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Sarkozy’s Visit to India

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s first visit to India on January 25-27, 2008 (along with 300 delegates) provided fresh impetus to the strategic partnership between the two countries. The visit reinforced the interests of both countries in maintaining close and friendly ties and in strengthening a multipolar world order. During his visit, Sarkozy had one-to-one talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, followed by discussions between the two sides on various sectors. The two countries signed several major agreements related to defence, nuclear research, space and healthcare.

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India’s Border in the Northeast: From Buffer to Bridge

There has been a qualitative shift in recent years in the way policy makers perceive borders and border areas. Borders are increasingly being seen as facilitators of easy circulation of goods and people rather physical obstructions. And border regions have transformed from underdeveloped buffer zones to bridges between neighbouring countries. This change in attitude is one factor that has contributed to India’s recent commitment to construct a port in Sittwe.

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Asian Energy Security: The Role of China and India

Economic globalisation, coupled with geopolitical instability and international terrorism, has made it impossible for any single country to secure its energy supply entirely on its own. The urgent energy security issue has resulted in brisk energy diplomacy with aspirations for cooperation running high among both producing and consuming countries. The concept of energy security needs to be expanded, however, because the real risks are not 'below ground' (a lack of resources) but 'above ground' (political instability). We need a new energy security concept to ensure global energy security.

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Promises and Pitfalls of Nuclear Energy in Southeast Asia

In the recently concluded ASEAN Summit (November 18-22), apart from issues like Myanmar, ASEAN Charter and ASEAN Economic Community, nuclear energy was also discussed at length. A declaration on safeguarding the environment and the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes was agreed by the ASEAN members. This was, in spite of the fact that many non-governmental organisations as well as domestic pressure groups in some of the ASEAN countries have consistently raised apprehension about the safety of nuclear power plants which lie in the seismically active zones.

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Climate Change and India’s Position

For the last one year regular installments of reports and analyses have appeared in the media on the challenges countries would face as a result of climate change and its mitigation and adaptation has been on the top of the agenda. The most recent one is the release of the Human Development Report 2007/2008, Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world or HDR.

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TAR brings benefits for Bangladesh

After dilly-dallying for a long period Bangladesh finally signed the Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) network agreement on November 9, 2007 at the UN headquarters in New York. With this 20 of the 28 countries under the network have joined the agreement. India signed the agreement on June 29, 2007. The remaining eight countries have yet to sign citing "procedural" and "technical" reasons, rather than disagreement about the project. Bangladesh failed to sign the agreement earlier as the previous BNP-Jamaat alliance government was undecided on the issue.

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