On 5^th November 2001 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring the from that year onward 6^th November would be designated as The International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. Though mankind has always counted its war casualties in terms of dead and wounded soldiers and civilians, destroyed cities and livelihoods, the environment has often remained the unpublicized victim of war.Water wells have been polluted, crops torched, forests cut down, soils poisoned, and animals killed to gain military advantage.

Furthermore, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has found that over the last 60 years, at least 40 percent of all internal conflicts have been linked to the exploitation of natural resources, whether high-value resources such as timber, diamonds, gold and Oil, or scarce resources such as fertile land and water. Conflicts involving natural resources have also been found to be twice as likely to relapse.

The United Nations attaches great importance to ensuring that action on the environment is part of conflict prevention,peacekeeping and peacebuilding strategies – because there can be no durable peace if the natural resources that sustain livelihoods and ecosystems are destroyed.

Kundhavi Kadiresanwas appointed as the Assistant Director (AD) of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific.

She was appointed at the post by FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva and succeeds Hiroyuki Konuma who has retired.

United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has adopted text-based negotiations on UN Security Council (UNSC) reforms. It will set the stage for talks on the UNSC reforms issue at its 70th session.

The draft text-based negotiations include questions on equitable representation and increase in the membership of UNSC.

India has welcomed the UNGA’s decision to carry forward the text and described the development as significant and historic. Now it needs to be adopted by consensus by all UN Member States in order reflect of the broad support of the international community to move forward on this issue.

India is looking forward to early commencement of text-based negotiations with a view to securing concrete outcomes during the upcoming 70th Session of the UNGA.