Sundeep Waslekar comments on the future of various forms of property - physical, intellectual, private and public.

At the beginning of every new decade there are predictions of what the world-to-come is going to be like. However with the approach of the new decade this time around, the focus is not so much on 2010, as on 2012. This is mostly because of the recently released film 2012, based loosely on the end of the world prediction of the Mayan Calendar. The 5,125-year-long Mayan Long Count calendar predicts a series of cataclysmic events on 21 December 2012. It is highly unlikely that any such event will take place, but what is certain is that 2012 is going to be a defining year for the coming decade.

Poverty, civil wars, pirates, environmental degradation, the highest number of HIV/Aids victims are some of the images conjured up when we discuss Africa. It is a land of high fertility and large families, where societies are under extreme stress and the young out number the old by almost double. The poorest region of the world, Africa rates low on the 2001 Human Development Index, where 29 of the 36 nations with the lowest human development are in Africa. The growth rate, at the lower end of the scale is 2.2 percent, as compared to the world average of 1.4 percent. In parts of Western Sahara, Niger, Uganda and Angola, fertility is the highest, with women having an average of 7 children.

The last few months have seen a recent push from the Obama administration to speed up the Israel-Palestine peace process; a push that has not come without a fair share of resistance. The main challenge in the negotiation process has been the five final status issues namely borders, Israeli settlements, the status of Jerusalem, water rights and lastly refugees and the right of return. These five issues -- aptly named final status -- carry so much contention between the two-sides that during previous peace negotiations, discussing them in detail has often been deferred till the very end.

China's ambitions of taking its place among the major world powers are being seriously challenged by its stance on Iran's nuclear program. At present, the People's Republic seems to be caught in a tug-of-war between Iran and the West. It finds itself in the midst of the diplomacy being used by the two sides one trying to levy sanctions on a pariah state possibly working to make a nuclear bomb in an already explosive neighbourhood and the other trying to evade or defy them at all costs. As Iran's traditional ally, China may have to take tough decisions over the question of sanctioning Iran's nuclear program in the coming few months. China's stand on Iran's nuclear program will decide, to a large extent, its future position in the global power structure.

In recent weeks, most Indians have been subject to mass amounts of information and opinion on the Naxalite problem in the country. The Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and the Home Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram have both stated recently on the record that the Naxal insurgency within the country is the gravest internal threat that India has ever faced. Dealing with this threat in the future will require measures on government's part that are at the same time more expansive and more definitive. It has been painfully obvious for some time now; state police forces have battled to no avail to curb the threat.