Indian
September 6th, 2001, 11:51 PM
WASHINGTON: Global standards of living are rising and world inequality is declining due to what is attributed as "increasing prosperity of India and China", a Central Intelligence Agency study says. Norwegian academics believe that the rise in global living standards and decline in inequality have "a lot to do with the increasing prosperity of India and China."
The 100-page report, which analyses the implications of world demographics on US security over the next 30 years, sees India having to cope with environmental problems but is more gloomy about China because of its ageing population -a prospect Beijing shares with Western Europe and Japan.
The outbreak of pneumonic plague in India in 1993 was initiated by an earthquake, which caused a migration of infected rats into densely populated urban areas. Some 855 people died when the infection was carried to New Delhi and Mumbai by air travel, the report says.
The 1984 Union Carbide accident in Bhopal caused nearly 3,000 deaths, primarily in shanty towns near the chemical factory. "In India, nuclear power reactors are already contaminating surrounding soil with dangerous levels of cesium. Management that tolerates poor operating practices and measures the level of success in terms of building new projects rather than running existing ones supports the notion that contamination will most likely continue," CIA says.
The CIA study says Asia and the Pacific, where multi-drug resistant TB, malaria and cholera are rampant, is likely to witness a increase in infectious disease deaths, largely driven by the spread of HIV/AIDS in South and Southeast Asia and is likely to spread to East Asia.
For the top ten most disaster-prone countries of the Asia-Pacific region - Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines and Vietnam - there were a total of 1,312 disasters during the 25 years during 1966-90, which killed 1.7 million people and affected more than two billion, according to Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters.
CIA cites Kabul, Lahore, Karachi and Colombo among the cities which have suffered civil/internal war or urban terrorism, and Mumbai, Kolkata, Dhaka and Rangoon among cities with have experienced riots or street protests since 1989. The report says that large youth populations increase the availability and imperative for governments to induct youth into the military, which can have a positive effect on US interests.
Militaries of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India have provided critical manpower to international peacekeeping and disaster relief efforts, the CIA report says.
( PTI )
The 100-page report, which analyses the implications of world demographics on US security over the next 30 years, sees India having to cope with environmental problems but is more gloomy about China because of its ageing population -a prospect Beijing shares with Western Europe and Japan.
The outbreak of pneumonic plague in India in 1993 was initiated by an earthquake, which caused a migration of infected rats into densely populated urban areas. Some 855 people died when the infection was carried to New Delhi and Mumbai by air travel, the report says.
The 1984 Union Carbide accident in Bhopal caused nearly 3,000 deaths, primarily in shanty towns near the chemical factory. "In India, nuclear power reactors are already contaminating surrounding soil with dangerous levels of cesium. Management that tolerates poor operating practices and measures the level of success in terms of building new projects rather than running existing ones supports the notion that contamination will most likely continue," CIA says.
The CIA study says Asia and the Pacific, where multi-drug resistant TB, malaria and cholera are rampant, is likely to witness a increase in infectious disease deaths, largely driven by the spread of HIV/AIDS in South and Southeast Asia and is likely to spread to East Asia.
For the top ten most disaster-prone countries of the Asia-Pacific region - Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines and Vietnam - there were a total of 1,312 disasters during the 25 years during 1966-90, which killed 1.7 million people and affected more than two billion, according to Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters.
CIA cites Kabul, Lahore, Karachi and Colombo among the cities which have suffered civil/internal war or urban terrorism, and Mumbai, Kolkata, Dhaka and Rangoon among cities with have experienced riots or street protests since 1989. The report says that large youth populations increase the availability and imperative for governments to induct youth into the military, which can have a positive effect on US interests.
Militaries of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India have provided critical manpower to international peacekeeping and disaster relief efforts, the CIA report says.
( PTI )