politicodiary

Ruchika Kamboj has done India proud as she holds the top position as an Indian representative in the United Nations. Earlier she tweeted: “It is my deepest honour to serve my country in this new position.” Kamboj has a crucial role to play at the Security Council as India has a precarious balancing act to do as a neutral party towards Russia, without taking any sides. As the Indian envoy, she will have to deal with the intense pressure the country is facing from all sides over its independent stand on Ukraine, neither backing Russia nor unequivocally condemning it, and having to frequently reiterate the position in speeches and votes at the UN. Kamboj is scheduled to preside over the Security Council in December. On Security Council reforms, an important issue for  India , she has special expertise having been a member of the team of G4 made up of India, Brazil, Germany and Japan that work together on expanding the Council's permanent membership. Kamboj has been former High...

Would you imagine an organization like the United Nations being instrumental in cases of sexual harassment going unreported? This is truer than it can get. A number of cases against women who were sexually harassed and, on some occasions, raped as well, have gone unnoticed and no one (except one) is talking about it. Purna Sen was appointed the spokeswoman on harassment, assault and discrimination in 2018  for the United Nations. She spoke to a leading British media house that recently developed a documentary on how women have been harassed at work front under the title, ‘The Whistleblowers: Inside The UN’, said there were women at the UN who had been "approached, accosted and raped". The more men were allowed to get away with it, she said, "the more they will keep doing it". Ms. Sen did not mince her words as she announced that the treatment of whistleblowers at the United Nations really needed some serious examination and couldn’t have been rubbished so easily...

Another diplomat of Indian origins has does India proud as he becomes a part of the United Nations Technological division, giving special support to the Secretary General Antonio Guterres’. In a formal release, it is mentioned that Mr. Gill holds a PhD in Nuclear Learning in Multilateral Forums from King’s College, London, a Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and Electrical Communications from Panjab University, Chandigarh and an Advanced Diploma in French History and Language from Geneva University and he is fluent in English, French, Hindi and Punjabi. Currently, there are 1750 and more diplomats working in various capacities in the United Nations. Gill would be making active contribution towards achievement of the sustainable goals. Making a formal statement, justifying his appointment, the formal UN statement has said that he has come across as a “thought leader on digital technology” who has a solid understanding of how to leverage the digital transformation responsibly and inc...

  It is stunning but true- social media is becoming a tool to chronologize events. The human atrocities that have been committed in Ukraine will now be preserved through war records assembled from social media sources. Social media companies have therefore been asked to preserve war footages, notes, clips and posts. This includes Meta, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube that have received notices from American politicians asking them to preserve content that could be used to prosecute war criminals. America is not letting Russia get away with murder. War crimes have been committed and there is no easy way to prove this but for evidence to be gathered and crime proven. Letters are said to have been sent by four senior Democrats who chair powerful committees in the House of Representatives relating to oversight, foreign affairs and national security. Not essentially legally binding, the pressure to take Russia to task remains high on agenda. One of the letter states, that gathering su...

World Health Organisation’s special envoys are now going all out to gather support for a pandemic preparedness treaty. Owing to a fifth wave of high infections and transmission, several countries are still looking at ways of getting back on their feet. It has been two years of combatting the Covid-19 virus.   Maximum deaths are coming through in the low- and middle-income countries. This has been communicated by special envoys appointed by the WHO. The Director-General appointed six Special Envoys on Covid-19 on February 21, 2020. The intend was to provide strategic advice and high-level political advocacy and engagement in different parts of the world.   The Special Envoys will work in close collaboration with WHO Regional Directors and country offices to coordinate the global response to COVID-19. In a specialized report given by the special envoys, it states, “The trends are seen both in nations with adequate doses of vaccine, as well as in those with very tight sup...

  United Nations recognized the wrong doing to the indigenous groups living in Paraguay Commercial farming has been polluting the traditional farming lands of indigenous people’s traditional lands grossly violating their rights and their sense of “home”, the UN Human Rights Committee said in a landmark ruling recently. The United Nations has now admitted that it is important to understand that for indigenous people, “home” should be understood in the context of their special relationship with their territories, including their livestock, crops and way of life. This also means that, “for indigenous peoples, their lands represent their home, culture and community. Serious environmental damages have severe impacts on indigenous people’s family life, tradition, identity and even lead to the disappearance of their community. It dramatically harms the existence of the culture of the group as a whole,” said Committee member Hélène Tigroudja.  The committee comprises 18...

 Water is no more a free commodity and situation in Libya is proof of this.... The Great Man Made Lake, Libya project went busted in 2011 A recent UN report has stated that the ongoing water conflict due to Libya is further putting pressure elsewhere. An ongoing infrastructural conflict that started with a careless act by NATO has snowballed into a massive water scarcity issue in Libya. The arid climatic conditions have always deprived the country of water sources though it does have underground water reservoirs. In 2011, the so called NATO Humanitarian act that bombed most of the water facilities created tirelessly under Gadaffi's leadership pushed Libya's water resourced to nill. NATO's justification was that pipe building plants were actually being used for military stockpiling. But today, the situation hasn't changed and the seemingly humanitarian act as led to an ongoing water war.  “ The wars of the twenty-first century will be fought over water ,” says Ismail Ser...

 According to a UN expert, minorities have a significant role to play  in saving the planet's biodiversity  The world is inhabited as much as by indigenous and  minorities as much as it is by other species. All have a significant role to play in a thriving biodiversity going ahead. According to a senior UN official, t he global initiative to save the planet's biodiversity on land and water must not be allowed to threaten the world's most vulnerable people. There is an UN backed global biodiversity framework draft agreement under which countries have agreed to protect 30 percent of the planet and restore at least 20 percent by 2030. Speaking about the plan, David Boyd has stressed upon the fact that the framework must not marginalise the rights and presence of minorities in various parts of the world, that thrive and are in sync with their natural  surroundings.  In his expression, he has warned against 'fortress conservation' and 'pristine wildern...

Stories of human atrocities are rampant in the recently released UN report that highlights the worst kind of living conditions of women and children More than 2 million children have been severely affected mentally and psychologically due to the ongoing Syrian Civil War According to the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria , there has been complete disregard to laws of war and the Convention On The Rights of the Child by all parties involved in Syria. This was said by the Commission chair Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro . The physiological damage is much more. While speaking to UN representatives, most victimized women agreed that their children have lost the ability to dream and think straight.   According to the findings, crime continues to be deeply gendered.   The study has collated data based on approximately 5,000 interviews conducted between September 2011 and October 2019 with Syrian children. These also include d...

Erdogan driven plan to resettle Syrian refugees could be a portent mixture of ambitious and greed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitious plan to resettle the more than 3 million displaced Syrian refugees is a great humanitarian effort. But it may not be without the needs for doing away with Kurdish inhabitants after all. The northern Syrian 20 kilometer stretch which Erdogan has been vying for, is home to many Kurdish inhabitants that include participants from the Kurdish forces too. In November, in the UN General Meeting, Erdogan presented a lengthy well documented plan for re-homing all the displaced refugees. But the establishment of this safe zone will have its consequences. For one, we are not sure if Erdogan’s assertion of this ‘voluntary’ movement is actually something the displaced Syrian population really wants. Having stayed away from the war torn region, Syrian refugees have found their peace in Turkish territories. Also, there is a risk...