The Ganges River is experiencing its worst crisis in 1,300 years, which could have far-reaching socio-economic consequences and exacerbate relations between India and Pakistan over the issue of water resource distribution, Phys.org writes, citing a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar and the University of Arizona have found that the current drying of the Ganges from 1991 to 2020 is 76% more severe than the previous worst drought in the 16th century. The river has become drier overall, with droughts occurring more frequently and lasting longer.
The main reason is anthropogenic impact, in particular the warming of the Indian Ocean and atmospheric pollution from industrial and transport aerosols, which weaken the summer monsoon.
To reconstruct the flow over 1,300 years (700–2012 AD), scientists used tree ring data from the Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas, combining it with modern observations and verifying it against documented droughts and famines.
The Ganges is a key source of drinking water, agriculture, and industry for more than 600 million people in India. The deepening water crisis could directly affect relations between India and Pakistan, as the countries already have long-standing disputes over the distribution of river flows under the 1960 Indus Water Treaty.
Pakistan has repeatedly warned about threats to its water supply due to Indian hydropower projects. The worsening shortage of the Ganges and related changes in other river basins could create new sources of tension between the countries.
The authors of the study call for
improved climate modeling to account for the regional impact of human activity,
the development of new adaptive water management strategies to avoid large-scale shortages.
The Ganges River has historically played not only an economic but also a cultural and religious role in South Asia. At the same time, access to water resources in the region is already the subject of geopolitical competition. Increased climate risks could make this issue another factor in the confrontation between India and Pakistan.
During a telephone conversation with Brazilian Special Assistant to the President for International Affairs Celso Amorim, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi exchanged views on the “crisis in Ukraine,” with Wang noting that “the process of resolving the crisis is now at a decisive stage,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
“Russia and Ukraine have taken an important step forward by starting negotiations. The crisis settlement process is now at a decisive stage,” he said.
The head of the foreign ministry added that China and Pakistan can continue to maintain communication and make joint efforts to promote the “Friends of Peace” group with the aim of further bringing together the consensus of the global South on “ceasing fire, end the war, convince people of the need for peace, and promote negotiations to play their role in the political settlement of the crisis.”
The crisis in the U.S. banking industry has led to a bubble in the segment of money market funds, writes MarketWatch referring to the report of Bank of America Corp.
According to analysts at the bank, over the past four weeks, assets under management of money market funds have grown by $300 billion – more than $5.1 trillion.
In addition, the bank’s experts point to the largest weekly inflows in money market investments since March 2020, the largest six-week inflows in US Treasuries in history and the largest outflows from the investment grade bond market since October 2022.
There was a surge in assets under money market funds in 2008 and 2020. However, at that time, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) was lowering interest rates, not raising them. On March 22, the U.S. regulator reportedly raised the federal funds rate by 25 basis points.
“The stock and bond markets want too much of a rate cut and not enough of a recession,” BofA analysts said.
To prevent crisis processes in the dairy industry of Ukraine, it is necessary to adopt a national program for the development of dairy farming and milk processing industry, the implementation of which will allow increasing the number of cows, production and processing of milk by 2030, Head of the Union of Dairy Enterprises of Ukraine Vadym Chaharovsky said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
“It is necessary to adopt a national program for the development of dairy farming and milk processing industry. We have already developed a concept for this program, and its main indicators are as follows: an increase in the number of cows to 2.3 million heads, an increase in milk output to 10 million tonnes, it is real, not the figure that our statistics gives, the growth of milk processing up to 8 million tonnes, while last year we processed 3.5 million tonnes,” the head of the union said.
According to him, the industry can achieve such indicators if it receives UAH 45 billion of government support for the period 2021-2030, similar to the practice existing in other countries.
At a press conference, Head of the Supervisory Board of CJSC Kulykivske Moloko (Kulykivka, Chernihiv region) Anatoliy Didur said that Ukrainian dairy products are uncompetitive and are being squeezed out of the Ukrainian market by imported ones, mainly produced by the EU. According to him, EUR 69 billion will be provided by the EU to the dairy industry support program for 2021-2027, and an increase in government support for Ukrainian milk producers and processors could increase the competitiveness of Ukrainian products.
In addition, the head of the union said that to overcome the crisis in the industry, it is necessary to conduct a special investigation into the growth of imports of dairy products to Ukraine, as well as introduce retaliatory safeguard measures against its exports from Belarus, which in 2016 joined the embargo imposed by the Russian Federation on the Ukrainian dairy products.
Chaharovsky said that milk producers and processors need a number of laws to be passed by parliament to stimulate the development of the dairy industry.
“It is necessary to amend the laws on quality and safety, where to define milk falsification as food fraud, and amend the Criminal Code, which criminalizes the falsification of dairy products,” Chaharovsky said.
He also noted the need to adopt a law on the main provisions of food trade, which provides for a fair distribution of the added value created by milk processing enterprises by the state, as well as the abolition of the current law on milk and dairy products.
“We need to help MPs in the near future to adopt bill No. 5425-d, which will return 20% VAT on dairy raw materials. It is also necessary to amend bill No. 5600 regarding household land plots, because in our opinion, its adoption will force the villagers keeping cattle to cut this livestock, because they will not be able to procure feed for themselves,” the head of the union said.
In addition, Chaharovsky announced the need to unite all public industry associations into one powerful lobbying organization.
“The practice, when multidisciplinary organizations lobbied and pushed some bills, ended. It showed that some laws were adopted against the wishes of the dairy industry. Therefore, we declare today that we will create a powerful organization that will lobby for the interests of our industry,” Chaharovsky said.
Allegations of the existence of a crisis of confidence between the leadership of the United States and Ukraine do not correspond to reality, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleh Nikolenko said.
“Allegations of the existence of a crisis of confidence between the leadership of the United States and Ukraine do not correspond to reality,” Nikolenko said in response to an inquiry from Yevropeiska Pravda (European Truth).
The speaker supported the recent statements from the US Embassy in Ukraine, where they promised that Joe Biden would call Volodymyr Zelensky soon, noting that the United States did not put forward any prerequisites for such negotiations.
“Earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, and now the US Embassy in Kyiv, has clearly announced the preparation of a telephone conversation between the leaders of the two countries without any preconditions. There are no grounds to question the strategic nature of the partnership between Ukraine and the United States,” Nikolenko said.
He also accused certain public figures, without calling names, of “inventing contrived stories” about relationship problems. “There is a crisis of public assessments of some Ukrainian figures,” the diplomat said.
On Tuesday, July 14, at 10.30, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency will host a press conference on the subject: “Socio-Economic Consequences of the Crisis, Ukrainian Citizens’ Expectations before Municipal Elections” to present a sociology survey conducted by the companies Active Group and Expert Club. Participating will be Head of the Active Group sociology company Oleksandr Pozniy, Co-founder of the Expert Club, political scientist Danylo Bohatyriov, political expert Valentyn Haidai (8/5a Reitarska Street). The broadcast will be available on the YouTube channel of Interfax-Ukraine. Admission requires press accreditation on the spot.
