Tag Archives: China

Ishita Chatterjee, University of Melbourne | The Conversation Informal settlements are experiencing a greater surge in COVID-19 cases than other urban neighbourhoods in Mumbai, India. Their high density, narrow streets, tight internal spaces, poor access to water and sanitation leave residents highly vulnerable to the spread of coronavirus. One of Mumbai’s poorest and most underdeveloped neighbourhoods, Shivaji Nagar, is one of three ...

[By Brahma Chellaney] NEW DELHI – As US President Barack Obama prepares to embark on an historic visit to Cuba, the future of the communist-ruled island is the subject of widespread speculation. Some observers are hoping that the ongoing shift toward capitalism, which has been occurring very gradually for five years under Raúl Castro’s direction, will naturally lead Cuba toward ...

[By Brahma Chellaney]  BERLIN – Over the last 15 years, the bottled-water industry has experienced explosive growth, which shows no sign of slowing. In fact, bottled water – including everything from “purified spring water” to flavored water and water enriched with vitamins, minerals, or electrolytes – is the largest growth area in the beverage industry, even in cities where tap ...

[Peter Fisher | The Conversation] Much of the world still lacks clean, safe water. Progress on sanitation is falling far short of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. The scale of the problem is highlighted by India, where half the population – some 665 million people – still defecate in the open, and where most sewage, even from toilets, is dumped ...

[By Brahma Chellaney] NEW DELHI – Sri Lanka’s parliamentary election this month promises to shape not only the country’s political future, but also geopolitics in the wider Indian Ocean region, a global center of trade and energy flows that accounts for half of the world’s container traffic and 70% of its petroleum shipments.The country’s strategic importance has not been lost on ...

[By Shashi Tharoor] NEW DELHI – After gaining independence from Britain in 1947, India was something of a poster child for the virtues of democracy – in stark contrast with China, which became a Communist dictatorship in 1949. Until the 1970s, it was widely argued that, while both countries suffered from extreme poverty, underdevelopment, and disease, India’s model was superior, ...

[By Brahma Chellaney] NEW DELHI – On the 80th birthday of the 14th Dalai Lama, who has been in exile in India since 1959, Tibet’s future looks more uncertain than ever. During his reign, the current Dalai Lama has seen his homeland – the world’s largest and highest plateau – lose its independence to China. Once he dies, China is ...

[By Shashi Tharoor] BEIJING – Sailing down the Moscow River on a cool evening earlier this month, I found myself in intense conversation with the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress (NPC). Meanwhile, South African and Brazilian parliamentarians were swaying to Russian music and a guide pointed out the sights. The first parliamentary forum ...

[By Narendra Kaushik] New Delhi: Come 2016 and you may be able to zip off in your personal car or public transport for Yangon and Bangkok. Another year or so and you will have roads leading to Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos. A few years more years down the line and trains and motorboats – containers and otherwise ...

[The Conversation] The recent unveiling by Tesla founder Elon Musk of the low-cost Powerwall storage battery is the latest in a series of exciting advances in battery technologies for electric cars and domestic electricity generation. We have also seen the development of an aluminium-ion battery that may be safer, lighter and cheaper than the lithium-ion batteries used by Tesla and ...