Sunday, December 6, 2015

How many people have ever lived on earth?

How many people have ever lived on earth?

Assuming that we start counting from about 50,000 B.C., the time when modern Homo sapiens appeared on the earth (and not from 700,000 B.C. when the ancestors of Homo sapiens appeared, or several million years ago when hominids were present), taking into account that all population data are a rough estimate, and assuming a constant growth rate applied to each period up to modern times, it has been estimated that a total of approximately 106 billion people have been born since the dawn of the human race, making the population currently alive roughly 6% of all people who have ever lived on planet Earth. Others have estimated the number of human beings who have ever lived to be anywhere from 45 billion to 125 billion, with most estimates falling into the range of90 to 110 billion humans.
YearPopulation
50,000 B.C.2
8000 B.C.5,000,000
1 A.D.300,000,000
1200450,000,000
1650500,000,000
1750795,000,000
18501,265,000,000
19001,656,000,000
19502,516,000,000
19955,760,000,000
20026,215,000,000
Number who have ever been born106,456,367,669
World population in mid-20026,215,000,000
Percent of those ever born who are living in 20025.8
The above estimate shows  that about 5.8 percent of all people ever born are alive today.  That’s actually a fairly large percentage when you think about it. Source: Population Reference Bureau estimates.

Number of people who have ever lived

Estimates of  “the total number of people who have ever lived” published in the first decade of the 21st century range approximately from 100 to 115 billion.

An estimate of the total number of people who have ever lived was prepared by Carl Haub of the Population Reference Bureau in 1995 and subsequently updated in 2002; the updated figure was approximately 106 billion. Haub characterized this figure as an estimate that required “selecting population sizes for different points from antiquity to the present and applying assumed birth rates to each period”. Given an estimated global population of 6.2 billion in 2002, it could be inferred that about 6% of all people who had ever existed were alive in 2002.
In the 1970s it was a popular belief that 75% of all the people who had ever lived were alive in the 1970s, which would have put the total number of people who ever lived as of the 1970s as less than the number of people alive today. This view was eventually debunked.
The number is difficult to estimate for the following reasons:
* The set of specific characteristics that define a human is a matter of definition, and it is open to debate which members of early Homo sapiens and earlier or related species of Homo to include. See in this regard also Sorites paradox. Even if the scientific community reached wide consensus regarding which characteristics distinguished human beings, it would be nearly impossible to pinpoint the time of their first appearance to even the nearest millennium because the fossil record is simply too sparse. However, the limited size of population in early times compared to its recent size makes this source of uncertainty of limited importance.
* Robust statistical data only exist for the last two or three centuries. Until the late 18th century, few governments had ever performed an accurate census. In many early attempts, such as Ancient Egypt and in the Persian Empire the focus was on counting merely a subset of the people for purposes of taxation or military service.[108] All claims of population sizes preceding the 18th century are estimates, and thus the margin of error for the total number of humans who have ever lived should be in the billions, or even tens of billions of people.
* A critical item for the estimation is life expectancy. Using a figure of twenty years and the population estimates above, one can compute about fifty-eight billion. Using a figure of forty yields half of that. Life expectancy varies greatly when taking into account children who died within the first year of birth, a number very difficult to estimate for earlier times. Haub states that “life expectancy at birth probably averaged only about ten years for most of human history”[106] His estimates for infant mortality suggest that around 40% of those who have ever lived did not survive beyond one year. [ Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population ]

Estimated world population at various dates (in millions)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
YEARWORLD(IN MILLIONS)
70,000 BC< 0.015
10,000 BC1
9000 BC3
8000 BC5
7000 BC7
6000 BC10
5000 BC15
4000 BC20
3000 BC25
2000 BC35
1000 BC50
500 BC100
AD 1200
AD 1000310
AD 1750791
AD 1800978
AD 18501,262
AD 19001,650
AD 19502,519
AD 19552,756
AD 19602,982
AD 19653,335
AD 19703,692
AD 19754,068
AD 19804,435
AD 19854,831
AD 19905,263
AD 19955,674
AD 20006,070
AD 20056,454
JUL. 1, 20086,707

Mystery of the Great Pyramid missing capstone

When you look up at the Great Pyramid, it’s apex is missing. It is flap topped and not pointed like a pyramid should be.  Usually, when a pyramid was constructed, the top part, or capstone (also called top-stone), was the last thing to be placed on it. It was considered the most important part of the pyramid and was made of special stone or even gold. The capstone was usually highly decorated.
Was the great pyramid always without a capstone or was it stolen, destroyed, etc? No one knows but the accounts of visitors to the pyramid from the ancient past (as far back as the time of Christ) always reported that the pyramid lacked a capstone. It is possible that it was never finished. Another possibility is that capstones were sometimes made of gold and maybe the first thing looted. The only problem is that this would be a very large capstone. If you climbed to the top, you could walk around very freely on the pyramid as many have done. It is about 30 feet in each direction. Thus, this capstone would have been huge and weighed a tremendous amount. Also on the summit you would see something that looks like a mast or flagpole. Actually it was placed there by two astronomers in 1874 to show where the Pyramid’s actual apex would have been if finished.

On the back of a dollar bill, you can see a pyramid with a flat top. No one has been able to explain why the Great Pyramid would have been built without a capstone.
This is an interesting story associated with a visit to the top of the great pyramid. Many tourists have climbed to the top, which is not an easy journey. One such person was Sir Siemen’s, a British inventor. He climbed to the top with his Arab guides. One of his guides called attention to the fact that when he raised his hand with outspread fingers, he would hear an acute ringing noise. Siemen raised his index finger and felt a distinct prickling sensation. He also received an electric shock when he tried to drink from a bottle of wine that he had brought with him. Being a scientist, Siemen than moistened a newspaper and wrapped it around the wine bottle to convert it into a Leyden jar (an early form of a capacitor). When he held it above his head, it became charged with electricity. Sparks then were emitted from the bottle. One of the Arab guides got frightened and thought Siemen was up to some witchcraft and attempted to seize Siemen’s companion. When Siemen’s noticed this, he pointed the bottle towards the Arab and gave him such a shock that it knocked the Arab to the ground almost rendering him unconscious. When he recovered, he took off down the pyramid shouting loudly. What kind of natural phenomena on the top of the Great Pyramid could produce such an electo-static effect? It would be interesting to conduct additional physics experiments on the top of the Great Pyramid.

No Capstone for the Great Pyramid

by a fellow researcher
In an unexpected announcement the Egyptian government cancelled plans to cap the great pyramid as part of their millenium celebration.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – In an apparent nod to public opinion, the government on Thursday, December 16, 1999 canceled its plan to cap the Great Pyramid in gold for the millennium celebrations.
Egypt had planned to usher in the New Year by affixing a gold-encased capstone on the Great Pyramid, built as a tomb for King Cheops about 4,500 years ago.
The 30-foot high cap was to be lowered by helicopter at the stroke of midnight Dec. 31, making the broken pyramid whole again, if only for a night.
Culture Minister Farouk Hosni gave no reason for backing off the plan, but said the decision was made despite technical advice that it would not have damaged the monument, Egypt’s Middle East News Agency reported.
Egypt’s millennium celebrations feature a 12-hour concert at the foot of the Giza pyramids with 1,000 performers.
Egypt, whose recorded history goes back 6,000 years, is promoting the celebration as the start of its seventh millennium.
One of the reasons for this refusal to allow the capstone to be placed on the Great Pyramid is reported to be a fear of terrorists. It appears there were some fears terrorists might shoot down the helicopter as it was lifting the capstone in place thereby damaging the pyramid. Is that the real reason? There are also rumors that the crash of Egyptian Flight 990 is somehow involved in this decision. Could there be people so in terror of what will happen once the pyramid is capped that they would resort to sabotaging a passenger liner?
What kind of fears could cause such fears and such drastic action?
It is believed by some groups of people that the pyramid itself is a machine. A machine that would be turned on once the capstone was in place. A machine that by its very nature would boost the spiritual consciousness of planet Earth and its inhabitants by raising the vibrational levels. Considering the amount of research that has been conducted on pyramid energy and the number of books that have been written about the subject that idea isn’t so farfetched. The shape alone appears to have a power to alter natural substances.
Many people were looking forward to this capping. Now we will never know what the effects would have been, if any. Perhaps it is better that we don’t mess with unknown powers until we better understand them. Do we really know what power could have been unleashed or what power has been unleashed in the past. There may be good reasons why the capstone was removed.
We know from Edgar Cayces’ readings that Atlantis was destroyed by the misuse of power that came from crystals? Is it possible that the pyramid was part of this energy grid? If so the capstone could have been removed to prevent further destruction.
If the pyramid is a machine just waiting to be turned back on how do we know what its original functions were and how do we know it would still work as originally designed? Besides the capstone being removed there have been other changes. There has been tunneling in and around the pyramid as well as additions like electrical lighting. It is possible that any of these could have changed how the machine would operate and what the effects would be.
If the purpose in replacing the capstone was to turn on the machine it is possible some of these questions have occurred to those responsible for making the decisions. Since we have no way of knowing how this machine is supposed to function or even what parts of the pyramid would make up the machine we have no way to conduct tests to make sure the machine is working properly.
For those of us who were looking forward to seeing the capstone placed on the great pyramid we can only wait and hope that someday soon we will accumulate enough knowledge about the true nature of the pyramid to answer all these questions. In the meantime it may be best that we not rush into tampering with forces that we don’t understand.
The Masonic ritual which coincided with the 33.33 degree alignment of planet Mars from the perspective of Cairo at 12:19 AM, January 1, 2000 continued. This ritual can be looked at as an addition to the Masonic rituals page (Table of Coincidence).

 PS1 Note on the Pyramidion found at Dahshur

German excavator Rainer Stadelmann found [ near the Red Pyramid ] uninscribed limestone pyramidion (capstone). Broken in its fall, it has been painstakingly pieced together and now sites at the base of the pyramid. The capstone disclosed faces that slope at about 54 degrees – more than 10-degree difference from the slope of the Red Pyramid, its supposed location.
The significant discrepancy between the slope of the pyramidion found at Dahshur and the slope of the Red Pyramid, beside which it was found, suggests that this pyramidion might have been planned for another pyramid. Study of surviving pyramidia and the evidence provided by the other yramids in the area seem to point to the second stage of the-construction of the Bent Pyramid as its original destination. [ or perhaps the Great Pyramid? ]
In 1982, the expedition of the Deutsches Archäologisches lnstitut Kairo at Dahshur discovered fragments of an uninscribed limestone pyramidion among the debris surrounding the Red Pyramid1. Although still in pieces, the pyramidion immediately appeared to be steeper than the pyramid. The discrepancy was ascribed to a deliberate variation of the slope of the pyramid during construction, in order to make the uppermost part of the monument more visible from the  ground2. Since then, the fragments have been assembled and placed in front of the pyramid. The result of the reconstruction, however, raises questions about the relationship between this
pyramidion and the Red Pyramid.
Because of the large number of fragments and the generous use of plaster in the reconstruction, the surfaces of the pyramidion are slightly irregular. Nevertheless, at about 96 cm from the top, measured along the edge, it is possible to measure the breadth of the faces directly on the original pieces. They are about 96 cm  (3.1496 feet)wide, which means that the four faces were each equilateral triangles.
The pyramidia of Amenemhat lll (at Dahshur} and Khendjer, both in the Cairo Museum, show the same proportions, that is the length of the edge is equal to the length of the base 3.
The Egyptians measured the slope, which was called seked, as the horizontal displacement of the sloping face for a vertical drop of one cubit4. That is, they measured the number of cubits, palms and fingers from which the sloping side had ‘moved’ from a vertical line at the height of one cubit. Basically the Egyptians constructed a right-angled triangle: of the two catheti (i.e. the two sides at a right angle to one another), one was equal to one cubit, the other corresponded to the seked 5. In a pyramid, if edges and base have the same length, the four faces are four equilateral triangles resting on oblique planes inclined toward the vertical axis. The slope of such a pyramid can be measured as 54°30′, or a seked of 5 palms. Although it does not seem to have been a very regular piece altogether 6,  the pyramidion found at Dahshur appears to have shared these geometrical characteristics.
Of the casing of the pyramids of Amenemhat II I and Khendjer, only loose blocks survive and for both it was possible to ascertain that their slope was between 54o and 56o 7.
Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology   >  Vol. 85, 1999   >  Note on the Pyramidion
Interesting Facts: 
pi = 3.1416, 
Royal Egyptian Cubit = 0.524 m
3.1416 feet = 0.957 m
2x (0.957 / 0.524 ) = 2x  1.8263 = 3.6526 = 365.26 x 10-2
Number of days in a year: 365.25

PS2 Another Capstone Theory

The pyramidion (capstone) found near the Red Pyramid is nearly “96 cm from the top, measured along the edge“. This (and other capstones found in Egypt) suggests that Egyptians were not making huge capstones for their pyramids. Therefore assumption that missing capstone of the Great Pyramid was huge (30 feet at the base) is wrong. It is very likely that in addition to the missing pyramidion there is a layer of stones missing as well. Therefore the capstone was much smaller than the missing part of the pyramid.
To maintain perfect slope angle such a capstone would have to have identical proportions as the whole pyramid: 7:11. If we use the “Red Pyramid” capstone to estimate possible size of the capstone from the Great Pyramid, it seems reasonable to select 2 Royal Cubits (140th of the pyramid’s height)  for its height.  The capstone’s base in this case would be 3.14286 RC  (as the result of keeping the same scale and proportions as the GP) . This is very close approximation of “pi”.
The missing capstone of the Great Pyramid was very likely 2 Royal Cubits in height (3.4267 feet = 1.0475 m ) with square base of  3.1428 Royal Cubits (5.4 feet = 1.646 m).
Note:440/280 = 1.5714286   (3.14286 when multiplied by 2 ).
280/440 = 0.636363636363… (0.63  number with recurring decimal)

PS3  Great Seal of America Decoded?

The Eye in The Pyramid. 
On Raymond Mardyks’ website, (now unavailable), he decodes the Great Seal of America, which appears on every dollar bill. 
The Seal shows a 13-step pyramid with the date 1776 in Roman numerals, on it.
Just as the pyramid of Kukulkcan has 91 steps on each of the 4 sides, making 364 in all, plus the top level giving the number 365, the Great Seal pyramid also has an encoded calendrical meaning. Like some Maya pyramids, it has a date on it, but in the Gregorian calendar.  4 sides of 13 levels gives 52, which is the number of weeks in our year.However, 13 and 52 are also the key numbers in the Mayan calendar systems. 
 In the Great Cycle, there are 13 baktuns of 20 katuns each; each katun consists of 20 tuns, so there are 5200 tuns in the Great Cycle. There are also 52 haabs in a Calendar Round.  Some Mayan groups named cycles after end dates rather than beginning dates.  They would also have seen a series of 13 katuns as a significant cycle. 1776 was not only the year that the Declaration of Independence was signed (on the 4th of July), but was also a special year in the Mayan calendar. Just as the last katun in the Great Cycle ends in 2012, the first katun in the cycle of 13 was  ending in 1776. In fact, the katun ended 33 days before the signing.  So 1776 is the bottom level of the pyramid, where the date is actually inscribed – the top of the pyramid is therefore 2012.
Read More:

One Dollar Conspiracy

On the reverse of the american one-dollar bill is the All Seeing Eye within a triangle surrounded by a golden glory. The motto inscribed beneath the pyramid is “Novus Ordo Seclorum” which is Latin for “New Order of the Ages“, and synonymous with the “New World Order“. “Annuit cÅ“ptis” is taken from the Latin words annuo (nod, approve) and cÅ“pta (beginnings, undertakings).  “Annuit CÅ“ptis” is translated by the U.S. State Department, The U.S. Mint, and the U.S. Treasury as “He (God) has favored our undertakings.” (brackets in original).

Image © Copyright 2010 Michael Paukner. All Rights Reserved.

How many major races are there in the world?

How many major races are there in the world?

A human race is defined as a group of people with certain common inherited features that distinguish them from other groups of people. All men of whatever race are currently classified by the anthropologist or biologist as belonging to the one species, Homo sapiens.This is another way of saying that the differences between human races are not great, even though they may appear so, i.e. black vs white skin. All races of mankind in the world can interbreed because they have so much in common. All races share 99.99+% of the same genetic materials which means that division of race is largely subjective, and that the original 3-5 races were also probably just subjective descriptions as well.

The Major Divisions of the Human Race

Most anthropologists recognize 3 or 4 basic races of man in existence today. These races can be further subdivided into as many as 30 subgroups.
Ethnographic division into races from Meyers Konversationslexikon of 1885-90 is listing:
  • Caucasian races (Aryans, Hamites, Semites)
  • Mongolian races (northern Mongolian, Chinese and Indo-Chinese, Japanese and Korean, Tibetan, Malayan, Polynesian, Maori, Micronesian, Eskimo, American Indian),
  • Negroid races (African, Hottentots, Melanesians/Papua, “Negrito”, Australian Aborigine, Dravidians, Sinhalese)
Caucasion:
Skull: Dolicephalic(Long-Head),High forehead,Little supraobital development.
Face: Mainly Leptoproscopic( Narrow)Sometimes Meso- or even Euryproscopic, Neither Facial nor alveolar prognathism occurs except among some archaic peoples.
Nose:Long,narrow,high in both root and bridge.
Mongoloid:
Skull: High incidence of Brachycephaly(Short Round Head)
American Indians while Mongoloid are often Dolicephalic.
Foreheads slightly lower than that of the Caucasoid.
No Supraobital development.
Face: Wide and short, projecting cheek bones, Prognathism rare. Shovel shaped incisors common especialy in Asia.
Nose: Mesorine(Low and Broad in both root and bridge.
Negroid:
Skull: usually Dolicephalic, a small minority are Brachycephalic.
Forehead most often high, little supraobital development.
Face: Leproscopic (to a much lesser degree than the Caucasion), Prognathism common in most Negro populations.
Nose: Low & broad in root and bridge with characteristic depression at root.

Another popular division recognizes 4 major races

The world population can be divided into 4 major races, namelywhite/CaucasianMongoloid/AsianNegroid/Black, andAustraloid. This is based on a racial classification made by Carleton S. Coon in 1962. There is no universally accepted classification for “race”, however, and its use has been under fire over the last few decades. The United Nations, in a 1950 statement, opted to “drop the term ‘race’ altogether and speak of “ethnic groups”. In this case, there are more than 5,000 ethnic groups in the world,according to a 1998 study published in the Scientific American.

What is Race?

What is Race? When some people use the “race” they attach a biological meaning, still others use “race” as a socially constructed concept.  It is clear that even though race does not have a biological meaning, it does have a social meaning which has been legally constructed.
Biological Construction
By . . .”biological race,” I mean the view of race espoused by Judge Tucker, and still popular today, that there exist natural, physical divisions among humans that are hereditary, reflected in morphology, and roughly but correctly captured by terms like Black, White, and Asian (or Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid). Under this view, one’s ancestors and epidermis ineluctably determine membership in a genetically defined racial group. The connection between human physiognomy and racial status is concrete; in Judge Tucker’s words, every individual’s race has been “stampt” by nature. . . .Despite the prevalent belief in biological races, overwhelming evidence proves that race is not biological. Biological races like Negroid and Caucasoid simply do not exist. A newly popular argument among several scholars, is that races are wholly illusory, whether as a biological or social concept. Under this thinking, if there is no natural link between faces and races, then no connection exists.
There are no genetic characteristics possessed by all Blacks but not by non- Blacks; similarly, there is no gene or cluster of genes common to all Whites but not to non-Whites. One’s race is not determined by a single gene or gene cluster, as is, for example, sickle cell anemia. Nor are races marked by important differences in gene frequencies, the rates of appearance of certain gene types. The data compiled by various scientists demonstrates, contrary to popular opinion, that intra-group differences exceed inter-group differences. That is, greater genetic variation exists within the populations typically labeled Black and White than between these populations. This finding refutes the supposition that racial divisions reflect fundamental genetic differences.
Notice this does not mean that individuals are genetically indistinguishable from each other, or even that small population groups cannot be genetically differentiated. Small populations, for example the Xhosa or the Basques, share similar gene frequencies. However, differentiation is a function of separation, usually geographic, and occurs in gradations rather than across fractures.. .. . .   The notion that humankind can be divided along White, Black, and Yellow lines reveals the social rather than the scientific origin of race. The idea that there exist three races, and that these races are “Caucasoid,” “Negroid,” and “Mongoloid,” is rooted in the European imagination of the Middle Ages, which encompassed only Europe, Africa, and the Near East.. . Nevertheless, the history of science has long been the history of failed efforts to justify these social beliefs. Along the way, various minds tried to fashion practical human typologies along the following physical axes: skin color, hair texture, facial angle, jaw size, cranial capacity, brain mass, frontal lobe mass, brain surface fissures and convolutions, and even body lice. As one scholar notes, “[t]he nineteenth century was a period of exhaustive and–as it turned out–futile search for criteria to define and describe race differences.”. . . Attempts to define racial categories by physical attributes ultimately failed. By 1871, some leading intellectuals had recognized that even using the word “race” “was virtually a confession of ignorance or evil intent.” The genetic studies of the last few decades have only added more nails to the coffin of biological race. Evidence shows that those features usually coded to race, for example, stature, skin color, hair texture, and facial structure, do not correlate strongly with genetic variation. . .  The rejection of race in science is now almost complete. In the end, we should embrace historian Barbara Fields’s succinct conclusion with respect to the plausibility of biological races: “Anyone who continues to believe in race as a physical attribute of individuals, despite the now commonplace disclaimers of biologists and geneticists, might as well also believe that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy are real, and that the earth stands still while the sun moves.”
. . .  Unfortunately, few in this society seem prepared to fully relinquish their subscription to notions of biological race.. . .[including the] Congress and the Supreme Court. Congress’ anachronistic understanding of race is exemplified by a 1988 statute that explains that “the term ‘racial group’ means a set of individuals whose identity as such is distinctive in terms of physical characteristics or biological descent.”  The Supreme Court, although purporting to sever race from biology, also seems incapable of doing so. In Saint Francis College v. Al-Khazraji, the Court determined that an Arab could recover damages for racial discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. . . Despite a seeming rejection of biological race, Justice White [stated]:  “The Court of Appeals was thus quite right in holding that § 1981, ‘at a minimum,’ reaches discrimination against an individual ‘because he or she is genetically part of an ethnically and physiognomically distinctive subgrouping of homo sapiens.”‘. . . By adopting the lower court’s language of genetics and distinctive subgroupings, Justice White demonstrates the Court’s continued reliance on blood as a metonym for race. . . .In Metrobroadcasting v. FCC,  Justice Scalia again reveals the Court’s understanding of race as a matter of blood. During oral argument, Scalia attacked the argument that granting minorities broadcasting licenses would enhance diversity by blasting “the policy as a matter of ‘blood,’ at one point charging that the policy reduced to a question of ‘blood . . .  blood, not background and environment.”‘
Social Construction
. . .  I define a “race” as a vast group of people loosely bound together by historically contingent, socially significant elements of their morphology and/or ancestry. I argue that race must be understood as a sui generis social phenomenon in which contested systems of meaning serve as the connections between physical features, races, and personal characteristics. In other words, social meanings connect our faces to our souls. Race is neither an essence nor an illusion, but rather an ongoing, contradictory, self-reinforcing process subject to the macro forces of social and political struggle and the micro effects of daily decisions. . . Referents of terms like Black, White, Asian, and Latino are social groups, not genetically distinct branches of humankind.

What's behind the Indian Ocean's naval arms race?

The Indian Ocean is seeing a significant, high-tech naval buildup. In the past five years, India, Pakistan, Iran, South Africa, Indonesia and Australia have all enhanced their naval capabilities, despite the minimum risk of imminent conflict. At the same time, these powers are diplomatically supporting multilateral institutions such as the Indian Ocean Rim Association and the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium.
     It is fair to say that a stable balance of naval power exists in the Indian Ocean, despite the efforts of countries outside the region to acquire increased naval access, including the construction of dual-use facilities for civilian and naval operations. Examples include U.S. and U.K. naval bases in Bahrain, a French base in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and Chinese naval outposts at Gwadar, Pakistan, and Hambantota, Sri Lanka.
     Joint naval operations against piracy and terrorism have been an important feature of the presence of outside powers in the Indian Ocean. Regional powers have also participated in multilateral training exercises, such as the International Mine Countermeasures Exercise, a U.S.-led effort to improve naval security in the international waters of the Middle East.
Moving factors   
There are several reasons for the growth in regional naval power.
     First, geographical factors are forcing Indian Ocean countries to invest in naval capability to protect their sovereignty and safeguard national interests.
     Second, states need to exercise jurisdiction and control over maritime areas defined under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, such as continental shelves, exclusive economic zones, and contiguous and territorial waters. This factor has particularly influenced countries with large exclusive economic zones and/or boundary disputes.  
     The third reason is to undertake maritime policing operations against threats and challenges posed by violent nonstate actors, such as pirates, and the fourth is to work with and protect against the naval forces of the U.S., U.K., France and China that are deployed in the Indian Ocean.
     The fifth reason is a steadily growing awareness that naval forces are important instruments for political advantage and diplomacy, not just tools for security.
     Finally, some key countries in the region are seeking to develop offensive capabilities to guarantee that a favorable balance of power is maintained.
There is a wide disparity in the naval "order of battle" among Indian Ocean countries. Smaller nations, such as Sri Lanka and Kenya, have chosen to limit naval acquisitions to coastal security. Bigger players have broader capacities and strategies. India seeks power projection capabilities with the use of aircraft carriers, submarines and expeditionary vessels, and conducts complex operations across the sea-shore-air continuum.
Six key players   
At least six navies in the neighborhood merit attention. With over 150 ships, and nearly 50 warships and submarines under construction, India's navy is the largest in the Indian Ocean and a formidable force. India's Maritime Military Strategy sees the Indian Ocean region as the country's primary area of interest and operations, and the navy envisions long-range sustained operations supported by aircraft carriers and submarines.
     Pakistan's navy packs a strong punch and is a good example of a "lean and mean" force. Over the years, the country's naval planners have leveraged sea-denial capabilities built around submarines, along with anti-ship missiles and land attack cruise missiles, to limit India's naval power projection into Pakistan's littoral waters.
     The Iranian navy is the most powerful in the Gulf region and enjoys enormous numerical and firepower superiority over its neighbors. Iran regularly showcases new types of ships, submarines, and unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles that unambiguously exhibit its ability to deter potential enemies and project power in the region. Iran's naval order of battle supports its strategy of littoral warfare, particularly against the smaller Gulf navies, and asymmetric strategy against the more powerful forces of the U.S. and its allies that are deployed in the region.
     Among the East African Indian Ocean countries, the South African navy is better equipped than its regional counterparts. Although it has identified itself as the "Guardian of the Cape Sea Route," its focus has been on low-end maritime threats and challenges, as well as disaster response at sea.
     Australia's interests span the Pacific and the Indian oceans. It is a strong regional power and is building capability to project naval power in both bodies of water. Its naval inventory features submarines, surface combatants and expeditionary vessels. The Australian government plans to spend more than $65 billion on new vessels over the next 20 years.  
     In Jakarta, the government led by President Joko Widodo has highlighted the need for Indonesia to build a modern navy to protect national interests. The Indonesian navy is transforming itself into one with "green-water" coastal capabilities and is undertaking a variety of missions, including protection of commercial sea lanes and choke points.
Nuclearization   
The security dynamic in the Indian Ocean also has a nuclear dimension. India and Pakistan are nuclear powers and have developed naval capabilities to serve as the "third leg" of the nuclear triad, along with land and air.
     India's naval strategy envisages that conventional deterrence will prevail in normal circumstances. But should this fail, it can turn to nuclear deterrence. The navy operates one nuclear-propelled submarine, INS Chakra, and another,  the domestically built nuclear sub, the INS Arihant, will be ready in 2016. India plans to build two more nuclear submarines fitted with ballistic missiles and intends to fit short-range ballistic missiles on warships.
     Pakistan, meanwhile, has chosen to develop nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that can be launched by conventional submarines and warships. By placing a part of its nuclear arsenal on or under the sea, Pakistan hopes to obtain a notional conventional parity against the larger Indian navy.
     As a result, the emerging security scenario in the Indian Ocean presents complex challenges in both conventional and nuclear terms. While regional cooperation has prevailed, naval rivalry is intense, particularly in South Asia, where India and Pakistan are jostling for advantage. Both countries have given a high priority to nuclear weapons at sea to overcome a sense of insecurity. This has led to the permanent nuclearization of the Indian Ocean on top of the nuclear naval forces of the U.S., France, U.K. and China.
     This naval buildup, while somewhat offensive in nature, has not yet appeared to increase the odds of conflict. But even if the chances of war appear to be quite low, the competition between regional and outside powers presents major challenges that could change the Indian Ocean's security dynamic. The remedy lies in developing an inclusive functional mechanism for maritime cooperation, emphasizing safety and security as common goals under the aegis of multilateral institutions, such as the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium.
Vijay Sakhuja is director of the National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi. A former naval officer, he is the author of "Asian Maritime Power in the 21st Century" and co-author of "Climate Change and the Bay of Bengal."

So far yet so close to Paris, El Nino riles Indonesians

Indonesian soldiers wait for water pressure to return as they try to put out a peatland fire near Palangkaraya, central Kalimantan, Indonesia on Oct. 28. © Reuters
As global leaders gathered in Paris on Monday for the United Nations-sponsored summit on climate change, matters at the heart of the summit and global rallies demanding action from leaders were playing out on the other side of the world, in rain-soaked Indonesia.
     Southeast Asia's largest country has been coping with torrential rain since October, confounding the dire warnings from climate experts that, with the convergence of a drought-inducing El Nino phenomenon, the haze from peat fires across parts of Southeast Asia could continue until the end of the year.
After the downpours began, the smoldering fires that defied aerial water-bombing and the efforts of thousands of firefighters -- and prompted President Joko Widodo to dash home from his first U.S. visit as Indonesian leader on Oct. 28 -- were eventually extinguished.
     For more than two months from early September, the Indonesian regions of Sumatra and Kalimantan were blanketed in choking smoke, to the extent that the government was considering evacuating women and their children on an armada of naval landing craft. Smog had also drifted across the region, causing disruption in neighboring countries.
     As usual when these seasonal fires break out, Jakarta's politicians and other interested parties remained strangely unaffected -- until the day Widodo left for the U.S. The extra sense of crisis was undoubtedly a reason for his sudden cancellation of a planned visit to California's Silicon Valley -- and a factor in his decision to give the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Manila a miss.
     Now, Indonesians, Singaporeans and Malaysians are wondering whether they can breathe easily again. They are also wondering what happened to El Nino, which was supposed to be as strong as the one which devastated the region back in 1997-98.
Temporary reprieve
The news is not good for Indonesia -- which with record emissions this year as a result of the fires has moved up some notches to become the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide, behind the U.S. and China. If the haze blanketing the country and its neighbors has gone for now, it does not mean that El Nino has as well. On the contrary, it is becoming even more powerful, evidenced by some of the highest water temperatures ever recorded in the Indian Ocean by the Japan Meteorological Agency.
     Climatologists are now hastening to point out that the pre-monsoon rains we have just seen -- up to 50-100cm falling in one week in early November over many parts of Indonesia -- were actually expected. But there is a big difference, they point out, between climate and weather.
     "The difficulty for us is the forecast for the rainfall anomaly was very negative -- and still is -- but less than normal is not the same as no rain," says Guido van der Werf, earth scientist at Amsterdam University. "I guess we can say Indonesia has been relatively lucky."

Posibilities pf Mergers: India & Maldives

  There are a number of reasons why the Maldives might merge with India in the future. These include: Cultural and historical ties: The Mal...