Recommendation 169

India became an observer at the Arctic Council in 2013, the same year as China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. It published its first public Arctic policy in 2013. India is a contracting party to the Svalbard Treaty and is the only developing country aside from China that operates a research station on Svalbard. 194 Captain Anurag Bisen told us that maintaining scientific research in the Arctic was a policy priority. He told us that the pause in scientific co-operation with Russia represents a “great setback to global climate change mitigation efforts”. 195