📰 Capacity-building programme for Afghan diplomats begins
Two-week intensive course is part of India-China initiative
•Indian and Chinese officials on Monday began a course to train diplomats from Afghanistan at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) here run by the External Affairs Ministry. The two-week intensive programme, launched in the presence of Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Weidong, is designed to give the visiting diplomats an exposure to Indian diplomatic practices and traditions.
•Inaugurating the event, J.S. Mukul, Dean of the Foreign Service Institute, said 179 Afghan diplomats had been trained at the FSI till date, the largest number of diplomats to be trained from any country at the institute. It had emerged as an important centre of training of diplomats in South Asia.
•Monday’s event had an added significance as it was attended by Xu Jian, President of the China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU), and Wu Xiaoping, Director, Foreign Affairs Office of the CFAU. Apart from discussions on the training module for the Afghan students, Mr. Mukul held talks with Dr. Xu on the ways to strengthen intra-BRICS diplomatic training as both the FSI and the CFAU were parties to a BRICS-level MoU to train diplomats.
•The joint training of Afghan diplomats is part of the outcome of the Wuhan Summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Accordingly, the first joint training programme was held from October 15 to 26 in 2018.
Its prevalence is 23.2% among men, finds study
•Anaemia among men in India is an important public health problem with State-level prevalence in men varying from 9.2% (average of 7.7%-10.9%) in Manipur to 32.9% (average of 31%-34.7%) in Bihar, revealed a study titled ‘Anaemia among men in India: A nationally representative cross-sectional study’ published in Lancet Global Health recently.
•The report noted that while studies on anaemia in India have mostly focused on women and children, men have received far less attention.
•The study is aimed to determine variation in prevelance of anaemia acrossStates by socio-demographic characteristics and whether the variations are similar to that among women.
•“The study found that in men, the prevalence of any anaemia was 23.2%, moderate or severe anaemia was 5.1%, and severe anaemia was 0.5%. An estimated 21.7% of men with any degree of anaemia had moderate or severe anaemia compared with 53.2% of women with any anaemia,” noted the study.
📰 The extra mile: on Kartarpur corridor
Kartarpur corridor has realised the dream of devout Sikhs, but done little for India-Pak. ties
•For millions of Sikhs worldwide, the inauguration of the Kartarpur corridor was a dream seven decades in the making. Ever since India and Pakistan were partitioned with an arbitrary line drawn through Punjab, the placement of Kartarpur, where Guru Nanak spent his last years, meant that while a majority of his devotees were left on one side of the border, his last resting place was left just four kilometres on the other side. Unlike the other major Sikh shrine at Guru Nanak’s birthplace Nankana Sahib, Kartarpur Sahib was off Pakistan’s highways and therefore fell into disuse. Those keen to see it were restricted to peering through binoculars at a border checkpost. Saturday’s inauguration of the renovated shrine in Kartarpur by Prime Minister Imran Khan, and the access to the corridor from Sultanpur Lodhi on the Indian side by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saw the fervent hopes of all those people being granted, timed with the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. The corridor, which will allow 5,000 Indian pilgrims a day to walk visa-free into Pakistan, pay obeisance and then return to India, is unique. If both governments are willing, it could lend itself to other cross-border connections for Hindus and Sikhs to visit shrines in Pakistan, and for Muslims and Sufism followers to visit shrines just across the border in Gujarat and Rajasthan. That it was completed from start to finish in a year that saw relations between the two countries plumb new depths, is also nothing short of a miracle: from the Pulwama terror attack and the Balakot strikes; the slugfest over the government’s moves on Kashmir; the recall of High Commissioners; and even Pakistan’s repeated denial of overflight rights to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aircraft on foreign visits, it was a downward spiral. Each event was accompanied by sharp rhetoric and recriminations, yet the Kartarpur process was not derailed.
•In that sense, the Kartarpur shrine has fulfilled the promise it held out to the devout, but hasn’t lived up to its potential for diplomacy. It had been hoped, when Pakistan’s Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa first conveyed Islamabad’s acceptance of India’s long-pending demand for the corridor, that this would lead to a new sense of understanding between the two governments as well. Instead, Pakistan’s encouragement of Khalistani separatist groups to use Kartarpur as a platform has been a constant cause for suspicion for India. On the other side, India’s misgivings have been seen as a churlish response to Pakistan’s efforts on building the corridor. The fact is that neither side has been able to build on the goodwill for the project in both countries to create an atmosphere for talks on other issues. This failure was most evident when both Mr. Modi and Mr. Khan carried out separate inauguration ceremonies, but failed to come together at the border for the launch of the project, though both leaders likened it to the “coming down of the Berlin wall”. For that promise to be realised, leaders will need to walk the extra mile, both literally and figuratively.
•For millions of Sikhs worldwide, the inauguration of the Kartarpur corridor was a dream seven decades in the making. Ever since India and Pakistan were partitioned with an arbitrary line drawn through Punjab, the placement of Kartarpur, where Guru Nanak spent his last years, meant that while a majority of his devotees were left on one side of the border, his last resting place was left just four kilometres on the other side. Unlike the other major Sikh shrine at Guru Nanak’s birthplace Nankana Sahib, Kartarpur Sahib was off Pakistan’s highways and therefore fell into disuse. Those keen to see it were restricted to peering through binoculars at a border checkpost. Saturday’s inauguration of the renovated shrine in Kartarpur by Prime Minister Imran Khan, and the access to the corridor from Sultanpur Lodhi on the Indian side by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saw the fervent hopes of all those people being granted, timed with the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. The corridor, which will allow 5,000 Indian pilgrims a day to walk visa-free into Pakistan, pay obeisance and then return to India, is unique. If both governments are willing, it could lend itself to other cross-border connections for Hindus and Sikhs to visit shrines in Pakistan, and for Muslims and Sufism followers to visit shrines just across the border in Gujarat and Rajasthan. That it was completed from start to finish in a year that saw relations between the two countries plumb new depths, is also nothing short of a miracle: from the Pulwama terror attack and the Balakot strikes; the slugfest over the government’s moves on Kashmir; the recall of High Commissioners; and even Pakistan’s repeated denial of overflight rights to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aircraft on foreign visits, it was a downward spiral. Each event was accompanied by sharp rhetoric and recriminations, yet the Kartarpur process was not derailed.
•In that sense, the Kartarpur shrine has fulfilled the promise it held out to the devout, but hasn’t lived up to its potential for diplomacy. It had been hoped, when Pakistan’s Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa first conveyed Islamabad’s acceptance of India’s long-pending demand for the corridor, that this would lead to a new sense of understanding between the two governments as well. Instead, Pakistan’s encouragement of Khalistani separatist groups to use Kartarpur as a platform has been a constant cause for suspicion for India. On the other side, India’s misgivings have been seen as a churlish response to Pakistan’s efforts on building the corridor. The fact is that neither side has been able to build on the goodwill for the project in both countries to create an atmosphere for talks on other issues. This failure was most evident when both Mr. Modi and Mr. Khan carried out separate inauguration ceremonies, but failed to come together at the border for the launch of the project, though both leaders likened it to the “coming down of the Berlin wall”. For that promise to be realised, leaders will need to walk the extra mile, both literally and figuratively.
📰 Committee to draft new water policy
It will be chaired by Mihir Shah, who is a former Planning Commission member and a water expert.
•The Union Water Resources Ministry has finalised a committee to draft a new National Water Policy (NWP). It will be chaired by Mihir Shah, who is a former Planning Commission member and a water expert. The committee has 10 principal members, including Shashi Shekhar, a former secretary of Water Resources, and A.B. Pandya, former chairman of the Central Ground Water Board.
•The committee is expected to produce a report within six months.
•In September, Union Water Resources Minister Gajendra Shekhawat said that the Centre was planning to update the NWP and make key changes in water governance structure and regulatory framework. A National Bureau of Water Use Efficiency was also on the cards, he said.
•The NWP currently in force was drafted in 2012 and is the third such policy since 1987. Among the major policy innovations in the 2012 policy was the concept of an Integrated Water Resources Management approach that took the “river basin/ sub-basin” as a unit for planning, development and management of water resources.
Minimum levels
•It also proposed that a portion of river flows ought to be kept aside to meet ecological needs. Such an approach led to the government, in 2018, requiring minimum water levels to be maintained in the Ganga all through the year and hydropower projects, therefore, to refrain from hoarding water beyond a point. That policy also stressed for a minimum quantity of potable water for essential health and hygiene to all its citizens to be made available within easy reach of households.
•“Inter-basin transfers are not merely for increasing production but also for meeting basic human need and achieving equity and social justice. Inter-basin transfers of water should be considered on the basis of merits of each case after evaluating the environmental, economic and social impacts of such transfers,” the policy noted.
