{"id":25131,"date":"2025-05-23T15:30:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T10:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=25131"},"modified":"2025-05-23T18:11:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T12:41:47","slug":"chagos-archipelago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/chagos-archipelago\/","title":{"rendered":"Chagos Archipelago"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Chagos Islands Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>India recently welcomed the UK&#8217;s decision to hand over the sovereignty of Chagos Islands including tropical atoll of Diego Garcia to Mauritius under a historic deal.<\/p>\n<h2>About Chagos Islands<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an island group located in the\u00a0<strong>central Indian Ocean.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It is about 1,000 miles (1,600 km)\u00a0<strong>south of the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It is an\u00a0<strong>overseas territory of the United Kingdom\u00a0<\/strong>that was established on November 8, 1965.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0<strong>principal islands\u00a0<\/strong>in the archipelago include the<strong>\u00a0Diego Garcia\u00a0<\/strong>atoll,\u00a0<strong>Danger Island,\u00a0<\/strong>Egmont Islands, Eagle Islands, Nelsons Island, Peros Banhos atoll, Three Brothers Islands, and the\u00a0<strong>Solomon Islands.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Diego Garcia\u00a0<\/strong>covers an area of about 30 sq.km. and is the\u00a0<strong>largest<\/strong>\u00a0and the\u00a0<strong>most southerly\u00a0<\/strong>island of the Chagos Archipelago.<\/li>\n<li>Diego Garcia\u00a0<strong>houses a strategic US military base.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The islands feature flat and low terrain, and most areas of the islands do not exceed more than 2 m in elevation.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>There are\u00a0<strong>no rivers and lakes\u00a0<\/strong>on the islands.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Climate<\/strong>:\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li>It experiences a\u00a0<strong>tropical marine climate<\/strong>\u00a0with high temperatures and elevated humidity levels.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The island\u2019s climate is heavily\u00a0<strong>moderated by the trade winds\u00a0<\/strong>which blow over the islands.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Chagos Islands History<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The archipelago\u2019s\u00a0<strong>first inhabitants<\/strong>, primarily enslaved\u00a0<strong>people from Madagascar and Mozambique,\u00a0<\/strong>were f<strong>orcibly brought<\/strong>\u00a0to the islands<strong>\u00a0by French enslavers,<\/strong>\u00a0to work on coconut plantations.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Centuries later, they had unshackled themselves from slavery and\u00a0<strong>became Chagossians<\/strong>, an indigenous people with a distinct language and culture.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In 1965,<\/strong>\u00a0the\u00a0<strong>British convinced Mauritian\u00a0<\/strong>nationalist\u00a0<strong>politicians to give up their claimto the Chagos Islands in exchange for independence.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>In 1966, Chagos\u00a0<strong>became the \u2019British Indian Ocean Territory\u2018 (BIOT)<\/strong>\u00a0and was denied any claim to independence.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>This\u00a0<strong>led to the removal of the peoples<\/strong>\u00a0living there, most of whom relocated to Mauritius.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0<strong>UK made an agreement with the United States to host a military base<\/strong>\u00a0in the islands for Indian Ocean defenses.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mauritius<\/strong>, which\u00a0<strong>gained independence from Britain<\/strong>\u00a0in 1968, has\u00a0<strong>consistently maintained its claim<\/strong>\u00a0over the Chagos Islands.<\/li>\n<li>In 2019, the<strong>\u00a0International Court of Justice (ICJ) dismissed the UK&#8217;s right<\/strong>\u00a0to govern the Chagos Islands and called on its government to withdraw from the archipelago.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Chagos Islands FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1:<\/strong>\u00a0Where are the Chagos Islands located?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0Central Indian Ocean<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2:<\/strong>\u00a0Which is the largest island in the Chagos Archipelago?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0Diego Garcia<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q3:<\/strong>\u00a0What year did Mauritius gain independence from the British?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a01968<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ndtv.com\/world-news\/india-welcomes-uks-decision-to-hand-over-chagos-islands-to-mauritius-8483293\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NDTV<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Discover the Chagos Islands, a remote archipelago in the central Indian Ocean known for its rich marine biodiversity and strategic geopolitical importance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":47064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[378,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-25131","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-chagos-archipelago","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}