| India to Host 14th BASIC Meeting in Chennai, 15-16 Feb., 2013 |
|
India will host the next meeting of BASIC Environment Ministers. The
meeting will be held in Chennai on February 15-16, 2013. This was stated
by Smt. Jayanthi Natarajan, Minister for Environment & Forests
while briefing the media here today. Smt. Natarajan said that BASIC Group is a platform of the four countries for coordination on issues related to climate change. BASIC has emerged as an important grouping in the climate change negotiations, and has acted as a key voice of developing countries. BASIC countries meet four times in a year and once a year in each of the four countries by rotation. Typically, the first meeting of the year takes place in India. At the Chennai meeting, the BASIC Ministers are expected to review the decisions taken at Doha and plan the future steps for taking the global process for an ambitious and equitable agreement under Durban Platform, she added. The important issues that will engage the attention of the BASIC Ministers are principles under the Durban Platform, the role and relevance of independent international initiatives including sectoral actions in promotion and achievement of global ambition, and the steps needed to ensure means of implementation to parties for enhancing their efforts. Agenda for the meetings is being finalised and will be shared in due course. The meeting of Ministers will be preceded by a meeting of their experts and negotiators. Smt. Natarajan further stated that in line with the BASIC Plus approach, representatives of other important members of G-77 and China have also been invited. Bhutan (SAARC and Mountain), Mali (LDC and Africa), Argentina (Latin America), Fiji (G-77 Chair), Nauru (SIDS) and Qatar (CoP-18 Presidency) have been invited. India is a member of like minded developing countries who are meeting in Geneva on 27-28 February, 2013 to review the decisions at Doha and plan the future steps. The deliberations in the BASIC meeting will help India and other BASIC countries in formulating their approach to the future issues in the negotiations and plan help build ambitious and equitable architecture for post 2020 arrangements. |
Save Dissent to Save Democracy THE rising instances of physical violence and threats against political opponents and the inability to accept dissent must raise huge concerns amongst all of us who see democracy as perhaps the really stellar achievement since Independence. AAP’s attack on BJP headquarters and acts of arson committed under the very noses of their elite leadership; the attacks on Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia in Gujarat in the last two days; the recent manhandling of the caretaker of journalist Siddharth Varadarajan’s house by some garden variety thugs; and the violence and threats meted out regularly to their political opponents by political parties is surely deplorable and condemnable. This is a fatally flawed trend which will destroy the very foundations of our democratic institutions if not pushed back with all the strength and condemnation that the civil society can mobilise. Replaying the past To begin with, it must be clarified that we should ...
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