Junior Digest

Speaking at the UN Security Council debate on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) on Tuesday, India’s deputy permanent representative Tanmaya Lal said: “We are fully cognizant of the catastrophic dangers that the transfer of weapons of mass destruction to non-State actors and terrorists could entail.”

Therefore, he said, “The primary responsibility for ensuring nuclear security rests at the national level but national responsibility must be accompanied by responsible behaviour as well as sustained and effective international cooperation.”

At the same time, the focus on terrorists “should in no way diminish state accountability in combating terrorism and dismantling its support infrastructure and its linkages with weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

Without mentioning any country, he said that “clandestine nuclear proliferation networks must be rolled back and their resurgence prevented.”

Pakistan ran an underground international nuclear bazaar overseen by the notorious scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan that transferred nuclear know-how and technology to North Korea.

Islamabad’s nuclear bases have come under attack from terrorists, who have even managed to enter one of them.

For its part, India has enacted several laws and set up mechanisms to ensure that terrorists don’t get access to WMD, Lal said. “Our recent steps taken to strengthen nuclear security include the setting up of a Counter Nuclear Smuggling Team (CNST).”

“India is committed to maintaining the highest international standards with reference to control of nuclear, chemical, biological and toxin weapons and their means of delivery and has strong and law-based national export controls consistent with the highest international standards,” he said.

New Delhi was committed to the ideal of the elimination of all nuclear weapons, Lal said. But for this to happen all nuclear-weapon states must hold “a meaningful dialogue to build trust and confidence by reducing the salience of nuclear weapons in international affairs and security doctrines,” he said.

“Increasing the restraints on the use of nuclear weapons is not only an essential first step, but it is also necessary in the current complex international environment in enhancing strategic trust globally,” he added.

India’s nuclear doctrine is built on a policy of credible minimum deterrence and a commitment to no-first use and to not using using the weapons against non-nuclear weapon states, he said, adding that New Delhi continues its “unilateral and voluntary moratorium on nuclear explosive testing.”

He cited the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) as examples of non-discriminatory treaties for the complete elimination of those types of WMD. Unlike the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which makes exceptions for certain nuclear powers, those treaties apply to all.

Pakistan’s permanent representative Maleeha Lodhi asserted during the debate that Islamabad had implemented a comprehensive system to control exports and taken steps to improve nuclear security.

She took a swipe at the India-United States civil nuclear deal and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver for New Delhi to allow access to civilian nuclear technology and fuel, but did not name either country.

“A challenge to non-proliferation norms was the granting of discriminatory waivers, special arrangements which denoted double standards and opened the possibility of diverting material intended for peaceful use to military purposes,” she said.

While India’s attempts to join the NSG has been stalled mainly because of China’s opposition, Lodhi made a pitch for Pakistan’s membership. She said Islamabad met the criteria for membership and that “it expected that a non-discriminatory and criteria-based approach would be followed for extending such membership.”

A powerful earthquake shook central Italy on Wednesday, leaving at least 120 people dead and a trail of destruction across several mountain villages packed with holidaymakers.

With 368 people injured, some critically, and an unknown number trapped under rubble, the death toll from the pre-dawn quake was expected to rise, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told reporters after visiting the badly-hit village of Amatrice.

“This is not a final toll,” he warned as hundreds of emergency services staff and volunteers prepared to work through the night in the hope of plucking more survivors from the ruins.

Renzi said it was too early to begin a debate on what might have been done to prevent the disaster.

“Today is the time for tears and emotion,” he said, vowing that his government would start reconstruction work first thing on Thursday.

Hundreds of people were to spend a chilly night in hastily-assembled tents with the risk of aftershocks making it too risky for them to return home.

Scores of buildings were reduced to dusty piles of masonry in communities close to the epicentre of the quake, which had a magnitude of between 6.0 and 6.2.

It hit a remote area straddling Umbria, Marche and Lazio at a time of year when second-home owners and other visitors swell the numbers staying there. Many of the victims were from Rome.

The devastated area is just north of L’Aquila, the city where some 300 people died in another quake in 2009.

Most of the deaths occurred in and around the villages of Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto.

The Union cabinet on Wednesday cleared a draft bill aimed at safeguarding the rights of surrogate mothers and making parentage of such children legal.

According to the health ministry proposal, the draft Surrogacy Bill, 2016 aims at regulating the commissioning of surrogacy in the country in a proper manner.

Official sources said the Cabinet gave its green signal to the Bill to be introduced in Parliament.

A group of ministers (GoM), constituted at the behest of the Prime Minister’s Office, had recently cleared the bill and had referred it to the Union Cabinet for a final call.

Apart from health minister JP Nadda, commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman and food processing industries minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal were among those part of the GoM.

The government had recently admitted that in the absence of a statutory mechanism to control commissioning of surrogacy at present, there have been cases of pregnancies by way of surrogacy, including in rural and tribal areas, leading to possible exploitation of women by unscrupulous elements.

The bill was to be taken up by the Union Cabinet on April 27, but it was dropped from the agenda at the last moment.

To prevent exploitation of women, especially those in rural and tribal areas, the government has prohibited foreigners from commissioning surrogacy in the country and has drafted this comprehensive legislation, the sources said.

The government had recently said in Parliament that provisions are being made in the draft Bill to make parentage of children born out of surrogacy “legal and transparent”.

Swollen Ganga upset lives of five lakh people in 424 villages of three eastern UP villages, while the river began receding in Patna though 24 of Bihar’s districts continued to be under water on Wednesday.

Two people perished in the last 24 hours in Uttar Pradesh which had 150 villages completely marooned, even as the death toll in Bihar rose to 127 with 29.71 lakh people in 4,222 villages and 146 talukas being affected in the deluge caused by rivers Ganga, Sone, Punpun, Burhi Gandak, Ghaghra and Kosi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to the people in his parliamentary constituency Varanasi, tweeting his office “is closely monitoring the situation & is in touch with local authorities”.

NDRF teams have been sent to Varanasi, besides Allahabad, Ghazipur and Ballia, UP relief commissioner DK Singh said. A total of 8.7 lakh people in 987 villages were affected by the flood in that state.

“Flood waters have affected two more districts—Mirzapur and Mahoba. Now, 28 districts of the state are affected,” he added.

The Ganga touched danger mark in Kanpur district’s villages of Katari area, prompting authorities to issue an alert and shift residents to safer places.

In three eastern UP districts, including Varanasi, 127 mud houses and 984 huts were devastated. Thousands of hectares of crops were flooded.

In Bihar’s Bhojpur district, authorities took 17 hours—after an intervention by the state disaster management brass—to evacuate a heavily-pregnant woman from flood-affected Sinha village. Seema Devi, 22, was rushed to the district hospital.

In Patna, the Central Water Commission predicted a six-cm decrease in the level of the Ganga by Thursday morning.

Authorities in Bihar said they evacuated 2.82 lakh people so far. A total of 778 relief camps were being run in the flood-hit areas, giving shelter to 5,99,606 people. The most affected districts were Patna, Bhagalpur, Munger and Buxar.

Rising waters in Varanasi have affected 1.97 lakh people of 124 villages. “Of these, 59 villages are marooned. The flood has affected around 30,900 hectares of crops and devastated 107 mud houses and damaged 745 huts,” a top official said.

The situation was still worse in Ghazipur, where the flood affected 259 villages, disrupting the life of 2.24 lakh people. Crops were submerged on 27,000 hectares of agricultural land.

Flood has also hit life in 41 villages of the adjoining Chandauli district, where 16 flood outposts have been set up.