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VIT Chennai MUN 2014 Declared Open
The first edition of the VIT Chennai Model United Nations Conference was opened with a thought to ponder upon, reports Akriti Chadda.
Left to right: Dr. P. James Daniel Paul, Chief Guest, and the audience at the opening ceremony.
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n the words of Dr. P. James Daniel Paul, Faculty, VIT Business School, “There are three kinds of people in any organisation: those who make use of their hands and knees; those who make use of their fingers; and those who make use of their lips and tongues. Surprisingly, people from the third category are those who make the most money and learn much more than anyone else.” These were the wise words of wisdom that he shared with the audience during the
opening ceremony of VIT Chennai MUN (VITCMUN) 2014. VIT Chennai has carved a niche for itself in the MUN world by producing extremely effective delegates, all thanks to the three versions of the Intra-VIT Chennai MUN simulations. This year, VITCMUN moved on to a whole new level, opening the MUN extravaganza to external delegates as well. The Dean of the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Dr. L. Jaganathan, 2
and faculty co-ordinators of the VIT Debate Society, Prof. Manoj Kumar and Prof. Arijit Ghosh, were kind enough to grace the opening ceremony with their presence. They were all of the opinion that MUNs in college not only encourage out-of-class learning, but also hone the diplomatic skills of students.
makers in the society by first changing themselves. He urged the participants to not only take back amazing memories and be better persons, but achieve the three main goals of VITCMUN 2014: Growth, Inspiration and Character Development. Finally, he declared the conference open and left a question ringing in all our minds, “Are we ready to be the leaders of India and uphold the democracy, without infringing upon the freedom of our citizens?”
Aman Singh, Secretary General of VITCMUN, expressed his feelings as to how he wants the students to be the change-
Two Lost Souls Swimming In A Fish Bowl?
The alleged internal problems of Pakistan have now become India’s problems too, writes Farhan Faisal from the UNHSC.
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he situation in East-Pakistan has invited hue and cry from all over the world. From regional players to overseas opportun-
ists, the geo-political crisis in this region has received enough attention focusing on the various reasons that lead to an Indian insurgency. Pain-staking scrutiny by the 3
representatives of states lead to a steamy and heated discussion that focused on the fragile nature of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan‟s demographics.
India, Indira Gandhi, expressed full support of her government to the Bangladeshi struggle for independence. As the violence in EastPakistan escalated, an estimated 10 million refugees fled to India, causing financial hardship and instability in the country. The President of the United States of America (USA), reiterated that the situation unfolding in Pakistan is an internal matter and that it is a grave infringement of a nation‟s “sovereignty” if a “neighbouring nation” constantly insists on insurgencies. He ended with a startling statement - that their military resources were at Pakistan‟s disposal and that “all options will be considered.”
The President of the French Republic reinstated that the geo-political situation in EastPakistan has to be addressed keeping in mind the “rights of self-determination” of the people in this grief stricken land and that the Republic of India has proved to be inefficient in championing their own internal problems. Therefore, he stated that the nation had no right to provide political support to a proBangladeshi resistance movement on grounds of human-rights violations. This was followed by an interesting reply from the Representative of the Republic of India who said that if Pakistan continued to send in their troops into India through Kashmir, they wouldn‟t hesitate to “retaliate”. He also believed that if the people of East-Pakistan needed help, they would do all that it takes to liberate them. This set the status-quo in motion in the committee which was followed by responses from the representatives of states who condemned the act of both nations.
This invited a cutthroat reply from the Representative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), who stressed that it was not a peaceful solution and that it was a matter that concerned India too, especially when it takes into account the millions of “Bangladeshi” refuges who had flocked to India for help and assistance. He also shed light on the intriguing interest that the USA had developed in India, which according to some sceptics had deep ulterior motives in setting up a military base to monitor regions that were considered to be un-friendly. He also believed that it was morally right for India to bring down an F-86 that was sponsored by USA from Pakistan on the sole reason that it entered their air space.
Nations such as the Republic of Iran and the State of Israel strongly believed that India‟s intervention in East-Pakistan was deplorable and disrupted peace in a volatile region. They believed that dialogue and talks were the way forward and that a cease-fire was the primary goal.
Though India has been renowned for being the Architect that Bangladesh needed, it was heavily criticized for being a facilitator of an external stimuli that destroyed the balance between India and Pakistan. Their sacrifices for their causes were immense.
However, the Representative of Pakistan openly criticized India for its “tremendous amount of incursion of their army in EastPakistan”, which he felt was provocative and that it was India which triggered the war. This comes in the wake of revelations that the Indian Air Force attacked a sprawling colonialera building in the middle of Dacca that had no apparent military value whatsoever. From November, the Indian army was permitted to conduct operations up to 10 miles inside Bangladesh territory. The Prime Minister of
It almost seemed as if Pakistan and India were the necessary evils that were destined to exist which ultimately resulted in the formation of Bangladesh. They were the two lost souls, each one trapped in their own, realizing that they‟re just going into circles.
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Disarm to Avoid Harm
As the pertinent motion of civilian disarmament stirs up the General Assembly, it is inevitable that a heated debate is to follow suit. Shaunaq Iyer reports from the committee.
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The Delegate of Israel, suave and sedate in his speech, made it absolutely clear that the country totally backed the motion of civil disarmament and felt that it was the only solution to this crisis. The Delegate was against fuelling the war further and felt disarmament was the need of the hour. The delegate of Afghanistan chose the middle of the road approach by neither strongly agreeing nor disagreeing to civil disarmament. To quote the delegate of Afghanistan, “It (civil disarmament) is a beneficial thought but without the existence of war and weapons, the United Nations itself would have never been formed.”
he General Assembly began on a drab note as the Delegate of Croatia diplomatically went about his speech on how Croatia had grown over the years, not once mentioning the agenda in hand. The damp beginning was spiced up late in the afternoon as the motion to be discussed was zeroed down to “Civilian Disarmament in South Sudan,” as requested by the Delegate of Egypt. The discussion began controversially as the Delegate of South Sudan, stubborn and defiant all through the session, made an opening statement, “Two people are fighting. Take away their sticks. Will they stop fighting?” This sparked up an interesting and heated debate as various countries directly or indirectly involved with this South Sudan conflict put forth their opinions rather emphatically.
The committee then saw the participation of countries like the United States of America (USA), China and the United Kingdom (UK). The delegate of USA kept
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reiterating the fact that all issues need to be “discussed thoroughly”. He firmly stated that dialogue and diplomacy is the way forward and disarmament may be an answer, but was not the immediate answer to this conflict. China too maintained stark diplomacy as the Delegate of China stated that the political scenario needs to cool before disarmament can be thought of. The Delegate of UK was clearly upset with the South Sudan government‟s efforts to bring about peace. The Delegate of UK went on to show documents proving that the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has taken steps to embrace disarmament which the South Sudan government disregarded.
session, fierce, feisty and in charge. She was emphatic on not enforcing disarmament and was clearly on the offensive against the South Sudan government. South Sudan, on the other hand, stood firm on disarmament and peace issues, unwilling to accept views of various countries. The Delegate of South Sudan audaciously even sent a message requesting France to send troops to help the South Sudan government in the current war as the other delegates continued to speak on the issue of disarmament and peace. Uganda lastly stated extreme displeasure over the influx of South Sudanese refugees in Uganda and stayed firm and aggressive on this issue. Disarmament may be the way forward or may not be the way forward but the fact remains that the session‟s thunder belonged to a stubborn South Sudan Delegate, an over aggressive Delegate from Uganda and the baffling obnoxious confession by the Algerian Delegate on the presence of mass destruction weapons in Algeria.
The moment of the session, though, was when the delegate of Algeria went on to make a notorious confession stating, “We have nuclear missiles and arms are necessary.” While some delegates were shocked at this revelation, others chuckled freely at this obnoxious statement. The Delegate of Uganda was on the edge of the whole
An Oil-Out Argument?
Ananthakrishnan Narasimhan reports on the debate that took place in the UNEP.
“This is not a situation we suddenly found ourselves in, in the morning, when we woke up. We must make sure that we lower our dependence on oil!” - J. Craig Venter
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il and natural gas are of vital importance to infrastructural and economic progress, as the industrial revolution made only too evident. So many years into the future, the bitter truth that we are still dependent on oil made itself very apparent in the council today. The Oil Crisis at hand –that Kuwait and Qatar had run out of oil –was something that shook the Futuristic Continuous Crisis Committee into action. Measures were suggested one by one, each one with its own pros and cons; diplomatically-veiled threats were delicately (so to speak) thrown about, with nations “urging” each other to do something about the problem at hand. Some sort of solution was required; at least that one thing, the entire committee agreed upon.
Also, if the revelation by some (admittedly not very reliable) sources is to be believed, the USA is sitting right above one of the biggest oil reserves in the world, a reserve worth $400 billion, as the Delegate of Spain was quick to point out.
One of the viewpoints is best expressed in the words of Julian Assange, who very stringently wrote, “…renewable resources are nice to talk about, but this is an immediate crisis and action will need to be taken quick.” He advocated the inventory and exploitation of hitherto-unexploited oil resources, giving the example of Venezuela which, in his words, “has a large crude oil reserve but is unexploited.”
Spain reminding USA of their resources. This is a solution which would aid in averting the crisis at hand to quite an extent, but then has its own negative points. Exploitation of such reserves will definitely lead to further pollution, as the Delegate of Portugal pointed out in his speech. He mentioned that the air quality standards need to be paid attention to, and that „the aftereffects of using and extracting fossil fuels‟ needs to be considered. His words, while not covering the various other ways in which such fuels harm our environment, threw light on the need for better, more efficient, and most importantly, „greener‟ fuels, and thus it was that the council reached the topic of alternate sources of energy.
Julian ass-erting his views. 7
of Korea took a cautious stand on this, however, saying that “the economy must be stabilized” before looking at these methods of renewable energy. Nuclear energy was suggested as an alternative as well, by many members of the committee, including Assange himself. The US took a stand against the immediate implementation of the aforementioned, though. “We are not in a position to switch every single last drop of oil into renewable resources,” said the Delegate of the USA.
“TIG [Tehran Investment Group] collaborating with Suntech has found alternatives for daily usage of energy,” said Ahmedinejad, the former President of Iran. He did not, however, elaborate on the „alternatives‟ he mentioned.
Ahmedinejad singing the praises of TIG. This revelation, however, led to a cascade of more such revelations, the most prominent of them being the one by Vicki Buck, an observer in the council and the CEO of Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation. She mentioned in council about an elaborate system that would treat wild algae and sewage, at treatment plants built specifically for that purpose, to create a fuel that “would power locomotion.” Russia was quick to stand behind Ms. Buck, stating that the council should “look into the production of green fuel” as suggested by her. He also mentioned that new forms of energy, such as geothermal power and offshore solar panels, should be considered as alternative sources, and that the Russian government was actively working on putting these into practice. The Republic
USA taking a stand. However, most countries (Congo, Germany, etc.) are queuing up behind Aquaflow, in what looks like the formation of two blocs, one that is for a combination of oil and renewable energy, or no renewable energy as of now; and another block that believes in the development and encouragement of renewable sources of energy. The issue is at a stalemate as of now; a decision has to be arrived at in the upcoming days, however. It seems as though the debate is about to get heated up! 8
Arms Race: Unveiling the “Peaceful Purpose”
Ganesh Rajpal talks about the implications of National Security and arms race in the Outer Space.
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he discussion in the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) started off on a steamy note with Iran strenuously focusing on the „peaceful policy of arms in the outer space.‟ The Delegate of the United Kingdom (UK) started talking about „National Security‟ and stated that “National Security is the stance taken by a country to prevent its civilisation from threat” and when questioned by the Delegate of Albania as to “How far would UK be willing to go if a national threat shows up?”, he answered, “As per the Rules mentioned under UN Charter.” National Security might even lead to an arms race. Although we have the United Nations (UN) as our saviour, still prevention of arms race seems to be a mirage.
sary. The fact is that satellites fall from space all the time and the risk of it was fairly minimal," said Stephen Young, the senior analyst in Washington, D.C., for the Union of Concerned Scientist's Global Security Program. "But the implications of the satellite shoot-down could be very severe. We're talking about a potential arms race in space." Moreover, this act of the United States (US) did prove its dominance if arms race ever took place. The Soviets too, trying to cope up with US‟s technological advances, further provides momentum to the arms race.
According to a recent update on „Catholic Online‟, India now accounts for 14 per cent of the world's arms purchases and has more than doubled its arms imports over the past decade. Most of the arms India employs are provided by Russia. Moreover, an article on „space.com‟ fuels the much debated topic, i.e., „Space arms race‟. The recent launch of Standard Missile-3 at a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite (a defunct spy satellite) seemed to be a major step forward (technological advances of space weapons) according to some analysts. "It was an unfortunate choice by the United States that seems to have been unneces-
Ronald Reagan (40th US President) in one of his speeches talked about defence and national security first talked about Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) which would render the Soviet‟s missile “impotent and obsolete”. The Soviets took 9
the SDI seriously. The Soviets planned a system which would render US antimissile satellites useless. Their motive was to use their own space program to launch weapons into the space.
of investigation and research of Soviet‟s technical advances. Thus, even after signing treaties, countries continue to investigate loopholes and exploit it to the maximum. The countries using their investigation and weaponry behind a veil of “peaceful purposes” seem to have forgotten the difference between peace and war and all that remains is an ambition to progress - a vehement progress which would not differentiate the right from wrong - a progress which would hinder the growth of humanity and ultimately peace.
Polyus-Skif mission launched on 15 May, 1987 failed to reach its orbit. In the end, an “Outer Space Treaty” and “Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty” were signed but both the parties (US and Soviet) discovered a loop hole i.e. investigating and researching space defence system of another country. The SDI originated as a result of years
The Unruly Ugandan
One Delegate took the General Assembly by storm with her strange, obnoxious ways. Shaunaq Iyer poetically reports.
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he came to the General Assembly with unbridled energy; Even before the session began there were hints of her being
quirky. As the co-chair began his torridly long address, She decided the entire African union she had to impress. Thirty odd chits were passed even before the session had begun; She kept sending them chits till people‟s head literally spun. The message was the same to all African nations; You be good to me and I won‟t test your patience. Then began a new string of messages galore; “What‟s your stance?” eagerly she began to pour. When the session began finally, She could hardly control her passion and her glee. Aggressive, obnoxious, and sometimes
rude, She just seemed to be all charged, irrespective of her (or anyone else‟s) mood. To the co-chair she retorted, stating so free; Ugandans are poor and they study under the tree. She was so crazy she made fun of the country she was representing; Maybe it was better, for in this dull session, she was the only one who added some zing! 10
A Greater Dawn
‘Humans fail to learn from their past mistakes as we keep fighting over our skin, our religious beliefs and our ethnic beliefs,’ reiterates Shaunaq Iyer.
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Left to right: Dr. Riek Machar and President, Salva Kiir
n December 15, 2013, at the meeting of the National Liberation Council at Nyakuron, opposition leaders Dr. Riek Machar, Pagan Amum and Rebecca Nyandeng voted to boycott the meeting. President Salva Kiir ordered SPLM Major General Marial Ciennoung, commander of the Presidential Guard return to the barracks to disarm the troops. After disarming all ethnicities within the guard, Marial ordered that the Dinka tribe members be re-armed. His deputy, from the Nuer ethnicity, began to question this order and a fight ensured when surrounding officers saw the commotion. The Nuer soldiers also re-armed themselves. Fighting erupted between the Dinka elements of the Presidential Guard and the
Nuer elements. This lasted from Sunday night until Monday afternoon. Civilian casualties began when the Dinka elements of the SPLM began targeting Nuer civilians in the capital city of Juba. Innocent civilians died due to a futile racist order by one member of the national army. Over the years to come, many generations shall question the petty beginning of this potential ethnic civil war, but thatâ€&#x;s all they would be able to do- question and reminisce the past. As this General Assembly digs deep into the matters of peace and dialog between the South Sudan government and the rebel forces and looks to avert this sudden ethnic war, let us throw light at the vari11
ous inhuman acts of the past that have had racist beginnings. One of the oldest and the goriest racist crimes which shocked the world was by the Nazis, led by Hitler, and the creation of Jewish Concentration camps. It shall be considered as one of the ugliest chapters in history and though the victims have moved on with their lives, one simply cannot shy away from the fact that nearly half of the Jewish population was wiped away from the face of Earth during the Hitler regime. As we ponder on the ill effects of the Nazi rule, one cannot fathom the fact that such inhumane barbarism was flung only because of one man‟s belief and hatred against certain kind of people, their ethnic origins and their religious beliefs.
ever seen on Earth as millions of Hindus and Muslims were mutilated in cold blood. The last and most prominent ethnic war was between the Tamils and the Sri Lankan government which lasted for nearly two decades. Sri Lanka was also a victim of ethnic cleansing like the Jewish population during the Hitler regime wiping off nearly half of the Sri Lankan Tamil population from the face of Earth. South Sudan has begun such a sad ethnic war and tensions continue to escalate. Humans fail to learn from their past mistakes as we keep fighting over our skin, our religious beliefs and our ethnic beliefs failing to comprehend the fact that we are one species, growing economically, culturally and spiritually together no matter what our belief systems are. Wars are not the solution to any issue and such ethnic wars shall keep destroying harmony of innocent civilians.
Before the Hitler era, the world saw its biggest racist crime in the form of slavery. The unjust behaviour belted out on innocent black workers from Africa, shipping them to various European and North American destinations, denying them of their human right and treating them inhumanly has got to be the world‟s darkest chapter. The world saw man reach his ugliest heights as he began discriminating on the basis of skin colour. Blacks continued their struggle in various parts of the world to get their human rights and freedom till the end of 20th century. Astonishing as it may sound, the European world abolished slavery much earlier but it was within the African continent, the “homeland” of the blacks which took long to hand over the much deserved rights to all people irrespective of their skin colour, the last two nations doing so being Rhodesia (which later became Zambia and Zimbabwe) and South Africa.
The world has seen enough blood and gore to understand the repercussions of war. It is man‟s weakest flaw to get entangled so deep within his belief system ethnically or religiously that he has the uncanny knack of looking at other belief systems as the enemy. Mankind has to work towards a greater dawn together, wherein we all understand that within peaceful coexistence is the answer to our economic and cultural woes. There must be a greater dawn in this world where people understand the power of dialog and mutual parasitical growth. If ethnic wars and communal tensions continue, not one single ethnicity or community will be at the risk of extinction, the human race at large would be at the risk of losing infrastructure, economy and a large amount of their population.
India and Pakistan‟s partition is considered one of the most violent ethnic wars
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Head of International Press Noorain Mohammed Nadim
Editor-in-Chief Akriti Chadda
Reporters
UNHSC - Farhan Faisal UNGA-DISEC—Shaunaq Iyer UNHRC—Shikhar Armaan Pandey UNEP—Ananthakrishnan Narasimhan UNOOSA—Ganesh Rajpal
Photographers Akash Kapur Anupam Ghosh Kunal Malik Munawar Shaik