TAPI gas Pipe line

TAPI gas Pipe line

The 1,680 km pipeline to become operational by 2018

In a step that is likely to boost peace and give new shape to regional energy cooperation, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, on Wednesday, inked the historic gas sale purchase agreement (GSPA) for the $7.6-billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, often touted as the peace pipeline.

Turkmenistan, which holds more than 4 per cent of the world's natural gas reserves, signed agreements to sell gas to India and Pakistan through the 1,680 km pipeline at the Caspian Sea resort of Avaza in Turkmenistan, according to a statement issued here. For India, the agreement was signed by GAIL (India) Chairman B. C. Tirpathi in the presence of Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Jaipal Reddy who described the signing of the GSPA as “no ordinary event” and a triumph of multilateralism, regional cooperation and economic integration.

The TAPI pipeline will have a capacity to carry 90 million metric standard cubic metres a day (mmscmd) of gas for a 30-year period and is likely to become operational by 2018. India and Pakistan would get 38 mmscmd each, while the remaining 14 mmscmd will be supplied to Afghanistan.

Besides Mr. Reddy, the GSPA, signed by national oil companies of the four nations, was witnessed by Turkmenistan Oil Minister, B. Nedirov, Pakistan's Petroleum Minister Asim Hussain and Afghanistan's Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani.

“Without a doubt, the economic benefits of the TAPI gas pipeline will be immense for our energy-starved economies. The flow of natural gas will bring in industrial and economic development in our countries,”

OBSTACLES

1)Regional instability, especially in the AF-PAK region continues to haunt the pipeline. The planned route of the 1800 km pipeline will pass through 735 km of southern and western Afghanistan, regions which are hotbeds of terrorism. Moreover with the proposed withdrawal of NATO (especially US) forces from Afghanistan, the ability of Afghanistan to maintain its security comes into question.

2)The pipeline will also pass through Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan Province, a region suffering from separatist and sectarian violence for the past 9 years. Moreover poorly guarded oil/gas pipelines in the region have been favourite targets of ethnic Baluch separatists fighting the Pakistan army.

3)Any unexpected rupture in Indo-Pakistan relationships can put the TAPI project into jeopardy

4)A lot of money is needed to finance this project. The cost of the project is estimated to be 12 billion Dollars. Asian Development Bank has already provided a few million Dollars as technical assistance, however more money is required to finance this costly project, which is difficult to get as foreign investors (MNCs, oil companies) are wary of investing in the AF-PAK region.

NARESH CHANDRA TASK FORCE

NARESH CHANDRA TASK FORCE


    1)It was setup  in 2011, and gave the report in 2012 (somewhere in August)

    2)To review the current the national security system

    3)To suggest measures to strengthen the national security apparatus.

    4)Naresh Chandra is a retired IAS and rest of the team has diplomats, defense experts, RAW, IB, army, navy officers etc.

Naresh Chandra Committee, a 14-member task force on national security, submitted its report to the government on 8 August 2012. The committee was set up by the Union government on 21 June 2012 to suggest ways to revamp of defence management in the country.

Naresh Chandra, a former bureaucrat, headed the committee which members included former military officers, intelligence chiefs, diplomats and strategic analysts. Air Chief Marshal (retired) S. Krishnaswamy, General (retired) VR Raghavan, the former Department of Atomic Energy chief Anil Kakodkar, Admiral (retired) Arun Prakash, the former R&AW head KC Verma, the former Union Home Secretary V.K. Duggal, G Parthasarathy, former diplomat, and senior journalist Manoj Joshi were the other members in the committee.

The main objective behind the constitution of the committee was to contemporarise the Kargil Review Committee’s recommendations, which was tabled in the Parliament on 23 February 2000. Besides, the task force was also asked to examine the state of country's border management and restructuring system.

Kargil Review Committee

The Kargil Review Committee (KRC), headed by the late K. Subrahmanyam, had submitted its report a decade back. The recommendations made by the committee had paved the way for the setting up of a Group of Ministers which had suggested massive reforms in the country's security management system. The KRC is considered to be the first major attempt at revamping the country's security after Independence.

JIMEX 12

 JIMEX 12


First Bilateral Maritime Exercise between India and Japan ‘Jimex 12’ to Commence on 09 Jun 12
The first Bi-lateral maritime exercise between India and Japan 'JIMEX 12' (Japan India Maritime Exercise) will commence tomorrow, 09 June, off Tokyo. Units of the Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF) participating are twodestroyers; one maritime patrol aircraft and a helicopter. Indian Naval units participating are INS Rana, INS Shivalik, INS Karmukh and INS Shakti. The four ships entered Tokyo on 05 Jun 12 after visiting Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines and Republic of Koreaenroute. The three day stay in Tokyo coincides with commemoration of 60 years of diplomatic relations between India and Japan.

The four ships of the Eastern Fleet of the Indian Navy, under the command of Rear Admiral P Ajit Kumar, Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet are on a sustained operational deployment to the South China Sea and North West Pacific. The two month long deployment which commenced in end May 2012enables Navy to Navy cooperation with the numerous navies across the region as well as demonstrates the Indian Navy's operational reach. On completion of the exercise, the ships will be visiting Beijing, China and Port Kelang, Malaysia in mid-Jun 12.

During the deployment the ships participate in passage exercises with the respective Navies of countries visited. The focus of 'Passage Exercises' is primarily in the sphere of Maritime Security Cooperation. These include Humanitarian Aid & Disaster Relief (HADR) operations and Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS) drills, which form a part of Anti-Piracy operations. Exercises of these nature enhance inter-operability thereby enabling the two navies to smoothly function together in the sphere of maritime security / HADR operations, should the need arise.

In addition, during the port visits, the Fleet Commander along with the Commanding Officers of the ships, meet high-ranking officials of the Navy, state administration, port management, coastal security organization, police, and other stakeholders of maritime security in the countries visited in order to share professional experiences and exchange best practices in areas of mutual interest.

Vice Admiral Anil Chopra, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Naval Command is also visiting Tokyo to witness the first JIMEX.

The government has been deploying ships of the Indian Navy on Eastbound long range deployments in keeping with India's 'Look East' policy, to strengthen military ties with the countries of this strategically important region.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

 

The World Meteorological Organization
Headquarters in Geneva. IPCC Secretariat
is hosted by WMO

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. In the same year, the UN General Assembly endorsed the action by WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC.

Activities

The IPCC concentrates its activities on the tasks allotted to it by the relevant WMO Executive Council and UNEP Governing Council resolutions and decisions as well as on actions in support of the UNFCCC process.
In April 2006, the IPCC released the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report or AR4. Reports of the workshops held so far are available at the IPCC website.

• Working Group I:
  • Report was due to be finalized during February 2007 and was finished on schedule.
  • By May 2005, there had been 3 AR4 meetings, with only public information being meeting locations, an author list, one invitation, one agenda, and one list of presentation titles.
  • By December 2006, governments were reviewing the revised summary for policy makers.
• Working Group II:
  • Report was due to be finalized in mid-2007 and was completed on schedule.
  • In May 2005, there had been 2 AR4 meetings, with no public information released.
  • One shared meeting with WG III had taken place, with a published summary.
• Working Group III:
  • Report was due to be finalized in mid-2007.
  • In May 2005, there had been 1 AR4 meeting, with no public information released.

The AR4 Synthesis Report (SYR) was finalized in November 2007. Documentation on the scoping meetings for the AR4 are available as are the outlines for the WG I report PDF (11.5 KB) and a provisional author list PDF 
While the preparation of the assessment reports is a major IPCC function, it also supports other activities, such as the Data Distribution Centre and the National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme, required under the UNFCCC. This involves publishing default emission factors, which are factors used to derive emissions estimates based on the levels of fuel consumption, industrial production and so on.
The IPCC also often answers inquiries from the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA).

Sustainable development

 

Sustainable development (SD) is a pattern of economic development in which resource use aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come (sometimes taught as ELF-Environment, Local people, Future. The term 'sustainable development' was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Alternatively, sustainability educator Michael Thomas Needham referred to 'Sustainable Development' "as the ability to meet the needs of the present while contributing to the future generations’ needs." There is an additional focus on the present generations' responsibility to improve the future generations' life by restoring the previous ecosystem damage and resisting to contribute to further ecosystem damage.


Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social challenges faced by humanity. As early as the 1970s, "sustainability" was employed to describe an economy "in equilibrium with basic ecological support systems." Ecologists have pointed to The Limits to Growth, and presented the alternative of a "steady state economy" in order to address environmental concerns.


The concept of sustainable development has in the past most often been broken out into three constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical sustainability. More recently, it has been suggested that a more consistent analytical breakdown is to distinguish four domains of economic, ecological, political and cultural sustainability. This is consistent with the UCLG move to make 'culture' the fourth domain of sustainability.

Environmental sustainability

Environmental sustainability is the process of making sure current processes of interaction with the environment are pursued with the idea of keeping the environment as pristine as naturally possible based on ideal-seeking behavior. Thus, environmental sustainability demands that society designs activities to meet human needs while indefinitely preserving the life support systems of the planet. This, for example, entails using water sustainably, only utilizing renewable energy, and sustainable material supplies (e.g. harvesting wood from forests at a rate that maintains the biomass and biodiversity).
An "unsustainable situation" occurs when natural capital (the sum total of nature's resources) is used up faster than it can be replenished. Sustainability requires that human activity only uses nature's resources at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally. Inherently the concept of sustainable development is intertwined with the concept of carrying capacity. Theoretically, the long-term result of environmental degradation is the inability to sustain human life. Such degradation on a global scale could imply extinction for humanity

International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court (commonly referred to as the ICC or ICCt) is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression (although it cannot, until at least 2017, exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression).
It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, came into force and it can prosecute only crimes committed on or after that date. The Court's official seat is in The Hague, Netherlands, but its proceedings may take place anywhere.

Jurisdiction

Crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court

:International criminal law

Article 5 of the Rome Statute grants the Court jurisdiction over four groups of crimes, which it refers to as the "most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole": the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. The Statute defines each of these crimes except for aggression.^[3] The crime of genocide is unique because the crime must be committed with 'intent to destroy'. Crimes against humanity are specifically listed prohibited acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population. The Statute provides that the Court will not exercise its jurisdiction over the crime of aggression until such time as the states parties agree on a definition of the crime and set out the conditions under which it may be prosecuted

Headquarters, offices and detention unit

The official seat of the Court is in The Hague, Netherlands, but its proceedings may take place anywhere.
The Court is currently housed in interim premises on the eastern edge of The Hague. It intends to construct the ICC Permanent Premises in the Alexanderkazerne, to the north of The Hague. The land and financing for the new construction have been provided by the Netherlands, and architects schmidt hammer lassen have been retained to design the project.



The ICC also maintains a liaison office in New York and field offices in places where it conducts its activities. As of 18 October 2007, the Court had field offices in Kampala, Kinshasa, Bunia, Abéché and Bangui .The ICC's detention centre comprises twelve cells on the premises of the Scheveningen branch of the Haaglanden Penal Institution, The Hague. Suspects held by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia are held in the same prison and share some facilities, like the fitness room, but have no contact with suspects held by the ICC.^[70] The detention unit is close to the ICC's future headquarters in the Alexanderkazerne.



As of July 2012, the detention centre houses one person convicted by the court, Thomas Lubanga, and four suspects: Germain Katanga, Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, Jean-Pierre Bemba and Laurent Gbagbo. Additionally, former Liberian President Charles Taylor is held there. Taylor was tried under the mandate and auspices of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, but his trial was held at the ICC's facilities in The Hague because of political and security concerns about holding the trial in Freetown. On 26 April 2012, Taylor was convicted on eleven charges.

Kyoto Protocol

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC) that set binding obligations on the industrialised countries to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving the "stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."


The Protocol was initially adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, and entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of September 2011, 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol. The only remaining signatory not to have ratified the protocol is the United States. Other United Nations member states which did not ratify the protocol are Afghanistan, Andorra and South Sudan. In December 2011, Canada renounced the Protocol.


Under the Kyoto Protocol, 37 industrialized countries and the European Community (the European Union-15, made up of 15 states at the time of the Kyoto negotiations) ("Annex I Parties") commit themselves to limit or reduce their emissions of four greenhouse gases (GHG) (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and two groups of gases (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons). All member countries give general commitments.

At negotiations, Annex I countries (including the US) collectively agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% on average for the period 2008-2012. This reduction is relative to their annual emissions in a base year, usually 1990. Since the US has not ratified the treaty, the collective emissions reduction of Annex I Kyoto countries falls from 5.2% to 4.2% below base year.
Emission limits do not include emissions by international aviation and shipping, but are in addition to the industrial gases, chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which are dealt with under the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.


The benchmark 1990 emission levels accepted by the Conference of the Parties of UNFCCC (decision 2/CP.3) were the values of "global warming potential" calculated for the IPCC Second Assessment Report. These figures are used for converting the various greenhouse gas emissions into comparable carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂-eq) when computing overall sources and sinks.

The Protocol allows for several "flexible mechanisms", such as emissions trading, the clean development mechanism (CDM) and joint implementation to allow Annex I countries to meet their GHG emission limitations by purchasing GHG emission reductions credits from elsewhere, through financial exchanges, projects that reduce emissions in non-Annex I countries, from other Annex I countries, or from annex I countries with excess allowances.


Each Annex I country is required to submit an annual report of inventories of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from sources and removals from sinks under UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. These countries nominate a person (called a "designated national authority") to create and manage its greenhouse gas inventory. Virtually all of the non-Annex I countries have also established a designated national authority to manage its Kyoto obligations, specifically the "CDM process" that determines which GHG projects they wish to propose for accreditation by the CDM Executive Board.

Rio +20

United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development

 

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), also known as Rio 2012, Rio+20, or “Earth Summit 2012” was the third international conference on sustainable development aimed at reconciling the economic and environmental goals of the global community. Hosted by Brazil in Rio de Janeiro from 13 to 22 June 2012, Rio+20 was a 20-year follow-up to the 1992 Earth Summit / United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in the same city, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.

The ten day mega-summit, which culminated in a three-day high-level UN conference, was organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and included participation from 192 UN member states — including 57 Heads of State and 31 Heads of Government, private sector companies, NGOs and other groups. The decision to hold the conference was made by UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/64/236 on 24 December 2009.

It was intended to be a high-level conference, including heads of state and government or other representatives and resulting in a focused political document designed to shape global environmental policy.

Objectives

The conference had three objectives:

1. Securing renewed political commitment for sustainable development
2. Assessing the progress and implementation gaps in meeting previous commitments.
3. Addressing new and emerging challenges.

Conference themes

The official discussions had two main themes:

1. How to build a green economy to achieve sustainable development and lift people out of poverty, including support for developing countries that will allow them to find a green path for development.
2. How to improve international coordination for sustainable development by building an institutional framework.

Participation

A few key global leaders—mostly G20 leaders and namely United States President Barack Obama, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, and UK Prime Minister David Cameron—did not attend the conference and blamed their absence on the ongoing European sovereign-debt crisis. Their collective absence was seen as a reflection of their administrations’ failure to prioritize sustainability issues.




"In not attending, the prime minister is sending out a powerful signal that the UK government does not see sustainability as a priority", Joan Walley, chair of the UK environmental audit committee said to The Guardian.

Libor Scam

---->LIBOR Scam

The Libor scandal is a series of fraudulent actions connected to the Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) which the resulting investigation and reaction. The Libor is an average interest rate calculated through submissions of interest rates by major banks in London. The scandal arose when it was discovered that banks were falsely inflating or deflating their rates so as to profit from trades, or to give the impression that they were more creditworthy than they were. Libor underpins approximately $350 trillion in derivatives. It is controlled by the British Bankers' Association (BBA).

The banks are supposed to submit the actual interest rates they are paying, or would expect to pay, for borrowing from other banks. The Libor is supposed to be an overall assessment of the health of the financial system because if the banks being polled feel confident about the state of things, they report a low number and if the member banks feel a low degree of confidence in the financial system, they report a higher interest rate number.

What is Libor? Libor is short for the London Interbank Offered Rate, a measure of the cost of borrowing between banks and a crucial benchmark for interest rates worldwide. It's actually a collection of rates generated for 10 currencies across 15 different time periods, ranging from one day to one year.

Libor rates are set each business day through a process overseen by the British Bankers' Association.
Between seven and 18 large banks are asked what interest rate they would have to pay to borrow money for a certain period of time and in a certain currency. The responses are collected by Thomson Reuters, which removes a certain percentage of the highest and lowest figures before calculating the averages and creating the Libor quotes.
Interbank rates are measured elsewhere in the world through similar processes. For example, there's also Japan's Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate, or Tibor, and the Belgium-based Euro Interbank Offered Rate, or Euribor.


How does it affect consumers? Libor is the world's most important benchmark for interest rates. Roughly $10 trillion in loans -- including credit card rates, car loans, student loans and adjustable-rate mortgages -- as well as some $350 trillion in derivatives are tied to Libor.
If Libor goes up, your monthly interest rate payments may go up with it. If it goes down, some borrowers will enjoy lower interest rates, but mutual funds and pensions with investments in Libor-based securities will earn less in interest.

How big is the scandal? "This dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scams in the history of markets," said Andrew Lo, a professor of finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Given Libor's vast reach and the number of global firms that may be involved in its manipulation, the scandal is prompting calls for resignations, criminal prosecutions, and stricter regulation of the financial sector.
Barclays CEO Bob Diamond and chief operating officer Jerry del Missier announced their resignations on Tuesday, following chairman Marcus Agius's announcement a day prior. The bank has been hammered by politicians in the U.K. including Prime Minister David Cameron, who called its actions "a scandal" and "extremely serious."