Indian Officials Research Articles

Genocide in Kashmir: Right of Self-Determination, UNSC Resolutions and Holding India To Account Under International Humanitarian Law

Kashmir has been a flashpoint of conflict since independence from British rule in 1947 and the partition of India into two states. These two countries, India, and Pakistan, have both claimed the land on the northern most sector of the Subcontinent the focal point of which is the Valley of Kashmir. The conflict is not a domestic dispute or a regional issue between the two protagonists but engages international law because of the human rights violations and the atrocities committed that has engaged international humanitarian law. The occupation by India of Kashmir was controversial from the start as it went against the aspirations of the population who had close affinity and kinship with Pakistan. The United Nations Security Council mandated a referendum to decide the future of the territory divided by a Line of Control, a military boundary, but India has refused to implement the resolutions. The Indian army has cracked down on the population under the Special Powers Act 1958 and various other opaque ordinances that oppress the population. The final act in this de facto occupation was transformed into de jure control by the Indian Parliament when it revoked Article 370 and Article 35 of the Constitution and annexed Kashmir. The Valley has been placed under lockdown and the population disfranchised with all political activity banned and demographic changes underway by a government appointed by India. The pogroms committed by the Security forces and the gross abuses of human rights have been catalogued in two UN Human Rights Council reports that implicate the Indian forces. The argument of this paper is that there should be rigorous application of international law and war crimes tribunals should be invested to prosecute the Indian officials for breaches of human rights established in the conduct of non-international conflicts (NIC).

Kashmir's Right to Self Determination: UNSC Resolutions, Human Rights Violations and Culpability under International Law

The United Nations has voted for the Kashmir dispute to be settled by a referendum in the territory since the inception of both India and Pakistan as independent states in 1947. The Security Council resolutions have mandatory effect since their passage and a plebiscite was overdue when India decided to annex the state in August 2019. In refusing to let the people decide their future the Indian government went against the cardinal principle of self-determination. By revoking its constitutional status as a state within the Indian Union the government revoked the Article 370 without consulting any other interested party including the political representatives of the Kashmiri people. The consequence was the declaration of Martial law in the Valley enforced by an unprecedented security operation whereby the special powers allotted to the military and the auxiliary Border Security forces and Central Reserve Police force have been used to assault the human rights of the people. The Indian government has not only refused to implement the mandate of the UNSC but also breached the International Convention of Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The actions of the Indian forces have been under the spotlight of the UN Human Rights Council whose reports in 2018 and 2019 implicate the military of gross human rights abuses in Kashmir. The argument of this paper is that there should be rigorous application of international humanitarian law and war crimes tribunals invested to prosecute the Indian officials for breaches of the rules in Non-International Conflicts (NIC). Keywords: Instrument of Accession; Article 370; cultural genocide; Uti possidetis; UN Chapter VI; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; AFSPA Public Safety; ct, OHCHR Report 2018; International

A decade of controversy: sources on the demarcation of Calcutta, 1784–94

Abstract Historians have tended to assume that the boundaries of Calcutta were generally agreed upon before 1794, and that their formalization in that year marked a natural stage in the evolution of the town. The documents published here tell a different story. They show that the southeastern boundary was the subject of heated disputes among British and Indian officials and landholders. They reveal how these disputes gave rise to the demarcation of Calcutta. Finally, they contribute to a larger argument that the ‘second city’ of Britain’s empire took shape from contests over the meaning, use, and ownership of space.

Indian Economy amid Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Abstract: Amid the Russia-Ukraine war India has very well managed it’s relationship with Russia while in a dramatic manner is getting closer to United states strategically but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will make it hard for India to hold it for a longer time. There are many Indian officials who consider Russian invasion as “Europe’s problem”. Russia is the largest supplier of key armaments to India. India also runs a trade deficit with Russia, with declining in the exports while the imports have gone up; oil is the major part of our import basket. The conflict is a chance for India to become an exporter of the wheat in the global market. Keywords: Import, Oil, Export, Strategically, Invasion, Supplier

Caciques y funcionarios de indios en la misión de San Pablo de Río Bueno (1777-1820)

Beginning with From the analysis of the baptism and marriage records of Indians from the San Pablo of Río Bueno mission, the social relations contracted by Indian chiefs and officials are studied. The hegemony achieved by Indian officials in establishing social and political ties with the indigenous people of the Llanos de Río Bueno and the integration of several caciques from the jurisdiction of Valdivia and Osorno cities into the colonial order is highlighted. All this in a context of expansion and settlement of colonial power, where, although the construction of agreements with the indigenous authorities prevailed, it was war that consolidated in 1792 and 1793 almost half a century of Hispanic expansion on the Forntera de Arriba or “upper borderland” of the Kingdom of Chile.

KIRAN DESAI’S PRESENTATION OF THE CHARACTERS FROM DIASPORIC PERSPECTIVE IN THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS

The Inheritance of Loss requires background information on two major historical movements in India. The first is British colonial rule in India and eventual Indian independence. At the end of the 16th century, the British aimed to challenge the Portuguese monopoly of trade with Asia. The British East India Company was chartered to carry on the spice trade. In the mid18th century, the British forces, whose duty until then consisted of protecting Company property, teamed up with the commander in chief of the Bengali army, Mir Jafar, to overthrow the leader of Bengal. Jafar was then installed on the throne as a British subservient ruler. The British then realized their strength and potential for conquering smaller Indian kingdoms, and by the mid-19th century, they had gained direct or indirect control over all of present-day India. In 1857, the Indian Rebellion of 1857 took place in an attempt to resist the company’s control of India. The British defeated the rebellion, and the British crown formally took over India and it came under direct British rule and the Indian Civil Service (ICS). The ICS was originally headed by British state officials, but these were gradually replaced by Indian officials in order to appease the public.

Know Your Rights: The (un)making of the colonial legal subjects in rural North India, circa 1770–1857

AbstractThis article examines the entanglement of administration, education, and law in North India under early British rule. While there exists extensive discussion on each of these three themes, historians have not paid enough attention to the processes in which, by the mid-nineteenth century, the official minds of the East India Company gradually came to imagine its revenue administration in North India at the institutional intersection of state bureaucracy, village schools, and the law courts. I will argue in this article that through this intersection of knowledge/law-making, the Company wished to foster an ‘enlightened’ but simultaneously obedient subjecthood among the Indian rural population. The contested relationship between the state, the local Indian officials, and the villagers in general, however, thwarted this patronizing ambition.

AN OVERVIEW OF INDIA-BAHRAIN TRADE RELATIONS

Indian-Bahrain relations go back centuries and both are close allies. The Monarchy, along with its GCC allies, is one of the world's most influential advocates of India's candidacy for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, according to Indian officials. In 2019-20, trade between India and Bahrain was USD 980.59 million. The wide Indian Diaspora in Bahrain is also the focus of debate as it is the foundation of India-Bahrain relationship. An effort has been made in this paper to examine the India’s trade relationship with Bahrain between 2011-2020. The study shows that India and Bahrain both have tremendous cooperation potential and therefore need to improve their trade diplomacy in order to establish a favourable trade facilitation climate. KEY WORDS: Indo-Bahrain relations, Trade relations, Foreign Trade, International Relations, Foreign Relations, International Trade

“FROM THE INDUS TO CONSTANTINOPLE”: THE NAPOLEONIC WARS AND THE EVOLUTION OF A “MIDDLE EAST”, 1798–1809

This article argues that Napoleon Bonaparte's attempt to reach India, firstly through Egypt and then through Qajar Persia, inaugurated the ‘Middle East' as a coherent political space in international politics. The ostensibly existential threat posed by French schemes to British dominion over India prompted British Indian officials to perceive Egypt, Persia and the Gulf Emirates through the lens of Indian defence and European geopolitics for the first time. By the end of this period, these lands were imagined as a salient, somewhat coherent political space between “the Indus and Constantinople”. This first ‘Middle East’ was the product of the globalization of European geopolitics and the need to defend British India, auguring the future of the region, in which its political importance, and even its location, was constructed in relation to the broader context of international affairs.

Open Drainages Effecting for People in their Day to Day Life and Drainage Wastage Effecting the River in Theni District

The present study is considering the drainage coming into the rivers and affecting people’s lives in Theni district, India. The Varaha (Varahanadhi) is a small river that flows through the town of Periyakulam in Theni district of the state of Tamil Nadu in India. It joins the Vaigai River near Marugalpatti. In today’s time the the Varaha river, once considered sacred, is fast becoming an open drain since the drainage water had been diverted to it. The Panchayat Union waste and Municipality waste has been directed to the river. People living along the banks complain of mosquitoes and presenting with sicknesses. They require closed drainages to prevent getting sick. Indian officials have said that to consider with an alternate drainage system to be created at the cost of about Rupees twenty-six crores. Survey and questions to the people living near this open drainage complained that the Indian officials had taken surveys, and nothing has been done so far, considering the money has been paid.

A Study on the Global Start-ups/Employment Support Model Using ODA Projects

Purpose - The purpose of this study was to explore the model that supports the recipient country by using the ODA (Official Development Assistance) project and at the same time fits the global start-up/employment support of donor country with CSV business model. Specifically, we wanted to examine the feasibility of the project based on the existing ODA projects. Research design, data, and methodology - As the methodology, case studies and interview were conducted as well as literature studies. The case analysis is based on a press release of the entire KOICA's ODA project, which has been implemented for one year, based on 2017. After consideration, the actual results and future feasibility were analyzed. The interviews were conducted on senior Korean officials and Indian officials involved in Vietnam's ODA project. Results - As a result, some of the project cases applied and analyzed according to the model of this study were judged to be highly potential. Based on the results of this analysis, as the model derived from this study pursues, the global business model is developed under the CSV (Creating Shared Value) strategy through ODA projects to support recipient countries and global start-up/employment support of donor country. The possibility of simultaneously pursuing this model based on CSV business model was also confirmed. Conclusions - In the past, free aid agencies like KOICA focused solely on supporting recipient countries, but in terms of sustainability, they could discover the potential of supporting the global start-up/employment of the donor country using CSV business model in ODA project. In this study, we tried to find the theoretical background and potential possibilities in some ODA projects based on CSV business model. As a result of the analysis of KOICA ODA projects in 2017 and interviews, some ODA projects could be used to improve the economic development of the recipient country as well as the global start-up/employment of the donor country. Therefore, it is necessary for the ministries of the government to promote ODA projects to understand the framework that achieves these two objectives simultaneously and to promote ODA projects based on various strategic considerations.

Kashmir as a Symbol of Pakistan: Why Violence in Kashmir Never Stop?

Kashmir has been a 'powder keg' in South Asia. In this region, India and Pakistan waged three all-out wars and numerous skirmishes. Kashmir has been occupied separately since 1947, but still, both sides claim the other’s occupation is illegal. Muslim Kashmiris, who are allegedly supported by Pakistan, continuously commit terrorist acts, and in return, Indian officials in Jammu and Kashmir violently suppress demonstrations and commit human right violations. After 9/11 in 2001, terrorists have become demonized and pardonless. This article focuses on analyzing the sources of violence and Pakistani intervention. The idea of this article is theoretically based on Volkan's chosen trauma and symbol of identity. Continuous massacres and discriminations in Kashmir committed by Hindu Indians have formed the identity of Pakistanis as the chosen trauma, and current discriminations and persecutions reactivate their fear and anger. Cessation of the violence must be the priority on Kashmir issue. For this, discriminations and persecutions should be suspended.

Turning organic waste into hydrogen

A narrow tower two stories high sits behind chemical engineer S. Venkata Mohan’s lab at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s Indian Institute of Chemical Technology. Every other day for 6 months in 2017, he and his team fed this “beast.” They collected food waste from the institute’s cafeteria, ground it up, filtered out large particles, drained the oils, and added it to the tower, which contains an anaerobic digester filled with a soup of waste and bacteria. Munching on the leftover lunch, those microorganisms didn’t produce a conventional biogas, the typical output of digesters. With some scientific innovation from Mohan and his team, the microbes instead produced a gas rich in hydrogen. Building on the beast’s ability to pump out 5 kg of hydrogen per day, Mohan is now in talks with Indian officials to build similar plants 10 times as large to treat municipal waste in Delhi

India's Counterforce Temptations: Strategic Dilemmas, Doctrine, and Capabilities

Is India shifting to a nuclear counterforce strategy? Continued aggression by Pakistan against India, enabled by Islamabad's nuclear strategy and India's inability to counter it, has prompted the leadership in Delhi to explore more flexible preemptive counterforce options in an attempt to reestablish deterrence. Increasingly, Indian officials are advancing the logic of counterforce targeting, and they have begun to lay out exceptions to India's long-standing no-first-use policy to potentially allow for the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. Simultaneously, India has been acquiring the components that its military would need to launch counterforce strikes. These include a growing number of accurate and responsive nuclear delivery systems, an array of surveillance platforms, and sophisticated missile defenses. Executing a counterforce strike against Pakistan, however, would be exceptionally difficult. Moreover, Pakistan's response to the mere fear that India might be pursuing a counterforce option could generate a dangerous regional arms race and crisis instability. A cycle of escalation would have significant implications not only for South Asia, but also for the broader nuclear landscape if other regional powers were similarly seduced by the temptations of nuclear counterforce.

‘My words were not cared for’: Customary law, criminality and the ‘woman question’ in late colonial India

Drawing upon the court case of one woman sentenced for killing her infant in the early decades of the last century, this article reads Pierre Bourdieu’s insight on how the trial stages conflicts produced in the social realm as a paradox for explaining how British administrators and Indian village officials negotiated non-conflicting codes of sexual and moral conduct on the basis of colonial ideology and locally fixed caste hierarchies to convict women of infanticide. This article argues that a staging of women’s agency is crucial for understanding the colonial conferral of legal subjectivity and for a gendered critique of the Subaltern Studies paradigm of conflict or collaboration as ‘dominance without hegemony.’

Health impact and cost-effectiveness of a domestically-produced rotavirus vaccine in India: A model based analysis.

BackgroundCurrently, Indian officials are incorporating a domestically manufactured rotavirus vaccine (based on the 116E rotavirus strain) into the country’s universal immunization program; this vaccine will cost significantly less than western rotavirus vaccines. Here, we examine the public health impact, cost, and cost-effectiveness of universal vaccination in India using the 116E vaccine. This work will allow comparison of universal 116E vaccination with other approaches to child mortality reduction, shed light on the future burden of rotavirus disease in India, and help stakeholders understand future resource needs.MethodsUsing information from published literature, we developed a dynamic simulation model of rotavirus transmission, natural history, and related utilization among Indian infants followed until age five. Infection risk depended on the degree of viral shedding in the population. Infection risk and severity were influenced by age, number of previous infections, and vaccination history. Probabilities of inpatient and outpatient health services utilization depended on symptom severity. With the model, we compared a strategy of nationwide 116E vaccination to one of no vaccination. Costs were considered from the perspective of all payers (including families) and from the societal perspective.ResultsWe estimated that an established 116E vaccination program would reduce symptomatic rotavirus infection by 13.0%, while reducing population-wide rotavirus mortality by 34.6% (over 34,000 lives annually). Rotavirus outpatient visits would decline by 21.3%, and hospitalization would decline by 28.1%. The cost per disability-adjusted life year (DALY) averted was estimated at 3,429 Rupees (approximately $56). Predicted mortality reduction in children born during the first five years of vaccination implementation was nearly identical to that in children born in later years (34.4% versus 34.6%).Conclusions116E vaccination of Indian infants would likely substantially reduce rotavirus-related morbidity, mortality, and utilization at a cost considered highly cost-effective by standard criteria. Nearly the entire mortality reduction benefit of vaccination was attributable to direct protection of those vaccinated, as opposed to indirect “herd immunity” effects.

India Asks Big Oil Companies “Where Do You Want To Drill?”

India is putting its aggressive program to sharply reduce oil and gas imports over the next 5 years to the test with an upcoming bidding round aimed at winning back international oil companies with the skills and money to make major discoveries. Last year’s discovered small fields auction by state oil firm ONGC attracted strong bidding from smaller Indian players, many new to the business. But “this is much more ambitious,” said Atanu Chakraborty, director general of India’s Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH). The country is trying to reach the goal set by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reduce oil and gas imports by 10% by 2022. To increase the odds of getting bids, operators have been asked to choose the blocks they want included in the bid-ding round to be held later this year. The contracts are based on revamped energy policies designed to eliminate the regulation that limited international interest in the past. “The government is not in the business of trying to micromanage production,” said Dharmendra Pradhan, the minister in charge of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, India, during a presentation at the recent IHS Markit CERAWeek conference in Houston. At the conference, the government announced the bidding round at a meeting drawing top executives from international companies. Indian energy officials need the exploration help as domestic production falls further behind the exploding level of demand. The percentage of imported oil has risen from nearly 77% about 3 years ago to 82% in the current fiscal year, Pradhan said, according to a recent report. Given the time needed for large exploration and production (E&P) projects, a 10% reduction in 5 years is a stretch. Adding to the difficultly is rapid demand growth due to the 7%-plus annual increase in India’s gross domestic product. “There is skyrocketing demand in almost every energy sector,” said Charles Ebinger, senior fellow at the global energy center of the Atlantic Council, during a panel session at the conference. There is oil and gas potential there. DGH estimates it has produced only 3% of its proven natural gas reserves and around 5% of its proven oil reserves. While it is not a big oil and gas producer, the 115 drilling rigs working there in mid-February were just behind the 120 rigs drilling in Saudi Arabia, according to the Baker Hughes rig count. E&P is dominated by the national oil company ONGC, with other government-owned companies and some local independents working as well. But in a country with more than 3 million km2 of sedimentary basins, where gas discoveries have been more common, it imports 50% of its gas.

India’s fitful quest for seapower

ABSTRACTBuilding on several years of research, and many interviews of Indian naval officers and government officials, both serving and retired, this article aims to provide a deeper understanding of the context and ramifications of India's naval rise. In particular, it seeks to explain a troubling paradox: the relative neglect of the navy vis-à-vis the other services, and the seeming misalignment of New Delhi's military strategy with its maritime geography. Indeed, the country's enviable position at the heart of the Indian Ocean, along with its peninsular formation, large exclusive economic zone, and extensive coastlines, would seem to suggest a natural predisposition towards the exercise of naval power. In reality, however, India's navy since independence has consistently been the most poorly funded of its military services, and has frequently struggled to make do with limited resources. The core question this article endeavors to address is whether this trend will persist, or whether various factors will combine in order to provoke a gradual rebalancing of the nation's military strategy and force structure.

India and China at Sea: A Contest of Status and Legitimacy in the Indian Ocean

Strategic competition between India and China in the Indian Ocean has the potential to profoundly affect the stability and security of the region. This essay examines Indian and Chinese views on the status and legitimacy of their roles in the Indian Ocean and argues that fundamental differences in perceptions could exacerbate an already highly competitive security dynamic in the maritime domain. Delhi tends to have a somewhat proprietary attitude toward the region, questioning the legitimacy of any extraregional naval presence, particularly China. But Indian strategists also see China as having strategic vulnerabilities in the Indian Ocean. For its part, Beijing refuses to recognize claims to great-power status or special prerogatives in the Indian Ocean region (IOR).This essay first summarizes China's growing strategic imperatives in the Indian Ocean. It then considers aspirations to take a leading role in the IOR and Indian perspectives on China's presence in the region. Next, the essay discusses Chinese perspectives on India and its role in the Indian Ocean and considers the potential consequences for China of the failure to take sensitivities into account. In short, I argue that China's failure to try to co-opt India as a partner or address some of its concerns is a mistake. Beijing will find it difficult to create a favorable geostrategic environment in the Indian Ocean in opposition to India.China's Imperatives in the Indian OceanChina's primary strategic imperative in the IOR is the protection of its sea lines of communication (SLOC) across the Indian Ocean. Beijing is keenly aware that its SLOCs are highly vulnerable to threats from state and nonstate actors, especially at the narrow chokepoints through which most trade must pass. Chinese strategists are concerned that an adversary may use these vulnerabilities as a bargaining chip in the context of a wider dispute. China also has other developing interests in the IOR, including a growing population of Chinese nationals and greater investment in the region. These issues are likely to become increasingly important in the country's strategic thinking.An additional factor is that China's military expansion program will significantly enhance its ability to project military power into the IOR in the long term. Its capabilities already exceed by a considerable and growing margin. China's naval presence has grown in connection with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy's antipiracy deployments in the western Indian Ocean, which Beijing is now making more permanent, including by developing logistical support facilities in Djibouti. China's One Belt, One Road initiative will also involve the development of a swathe of maritime infrastructure across the IOR.India's Aspirations in the Indian OceanIndia considers itself as the leading Indian Ocean state and as destined to be the natural leader of the region. It thus takes a somewhat proprietorial attitude toward the IOR and perceives the presence of extraregional naval powers, particularly China, as essentially illegitimate.India has long harbored ambitions to become the dominant power in the Indian Ocean. Though few Indian officials might care to publicly admit it, many in Delhi see the Indian Ocean as more or less India's ocean. 1 As Donald Berlin has commented, New Delhi regards the Indian Ocean as its backyard and deems it both natural and desirable that India function as, eventually, the leader and the predominant influence in this region-the world's only region and ocean named after a single state. 2India's views on the Indian Ocean are partly defensive: the country's colonial experience is used to justify the exclusion of extraregional powers from the Indian Ocean, an approach that is sometimes labeled India's Monroe Doctrine. The idea involves an assertion, at least unofficially, that the military presence of outside powers in neighborhood is essentially illegitimate and that neighboring countries should rely exclusively on India as the predominant regional manager and security provider. …

Indian Trade Lawyers and the Building of State Trade-Related Legal Capacity

This paper examines the growing role of Indian lawyers in the transformation of Indian trade policy through the development of trade-related legal capacity. By trade-related legal capacity we mean, broadly, the ability of a country to use law to engage proactively in the development and defense of international and domestic policy. Such capacity is critical for the drafting and interpretation of international legal agreements, the adoption of domestic regulation within those agreements’ constraints in order to defend policy space, the monitoring of foreign commitments, and the development of legal arguments in formal international litigation and informal dispute settlement. Through developing legal capacity, public and private actors work together to open export opportunities abroad and defend domestic policy measures at home. While others have written of the legalization of international trade through the increased role of the WTO legal secretariat and the emergence of the WTO Appellate Body in international dispute settlement, this paper addresses the growing role of lawyers in the development of trade policy at home in one of the world’s rising powers, India.The paper builds from years of field research in India and Geneva, involving semi-structured interviews with over fifty Indian officials and stakeholders. The interviewees included former Ambassadors, members of the bureaucracy, private lawyers, private trade association and industry representatives, researchers in think tanks, academics, and news reporters. We complemented these interviews with participant observation in Geneva and in New Delhi, and reviewed our findings against primary and secondary documents.