PAPUA NEW GUINEA (Syllabus: GS Paper 1 – Geography)

Context: The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister of India, recently approved a Memorandum of Understanding with Papua New Guinea for sharing successful digital solutions at a population scale.

Papua New Guinea

• Located: Situated in the southwestern Pacific and encompasses the eastern half of New Guinea, the world's second-largest island, along with numerous smaller offshore islands.
• Boundaries: It shares its borders with Indonesia to the west, Australia to the south, and the Solomon Islands to the southeast.
• Capital: The capital city is Port Moresby.
• Terrain: The terrain is predominantly mountainous, but there are low-lying plains in southern New Guinea.
• India is also trying to boost ties and cooperation with the Pacific Island nations, which include, apart from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, the Republic of Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.