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By:

Rajiv Shah

22 September 2025 at 8:32:23 pm

New Alliances, New Pressures, New Fault Lines

To its west, old relationships in the Gulf are acquiring new strategic and military dimensions. Across the Atlantic, Washington is increasingly using tariffs as an instrument of foreign policy. At the same time, India holds the BRICS presidency in 2026 and prepares to host its summit when the grouping is being watched in the West as a potential challenge to the American-dominated global financial order. Individually, these developments may appear unrelated. Put together, they reveal a larger...

New Alliances, New Pressures, New Fault Lines

To its west, old relationships in the Gulf are acquiring new strategic and military dimensions. Across the Atlantic, Washington is increasingly using tariffs as an instrument of foreign policy. At the same time, India holds the BRICS presidency in 2026 and prepares to host its summit when the grouping is being watched in the West as a potential challenge to the American-dominated global financial order. Individually, these developments may appear unrelated. Put together, they reveal a larger geopolitical churn in which alliances, energy, trade, currencies and economic coercion are becoming interconnected. India finds itself almost at its centre. The emerging Saudi Arabia–Türkiye–Pakistan security equation deserves particular attention. Saudi Arabia brings enormous financial and energy influence; Türkiye possesses considerable military strength, NATO experience and an expanding defence industry; Pakistan brings a large military establishment and nuclear capability with the open support of Washington. Any arrangement containing a collective-defence commitment naturally acquires significance beyond ordinary diplomatic cooperation. Alongside it, another strategic convergence has gradually developed among India, Israel and the UAE. It would be incorrect to describe this as a formal military alliance. Yet geopolitics does not operate through defence treaties alone. India's extensive defence and technology relationship with Israel, its rapidly expanding economic and strategic partnership with the UAE, and the UAE-Israel relationship following the Abraham Accords have created considerable common ground. I2U2—bringing together India, Israel, the UAE and the United States—added another institutional dimension. Thus, without necessarily becoming opposing military camps, two interesting strategic formations are visible across West Asia: Saudi Arabia–Türkiye–Pakistan and the looser India–UAE–Israel convergence. Balancing Challenge India faces a similar balancing challenge. The Gulf is not a distant geopolitical theatre for New Delhi. Nearly nine million Indians live and work there. India's energy security, investments, trade and remittance flows are closely connected with the region. The proposed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor also requires relative stability across this geography. Polarisation in West Asia can therefore rapidly become an Indian economic and strategic problem. There is another question Indian planners cannot ignore. If a future India-Pakistan confrontation escalates, how would any collective-defence commitment involving Pakistan be interpreted by Saudi Arabia and Türkiye? It would be alarmist to assume that either country would automatically enter a conflict against India. Saudi Arabia, in particular, has substantial economic and strategic interests in maintaining good relations with New Delhi. Nevertheless, defence planners are paid to examine possibilities before they become crises. While these equations develop in India's neighbourhood, economic pressure is emerging from Washington. The US Senate has voted 86–11 for legislation intended to increase pressure on Russia by targeting major purchasers of Russian energy. The measure could authorise tariffs reaching 100 per cent against goods from countries continuing large-scale purchases of Russian oil and gas, with India among those potentially exposed. China is powerful enough to shrug off similar challenges from the West." However this does not mean that America has already imposed a 100 per cent tariff on India. Further legislative steps remain necessary, and presidential waiver provisions are important. But the overwhelming Senate vote carries a political message that New Delhi cannot dismiss. Tariffs are no longer merely tools of trade protection; they have become instruments of geopolitical coercion. Washington's argument is understandable: revenues from Russian petroleum help sustain Moscow's economy during the Ukraine war, and reducing those revenues increases pressure on Russia. But in that case what about European countries who too were/are customers of Russian oil? India's question is equally legitimate: who should determine where India purchases the energy required by more than 1.4 billion people? If Russian crude remains commercially advantageous and helps contain domestic energy costs, New Delhi cannot reasonably be expected to make every energy decision according to another country's geopolitical priorities. Strategic partnership cannot become strategic obedience. This is where BRICS enters the larger picture. India holds the BRICS presidency in 2026 and will host its leaders at an unusually sensitive moment. BRICS is no longer merely the original grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Its expansion has considerably increased its demographic, energy and geopolitical weight. More importantly, discussions around BRICS increasingly touch a sensitive nerve in Washington: alternative payment mechanisms, local-currency trade, development finance and the possibility of gradually reducing dependence upon the dollar-dominated international financial system. The BRICS Summit this time is poised to take some decisive steps which may affect western interests especially US. (The writer is an advocate, legal, geopolitical and public policy analyst. Views personal.)

How Colour Codes Help Hospitals Segregate Waste

Proper segregation at the point of generation is the key to successful biomedical waste management.

Through my previous articles, I have presented a brief review of various legal provisions for managing waste generated in healthcare establishments across the country. Let us now explore the actual ‘on-site’ activities that are carried out at the sources of generation and the common facilities for treatment and disposal of the hospital waste. There are four major activities related to the management of this waste. These are segregation, transportation, treatment, and disposal.


1.Segregation: It is always said that proper segregation of waste right at the source of its generation is the key to the success of a waste management programme. The same applies to biomedical waste also. As per the rules, every occupier must ensure that the four categories of waste generated are properly segregated. For this, four different coloured non-chlorinated plastic bags or containers are mandatory. These are as follows:


A) Yellow Bag: As per the 2016 rules, the yellow-coloured bags are to be strictly used for the collection and temporary storage of highly infectious and hazardous waste, which are as follows:


i) Human Anatomical Waste: Human tissues, organs, body parts, and foetuses below the viability period (as per the Medical Termination of

Pregnancy Act 1971, amended from time to time).


ii) Animal Anatomical Waste: Experimental animal carcasses, body parts, organs, and tissues, including the waste generated from animals used in experiments or testing in veterinary hospitals or colleges, or animal houses.


iii) Soiled Waste: Items contaminated with blood or body fluids, like dressings, plaster casts, cotton swabs, and bags containing residual or discarded blood and blood components.


iv) Discarded or Expired Medicines: Pharmaceutical waste like antibiotics and cytotoxic drugs, including all items contaminated with cytotoxic drugs, along with glass or plastic ampoules, vials, etc.


v) Chemical Waste: Chemicals used in the production of biologicals, and used or discarded disinfectants


vi) Chemical Liquid Waste: Liquid waste generated due to the use of chemicals in the production of biologicals and used or discarded disinfectants, silver X-ray film developing liquid, discarded formalin, infected secretions, aspirated body fluids, liquid from laboratories and floor washings, cleaning, housekeeping, disinfecting activities, etc.


vii) Discarded linen, mattresses, and bedding contaminated with blood or body fluid, as well as routine masks and gowns.


viii) Microbiology, Biotechnology, and other clinical laboratory waste (pre-treated): These include blood bags, laboratory cultures, stocks or specimens of microorganisms, live or attenuated vaccines, human and animal cell cultures used in research. Additionally, you have industrial laboratories, the production of biological residual toxins, dishes, and devices used for cultures.


B) Red Bag: Wastes generated from disposable medical items include tubing, bottles, intravenous tubes and sets, catheters, urine bags, and syringes without needles. This category also includes fixed needle syringes with their needles cut, gloves, and vacutainers, the small, sterile tubes used to collect blood samples for laboratory testing.


C) White Bag: Waste Sharps, including metals, needles, syringes with fixed needles, needles from needle tip cutters or burners, scalpels, blades, or any other contaminated sharp object that may cause punctures and cuts. This includes used, discarded, and contaminated metal sharps. Preferably, white, translucent, puncture-proof, leak-proof, tamper-proof containers should be used instead of plastic bags.


D) Blue box: Puncture-proof, leak-proof boxes or containers with blue coloured markings are to be used for broken or discarded and contaminated glass, including medicine vials and ampoules, except those contaminated with cytotoxic waste.


More information on this is in my next article. Until then, have a nice weekend!


(The writer is an environmentalist.)

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