The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Yoshihide Suga, recently made public a plan to discharge 1.25 million tonnes of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, describing it as his country’s “most realistic option.”[1] The decision evoked consternation and rebukes from Japan’s neighbours, especially China and South Korea, both of whom […]
In another recent environmental threat, authorities tackled a long ongoing fire on board a ship awaiting permission to unload Sri Lanka-bound cargo, off Colombo. The Singapore-flagged X-Press Pearl was carrying 25 metric tons of nitric acid and 78 metric tons of plastic pellets. The rise in marine accidents, in recent years, will impact the marine environment of many nations. It […]
In the current era of the Anthropocene, humans have become the major driver for planetary changes in the physical, chemical and biological properties of the air, land and the ocean. The exact year/ decade of the beginning of this epoch is being debated among scientists. While some suggest that it coincides with the beginning of […]
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones’ plans to abandon its container terminal project at Yangon, Myanmar. This has been preceded by the loss of the contract for the ONGC Videsh Ltd-discovered Farzad-B gas field off the Iranian coast. Together, these projects cost the investors more than US$ 500 million in investments. The loss of these […]
The “Australia Economic Strategy (AES) Report” has been put together by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in collaboration with (Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler) KPMG under the leadership of former Ambassador Anil Wadhwa, who retired as Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. The document tries to identify and analyse the existing and […]
We are pleased to announce the signing, on 12 May 2021, of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the National Maritime Foundation and the Institute of Australia-India Engagement, Queensland, Australia. The MoU was signed on behalf of the NMF by its Director-General, Vice Admiral Pradeep Chauhan, AVSM & Bar, VSM, IN (Retd), and, by Dr […]
In October 2020, bright blue sparkling waters were reported on the shores of the western Indian coasts, which were presented with excitement by residents of coastal cities and tourists in the face of the cold and demeaning fervour of the ongoing pandemic meltdown, restrictions and losses. The blue ‘bioluminescence’ along the western coastal shores of […]
In a stunning display of capacity-building, China’s naval shipbuilding programme commissioned three new vessels in a single day. Meanwhile, in India, the Indian Navy has launched Operation Samudra Setu-II to transport liquid medical-grade oxygen-filled cryogenic containers and other medical equipment from several countries in India’s extended maritime neighbourhood to tackle their shortage in Indian hospitals due […]
Anyone who has spent a significant period of time within the Information Security (InfoSec) industry would recognise the industry’s felt need to reinvent itself at regular intervals. This author has always found this to be a rather defeatist approach as the impression that it creates is that InfoSec professionals are in a constant tail-chase, while […]
All too often, “the asserted divide between public and private international law suggests that the two occupy different, mutually exclusive domains. On the one hand, public international law comprises the legally binding rules and principles governing States’ interactions. On the other, private international law concerns the civil and commercial interactions of private actors — who […]
Following Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s allusion of the Indo-Pacific as an “Asian NATO,” External Affairs Minister, Shri S Jaishankar, reassured his counterpart that Indian interests in this concept are driven by China’s illegal sovereignty claims and its Navy’s expansion into the Indian and Pacific Oceans. India is attempting to bring Russia, its time-tested friend, into the dialogue by conducting […]
A Freedom of Navigation patrol by the USS John Paul Jones through India’s Exclusive Economic Zone, without the prior consent of the Indian government shows that the two QUAD partners still have to iron-out fundamental issues vital to their strategic relationship. In Japan, the deployment of the PLA Navy’s sole carrier task force in the Miyako Strait […]