EWCA Mumbai Chapter Leader Sarosh Bana, who is Executive Editor of Business India, writes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent state visit to India, and his growing rapport with Indian PM Narendra Modi, demonstrated the closeness that now characterizes the two countries’ bilateral relationship. Click the images for larger version.
Category Archives: Major Issues in the Region
A Tale of Two Degrees, 22 COPs and Many RINGOs
Or, How Non-state Actors Can Help Accelerate
the Pace of the UN Climate Change Process
By Anukriti Hittle
Visiting Scholar, East-West Center, Honolulu
Instructor, Washington University in St Louis
Rising Above National Interest
Most of the time, nations act in their own self-interest. And much of the time, they cooperate only when they are forced to—such as when facing imminent collective danger (nuclear threat, small pox, dictatorships). But in the face of a slow-boil threat like climate change, they seem to drag their national government-level feet. In such cases, pressure from non-state actors may be the key to achieving collective action.
How can non-state actors complement national actors to ratchet up ambition and speed up action in the area of climate change implementation? By using the well-tried resolutions process of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and applying it to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, Research and Independent Non-Governmental Organizations, or RINGOs, or could maximize collective action at the COP (Conference of the Parties) summits where both government representatives and observer organizations gather every year to address climate change issues. Continue reading
Message of concern for EWC alumni in Nepal
The East-West Center community expresses its sympathy and deep concern over the loss of life and on-going crisis in Nepal resulting from the devastating earthquake. Our hearts go out to the family members of those who lost their lives and to the thousands who are still trying to locate family and friends, who lost property, or who have had to leave their homes. We know that rebuilding, psychologically and physically, will require enormous leadership, stamina, and resources, and we hope to be able to help.
We encourage all EWC alumni to use this blog site and visit the EWCA Facebook page to connect with the wider EWCA community. We also invite you to share your images, stories or reflections regarding the experience on the EWCA Facebook page and EWCA blog as a central communication point for EWC alumni affected by the earthquake. Please share any news about EWC alumni in the region who may have been affected and any relief activities that the EWCA chapter or individual alumni may be undertaking so that we can share that information with the Center community.
We hope that the international community can effectively help local citizens and authorities in the recovery and rebuilding efforts. Click here for a list of organizations that are dedicated to the relief effort in Nepal.
Heritage for Sale
By Sarosh Bana
Executive Editor, Business India, and EWCA Mumbai Chapter Leader
Looted Indian antiquities handed over by the Honolulu Museum of Art in the investigation of dealer Subhash Kapoor. Photo: artnet.
The global trade in plundered antiquities has expanded so far and wide that an international investigation into artifacts smuggled out of India led the authorities to the Honolulu Museum of Art.
On 1 April, the museum handed over seven rare items – including a 2,000-year-old terra cotta rattle – that it had acquired without realising their clandestine origins. Agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) department will accompany these items to New York from where they will be eventually returned to the government of India.
Like many other stolen antiquities, these items too had been pilfered from Hindu temples and ancient Buddhist sites and allegedly smuggled to the United States through a network run by Subhash Kapoor, a 66-year-old Indian-born art dealer settled in New York. Kapoor was arrested by immigration officials at Frankfurt airport in Germany in October 2011 and extradited to India in July 2012 to stand trial on charges of trafficking artworks. He is lodged in the Puzhal prison in Chennai, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
March of the Carriers
Aircraft carriers are finding favour with Indo-Asia-Pacific countries keen on bolstering their defences in an increasingly volatile neighbourhood
By Sarosh Bana
Executive Editor, Business India, and EWCA Mumbai Chapter Leader
China’s Liaoning carrier, purchased from Ukraine
With simmering territorial disputes inflaming the Indo-Asia-Pacific, countries in this fastest growing economic region in the world are making all efforts to buttress their defences.
In their anxiety to batten down the hatches, several of these countries are viewing the aircraft carrier as the preferred platform for sea control and are pulling out all the stops to commit funding for it.
These platforms, at times amphibious ships that are essentially helicopter destroyers with the potential to operate fixed-wing aircraft, including drones, have been gaining favour as the South and East China Seas find themselves in the cross-hairs of territorial ambitions. But this military build-up is raising tensions even higher in the region and will likely provoke an avoidable arms race.
EWC Community Extends Sympathy, Calls for Aid to Victims of Typhoon Haiyan
The East-West Center community extends its deepest sympathies to all those affected by Typhoon Haiyan. We strongly encourage community members to support relief efforts if possible. A list of reputable organizations providing disaster relief can be found here. In addition, Operation USA, a disaster relief agency co-founded by EWC alum Gary Larsen, is providing critical assistance on the ground.
If you’re in the Philippines, please contact us or comment on this post to let us know how you’re doing, and any activities that EWC community members may be undertaking there to help with recovery.
Stemming the Rust – The Global Battle Against Wheat Fungus
A battle is being waged in wheat fields across the world to stave off an impending calamity that can ravage global food security
By Sarosh Bana, Executive Editor of Business India magazine and EWCA Mumbai Chapter President
(Note: This article originally appeared in Business India magazine on April 1, 2013.)
South Asian countries, where wheat is a staple cereal for many, is vulnerably poised in the path of an exceptionally virulent fungus that can wipe out entire farmlands.
Farmers and agriculturist scientists in the region are hunkering down to fortify themselves against this peril that can undermine the food security of millions.
Wheat stem rust fungus.
More than 20 wheat scientists from five South Asian countries – India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bhutan – participated last fortnight in a comprehensive training programme in Kathmandu on wheat rust monitoring and disease management.
Designed to raise a new generation of agro-scientists equipped to identify the more virulent stem, leaf and yellow rusts that can devastate entire farmlands and to create wheat strains that can withstand this scourge, the 2013 SAARC Wheat Rust Surveillance Workshop and Training Programme was the fourth such annual event to be held in South Asia. It was organised by the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) Project, managed by the US’s Cornell University. Continue reading
Joining Hands to Combat Human Trafficking in the Asia-Pacific
By APLP Fellows Loan T. Le from Vietnam and Amir Ramin from Afghanistan
(EWC Alumna Tin Myaing Thein, Executive Director of the Pacific Gateway Center, speaks about the problem of human trafficking. Immigration attorney Grace Michiko Nowicki (R) addressed the related legal issues.)
HONOLULU – On November 14, six fellows from the East-West Center’s Asia-Pacific Leadership Program (APLP), collaborated with the Pacific and Asian Affairs Council (PAAC) and the Pacific Gateway Center (PGC) in hosting the event, “Human Trafficking in Asia and the Pacific: Current Challenges and Future Prospects.” It was held at the Pacific Gateway Center’s headquarters in the Lemongrass Café in downtown Honolulu.
Continue reading
Seeing America through the Eye of Hurricane Sandy
EWC international fellows take home lessons from the storm
Christina Monroe, EWC Education Project Specialist & Asia Pacific Leadership Program alumna
(APLP fellows in NYC during Hurricane Sandy witness resilience of the American people.)
It seemed the worst place to be on Oct 29th, but for fellows trying to understand America, New York City was the perfect spot.
Continue reading
Pacific Partnership Leadership Meets at East-West Center
On April 7, 2011,the U.S. Navy issued the following press release:
Image: Pacific Partnership 2011 website.
PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP LEADERSHIP MEETS AT EAST-WEST CENTER
By MCSN Christopher Farrington, Pacific Partnership 2011 Public Affairs
HONOLULU (NNS) — Pacific Partnership Leaders met with Oceania subject matter experts at the East-West center in Honolulu, Hawaii to discuss how to better serve humanitarian interests in the region, April 1.
The East-West Center Association Blog 