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By Shekhar Singh
New Delhi, Dec 17 (IANS) Proximity to two infamous narcotics domains -- The Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent -- has been the biggest cause of India's problem with drug trafficking. The country has seen a 70 per cent rise in consumption of narcotic substances in the last couple of years.


The Golden Triangle is the North-East border of India bordering Laos, Myanmar and Thailand which meet at the confluence of Mekong and Ruak. Myanmar holds the second spot after Afghanistan in illicit supply of morphine and heroin. Myanmar produces 80 per cent of the world's heroin and it is trafficked to the US, UK and China via Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and India mostly through sea routes.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha had said that a significant portion of drugs like heroin, cocaine and hashish are being smuggled into the country through the sea route.

The minister said as per inputs received from the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the main drugs smuggled through the sea route are heroin, cocaine, hashish and Amphetamine Type Stimulants (ATS).

In the current year till November 30, of the 3,017 kg heroin seized, 55 per cent or 1,664 kg came through the sea route. Of the 122 kg cocaine seized, 84 per cent or 103 kg was through the sea route. In the case of hashish and ATS seized till November this year, 23 per cent and 30 per cent were being smuggled through the sea route.

Several consignments of heroin seized in Guwahati and Dimapur have originated from the Golden Triangle. Myanmar's heroin and meth enter India at two points, Moreh in Manipur and Champai in Mizoram.

However, interestingly, due to domestic security gaps, precursor chemicals including ephedrine, acetic anhydride and pseudo ephedrine are sourced from places in South India including Chennai and then transported to Kolkata and Guwahati via Delhi before being smuggled across the border to Myanmar.

According to the NCB's latest annual report, drug trafficking through sea routes in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, is estimated to account for around 70 per cent of the total illegal drugs smuggled into India.

As the drugs coming from sea routes pose a challenge for law enforcement agencies, experts say that the use of maritime routes by international drug syndicates based in Pakistan and Afghanistan is only expected to increase.

"Most of such seizures are sourced from the ports of Afghanistan and Iran, which are destined to coastal states in India or are in further transit to countries like Sri Lanka, Maldives, etc," the NCB report stated.

Heroin is the most trafficked drug through the sea route, but ATS, marijuana, cocaine, etc. are also among the drugs seized, as per the report.

The NCB also seized 300 kg and 337 kg heroin from two Sri Lankan boats in March and April 2021.

However, in the largest haul, the Directorate of Revenue and Intelligence (DRI) has seized 3000 kg heroin from a consignment of talc in September 2021 at Mundra Port. Then 303 kg of cocaine was seized by the DRI officials in April 2021 at Tuticorin port and 205 kg of heroin from a consignment of Gypsum in April 2022 at Kandla Port.

"Apart from heroin, 2021-22 also witnessed two significant seizures of cocaine in containerised cargo emanating from Afghanistan-Iran. This trend indicates that drug syndicates and criminal organisations in the region are working with other international syndicates and criminal organisations to traffic drugs into India," stated the recent annual DRI report.

"The magnitude and modus operandi of the cases clearly hint towards attempts by inimical elements to push narcotics into India and use proceeds of such smuggling to finance anti-national activities," the DRI report claimed.

The Golden Crescent is a principal global site for opium production in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan and then smuggling to India through Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat. The drug smugglers have made potential markets and supply chain catalysts of hashish and heroin through these routes.

The syndicates through these bordering areas are now using new digital tools and the use of drones to smuggle the drugs.

However, nowadays, syndicates are also using couriers, parcels and postal services to smuggle drugs and deliver them.

The increased use of couriers or postal services is also directly linked to increased dark web activity in India. The quantity of drugs in parcels is usually a few grams to avoid suspicion and interception by law enforcement agencies.

In February this year, the NCB arrested 22 people, including software engineers, a financial analyst, an MBA and one of their own personnel. The accused were a pan-India drug trafficking network that was using the 'darknet' and cryptocurrency to courier narcotics at home.

Their arrest unearthed three major drug markets, DNM India, Dread and The Orient Express, running on the hidden web world after a four-month operation in Delhi-NCR, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Assam, Punjab, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Rajasthan.

They were delivering LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) blots, psychotropic tablets, heroin, paste and liquid of cannabis, cocaine, Alprazolam tablets, charas, capsules of Spasomoproxyvon and imported ganja.

The recreational drugs by the gang were being sourced from countries like the US, UK, Netherlands and Poland using courier services and also the India Post network.

--IANS
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By Shekhar Singh
New Delhi, Dec 17 (IANS) Once at the top of the list in the use of drugs and even termed 'Udta Punjab', drug smuggling in Punjab remains a much-debated social, criminal and political issue.


Despite the Punjab government forming a Special Task Force (STF) to curb the menace, it however still manages to haunt the state.

But the state has now dropped to the third place with regards to the use and trafficking of drugs, according to the National Crime Record Bureau 's(NCRB) report released this year.

The report revealed that Uttar Pradesh has now occupied the top spot with 10,432 FIRs registered under the NDPS Act, followed by Maharashtra(10,078) and Punjab (9,972).

The second edition of the book, 'Roadmap for Prevention and Control of Substance Abuse in Punjab, released by the community medicine department of Chandigarh's Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) this year stated that more than 3 million people, or around 15.4 per cent of the population of Punjab, are currently consuming drugs.

The drug trade in Punjab is estimated annually to the tune of Rs 7,500 crore.

Several households have lost their family members to the drugs scourge. Maqboolpura is known as the village of orphans and widows, as majority of drug abuse victims hail from there.

Amid rising concern, the Supreme Court this month had directed the state government to keep a check and be serious about the drug menace.

In August this year, after carrying out month-long cordon and search operations in drug-affected areas besides patrolling vulnerable routes across the state, Punjab Police arrested as many as 2,205 smugglers, including 260 top criminals.

A total of 1,730 FIRs have been registered, of which 145 are related to commercial quantity.

The police have also recovered 30 kg heroin, 75 kg opium, 9 kg marijuana and 185 quintals of poppy husk, 12.56 lakh tablets/capsules/injections/vials of pharma opioids from across the state.

Marijuana enters Punjab through Himachal Pradesh, while opium and poppy husk come from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

Being situated near the Golden Crescent crossroads (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran), also called the 'Triangle of Death', Punjab is a lucrative market for drug gangs.

Ironically, it doesn't produce opium, cannabis or their derivatives nor does it manufacture psychotropic drugs. Punjab's 'chitta', a synthetic heroin derivative, has upended the lives of people across class, gender, age and place.

Punjab alone accounts for over one-fifth of the total recoveries of heroin in the country. Opium is smuggled into Punjab from Sri
Ganganagar and Hanumangarh districts in Rajasthan and Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir.

Heroin is smuggled into India through Pakistan. More than 9,500 cases have been registered and 13,000 arrested under the NDPA Act by the Punjab Police this year so far.

Synthetic drugs such as amphetamine and ecstasy come from Baddi in Himachal Pradesh and Delhi, said an official.

The 'Udta Punjab' scenario is reflected in a study by the Institute for Development and Communications, Chandigarh, which concluded that 75.8 per cent of the surveyed addicts lived in the border districts and were aged between 15-35 years.

For over a decade, the Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal pummeled each other on the state's drug crisis.

The BSF was also dragged into the fight and 'narco politics' became a term of reference in the state's twisted drug vocabulary.

In 2014, a retired IPS officer claimed that many politicians were involved in the racket either directly or through their cohorts with police backing.

Nowadays, drug runners are innovating new ways to avoid detection.

Narcotics are concealed in onion-laden trucks bound for Punjab from Gujarat or packed along with cumin seeds to suppress the smell.

--IANS
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Noida, Dec 17 (IANS) Drug gangs from Nepal and other routes have been targeting students in Delhi-NCR.

In October, Gautam Budhha Nagar's Special Team and Knowledge Park police arrested three accused while exposing illegal drug supply by foreign nationals.

Police recovered 65 grams of Methamphetamine Crystal of MDMA category from their possession, worth Rs 12 lakhs in the international market.

The police arrested several gangs who have been running the racket in collaboration with local miscreants.

All the said gangs have connections abroad, said top police officials.

According to sources, the special operation team arrested three foreign nationals identified as Oladele Jimoh, Azuh Daniel Nwachinemere and Collins Tabugbo Odimba, who supplied illegal drugs in Delhi-NCR at exorbitant rates.

It has been reported that the majority of these gangs reached the national capital on a student visa and engaged in drug supply.

The police said that mostly Nigerian people come to India disguised as students and expanded their business in Delhi.

The police has been actively engaged in putting efforts to thwart their main supply and to break their nexus.

A senior officer of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), on condition of anonymity, said that the extensive rise of the drug gangs indicated failure on part of the system, for instance of the corrupt local policemen who helped the suppliers.

He underlined that the fact that it took such a less amount of time for the foreign nationals to establish a big business in the capital, implied delinquency of the people in the system.

He added that despite the alertness of the departments in Delhi NCR, the drug gangs benefit from some present flaws.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Dec 17 (IANS) India is playing a significant role in ensuring the world is on track to meeting many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for children, said Cynthia McCaffrey, the UNICEF India Representative.

She made the remark in an interview while speaking on vhild rights, the current situation in India and other topics.

Here are some of the excerpts from the interview:

Q: As per the National Family Health Survey (2019-21), 23.3 per cent of girls in India marry before the age of 18. What is UNICEF doing to address this?

A: India plays a significant role in ensuring the world is on track to meeting many of the SDGs for children -- ending child marriage being one of the most urgent, and an accelerator for better multidimensional outcomes for girls. I am, therefore, pleased to note that India has made critical progress by halving the numbers between 2005-6 and today.

UNICEF is working in 15 states through effective partnerships with governments, the private sector, civil society organisations, academia, religious influencers as well as communities through interventions that empower adolescents for ending child marriage and other harmful practices and build on progress made in recent years. The adolescent girl is a core priority for UNICEF in India, especially under our new Country Programme for 2023-2027. We believe in the future where all girls are empowered to exercise their rights and make informed choices about their lives, and thus, our work has focused not only on empowering adolescent girls, transforming communities they live in, converging with governments to provide them with better opportunities, among others.

Our work on preventing child marriage spans different types of support -- life skills for adolescents, transforming harmful gender norms, and building capacity to prevent child marriages, but this work is really the sum total of school enrolment for girls, building a robust child protection framework, quality education, empowering families, and gender transformative nutrition, basic services and social protection. Continued investments and attention to this will ensure we are on track to meet the SDG target of ending child marriage by 2030.

Q: How is UNICEF addressing the issues of adolescents and children?

A: UNICEF is supporting the Government of India, and working closely with the private sector, NGOs, communities and youth and children themselves towards learning and skill development of young people, on child protection, and on ensuring all children have equal access to safe and resilient basic services, including healthy diets, health care, water, and sanitation.

We are privileged to support and be witness to some of the biggest government flagship programmes on nutrition, water, protecting and educating the girl child, and others. Our work is aligned to the core priorities and vision of the government and children of India for 2047, particularly the work being led by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development.

On adolescent empowerment, a key multi-stakeholder coalition that we are incubating in India is YuWaah or Generation Unlimited that is working to connect young people with education, learning, training or employment and has reached over 40 million young people in India in three years. We also leverage technology, for instance, U-Report India is a youth engagement mobile platform by UNICEF, which has over 2 million enrolments. It aims to strengthen community-led development and citizen engagement that allows young people to speak out via WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct Message and Telegram through polls, quizzes, and resource bots.

Q: What are some key interventions that UNICEF India has undertaken on the issue of child marriage in the country?

A: UNICEF India's key interventions focus on working with government and partners to build a conducive and equitable environment to promote the right of adolescents to delay marriage by engaging communities and key influencers using social behaviour change
(SBC) communication to address gender norms that lead to child marriage. Additionally, we work with systems to deliver critical services to adolescents and to impart adolescents with life skills and career readiness to plan their future pathways. Education and learning are essential interventions, so UNICEF also works with the government to enable children to continue their schooling by linking them to social protection programmes and promoting their participation and civic engagement through various on-ground and online platforms. Under the Global Program to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage (GPECM), we work with UNFPA jointly on these interventions.

Q: The theme of World Children's Day this year is Sports and Gender Inclusion. How are you linking sports with child rights?

A: Both India and UNICEF understand that sports is so much more than a path to medals when it comes to children and adolescents. It is a force multiplier for their physical and mental health and for creating inclusive spaces where children can feel a sense of belonging beyond the barriers of their place of birth, identity, and social circumstances. Sports also help shatter gendered stereotypes and harmful norms by giving girls an avenue to be bold, loud, confident, visible, and see themselves as leaders and team players together with boys.

The playing of sports is child rights in action, whether it is at the national and state levels, or in school, or in children's informal games in their neighbourhoods in villages and cities. It is an arena which policy makers and the development sector can use to amplify important child rights agendas and messages, including dismantling discrimination against girls or children with disabilities, bringing children together across linguistic and other community divides, and even complementing children's education with the soft skills, strategic thinking, and lessons in leadership sports imparts.

And finally, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty that India adopted early and champions through its standard setting work for children, recognises the right of every child to rest, leisure and play, making it clear that sport is an avenue for child rights, the right to play is a right in itself.

Q: What is your message for Every child in India in sync with Children's Day?

A: Our message for World Children's Day 2022 reinforces the shared commitment of India and UNICEF, that every child deserves to feel celebrated and has the right to bE included and protected. Every child has the right to be heard. And we can all join hands -- families, the public and private sector, individuals, and children, to support the right of all children to have equal opportunities for a better today, and a brighter tomorrow. In this, we see a big role for sports, both as an instrument of public policy, and a social movement occurring in schools and neighbourhoods.

Additionally, this World Children's Day, we recognise India's transformative generation of almost half a billion children, who through their sheer creative potential and civic voice can shape the development trajectory of the world UNICEF India is proud to join India's children and youth alongside the government of India in marking not only a strong process of children's recovery from the long pandemic that India has led so ably, but also commemorating India's landmark achievements for children, some of which UNICEF has had the privilege of supporting over the last seven decades.

--IANS
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Washington, Dec 17 (IANS) NASA has launched the first-ever global satellite mission that will observe nearly all water on Earth's surface, measuring the height of water in the planet's lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and the ocean.

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) spacecraft atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Friday.

"Warming seas, extreme weather, more severe wildfires -- these are only some of the consequences humanity is facing due to climate change," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

"The climate crisis requires an all-hands-on-deck approach, and SWOT is the realisation of a long-standing international partnership that will ultimately better equip communities so that they can face these challenges," Nelson added.

The satellite was built by NASA and the French space agency Centre National d'Atudes Spatiales (CNES). The SWOT spacecraft also has contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency.

The satellite will measure the height of water in freshwater bodies and the ocean on more than 90 per cent of Earth's surface.

This information will provide insights into how the ocean influences climate change; how a warming world affects lakes, rivers, and reservoirs; and how communities can better prepare for disasters, such as floods, said the US space agency.

SWOT will cover the entire Earth's surface between 78 degrees south and 78 degrees north latitude at least once every 21 days, sending back about one terabyte of unprocessed data per day.

"We're eager to see SWOT in action,a said Karen St. Germain, NASA Earth Science Division director. aceThis satellite embodies how we are improving life on Earth through science and technological innovations".

SWOT measurements will also help researchers, policymakers, and resource managers better assess and plan for things, including floods and droughts.

By providing information on where the water is -- where it's coming from and where it's going -- researchers can improve flood projections for rivers and monitor drought effects on lakes and reservoirs.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Dec 15 (IANS) The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Bill, 2022, which seeks to amend the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950, for its application in Tamil Nadu.

The Order lists the tribal communities deemed to be Scheduled Tribes in states and Union Territories. The legislation includes Narikoravan and Kurivikkaran communities in the list of Scheduled Tribes in Tamil Nadu.

Responding to the discussion on the bill in the lower house, Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda said that the government was concerned about the uplift of the poorest of the poor and wants to provide governance coupled with social justice to them.

He said that the government has made an effort to reach out to a community of about 27,000 population, and this explains its good intentions.

Munda allayed concerns about scholarships for tribals, saying that there would be no restrictions and the government will consider all applications.

He also said that the expenditure on scholarships has been increased.

Several members took part in the discussion on the bill, including Trinamool Congress' Saugata Ray, Shiv Sena's Vinayak Raut and BSP's Malook Nagar among others.

--IANS
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London, Dec 12 (IANS) An Indian-origin policewoman in the UK has been found guilty of gross misconduct for fabricating a story about workplace transphobia during an appraisal interview for promotion.

Sergeant Sarah Srivastava lied about colleagues discriminating against a transgender officer and how she took steps to challenge their behaviour, the News Times UK reported.

Srivastava was slammed for bringing "discredit to the police service" and undermining "public confidence" in the force by the West Midlands Police's attorney during the misconduct hearing.

"I am sorry for lying, it was stupid. I'm caught up in the moment," she was quoted as saying by News Times UK.

The disciplinary panel noted that Srivastava had "violated three standards of professional conduct and was guilty of serious misconduct".

She was given a final written warning after the hearing.

According to the report, Srivastava expected to be promoted to Serious Organized Crime Unit after 27 years of service.

The interviewer asked her for an example of "how you consider a range of values and needs when making a decision that affects a group".

Srivastava then claimed she had challenged a colleague, who made a transphobic comment to an officer and then got them to apologise for it.

However, her lie was caught when the interviewer, a detective inspector, came to her workplace and insisted on speaking directly to the transgender officer.

Terrified of being exposed, Srivastava told the detective that she had "prettified" the story during the interview.

But after further questioning, she finally admitted to cooking-up the whole story.

--IANS
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Stockholm, Dec 12 (IANS) More than two months after the first Nord Stream gas leak was reported, methane levels are still elevated and may pose a threat to the ecosystem, researchers at a Swedish university said.

Research has shown that "a significant part of the methane gas that leaked from the pipelines on the bottom of the Baltic Sea did not rise into the atmosphere. Instead, it dissolved in the water and spread with the currents," the University of Gothenburg said in a statement on Sunday.

"During the first two weeks, we saw extremely high levels of methane, almost too high for our sensors to measure and probably up to a hundred times higher than normal. Only now are we seeing a decrease back to normal levels, and even yet, we still sometimes see patches of very high methane," said Bastien Queste, an oceanographer at the university.

The research was done in cooperation with the Swedish marine research foundation Voice of the Ocean. Researchers deployed underwater robots to make continuous measurements and the data was sent to researchers through satellite, Xinhua news agency reported.

"That large amounts of methane dissolved in the water will probably affect marine life," Thomas Dahlgren, a marine biologist at the university's Department of Marine Sciences, said.

His theory is that the rapid decline of methane is due to it being digested by bacteria, something that would lead to overfertilisation and ocean acidification.

"That is what happened after a similar leak in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010," Dahlgren added.

The pipelines contained around 778 million cubic metre of methane when the pipelines were damaged, reported the Danish Energy Agency.

--IANS
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London, Dec 11 (IANS) Beijing's abrupt dismantling of zero-Covid controls has been welcomed by economists, even as the country braces itself for the human impact of letting the disease spread through a vulnerable population, media reports said.

The leadership's abrupt U-turn on how it handles the pandemic appears to have been triggered by protests against controls that began last month, a nationwide show of discontent on a scale China had not seen in decades, The Guardian reported.

Nearly one in five young people in cities are unemployed. Small and medium businesses have been particularly badly hit by the uncertainty, and the impact of unpredictable and often long-lasting shutdowns of entire cities.

But almost no one has been exempt. The founder of Foxconn, a key Apple supplier, had warned Beijing that controls threatened China's place in the global supply chain, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The IMF's Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, welcomed the "decisive" steps by Chinese authorities in "recalibrating Covid policies", and said they could boost the regional international economy.

"This can be very good for the Chinese people and economy, and also good for Asia and the world economy," she said after a summit in China's eastern Huangshan city. Premier Li Keqiang, who hosted the discussions, had conspicuously abandoned masks and social distancing, The Guardian reported.

On social media, public information videos showed smiling men and women taking off the face coverings that have been compulsory for years.

It was a whiplash-inducing reversal from years of messaging that the only way to stay safe was to avoid Covid, through extreme lockdown measures if necessary. For years, an increasingly fierce system of controls held increasingly infectious strains of disease at bay.

Medical experts say that was a wasted window of opportunity to protect the population and prepare the healthcare system for a wave of sick patients, The Guardian reported.

Georgieva also called for more vaccination and a quick expansion of options for medical treatment, to prepare for the wave of infections that will inevitably follow opening up.

The big challenge facing the leadership now is whether it can limit case numbers and deaths. China is an ageing country, with vaccination and booster rates lagging far behind what is needed to limit severe illness.

Only 40 per cent of people over 80, who are particularly vulnerable, have received their booster shots. And almost all of them will have got the domestically developed vaccine, which is less effective and long-lasting than Western alternatives, The Guardian reported.

Between 1.3 and 2.1 million lives could be at risk, a study by health analytics company Airfinity found. It based models on the impact of an outbreak earlier this year in Hong Kong, which also has an elderly population and low vaccination take-up.

Allowing the disease to spread at the start of winter in the northern hemisphere, when other respiratory diseases are circulating and people are crammed indoors, adds to the risks, The Guardian reported.

Those factors could mean a bumpy road ahead for China. If health services are overwhelmed, it may have to resort to the "rollercoaster" of temporary lockdowns that most western countries went through until they had boosted vaccination rates.

--IANS
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Shimla, Dec 11 (IANS) Himachal Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri is a journalist-turned-politician.

Born on October 9, 1962, at Gondpur village in Haroli tehsil in Una district, he did a postgraduate diploma in public relations and advertising after M.Sc. (Mathematics). He is married to Simmi Agnihotri and has one daughter.

He worked as a senior correspondent in many newspapers for almost 15 years. He remained as a Member of Press Accreditation Committee of the Himachal government, the State Press Advisory Committee, the Press Gallery Committee State Legislative Assembly, and the Government Pahari Language Committee.

Besides, he was the General Secretary of the Press Club of Shimla, and the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee and the Media Cell HPCC Himachal Chairman.

Agnihotri was elected to the state Assembly in March 2003 for the first time, and re-elected in 2007, 2012, and 2017.

He also remained Chief Parliamentary Secretary and the Chairman of Housing Board from March 2003 to August 18, 2005.

He was the Industries Minister with additional charge of Labour and Employment, Parliamentary Affairs, Information and Public Relations from December 25, 2012, to December 20, 2017.

He was re-elected to the thirteenth Vidhan Sabha in 2017 and elected as Congress Legislature Party leader on January 2018.

He was also nominated as a Member of the Business Advisory Committee during this period.

Agnihotri was re-elected to the 14th Vidhan Sabha for the fifth term in December 2022 from the Haroli constituency and sworn in as the Deputy Chief Minister on Sunday.

--IANS
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