Month: January 2012

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Polio Eradication in India: To the Verge of Victory – and Beyond

CSIS Schaffer_PolioIndia_110

India’s struggle against major health challenges in the past few decades has been a white-knuckle ride, with India illustrating some of the best as well as the worst of the health problems of the developing world.

But now – even though those closest to the effort are unwilling to declare victory prematurely – there is a good chance that India’s polio eradication campaign will tell a more inspiring story. In 1988, when the World Health Assembly formally adopted polio eradication as a global goal, WHO data recorded 23,800 cases of polio in India. At this writing, it has been a year since the last case was identified, in West Bengal on January 13, 2011.

Read full report, published by CSIS January 24, 2012.

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India and the Nonproliferation System

India and the United States have been at odds over nuclear issues for more than three decades, and yet both countries’ interests are powerfully affected by the spread of nuclear weapons. The Working Group on an Expanded Non- Proliferation System, chaired by Teresita Schaffer and Joan Rohlfing, President of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, set out to answer the question, “What would be necessary to have India and the United States work together as active participants in the international non-proliferation system?” The working group, which consisted of a dozen members from India and the United States, with each group drawn about equally from nuclear experts and senior foreign policy figures, recommended bringing India into the four major multilateral export control groups; its report recommends a number of other ways to enhance India-U.S. cooperation and help protect the world from nuclear dangers.

Read full report on NTI web site.

Follow links to the group’s working papers. (click on drop-down menu at top of page)

Read summary of seminar on the report and next steps in reducing nuclear dangers, at Brookings, January 5, 2012.