Shakti Devi wins UN Peacekeeper Award

World This Week: Shakti Devi wins UN Peacekeeper Award

Indian police inspector Shakti Devi who is with the Jammu and Kashmir police has won the International Female Peacekeeper Award 2014 by the United Nation's police division for her outstanding achievements with the UN mission in Afghanistan including her efforts in helping the victims of gender-based and sexual violence.

Shakti Devi is currently deployed in the UN Assistance Mission in Afghan-istan (UNAMA). She has contributed to the improvement of the status of female police in Afghanistan and motivated them to move towards achieving their goals of fully adopting democratic principles of policing.
She was awarded during the Inter-national Association of Women Police (IAWP) conference held earlier this month in Winnipeg, Canada. The objectives of the award are to promote an understanding of police in peace operations throughout the world and to increase understanding of the roles of women officers in various countries and encourage participation in UN peace operations by all countries. It is also aimed at promoting membership in the UN International Female Police Peacekeepers Network. India is the largest contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, having contributed more than 170,000 troops in 43 out of 69 peacekeeping missions mandated by the UN Security Council so far.

Germany to help India in sanitation programme

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a massive Clean India campaign on October 2, Germany came forward to help India in implementing its sanitation programmes in cities and pledged to contribute four million Euro towards this. Making India litter-free is one of the top priorities of the Modi’s government.
The two countries signed a three-year “Implementation Agreement on Support to National Urban Sanitation Policy” on October 14 that aims at capacity building in urban sanitation and formulating policies in the sector. The agreement was signed by Shankar Aggarwal, Secretary, Urban Develop-ment and Stefan Helming, Country Director, GIZ, on behalf of the Government of Germany. The agreement will valid till March, 2017.
Germany will also provide the services of international experts to help the Ministry of Urban Development in effective implementation of sanitation programmes.

Swiss Bank agrees to help India on Black Money

It’s come like a big achievement for Modi government’s fight against black money when Switzerland agreed to assist Indian authorities on a priority basis by providing banking information in a time-bound manner on October 15.
“The Swiss competent authority will provide the Indian side with the requested information in a time-bound manner or else indicate the reasons why the cases cannot be answered within the agreed timeline,” a Swiss-Indian joint statement said after a high-level meeting between the officials of the two countries on tax matters.
India can finally look at a few reforms and find a way to tighten the money laundering and black money which is in circulation in the country at big level with this information.
The meeting took place in Berne between Revenue Secretary Shakti-kanta Das and his Swiss counterpart, State Secretary for International Financial Matters, Jacques de Watteville. According to the Swiss National Bank's latest data, the total money held by Indians in Swiss banks at over Rs 14,000 crore as on December 2013. In India, there has been a huge political uproar over black money stashed in Swiss banks and the new government is looking committed to get back this money.
—Nishant Kumar Azad  with inputs from agencies

UN Snubs Pak on Kashmir issue

Pakistan's continuous efforts seeking the United Nations intervention on the Kashmir issue have failed to draw any attention. In a clear snub to Pakistan, UN refused to intervene and said that India and Pakistan need to resolve differences through dialogue to find a long-term solution to the dispute. Pakistan had sent a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and blamed India for the current escalations in violence along the disputed border which has resulted in casualties of civilians.
The letter signed by Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on national security and foreign affairs, had sought the UN's intervention to resolve the border tensions. He said that Pakistan believes the UN has an important role to play in promoting the objective of peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue, including through his “good offices”.
Ban's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq, when asked to comment on the letter seeking Ban's intervention and his viewpoint on the issue, told reporters that he would refer to a statement that was issued last week by Ban's spokesperson in which the UN chief encouraged India and Pakistan to resolve all differences through dialogue and engage constructively to find a long-term solution for peace and stability in Kashmir.
The Secretary-General is “concerned about the recent escalation of violence along the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan. He deplores the loss of lives and the displacement of civilians on both sides,” said the statement.
A war of words between the two countries over the situation at the LoC took place last week at the UN General Assembly where India said that it was a matter of deep regret that Pakistan violated the ceasefire, in which eight people were killed and many injured. India made it clear that its armed forces are ready to respond Pakistan. n

Hong Kong’s Pro-Democracy protests turn severe

In a recent turn of events, the spark for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong has not found any solution and has only turned more severe. The public outrage was enraged further last week, when the Hong Kong police apparently took a protester into a dark corner and kicked him repeatedly with his hands cuffed. The man, identified as Ken Tsang is said to be a social worker working for children.

Pro-democracy lawyers in Hong Kong are also said to meet some of the 45 jailed protesters who have reportedly complained of being slapped or punched by the police.
It has been more than two weeks since Hong Kong has been protesting for democracy after the government agencies from Mainland China announced that it will screen the candidates for Hong Kong elections 2017 before they could actually stand in one.
The Civil Disobedience Move-ment which has got a name of “Occupy Central” has been initiated by Benny Tai Yiu-ting, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong. Also being called, as the Umbrella Revolution, after the protesters used nylon shields and umbrellas to guard themselves from the pepper spray jets by the state police.
The Movement has also seen tough media censorship by the Mainland China over the issue. The western social media like Facebook and Twitter were already banned in China, China’s own version of Twitter and Facebook showed an error when searched about #occupycentral. While popular photo sharing website- Instagram was also banned for quite some time, the Chinese newspapers have gone a further mile by not covering the protests except for editorials condemning the
movement. (Devyansh Dev)