an parliamentary proceedings alike, there is no end in sight still to the political crisis overwhelming the Maldivian archipelago. The infant democracy, which otherwise used to be inward-looking until the politico-constitutional changes of 2008, cannot allow to fail itself - and its political leaders cannot try to have it both ways, either.
The Maldivian reaction to Indian initiatives on Maldivian democracy was not totally unexpected.
With only a week left for the scheduled second-round polling in the presidential elections on Saturday, 28 September, it may be time the stake-holders in Maldives arrived at an interim consensus, keeping the healthy and constructive future of the infant democracy at heart.
In Maldives, a midnight police break-in and alleged yet uncontested seizure of 'dangerous weapons' from Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim's residence has led to his unceremonious replacement by Maj-Gen (Retd) Moosa Ali Jaleel, until then High Commissioner to Pakistan.
Now, Maldives seems to be slipping steadily into the 'pressure cooker' mode. No solutions are in sight. None one knows what is going to happen next. May be, the ruling Yameen leadership should look around to learn its lessons from neighbouring Sri Lanka.
The recent decision by Maldives to revoke the hydrographic survey agreement with India is indicative of the ebbing of trust between the two
A few incidents in four weeks, and the Maldivian Government is not taking any chances. The illegal import of five double-edged swords and some 'toy guns', shipped from China, and that of a stun-gun and face-mask as
Two events in as many weeks, and Maldives has been making news, both on the home front and in the global arena, for reasons that had been better left untouched. Coming as they did after the successful SAARC Summit in the southern Addu City.
Maldivians, particularly the security authorities in the country, may have heaved a sigh of relief after the competing rallies by the NGOs and the political Opposition on the one hand, and the ruling MDP on the other, went off peacefully on Friday last.
India has assured Maldives to extend all technical expertise to resolve the current water crisis. India pressed the button after Maldivian Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon called counterpart Sushma Swaraj soon after the seriousness of the crisis was known.
After privatisation, the 'managed float of rufiyaa against the dollar, and other aspects of governance under President Mohammed Nasheed, the Opposition has begun identifying the ills of 'western ways of governance' to individual sectors, and thus drive home their arguments against the Government, even more.
Maldives may have already opened up a national debate on the need for early electoral reforms, with a public assertion by President Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik that the Bill that he had returned to Parliament on fixing a minimum membership of 10,000 for political parties to be registered for State funding,
That is the question large sections of the people of the Republic of Maldives have been raising as the small country in the Indian Ocean gets ready for the elections to its Parliament (Majlis), which are due to take place on December 31. While the Indian media and analysts have been devoting considerable attention to the coming re-poll (December 26) to elect the next President of Ukraine in order to see whether the elections there would be free a
The sudden and inexplicable way in which an 'investor-row' involving the Indian infrastructure group, GMR, is getting a new twist in recent days in Maldives, if unchecked, has the potential to rock the bilateral relations.
By applying for clemency to President Abdulla Yameen during the month of Ramadan, former President Mohammed 'Anni' Nasheed has put the ball in the court of the Maldives President. Yameen is now under twin-pressure on the Nasheed front.
This is not the first occasion in recent times that Maldives figures prominently regarding Pakistan’s attacks on India.
Not all seems to have been lost to the infant Maldivian democracy. Arch-rivals in the still -unfolding national political drama have come together again, to re-vote two Bills to ensure mandatory assent after President Waheed Hassan Manik had returned them.
Politicising a bilateral issue with Mauritius after the now-muted ‘India Out’ campaign will have consequences in the long term for Maldives
The People's Majlis, or Parliament's confirmation of the nomination of Vice-President Mohammed Waheed Deen have taken the punch out of the MDP's argument against the need for a constitutional amendment for facilitating early elections.
Maldive's new President Mohammed Waheed's hands are going to be full as the country is left with a bagful of unresolved crises, each piling upon the other, all of them needing urgent or not-so-urgent attention from the new leadership.
Notwithstanding the recent media leaks on a 'US military base' in Maldives, a decision on whatever that facility be, may have to wait until after the parliamentary polls of May 2014, not stopping with the presidential elections due in September this year.
The latest in the series of crises that have hit the young Maldives democracy is the arrest of Chief Justice of the Criminal Court, Abdullah Mohammed, and the involvement of the Maldivian National Defence Force in executing the arrest request from the police.
For a nation celebrating the golden jubilee of the country's Independence, Maldives has been at sixes and sevens through the previous year. And for a people who have taken politics and democracy with all its dynamism and vibrancy,
In Maldives, if the mainline polity has failed in fighting a process now being projected as contributing to religious extremism, militancy or terrorism, the global community too has failed to distinguish between a return of Islamic traditions and the advent of Islamic extremism, and act accordingly.
A divided moderate constituency, including existing and new political parties, can weaken them collectively vis-à-vis a united extremist alliance.
After the cancellation or non-conduct of the court-ordered first-round re-poll on 19 October in Maldives, outgoing President Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik and the Supreme Court seem to have expanded the scope and meaning of 'inclusive poll' in the even more contemporary context.
If one thing is becoming increasingly clear in 'democratised' Maldives, it is that street-protests can change Governments and constitutions, policies and national priorities. It is thus that the nation found street-protests heralding 'multi-party' democracy,
With the gradual receding of the pandemic, Maldives in now focusing on pertinent issues such as climate change, economy, and tourism
Without most people noticing it and anyone acknowledging it, either inside the country or outside, Maldives' new President Abdulla Yameen launched the nation's new 'foreign policy' at a quiet ceremony in capital Male on January 20, 2014.
The unresolved India-China border dispute brings China closer to the Indian Ocean in every political and geo-strategic calculation of nations like Maldives and Sri Lanka, even though they are not as close to both the 'Asian giants' as the rest of India's South Asian neighbours.
In a not-so-unexpected development, the Maldivian Supreme Court stripped Elections Commission President Fuwad Thowfeek and Vice-President Ahmed Fayaz Hassan of their membership, for the contempt of the court.
Inside the Parliament, the Yameen camp continued to target India claiming that the bill criminalising the 'India Out' campaign was drafted by the BJP.
The MDP should put a stop to its political infighting and present a united front in the upcoming presidential poll.
