Narendra Modi

• August 2, 2021

The presidency of the Security Council is always a high time for a country’s diplomacy, but for India right now, it’s more than that. In August, the country is going to try to show the world why it deserves a permanent seat in the United Nations’ most important body. According to T. S. Tirumurti, …

General Assembly, Middle East, Security Council Presidency, Terrorism, UN Diplomats, UN Peacekeeping

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UN75

India Renews Claim for a Permanent Security Council Seat; UK Seeks Global Unity Against Covid

Barbara Crossette

• September 26, 2020

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India accused the United Nations of failing to update its work and adopt overdue reforms in his speech to the General Assembly’s 75th-anniversary session, on Sept. 26. He praised what he saw as India’s leading role in the world on many fronts and asked, in a focus of his …

General Assembly, UN75

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TOPIC: INDIA

India to the UN Security Council: There Will Be No Alliances

Barbara Crossette

• August 2, 2020

With five months to go before India takes its elected seat on the Security Council for 2021-2022, the country’s foreign minister says it will stay true to its founding tradition of nonalignment and not take sides with any big power. “Nonalignment was a term of a particular era and geopolitical landscape,” the minister, Subrahmanyam …

India, Security Council

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Pakistan to India: ‘There Will Be Bloodshed’

Barbara Crossette

• September 27, 2019

War clouds hovered again when the leaders of India and Pakistan, the South Asian adversaries that have failed over decades to end their perilous standoff over Kashmir, spoke on the same day at the United Nations, Sept. 27. India has been holding its Kashmiri Muslim population in a near-total communications lockdown since Aug. 5, …

General Assembly

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TOPIC: INDIA

Top UN Rights Experts Call Kashmir Blackout ‘Collective Punishment’

Barbara Crossette

• August 25, 2019

As a communications shutdown is still depriving people in the predominantly Muslim Kashmir Valley contact with the outside world, five eminent international human-rights advocates say that the Indian military chokehold may be obscuring continuing abuses against civilians, nearly three weeks after stripping the region of its political autonomy. Information has been slowly emerging. “The …

India

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Kashmir May Be an Old Crisis at the UN, but the World Is Now Riveted

Barbara Crossette

• August 19, 2019

A familiar refrain often heard when the burgeoning crisis in Kashmir rises to the top of the news is that this is an old story from long ago; we have moved on. The United Nations is discovering, however, that there is less tolerance for indifference since India’s decrees on Aug. 5-6 to singlehandedly remake …

Asia, Secretary-General, Security Council

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Strongmen to Kick Off the UN General Assembly Session in September

Stéphanie Fillion

• August 14, 2019

Donald Trump will shake hands with Emmanuel Macron, Jair Bolsonaro and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. But will Benjamin Netanyahu; Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel be there, too? The 74th opening debate of the United Nations General Assembly, which starts on Sept.17 and ends on Sept. 30; the general debate begins on Sept. 24. With most …

Climate and Environment, General Assembly, US-UN Relations

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TAKE A LOOK

Indians Ask Why 21 Million Women Are Not on Voter Rolls

Barbara Crossette

• March 20, 2019

Every national election in India is numerically mind-boggling, and this year is no exception. More than 800 million registered voters are expected to participate in an election spanning 39 days from April 11 to May 19. In this huge exercise in democracy, simultaneously organized at national and state levels, the government’s election commission has …

Asia, Gender Violence, Take a Look

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Young, Female and Diverse: Legislatures Begin to Change to Save Democracy

Barbara Crossette

• January 15, 2019

As many political analysts see democracy weakened by introverted, xenophobic parties and autocratic leaders, a glimmer of hope is offered by a new generation of candidates and voters. This year will test that optimism in a series of important elections around the world. Changes in the composition of national legislatures were already being recorded …

Governance, Women

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TOPIC: INDIA

India at the UN: Thorny Questions for the Ambassador

Soumya Shankar

• September 28, 2018

Now was supposed to be the first thaw in relations between Pakistan and India after talks have been stalled since 2016. But Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan recently tweeted about India’s “arrogant and negative response . . . to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue,” hours after India retracted its position …

India, Security Council

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NIKKI HALEY WATCH

What a Stripped-Down State Department Bodes for the UN and Nikki Haley

Barbara Crossette

• November 26, 2017

In Washington, there is no question that the State Department is in a weakened position, a situation that the Trump White House — and the Trump family — seem to relish. To some in the understaffed, stripped-down Foreign Service and to commentators on United States foreign policy, this is a disgrace linked directly to …

Middle East, Nikki Haley Watch, Nuclear Disarmament, US Foreign Relations

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TOPIC: INDIA

TB in India: Drug-Resistant Strains Are ‘Out of Control,’ New Report Says

Barbara Crossette

• October 27, 2017

Stephen Lewis is an outspoken and often impassioned Canadian diplomat and former United Nations official with a lot of experience in tracking health crises in Africa. Now he has turned his attention to tuberculosis in India, where he made a fact-finding trip in early October. He was shocked and disheartened by what he saw …

Asia, Health and Population, India

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Nikki Haley, as US Envoy to the UN, Could Empower Indian Business Ties

Barbara Crossette

• December 2, 2016

Whatever the real reason that led Donald Trump to name Nikki Haley as his ambassador to the United Nations — that she is a “deal-maker,” a woman from an ethnic minority and a moderate Republican voice he may want to remove from South Carolina — a wave of justifiable pride in many Indians and …

Nuclear Disarmament, Security Council, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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Climate Talks Produce a New Draft Accord and More Hope

Barbara Crossette

• December 9, 2015

With barely two days left to reach an international agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to slow global warming, a new version of the draft agreement was released Wednesday in Paris. But outstanding disputes remain over how much nations will be prepared to reduce the use of fossil fuels, which emit the most carbon …

Climate and Environment

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Now the Hard Part Begins on Global Climate Talks

Barbara Crossette

• December 7, 2015

The second and supposedly final week of negotiations on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, amid now-measurable climate change, began on Monday at the COP21 in Paris with a draft global accord on the table. It is, however, littered with hundreds of bracketed words indicating that hard bargaining, and no doubt compromises, lie ahead. Especially vexing, …