Indus water treaty 1960

The Indus Waters Treaty is a water-sharing treaty between the Republic of India and Islamic Republic Of Pakistan, brokered by the World Bank (then the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development). The treaty was signed in Karachi on September 19, 1960 by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and President of Pakistan Mohammad Ayub Khan.

The Indus System of Rivers comprises three Western Rivers the Indus, the Jhelum and Chenab and three Eastern Rivers - the Sutlej, theBeas and the Ravi; and with minor exceptions, the treaty gives India exclusive use of all of the waters of the Eastern Rivers and their tributaries before the point where the rivers enter Pakistan. Similarly, Pakistan has exclusive use of the Western Rivers. Pakistan also received one-time financial compensation for the loss of water from the Eastern rivers.

Permanent Indus Commission: The countries agree to exchange data and co-operate in matters related to the treaty. For this purpose, treaty creates the Permanent Indus Commission, with a commissioner appointed by each country.The Commission is required to meet regularly to discuss potential disputes as well as cooperative arrangements for the development of the basin. Either party must notify the other of plans to construct any engineering works which would affect the other party and to provide data about such works. In cases of disagreement, a neutral expert is called in for mediation and arbitration. While neither side has initiated projects that could cause the kind of conflict that the Commission was created to resolve, the annual inspections and exchange of data continue, unperturbed by tensions on the subcontinent.

Pre-treaty period: During the first years of partition the waters of the Indus were apportioned by the Inter-Dominion Accord of May 4, 1948. This accord required India to release sufficient waters to the Pakistani regions of the basin in return for annual payments from the government of Pakistan.

Finally, in 1954, after nearly two years of negotiation, the World bank offered its own proposal, stepping beyond the limited role it had apportioned for itself and forcing the two sides to consider concrete plans for the future of the basin. The proposal offered India the three eastern tributaries of the basin and Pakistan the three western tributaries. Canals and storage dams were to be constructed to divert waters from the western rivers and replace the eastern river supply lost by Pakistan.

One of the last stumbling blocks to an agreement concerned financing for the construction of canals and storage facilities that would transfer water from the eastern Indian rivers to Pakistan. This transfer was necessary to make up for the water Pakistan was giving up by ceding its rights to the eastern tributaries. The World Bank initially planned for India to pay for these works, but India refused. The Bank responded with a plan for external financing supplied mainly by the United States and the United Kingdom. This solution cleared the remaining stumbling blocks to agreement and the Treaty was signed by the Prime Ministers of both countries in 1960.

UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was established in 1964 as a permanent intergovernmental body. It is the principal organ of the United Nations General Assembly dealing with trade, investment, and development issues. UNCTAD grew from the view that existing institutions like GATT (now replaced by the WTO), the IMF , and World Bank were not properly organized to handle the particular problems of developing countries. UNCTAD has 193 members.

The Conference has its permanent secretariat in Geneva.

One of the principal achievements of UNCTAD has been to conceive and implement the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) for developing countries.

UNCTAD produces a number of topical reports, including:

• The Trade and Development Report [4]
• The Trade and Environment Review [5]
• The World Investment Report [6]
• The Economic Development in Africa Report [7]
• The Least Developed Countries Report [8]
• UNCTAD Statistics [9]
• The Information Economy Report [10]
• The Review of Maritime Transport [11]
• The International Accounting and Reporting Issues Annual Review [12]

UNICEF

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was created by theUnited Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II.

In 1953, UNICEF became a permanent part of the United Nations System and its name was shortened from the original United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund.

Headquartered in New York City, UNICEF provides long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries.

UNICEF's Supply Division is based in Copenhagen and serves as the primary point of distribution for such essential items as vaccines, antiretroviral medicines for children and mothers with HIV, nutritional supplements, emergency shelters, educational supplies, among others.

UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 and the Prince of Asturias Award of Concord in 2006.

Administration:

36-member Executive Board establishes policies, approves programs and oversees administrative and financial plans. The Executive Board is made up of government representatives who are elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, usually for three-year terms.

Note:

Trick-or-Treat UNICEF box: small orange boxes are handed to children at schools for colection

Art in All of Us: Sponsored by US, mission of Art in All of Us is to promote creative cultural exchange throughout the UN listed countries, using universal language of Art

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre (International Child Development Centre) in Florence, Italy, was established in 1988 to strengthen the research capability of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and to support its advocacy for children worldwide with objectives to improve international understanding of the issues relating to children's rights, to promote economic policies that advance the cause of children, and to help facilitate the full implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in industrialized and developing countries.

United Nations High Commission for Refugees

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR; established December 14, 1950), also known as The UN Refugee Agency is a United Nations agency mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. The UNHCR has won two Nobel Peace Prizesin 1954 and 1981.

In 1947, the International Refugee Organisation(IRO) was founded by the United Nations. The IRO was the first international agency to deal comprehensively with all aspects pertaining to refugees' lives. Preceding this was the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, which was established in 1944 to address the millions of people displaced through Europe as a result of World War II. IRO was dissolved later.

UNHCR’s mandate is to provide, on a non-political and humanitarian basis, international protection to refugees and to seek permanent solutions for them.

UNHCR's mandate has gradually been expanded to include protecting and providing humanitarian assistance to whom it describes as other persons "of concern," including internally displaced persons(IDPs) who would fit the legal definition of a refugee under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and 1967 Protocol, the 1969 Organization for African Unity Convention, or some other treaty if they left their country, but who presently remain in their country of origin. UNHCR presently has major missions in Lebanon, South Sudan, Chad/Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan as well as Kenya to assist and provide services to IDPs and refugees.

Note:

Most Palestinian refugees – those in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan – do not come within the responsibility of the UNHCR, but instead come under an older body, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). But Palestinian refugees outside of UNRWA's area of operations do fall under UNHCR's mandate, if they meet the UNHCR's more limited definition of refugee.

International Trade Centre (ITC)

Formation	1964
Headquarters	Geneva, Switzerland

ITC enables small business export success in developing countries by providing, with partners, trade development solutions to the private sector, trade support institutions and policy-makers.

The International Trade Centre (ITC) is the joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations.

Market Analysis Services (MAS) are part of the Programme of Product and Market Development of the International Trade Centre (ITC) UNCTAD/WTO. Through MAS services, ITC provides on-line tools, disseminates market research and trade analysis, and conducts training programmes in market analysis for trade support institutions and the business community in developing countries.

ITC’s Enterprise Competitiveness section (EC) specializes in private sector development by delivering capacity building programs that increase the sustainability of high-quality business development services. EC interventions focus on prioritized sectors with high export potential and identified opportunities for sustainable pro-poor income generation. EC leverages a strategic partner network to provide clusters of SMEs with technical assistance to enhance productivity, innovation and international competitiveness

Bofors Scandal

The Bofors scandal was a major corruption scandal in India in the 1980s; the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and several others were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India's 155 mm field howitzer. The scale of the corruption was far worse than any that India had seen before, and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections. It has been speculated that the scale of the scandal was to the tune of Rs. 400 million.^[1] The case came to light during Vishwanath Pratap Singh's tenure as defence minister, and was revealed through investigative journalism by Chitra Subramaniam andN. Ram of the newspapers the Indian Express and The Hindu.^[2]

The name of the middleman associated with the scandal was Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who represented the petrochemicals firm Snamprogetti. Quattrocchi was reportedly close to the family of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and emerged as a powerful broker in the 1980s between big businesses and the Indian government. Even while the case was being investigated, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991 for an unrelated cause. In 1997, the Swiss banks released some 500 documents after years of legal and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a case against Quattrocchi, Win Chadha, also naming Rajiv Gandhi, the defence secretary S. K. Bhatnagar and a number of others.