Q. Which of the following statements with regard to the Arctic Council and India’s polar infrastructure is/are correct?
1.The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum established under the Ottawa Declaration of 1996.
2.The sovereign voting membership of the Council consists exclusively of all eight nations that encircle the Arctic region.
3.India’s permanent polar research laboratory, Himadri, is situated in the Svalbard archipelago under the nodal funding of the Ministry of External Affairs.
Select the answer using the code given below:
Answer: A
Notes:
Explanation:
- Statement 1 is correct: The Arctic Council was formally established via the Ottawa Declaration in 1996 to provide a forum for cooperation among Arctic states and indigenous communities.
- Statement 2 is correct: Only the eight Arctic states (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States) hold sovereign voting membership. Other nations, like India, hold “Observer” status.
- Statement 3 is incorrect: While India’s research base Himadri is indeed located at Ny-Ålesund in Svalbard, Norway, India’s polar research program is managed and funded by the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
