The Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Centre conducts critical research and analyses in wide-ranging areas like the SDGs, climate change, water, food and energy nexus, low-intensity conflict and the Arctic region. Challenging orthodox thinking and bringing in unconventional ideas, the Centre, has well-established experts with notable publications engaged in addressing the knowledge gaps, facilitating discussions, and interfacing with varied stakeholders. The Centre publishes the bi-monthly NTS Digest covering climate, food, energy and water issues. Members frequently lecture at military and training institutions and share their views at various national and international forums. As part of public awareness and sensitisation, they regularly contribute to mainstream newspapers and appear in media channels. The NTS Centre Coordinator served as Co-Chair of the Think20 Task Force of the G20 on ‘Accelerating SDGs: Exploring New Pathways to the 2030 Agenda’ during India’s G20 Presidency.
Current Projects
Centre members are working on inter-disciplinary projects like the ‘Indus Waters Treaty: Changing Dynamics and India’s Options’, ‘Human Security Policy for India’, and ‘Impacts of Climate Change in the Himalayan Region’. Areas of output include India’s SDGs targets, India-EU cooperation on climate change, India-Nepal cooperation on energy security, India’s climate adaptation and renewables approach, India-US maritime collaboration, and AFSPA and the Northeast region.
No posts of Books and Monograph.
The latest addition to the Chinese ‘enigma’ is its oil potential. There have been various accounts, of late, in influential journals and important documents attempting to unravel the mystery surrounding Chinese oil. As it happens, most of them have helped only to further deepen it.
Development prospects and economic growth in Pakistan, like in most other countries, will hinge on securing sustainable energy supplies. The Pakistan government has developed a strategy to enhance its energy production by 2030. This article explores the problems faced by the Pakistan government in optimising its use of indigenous energy resources and the implications that future plans to strengthen its energy security may have for its domestic and foreign policy.
The energy sector since the mid-2000s has acquired top priority in Russian state affairs, but since late 2008 it has also become the epicentre of the economic disaster that still continues to affect Russia. President Medvedev has effectively discarded the notion of Russia as an 'energy super-power' and is now focusing on 'modernisation' for Russia's development. But coherence of this course is problematic because the bulk of new investments must go into the energy sector in order to sustain the high revenues.
Following the recent economic crisis, concerns over the revival of trade protectionism have surfaced, with some countries imposing or threatening to impose highly trade-distorting legislation to help their domestic industries compete in world markets, raising the spectre of a potential trade war. This paper looks at the attempts by some of the developed countries to introduce trade measures using the issue of climate change as a Trojan horse, to ensure that they do not lose out to the emerging economies.
With the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expiring in 2012, time seems to be running out for a new successor agreement. The Protocol remains the most comprehensive attempt to negotiate binding limits on anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The long-term challenge, defined by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is to stabilise GHG concentration in the atmosphere at levels that would prevent interference with the climate system. There are, however, economic and social realities that drive anthropogenic GHG emissions.
Most of the countries in West Asia have expressed an interest in developing nuclear energy. For them their growing demand of electricity owing to the increasing population, growing industries, their eternal reliance on the desalinated water and environmental protection are the major drivers of their decision to produce nuclear energy. Importantly, they would like to use nuclear energy for domestic consumption and supply oil and gas to earn more revenues.
The article analyses international politics surrounding the Iranian nuclear crisis, and its implications for stakeholders such as the United States and its western allies as well as for emerging market countries including India, China, and Turkey which are especially interested in Iran's energy resources. Given the existence of multiplicity of interests of these countries, often conflicting, the article analyses three possible scenarios of how the Iranian nuclear crisis is likely to be addressed.
Energy ties between India and Australia are centuries old and can be traced back to the days of East India Company of the British–Indian era. From the first commercial export in the form of a shipment of coal to India from Australia in 1797, energy cooperation has come a long way. For instance, apart from making unswerving attempts to get Australian yellowcake, attempts have been made by India to ensure greater supply of coal and natural gas.
Let's face the facts: we are not going to regulate our way out of either climate change, or a peaking of fossil fuels. Even if we could imagine that individuals and nations were capable of accepting significant reductions in their lifestyle for long-term self-interest or the interests of their grandchildren, no amount of increased efficiency of those already using energy is going to make up for the Other Three Billion (O3B) citizens of the world moving to developed lifestyles and their accompanying energy demand.
Nuclear energy is undergoing a global renaissance. While nuclear energy has been contributing between 14 and 16 per cent of the total electricity in the world in recent years, most of the countries that are operating nuclear power reactors are expanding and/or reviving their nuclear energy development programmes, including countries such as the US and the UK. At the same time, several new countries and regions, many of which are rich in other energy resources, are also opting for nuclear energy.
With US sanctions in place on the Venezuelan oil industry, global oil prices are set to rise once again, which may have major geopolitical and geo-economic consequences.
A strategic petroleum reserve offers India the leverage to be a serious player in the international oil market, as it will have the option to release supplies when prices spike and recharge the reserve when prices are low.
The value of the Caspian energy reserve lies in its potential to add to global reserves of oil and gas, which, in turn, could bring down costs.
Given that Iran accounts for around 10 per cent of India total oil imports, the immediate factor for New Delhi will be to look at various options to deal with the situation without jeopardising its energy security.
Despite the easing of international crude prices, the central government is unlikely to cut central excise duties since a cut of Re 1 would result in a loss of revenue of Rs. 10,725 crore.
China’s launch of a yuan-denominated oil futures exchange will provide it with the opportunity to create an Asian crude oil benchmark and give it more clout in crude pricing and for promoting the yuan as a truly global currency.
India should invest in creating a competitive solar module sector across the manufacturing chain, from procuring primary resources to the finished product.
Crown Prince Salman has been using oil as a tool to further his political ambitions both domestically and internationally, and Saudi Aramco acts as a nucleus around which his ambitions revolve.
The contentious discourse in the media ignores the implications of state taxes on rising fuel prices.
If India gets a stake in the proposed Aramco IPO, it would mean getting a share of profits from one of the world’s largest and most profitable companies.
