Independent of the media-hype on all 'controversial things' that the Tamil Nadu Government and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa may be saying on the 'fishing issue', they have also quietly initiated steps over the past couple of years.
Analysis
Independent of the media-hype on all ’controversial things’ that the Tamil Nadu Government and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa may be saying on the ’fishing issue’, they have also quietly initiated steps over the past couple of years which could lead to reduction of tensions with Sri Lanka on the Palk Bay front. It is sad however that the media do not see it nor do they get to see it as the State Government seems keen on projecting not the ’positive steps’ on this score.
Finance Minister O Panneerselvam did not say as much when he presented the State’s Budget for 2013-14 in the Legislative Assembly on March 21. His hope that the Government aid for deep-sea fishing will "slowly wean away our fishermen from unsustainable trawler-fishing in shallow waters to sustainable deep-sea fishing" however is a step in the right direction, as it could help wean them away from the Sri Lankan waters, as well. Rather, that could be one sector where the effectiveness of the Government initiative can actually be seen and felt, for the rest of the State’s coastal fishers to be inspired and to follow.
In encouraging the State’s fishers to take to the deep-sea, Minister Panneerselvam was only referring to the two-year-old unacknowledged initiative of the State Government in this respect. In the first Budget after Jayalalithaa returned to power as Chief Minister for the third time, Minister Panneerselvam, in his 2011-12 Budget, earmarked for the first time 25 crores to encourage deep-sea fishing. In the current Budget speech, he said, "In order to promote deep-sea fishing, the existing 25 per cent subsidy will be enhanced to 50 per cent to fishermen for procuring new tuna long-liners, and a sum of ’ 30 crores will be set apart for this purpose."
Budget 2011-12 promised that the State Government would build up a string of 20 cold-storage plants for fishers along the State’s long coast to store their produce, for sufficient periods to ensure favourable price in the local and international markets. At present, much of this business in Tamil Nadu has been cornered by one or two local companies or those from neighbouring States. In the past, however, the few cold storages that the State Government built for the fishers fell into disuse in the absence of adequate education and exposure of the fishers, timely repairs to equipment, poor marketing and management expertise, as promised.
Budget 2011-12 also provided for the Government setting up a fisheries university in the southern coastal belt around Nagapattinam, for the fisher family children to adapt to modern means of fishing and marketing techniques. In the years and decades to come, fishing in the nearby shallow waters across much of the Tamil Nadu coast is going to be problematic for a variety of reasons. The non-availability of fish is the reason. There are equal or greater concerns even along those coastlines where the catch has not depleted as such.
Post-Budget, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa also made a suo motu statement in the State Assembly, announcing a 75 per cent subsidy in the total cost of ’ 20,000 for installing VHF transmitters on the 1,600 trawlers in Tamil Nadu, most of which do not have such communication transmitters at present. She said that the Government would install transmission towers all along the coast for the fishers in mid-sea to access land without difficulty.
Equally important, if not more in this context, was the Chief Minister’s announcement that the Government would provide 75 per cent subsidy likewise on the ’ 250,000 cost of the multi-channel HV equipment for installation in deep-sea vessels staying at sea for a month and more. She said that the Government would set up on-shore control-rooms, to be manned by the Fisheries Department. The Government would allocate ’ 8.5 crores for the project, the Chief Minister announced on the occasion.
Polluting the disturbed waters
Jayalalithaa also referred to the effective implementation of the existing diesel and kerosene subsidy scheme, and to the doubling the ’ban period’ grant for fishers to 4000 after her Government came to office. For years now, a 45-day ban period has been in force, beginning April 15, for boats and trawlers, to go out to the sea, so as not to disturb the fishing-beds in the seas, to ensure reproduction and better catch, consequently. It should be said to the credit of the fishers that they have respected the ban, and few violations are reported.
Large-scale industrialisation along the Tamil Nadu coast also can spell further doom to fishing in the coming years and decades. Proposals to set up more ports and consequent hopes for port-dependent industries could change the face of Tamil Nadu’s shores. The nearby waters could get disturbed and polluted, leading to a further depletion of fish stocks and catch. The employment and the dependability patterns, basing family incomes exclusively on fishing, could also change.
In a way, there could be lack of traditional skills and fishers with those skills to exploit the marine resources where they are available - both for local consumption, and consequent maintenance of required protein levels in the local population, and also for overseas market-exploitation. Given the natural rise in consumption and fast-depleting stocks closer to the coast for these additional reasons, there will be greater and more urgent need for adopting to new and more successful means of exploiting deep-sea fishing.
The Budget proposals now for the State Government to meet half the cost of the long-line tuna boats thus is an improvement on the scheme announced in 2011. This possibly owed to inputs from the fishers on the high cost of these boats, which they could ill-afford. The loan-cum-lease system being followed in the purchase of fishing boats, with the boat-owner(s)’ catch as the bait comes with a price for traditional fishers. Already, there are complaints about non-traditional fishers from non-fishing communities, particularly along the Palk Bay area crowding the traditional fishers out of business, if not wholly.
There is however a need to improve methods of, and training in deep-sea fishing. In the troubled Palk Strait region, for instance, the tradition has been for fishers to stay out in the sea only for a night at a time. Deep-sea fishing, when fishers and their boats stay out in the distant seas for days, and at times weeks together, will require a cultural re-orientation for those fishers. Against this, fishers in Toothoor village down south in Kanyakumari district, owing to a different cultural orientation, have been into deep-sea fishing for decades and centuries now.
However, the problems faced by and from the two are not entirely dissimilar. While the Palk Bay fishers are often apprehended by the Sri Lanka Nary in the nearer seas, the Thoothoor fishers get caught in the distant Gulf waters, for similar violation. Kanyakumari fishers have been caught fishing in local boats and ships in the Gulf-Arab region, more often than not without valid documents.
Taking a leaf out of counterparts in the Palk Bay and Nagapatinam regions up north in the State, southern fisher families too have started protesting in public lately when their bread-winners are harassed in those countries, not always for want of documents. The Centre is still engaged in sorting out an incident in which a Ramanathapuram fisherman was killed, and two others injured when a US Navy ship fired at them, off the Dubai coast.
Through the three-decade-long ’Eelam Wars’ in Sri Lanka, the LTTE’s much-feared ’Sea Tigers’ wing had been known to target Tamil Nadu fishers, one way or the other. In the only proven case of LTTE harassment, the Maldivian Coast Guard freed an Indian fishing vessel, ’Sri Krishna’, along with its abducted on-board engineer from the LTTE’s possession and use months after it had reportedly been targeted by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN). The ’Sea Tigers’ were using the vessel for smuggling and transferring weapons, mid-sea.
Deep-sea fishing and mother-ships
The Tamil Nadu Government’s scheme for funding long-line tuna boats is aimed at improving the lives and livelihood of all fishers across the Tamil Nadu coast. It has immediate relevance and application to the fishers along the Palk Bay region and the Nagapattinam coasts, the Centre having banned the trade in the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere for ecological reasons. Encouraging Indian fishers in these waters to take to deep-sea fishing could help them diversify in a big way from the controversial Sri Lankan waters, where they have been complaining of constant harassment by the Navy from that country.
More importantly, deep-sea fishing, as the success story elsewhere in the country and more so in the rest of the world would show, is the fishing of the future, and has the potential to change the lives and lifestyle of the fishing community for the better, beyond all pales of recognition. Given the complexities involved, a pilot project on these lines, with focussed funding and attendant additional facilities, including the deployment of mother-ships, cold storages along the coast and marketing facilities on shore and also for mid-sea transfers all could go a long way in this regard. Once tested and deployed elsewhere, not just in other coasts of Tamil Nadu but all along the 7,500-km long Indian coast, it would have beneficial consequences not only for the fish trade and fishers lives but also for the nation’s economy as a whole.
With the use of computers and GPS systems, there are fishing boats in the State and elsewhere in the country that spot catch areas by the day. Mobile phones in the coastal, fish-rich Kerala State became popular a decade and more ago, mainly through fishers’ use in the high seas, to stay in touch with the shore and other boats, in terms of safety in seas, locating and sharing catch-area information, and fixing prices before the catch reaches the shore. Tamil Nadu fishers have been following the practice, for equally long terms, with mid-sea transactions being sealed without the wholesale buyer on the coast exactly having set his eyes on the catch. The trade thus depends also on traditions and trust.
Introduction of mother-ships, parked in mid-seas for the fishers to store/deposit their catch, or sell them on the spot, based on prices fixed on land, and for their occasional rest and recuperation, particularly in sudden storms, would go a long way, all around. The initiative, inputs and initial funding and personnel will have to come from the Governments, both at the Centre and in the States. Fishing labs could be attached to some or all of those mother-ships, for testing the quality and quantity of the catch available in the neighbourhood waters, and takes scientific steps to improve yields in the seasons and years to come. More importantly, the lucrative tuna business being dependent on the long course that the fish variety takes in travelling long distances across the seas, mother-ships in the deep-seas with periodic change of crews in dependent boats could make a difference. Tamil Nadu may stand to benefit immensely from such a combined effort.
Troubled waters, still
Though the State Government’s initiative would apply to all fishers across Tamil Nadu’s 1050-km long coastline, its effectiveness would be immediately felt in the troubled waters of the Palk Bay, where a clash of catch-based interests with Sri Lankan fishers have evolved into a sensitive political and diplomatic issue between the two peoples and the two Governments. Constant allegations of Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) attacks on Indian fishers, including killings, have been accompanied by equally vehement refusals from the other side. No end seems to be in sight to this vexatious issue.
Simultaneously, the ’fishing issue’ also involves the Indian fishers crossing over the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) into Sri Lankan waters, involving questions of sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is often countered by arguments based on ’traditional fishing rights’ of the Tamil Nadu fishers, which have been purportedly ’compromised’ by laws of Governments as against the laws of nature - that fish goes where they fish and fishers go where the fish goes.
Arguments on both sides have often been accompanied by ’international best practices’. In this case, there have been countries in the neighbourhood and afar that have entered into agreements and enforced them effectively in permitting ’licensed fishing’ in each other’s waters, but both sides jealously ensuring against violations of the agreement and over-exploitation by each other’s fishers. This has included cutting down on the agreed quotas, confiscating the catch and dumping them in the seas, quality-control, etc. There is a precedent in the India-Sri Lanka case. The 1976 bilateral maritime boundary agreement, in which positive reference was made to the 1974 Katchchativu accord, India allowed Sri Lankan fishers to engage in their trade in the southern Wadge Bank for a three year period. It was agreed that six Sri Lankan vessels would be licensed to catch 2,000 tonnes of fish each year, followed by a further five-year ’grace period’, when New Delhi would sell 2,000 tonnes each year at a mutually-agreed price.
The 1976 agreement, which set a precedent for peaceful accord between nations on maritime boundary issues even as they were negotiating the UNCLOs, meant that the tiny islet of Katchchativu would fall within the Sri Lankan territory as per the 1974 agreement, and the southern Wadge Bank within Indian territorial waters. While the Tamil Nadu Government has since pleaded itself in a private petition filed by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in her personal and political capacity when she was not in office for India re-taking Katchchativu, citing constitutional issues, even a favourable verdict - if at all -- in the matter would have no international consequences.
The return of the Sri Lankan Tamil fishers to the sea after the conclusion of the decades-old ’ethnic war’ in that country has brought them face to face with the reality of the ’domineering presence’ of their Tamil Nadu counterparts, who had faced little or no restriction in the former’s traditional waters during the war years. They have constantly protested the high number of Indian vessels in their waters, and the latter resorting to ’unconventional’ fishing practices, banned in their country and also enforced effectively, both for Tamil and Sinhalese-speaking fishers, alike.
Mutually-beneficial
The Sri Lankan Government all along, and the Sri Lankan Tamil fishers in the North and the East of the country since the conclusion of the war, have vehemently protested against the Tamil Nadu fishers deploying high-speed trawlers and ’purse-seine’ nets, both of which destroy fish beds, young ones and eggs alike, as they had been proved to have done in the adjoining Indian waters, already. With constant and continuing encouragement from the Governments of Tamil Nadu, India and Sri Lanka, fishers’ representatives had entered into a mutually-beneficial agreement in 2010, including freedom for fishing for Tamil Nadu fishers in the Sri Lankan waters, with the express commitment that Indian fishers would not use banned equipment.
There has been no follow-up since to a low-profile review meeting in Colombo at the height of the heated campaign for the 2011 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, which also witnessed a change of Government, then headed by DMK Chief Minister M Karunanidhi. While both national Governments have been for the fishers’ to come to a mutually-agreeable and enforceable arrangement as the first step, the periodic Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting, with Tamil Nadu representation, at Colombo in mid-January 2013, also promised to take it forward.
However, there has been no visible improvement on the ground since, purportedly owing to a lack of interest in and initiative by the Tamil Nadu Government, even as the State and the Government have been constantly taking up the issue of ’SLN attacks’ with the Centre. In the light of the
’Enrica Lesie’ ship case, involving the arrest of two Italian Marines for killing Indian fishers from the neighbouring State of Kerala, that too within Indian territorial waters, the Tamil Nadu Assembly, at the instance of the Jayalalithaa Government, passed a unanimous resolution recently, for the Centre to declare such attacks as ’acts of aggression’ (with predictable bilateral consequences).
Earlier, the DMK Opposition, which was a part of the Manmohan Singh Government at the Centre when the
’Enrica Lesie’ episode occurred, revved up the political temperature by arguing why the latter had double-standards between fishers from Tamil Nadu and Kerala. However, protests of both kinds need to be read in the context of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court ruling only months earlier with constant reference to the submissions of the Coast Guard (representing all departments and agencies of the Centre) and the State Government, on ensuring that the Tamil Nadu fishers did not cross the IMBL with Sri Lanka and what all precautionary measures were in places and what more was being done, or needed doing.
In the first of its kind in recent years, after a mid-sea episode in the past weeks, the Tamil Nadu fishers had alleged that the SLN personnel had attacked them in the Indian water. They had ended almost overnight after visiting Indian Navy brass in the southern coastal towns declared that such charges, if proved, would mean that the Sri Lanka Navy was challenging the Indian Navy - and hence, needed to be taken more seriously than thought of.
In a happy coincidence of sorts, in a more recent incident, Tamil Nadu fishers caught in mid-sea alerted their men on land over mobile phone, and the Indian Coast Guard could effectively intervene, and is reportedly to have brought the episode to a happy ending. Read in the context of the Coast Guard’s submission in the Madurai High Court Bench that no fisher had ever alerted them in any way over the past decades about mid-sea harassment by the SLN, despite the presence of GPS (to locate their position), vast use of mobile phones and other communication equipment on many boats. Invariably thus far, the Tamil Nadu fishers had held that the SLN personnel would throw their communication equipment overboard, to begin with.
Drowned in ’ethnic issue’?
It is possible, if not probable, that elements in Tamil Nadu may be concerned about the possibilities of further negotiations between the fishers from Sri Lanka’s Tamil areas and those from Tamil Nadu getting entangled in the larger ’ethnic issue’ in the island-nation. As the past year has shown, competitive pan-Tamil voice in Tamil Nadu over the ’ethnic issue’ in Sri Lanka has drowned those from within that country. Any negotiations between fishers from across the Palk Bay could thus expose chinks in the collective armour, and could lead to avoidable political embarrassment, particularly in Tamil Nadu.
Contradictory linkages are being established between mid-sea attacks on Indian fishers and politics, based on the ’ethnic issue’ in Sri Lanka, in Tamil Nadu and now the international arena, starting with the UNHRC, Geneva. On the Indian side of the Palk Strait, it is often attributed to motivated attacks by Sri Lankan Navy personnel or at least by ’rouge elements’ from within. On the other side, the linkage used to be to the LTTE during the war years, and to the ’rump LTTE’ since, as an effort at embarrassing bilateral relations at the wrong hour.
The 2011 fishers’ agreement had allocated 72 ’fishing days’ for those on the Indian side of the Palk Strait, with a ban on their use vessels and equipment banned in Sri Lanka, and limiting their activities to an area not close to the shallow waters of Sri Lanka. There have been differences within the Sri Lankan Government and even among the fishers in that country to the agreement, which was signed in the presence of two officials of the island-Government
A new situation may emerge later this year if the Sri Lankan Government stuck to President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s promise of holding the Tamil-majority Northern Provincial Council elections by September this year. The chances of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), seeking a negotiated settlement to the ’ethnic issue’, winning the elections and forming an administration, even if with truncated powers under the Thirteenth Amendment of the Sri Lankan Constitution, are high. Even otherwise, it will be a Tamil-led administration, seeking to address the concerns of the local Tamils, including fishers, in the post-war milieu.
Whoever comes to elected power in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province and whenever, ’competitive regional politics’ of the kind familiar to and dominating the Tamil Nadu scenario looks inevitable. A TNA administration in particular would come under constant and increasing pressure from the Tamil political Opposition in the Province, which is already in the forefront of fishers-related issues and politics in the North.
A stage may not then be far off when a TNA administration, if that became a reality, would be attacked as willingly ’compromising’ the livelihood concerns of the fishing community, which had nowhere else to go, against the ’utopian demands’ of the Jaffna townspeople, most of whom now form the backbone of the ’rump LTTE Diaspora’. The TNA, and the pre-war Tamil moderate polity, had not escaped similar charges in relation to other sections of the Northern Tamil community, and the rest of the Sri Lankan Tamil community in the past.
It is not unlikely that mid-sea episodes involving the fishers from the two countries on the one hand, and the SLN on the side of the Sri Lankan Tamil fishers on the other but within the Sri Lankan territorial waters, could heat up the run-up to the Provincial Council polls, after all. Escalated to new heights during the run-up to the UNHRC’s September session, where again Sri Lanka will be an issue, it could embarrass the Tamil Nadu parties more than they may understand - particularly among the Sri Lankan Tamil constituency in that country’s North - which they say, they are fighting for.
Such a situation could only complicate matters for the Tamil Nadu fishers, even more than already, if a negotiated solution is not found, early on! A delayed settlement to the fishing issue could thus also complicate problems for the Tamils of Sri Lanka, who would be requiring Tamil Nadu’s collective sympathy and constructive support even more in the months, if not years, ahead. Encouragement for deep-sea fishing coupled with an interim working arrangement with Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan Tamil fishers may be the way out, and for good, if ’mid-sea harassment’ of the Tamil Nadu fishers have to end, and for good. Other methods do not hold any promise - at best, they are only ’holding operations’, nothing more!
(The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation)
Afghanistan’s Political Processes - Alienation or Co-optation
Kanchi Gupta
In the upcoming Afghan elections, scheduled for April next year, the capacity and sustainability of Afghanistan’s post-Taliban governance structures will be put to test. The political processes can be considered as transitioning in the light of the withdrawal of the US-led NATO forces and the constitutional restrictions on the extension of President Hamid Karzai’s tenure. The question to be addressed is, assuming fair and transparent elections, what will the new Afghan leadership look like and whether or not it will incorporate the significant informal power structure consisting of regional and ethnic leaders, whose support underwrites the stability of the formal power structures of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s governance structures have not only always been historically weak, but are also largely incapable of successfully enforcing administrative mandates on its diverse ethnic communities. It is believed that Afghans follow traditional patterns of affiliations that identify more with tribes, ethnicities and clans, than with the writ of the central government.
Afghanistan, home to four main ethnic groups of the Pashtuns (42 per cent of the population), Tajiks (25 per cent of the population), Uzbeks and Hazaras (each about 9-10 per cent of the population) has always been ruled by the Pashtuns, with a few exceptions when Tajiks ruled the country, in 1929 under Habibullah Khan and from 1992-1996 under President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who also led Afghanistan in November-December 2001 before the interim administration was installed under the mandate of the US-led intervention. It was only natural then, that Hamid Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun was chosen to lead the country. The post-Taliban political landscape of Afghanistan, starting with the Bonn Agreement in December 2001, the Constitutional Loya Jirga in 2003-2004, and the fraudulent presidential elections that followed in 2004 and 2009, have oscillated between the alienation of ethnic groups and their leaders, as well as their subsequent co-optation into the governance structures to ensure the stability of the country. In light of the upcoming elections, it remains to be seen whether the impact of these processes of political co-optation and alienation has been long lasting, and what repercussions this will have for the sustainability of democratic structures in Afghanistan.
Centralised Leadership and Presidential Elections
The post 2001 UN-brokered road map towards political reconstruction in Afghanistan, under the charge of Lakhdar Brahimi, began with the creation of the Interim Authority, envisioned in the Bonn Agreement, which installed Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun with close ties to the US, as its head. Furthermore, it promulgated the convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga in six months to select the head of state for the two-year transition period and create the foundation for legitimate and representative political reconstruction. Thirdly, the Constitutional Loya Jirga first convened in 2003, ratified by consensus rather than vote in 2004, the constitution that formalized a presidential system, with an elected president having broad powers and a separately elected National Assembly (parliament).
The Bonn Agreement excluded the Pashtuns from the interim administration despite the installation of Hamid Karzai. This was because the real power rested with the Tajiks especially with leading the defense, foreign and interior ministries. It is important to consider that this appeasement of Tajik leaders was in light of their support for Hamid Karzai over their formal leader Burhanuddin Rabbani. On the other hand, the Constitutional Loya Jirga that followed soon after facilitated the alienation of ethnic minorities, expressed through the failure of their efforts to set up a prime minister-ship in which the elected parliament would select a prime minister and limit the powers of the president. This could have ensured that if the elected president was a Pashtun, the prime minister post could be held by a Tajik or some other ethnic minority. They also did not succeed in securing the right of elected provincial and district councils to appoint their governors, who along with cabinet ministers, members of Supreme Court, judges and security chiefs, continue to be appointed by the president.
In the subsequent elections, Hamid Karzai followed his policy of inclusion of ethnic leaders to widen his electoral support base. By choosing Mohammad Fahim, a Tajik leader and former stalwart of the Northern Alliance, as his running mate in 2009 along with Karim Khalili, a Hazara leader, not only allowed him to sweep Hazara dominated provinces like Daykundi, but also divided the support base of Tajik presidential candidate Dr Abdullah Abdullah. Keeping in mind these factors, Hamid Karzai has also appointed provincial and district governors in line with the dominant ethnicities of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
Looking Forward
So far, none of the ethnic leaders have been able to form an effective opposition to Hamid Karzai but the emerging political alliances ahead of the scheduled elections are painting a different picture. The National Front of Afghanistan (NFA) led Ahmad Zia Massoud, Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq and Abdul Rashid Dostum is not only representative of the three ethnic minorities of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks, but have also pledged to throw their weight behind one presidential candidate to improve their chances of winning and break the cycle of Pashtun domination that has almost always characterized Afghanistan’s political landscape. This was exemplified by the recent effort to incorporate the influential Balkh governor, Atta Mohammad Nur into their support base as a potential presidential candidate. Dr Abdullah Abdullah and former Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni, both of whom have served in Hamid Karzai’s administration, and have been presidential candidates in 2009 and 2004, respectively, have also formed the National Coalition of Afghanistan (NCA), another leading opposition party. The agendas for both political parties are to amend the constitution towards more power to the parliament and empower elected provincial councils to select mayors and governors.
The strategies and political aims of political alliances like the NFA and NCA are expressive of their goal to maintain a check and balance on Pashtun domination of the central government. What remains to be seen and is critical for stability in Afghanistan is that if a Pashtun leader emerges victorious, whether or not he will be as successful as his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, in co-opting ethnic minority leaders within the political structures. On the other hand, if a minority leader sweeps the 2014 elections, it may cause wide-spread resentment amongst the dominant Pashtun community who have historically asserted a ’right to rule’ Afghanistan. Therefore, it can be safely assumed that ethnic affiliations will have a large role to play in the stability and sustainability of democratic institutions in Afghanistan post the 2014 transitional phase.
(The writer is a Research Intern at Observer Research Foundation)
Country Reports
Afghanistan
Kabul under pressure from US
Ajmal Faizi, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, said that western countries are putting pressure on the Afghanistan government to accept US conditions for the bilateral security agreement signed between the countries in May 2012. Mr Faizi’s remarks came in reaction to a statement by some Members of Parliament from the United Kingdom, that the start of an Afghan-led peace deal with the Taliban is needed to secure the future of Afghanistan after British troops leave the country.
According to a recent BBC report, the Defense Select Committee warned that the failure to do so could lead to civil war in Afghanistan. The report stressed that lack of progress by the Afghan government in reducing violence in Afghanistan, ’does not augur well for improving security and economic development on a long-term sustainable basis’. The report also suggests that some ground must be given to the Taliban in the on-going negotiations but this must not compromise the rule of law and human rights.
Faizi rejected these remarks and claimed that the Afghan security forces had strengthened enough over the past 10 years to guarantee peace and stability. He also said the presence of foreigners in Afghanistan would be based on strategic cooperation agreements that the country had reached with certain nations. He said despite ups and downs and the lack of sincere cooperation from some countries, including Pakistan, the Afghan government would continue to peruse efforts at reconciliation
Source: Pajhwok Afghan News, Daily Outlook Afghanistan; Date: April 11, 2013
New poll chief after new law
A high-level meeting, chaired by President Hamid Karzai concluded that a new Independent Election Commission (IEC) chairman would be appointed after the approval of a draft electoral law by Parrliament. The meeting was held to discuss the replacement of the present election chief, Fazal Ahmad Manawi, whose three-year tenure expires at the end of April.
National Security Advisor Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Bamyan Governor Habiba Sarabi and Chief of Staff to President Karim Khurram are reportedly considered for the slot. Former jihadi leaders, the two vice-presidents, parliamentary speakers, civil society members and political leaders were invited to the consultative meeting at the Presidential Palace.
The main Opposition alliance, however, boycotted the session, slamming it as unconstitutional. A leader of one of the leading alliances in Afghanistan, representing 21 political parties, said they had skipped the meeting because it violated core democratic values. Abbas Nawyan, a member of the coalition, argued that duties and powers of the IEC and the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) were yet to be ratified by the parliament.
A statement from President Karzai’s office said both houses of the parliament were expected to adopt the proposed law on IEC structure, responsibilities and powers as soon as possible. Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, Abdur Rab Rasul Sayyaf, Pir Syed Ahmad Gilani, Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Asif Mohseni, Syed Mansoor Nadery, the two Vice Presidents, the chief justice, senior ministers, politicians and several MPs were among the 52 invitees.
Source: Daily Outlook Afghanistan; Date: April 10, 2013
Bangladesh
Hasina rejects blasphemy law
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has categorically rejected the demand for a new anti-blasphemy law to punish those who defame Islam and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). She made her comment in a reaction to the Hefajat-e Islam’s demand for such a law during an exclusive interview to BBC.
Hefajat-e Islam, the fundamentalist religious organisation, set demand for such a law in a massive rally at Dhaka this week, which was attended by thousands of its supporters. Hefajat-e Islam is demanding death penalty for those guilty of blasphemy.
Hasina said that her Government has no plan to change the existing law since it does feel there is necessity for it. She further added that Bangladesh is a secular democracy. So each and every religion has the right to practice their religion freely. However, she opined that it would not be fair to hurt anybody’s religious feeling.
Hefajat-e Islam has given a three-week ultimatum to the government to meet their demands, including tough punishment to those who they describe as atheist bloggers, who are also accused of making derogatory comments against Islam.
It needs to be recalled that Bangladesh has been rocked by a series of protests by opposition parties in recent weeks. The Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, has been holding demonstrations demanding the immediate release of its leaders, who are facing war crimes charges. Two of its senior leaders have already been convicted by a special tribunal. Seven more are still facing the trial. More than 80 people have been killed in clashes in the last few months.
The politics of the country has also boiled up as the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is pressing the government to restore a neutral interim caretaker administration to oversee parliamentary polls. The BNP has declared that it will not participate in any election unless caretaker government system is restored. Ruling Awami League has rejected the demand of the BNP. This has led to trail of shutdown across the country. This week also opposition has observed thirty six hours shutdown that followed soon after the Hefajat-e Islam grand rally. The shutdown had seen violent clashes between the law enforcement agencies and pro-shutdown supporters across the country which claimed more than three lives and hundreds injured.
Source: The Daily Star, April 8 & 9, 2013; The Independent, April 12, 2013
Irish firm pulls out of Bangura gas field
Tullow Oil Plc has sold its 30 per cent stakes in the Bangura gas field to Criss Energy Asia for USD 42.35 million. Tullow claimed that the company is going to wrap up its business in South Asia as it has discovered a huge hydrocarbon reserve in Africa.
Source: The Independent, April 11, 2013
Air Force base at Kurmitola
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina this week inaugurated a new air force Base Bangabandhu at Kurmitola in Dhaka. Inaugurating the new air force base Prime Minister said that a new horizon in building a modern, professional, effective and well-disciplined armed forces. The Prime Minister also expressed the hope that with the setting up of the base, effectiveness and capacity of the air force would get a new dimension in protecting air space and national interest of the country.
The inauguration of new air base coincided with the induction of most-modern F-7BG1 fighter planes and MI-171 SH helicopters in the Bangladesh Air Force.
Source: www.bssnews.net, April 9, 2013
Strategic dialogue with US
The second US- Bangladesh strategic dialogue was held this week in Washington. Bangladesh delegation was led by Additional Foreign Secretary Mustafa Kamal and US side was led US State Department Assistant Secretary Andrew Shapiro.
The two sides discussed six broad areas of cooperation at the dialogue including strategic priorities and regional issues, military-military engagement, counterterrorism, security assistance, peacekeeping and non-proliferation issues.
Source: The Independent, April 9-10, 2013
Bhutan
Tourism policy deterring Thai nationals
It has been a dream for many from Thailand to visit Bhutan, but because of the high tourist tariff charged by the Government in the Himalayan Kingdom, it remains unrealised. Bhutan charges $200-250 a person per night as a minimum daily package for tourists travelling in a group of three or more, depending on the month.
The package comprises a minimum of three-star accommodations, meals, a licensed Bhutanese guide, internal road transport, and camping equipment and haulage for trekking tours. The tariff also includes all internal taxes and charges.
The high tariff is deterring significant numbers of Thai tourists from travelling to Bhutan, said Druk Asia, Druk Air’s ticketing agent in Bangkok. Compared to other places in the region, $250 a day makes Bhutan a much costlier travel destination. Eventually, it loses customers, since they choose to go elsewhere.
Tourism Council of Bhutan (TCB) maintains that the tariff is not high for a country aiming at high-end tourism. As of August 2012, Japanese tourists topped the chart of visitors to Bhutan, followed by those from the United States and China. Thailand ranked fourth with 1,825 visitors.
Source: The Nation, April 9, 2013
Lead content high in rice
Rice imported from some countries, including China and Bhutan, contains high levels of lead that could pose a health risk to children, researchers have claimed. US experts detected concentrations of lead ranging from six to 12 mg per kg in rice from several sources. The highest amounts were seen in rice originating from China and Taiwan.
Significantly high levels were also found in samples from the Czech Republic, Bhutan, Italy, India and Thailand. All these countries export rice to the UK. Infants and children consuming the rice would be exposed to lead levels 30 to 60 times higher than the tolerable safety limits set by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said the study authors. For Asian children, who consume more rice, exposures could be up to 120 times higher. For adults, daily exposure levels were 20 to 40 times higher than the FDA guidelines.
The researchers are still in the process of analysing rice samples from Pakistan, Brazil and other countries. Lead accumulates slowly in the body, and can lead to nerve and kidney damage, as well as anaemia. One study has shown brain shrinkage in workers exposed to lead through their occupations. Long-term lead exposure has been linked to reduced IQ and disruptive behaviour in children. Rice is the staple food of around three billion people worldwide.
Source: Daily Mail, April 11, 2013
India
’UPA Ally approached BJP to topple Govt’
Former BJP president Nitin Gadkari has claimed that a "senior leader" had approached him to topple the Congress-led UPA-II Government at the Centre. Though the "senior leader" got in touch with him during his stint as the BJP President, he maintained that he had out-rightly rejected the "advice". Gadkari did not give the identity of the "senior" leader.
Stating that he is a man of principles and does things publicly, Gadkari said at a gathering in Nagpur that he will not resort to "backstabbing," adding, "My conscience is clear and I have no separate agenda."
Referring to the recent developments in his political career, the former BJP President said he has done nothing wrong. The income tax department had conducted a probe into the alleged dubious investments in Gadkari’s Purti group of companies.
Source: The Times of India, April 12, 2013
Social media likely to influence polls: Study
The 2014 General Election outcome in 160 constituencies is likely to be influenced the most by social media users, a study has said. The study, ’Social Media and Lok Sabha Elections’, jointly conducted by the RIS Knowledge Foundation and supported by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) said that "there are 160 high impact constituencies out of the total of 543 constituencies, which were likely to be influenced by social media during the next general election."
High-impact constituencies are those where the numbers of Facebook users are more than the margin of victory of the winner in the last election, or where Facebook users account for over 10 per cent of the voters. Maharashtra has the most number of high impact constituencies (21), followed by Gujarat (17), the study said.
Source: The Times of India, April 12, 2013
Modi addresses FICCI women
After corporates and youth, it was the turn of woman-power that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi sought to woo in his bid to reach out to audiences nationwide in a speech that also had digs at Rahul Gandhi and the woman Governor in his state.
Women entrepreneurship, empowerment and equality for the fair sex were the themes during his hour-long interaction organised by the FICCI Ladies Organisation in which a number of entrepreneurs, including FICCI president Naina Lal Kidwai, were present.
Observing that 50 per cent women alone could do a lot to bring economic development in the country, Modi cited examples of women in tribal areas and the dairy movement which made Amul an internationally known brand.
The Chief Minister, however, did not leave the opportunity to have a go at Rahul Gandhi, who could potentially be pitted against him in the Prime Ministerial race, and the state governor, a woman, over non-clearance of a women’s reservation bill.
Talking of women’s entrepreneurship, he referred to a Jasubehn, whose pizzas could beat even known international brands, in Gujarat. Modi also hit out at Congress while trying to hard sell the achievements in Gujarat.
Source: The Indian Express, April 8, 2013
Mamata fumes after Minister manhandled
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee went into melodramatic mode after her finance minister was attacked by SFI activists in New Delhi. A group of protesters from Left organisations, which waited for the Trinamool Congress Chief outside the Planning Commission’s office, raised slogans against her when she arrived with Minister Amit Mitra to meet Plan panel Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
The 65-year-old Finance Minister was pushed and jostled around as he tried to enter the Yojna Bhawan building. A woman protester thumped him twice on his chest and his kurta was torn in the melee. Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee and Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim also faced the ire of the activists who were protesting the death of Sudipto Gupta, a leader of CPI(M)’s student wing SFI.
Condemning the Left protests against Banerjee, Trinamool Congress has said it would stall Parliament proceedings to ask the government how it allowed such an incident to occur in a high security zone.
Source: indiatimes.com, April 9, 2013
Growth will go up: Montek
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia this was optimistic that India’s economic growth would be higher in the current fiscal. "I think it (IIP growth in February) is consistent to what we have been saying that 2012-13 was not a good year and (the economic growth in) 2013-14 would be a lot better...I am glad that it (IIP) is not negative but it is very low," said Ahluwalia.
According to official data released this week revealed that industrial growth has slipped to 0.6 per cent in February this year (2013) due to contraction in power generation and mining output and poor performance of manufacturing sector. However, factory output, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), had grown by 4.3 per cent in February last year. IIP had growth at 2.4 per cent in January this year.
Mining output in February this year contracted by 8.1 per cent compared to a growth of 2.3 per cent in the same month last year. For the April-February period, the production in the sector showed a decline of 2.5 per cent, against contraction of 2.1 per cent in the year-ago period.
Source: The Hindu, April 12, 2013
Want to be part of Afghan solution: Khurshid
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has said that India wants to be part of the solution and not part of the problem in Afghanistan. Minister observed that India has not and must not be a bystander and aloof of what is happening in Afghanistan. He further added, "What is happening to Afghanistan is happening to us, it is in the neighbourhood, and is actually in the family and that is why it is important to India,"
The Minister said that India is involved in a lot of development work in Afghanistan, reaching down to the district level. He said that the solution in Afghanistan will not be sustained unless Indian inputs are there. He also informed that India is little concerned about ’good Taliban, bad Taliban’ and added that "it is ultimately for Afghanistan to decide". He said that India’s duty is to forewarn them of consequences they might find others are overlooking.
Source: ibnlive.com, April 9, 2013
Sri Lankan claim rejected
India has disapproved of a top Sri Lankan official’s reported remark about it regarding terrorism in that country, saying the armed conflict there was a result of Colombo denying rights to Tamils there.
Responding to Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s reported remark that India could never absolve itself of the responsibility for creating terrorism in his country, Union Minister V Narayanasamy said the statement was not acceptable.
"As far as India is concerned (late Prime Ministers) Indira and Rajiv Gandhi supported Tamils. We even lost Rajiv Gandhi (in an assassination by LTTE). He sent Indian Peace Keeping Force to help Tamils. Rajapaksa’s statement is unacceptable. Sri Lanka is responsible for terrorism as Tamils took to terrorism because their rights were denied," he said. New Delhi did not support any kind of terrorist activities, Minister claimed.
Source: dnaindia.com, April 12, 2013
Maldives
Govt lost in GMR deal, says audit report
The special Audit Report on the award of Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) to Indian company GMR by the former government has revealed that the government lost several opportunities, on managing the threats and expanding the economic benefits of the agreement, due to failure by the former government to study the losses and benefits to the country from the project.
The report states that the changes made to the fees by GMR after the airport was handed over to the company resulted in a reduction in the estimated revenue to the Government. In the report, the Auditor-General raised several concerns in relation to the agreement. He noted that the bid evaluation process was not complete, and that the opportunities for making such an agreement were not evaluated from an economic perspective before the agreement was drawn up.
The Report highlighted that the guarantee for obtaining loans from Axis Bank was not given according to the Public Finance Act, and that GMR’s reasons for making changes to the fees is unclear. He further said that Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) was not allowed to participate to the degree that it should have been, in the planning and implementation of the agreement.
The Audit Report states that upon taking over the airport, GMR paid $78 million to the government, and $3.7 million to IFC as part of the concession agreement. GMR had also agreed to spend $369 million as concession fees and for the development of the airport. However, changes to the annual concession fees as agreed by GMR and the former Government resulted in a reduction in the revenue to the Government. Following the Civil Court ruling in 2011 which stated that GMR cannot charge ADC, the former Government agreed to deduct ADC from the concession fee payable to the Government, which resulted in a loss of $23 million to the Government by the end of September 2012.
It was also noted in the Audit Report that GMR filed a case for arbitration following the termination of the agreement by the Government last year, and that the Axis Bank is currently in discussion with the Government to claim $160 million issued to GMR, for which the Government acted as the guarantor. The report states that by the end of 2012, GMR had completed one-third of the airport development work planned till the end of 2014, and that GMR suspended its work following a Civil Court ruling which stated that GMR had not obtained the necessary permits.
On 27 November 2012, the Government terminated its agreement with GMR on awarding the operation of INIA for 25 years; and on 7 December 2012, the government handed over the operation of INIA to MACL.
Source: Sun Online, April 11, 2013
’Nasheed trial’ Bench had SC clearance: JSC
The three-Judge Bench of the Hulhumale Magistrate Court presiding over the case of the arrest and subsequent detention Chief Criminal Judge Abdulla Mohamed had been composed under the advice of the Supreme Court, Judicial Service Commission (JSC) told the High Court on Thursday.
The legal team of President Mohamed Nasheed, who is one of five being charged with the Judge’s arrest, asked the High Court to declare the composition of the Hulhumale Court Bench unlawful. During the hearing, JSC had raised a procedural point stating that as the bench had been composed under the advice of the Supreme Court, the High Court had no jurisdiction to hear the case.
In response, Nasheed’s legal team noted that the advice of the highest court cannot be considered to carry the same authority as a ruling and no court of the Maldives has so far delivered a verdict on the Hulhumale Court Bench. The High Court Bench concluded the hearing after giving Nasheed’s legal team time to prepare a response for the procedural point raised by the JSC.
The High Court had earlier temporarily stayed the proceedings of Nasheed’s trial at the Hulhumale Magistrate Court until it can decide over the legitimacy of the lower court Bench.
Source: Haveeru Online, April 11, 2013
Nothing can shake India relations: HC
Highs and lows are a norm of every relationship, but nothing can shake the foundation of India-Maldives ties, new Indian High Commissioner to Maldives Rajeev Shahare assured the media on Wednesday.
Speaking during a reception held at Traders Hotel on Wednesday evening for the local media, Shahare noted that the deep historic ties between India and Maldives had been found on various common factors. "People to people contact... Our civilisation, history, language and ethnic background. These factors constitute to very interesting mix which together puts the relationship on a strong platform," High Commissioner said.
Shahare also assured that during his tenure he would strive to strengthen the ties that exist between the two countries. "My aim would be to strengthen, not improve ties. Our relationship is already strong. So I will look to diversify the area of cooperation between the two countries," he said.
Despite assurances from the new High Commissioner, the bilateral ties between India and Maldives have been severely strained in the recent past, brought about mostly by the abrupt termination of the contract given to India’s GMR for the modernisation of the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA).
Speaking in that regard, Shahare insisted that the stand of the Indian Government had not changed on the Maldives. "Our relationship has been time tested. People continue to go to India for studies, medical treatment and tourism purposes. Likewise a lot of Indians come to the Maldives as well. Our engagements in various areas are continuing. So I don’t believe India’s stand on the Maldives has changed in any way or form," Shahare said.
"India has always been there for Maldives and will continue to do so. We stand in readiness to assist in whatever Maldives requires, which I’m sure is true for Maldives as said by the president."
Source: Haveeru Online, April 11, 2013
Myanmar
Medical visa for Manipur
A struggling health service and paucity of medicines has forced Myanmar nationals for years to illegally come to Imphal for treatment after crossing the porous border at Moreh in Manipur. The problem is that while a Myanmar national is permitted to enter India without a visa and travel up to 18 km, this permission does not cover Imphal. Now the Centre, at the behest of the State Government, is working out a special Visa on arrival system for Myanmar nationals who want to visit Imphal specifically for medical treatment. Earlier this month, a delegation representing the Myanmar government visited Imphal on a goodwill tour and discussed the issue of ’health visas’.
The delegation from Myanmar belonged to Sagaing district, neighbouring Manipur. A team of the Bureau of Immigration has visited Moreh last week to inspect the possibility of setting up a customs counter. The delegation also visited Imphal’s Shija Hospital which has been running cleft palate clinics at the border.
The patients and their families risk the possibility of being caught or imprisoned to come to Imphal, he says. Palin, along with a team of Manipur officials, will visit Sagaing’s capital Mongya this month to assess the possibility of setting up camps.
Source: The Indian Express, April 11, 2013
Fleeing Rohingyas caught adrift
Indonesian police say they have rescued seventy six hungry, dehydrated Rohingya asylum seekers who fled Myanmar in a rickety boat hobbled by a storm. Local fishermen towed the boat to shore on Monday after discovering it off Indonesia’s westernmost Aceh province.
The group - all members of the ethnic Rohingya minority - includes five women and five children. One migrant told investigators they were fleeing sectarian violence in Myanmar, hoping to seek asylum in Australia.
Many Rohingyas have left Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which considers them illegal Muslim settlers from neighbouring Bangladesh. On Friday, Buddhist fishermen and Rohingya Muslim asylum seekers brawled at an Indonesian immigration detention centre following an argument over rising tensions in their homeland, killing eight and injuring fifteen.
Source: Associated Press, April 8, 2013
Three jailed for sectarian violence
The owner of the gold shop in Meiktila where last month’s sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims started, his wife and an employee were given fourteen years’ jail sentence on Friday.
The three were accused of beating a Buddhist customer in an argument over a gold hairpin on March 20. They were convicted of causing grievous bodily harm and theft with intent to cause death or injury, according to the state-run Mirror newspaper.
The tough sentences are believed to be the first handed down in relation to last month’s unrest. The gold shop row later escalated into several days of clashes that left forty three people dead and mosques and Muslim homes burned down.
The situation has calmed since President Thein Sein on March 28 vowed a tough response against those behind the violence, which he attributed to "political opportunists and religious extremists."
Source: Agence France-Presse, April 12, 2013
Test census conducted
Preparations for Myanmar’s first census in 31 years started on March 30 to April 10 as the Myanmar government, with help from the UN Populations Fund (UNFPA) ran a pilot census.
About 100 school teachers, observed by members of the UNFPA, conducted a sample cross-section of Myanmar society by questioning residents across twenty townships on matters of age, race, education, housing and infrastructure.
Speaking at a conference on the census in January, Frederick Okwayo, the UNFPA’s chief technical advisor, said, "A census has not happened for thirty years so you can see it as a challenge or an opportunity as all the people under thirty have no sense of what the census is."
The official census will take place from March 30, 2014, when 100,000 enumerators will visit every household in the country in 12 days. As a census has not taken place in Myanmar since 1983, estimates on the population of the country vary wildly: according to the World Bank, Myanmar’s population is 48 million; the Asian Development Bank says it is 60 million; and the International Monetary Fund lists the population at 64 million.
Source: Mizzima News, April 12, 2013
Museum in late UN chief’s house
Former United Nations Secretary-General, late U Thant, is being restored and will open as a new museum in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. Government officials, diplomats and members of U Thant’s family gathered on Saturday at a ceremony at the home, a two-story yellow villa built in the 1920’s and where he lived in the 1950’s before serving as the UN chief. It is being renovated as part of an effort to preserve the colonial-era cityscape of one of Asia’s last untouched cities.
The museum is scheduled to open to the public in the coming months, said a statement from the Yangon Heritage Trust, which is chaired by Thant Myint-U, a Harvard-educated historian who is also U Thant’s grandson.
From 1957 to 1961, U Thant served as Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the UN, before serving as U.N. secretary-general from 1961 to 1971.
Source: Associated Press, April 6, 2013
Hydrocarbons auction opens
Myanmar has opened a long-awaited auction for thirty offshore oil and gas exploration blocks in its latest effort to attract foreign investment even as it considers recasting a series of older contracts with outside companies.
The government has invited foreign companies to submit expressions of interest by June 14 and the auction is expected to attract fierce competition.
However, the move comes amid signs that Myanmar is likely to review, and possibly renegotiate, existing natural resources deals as it prepares to sign up to the Norway-based Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
The EITI, which has been signed by more than thirty countries, is a voluntary regime that sets high standards of financial disclosure, governance and environmental criteria. The World Bank and Australia are helping Myanmar’s government prepare to meet EITI standards under aid programmes.
In light of Myanmar’s growing environmental concerns and a new emphasis on ensuring contracts are more equitable, the government is likely to reassess existing contracts for minerals, energy and other resources, said U Soe Thane, the minister who oversees foreign investment.
More than $20 billion has been invested in natural resources projects in Myanmar over the past 30 years by a range of companies - mainly from China and other Asian countries but also from Russia, Europe and Australia, according to Myanmar officials. Projects range from copper, nickel, coal and jade mines to oil and gas, both on and offshore.
The EU is also set to introduce higher standards of transparency, requiring project-by-project reporting for European companies involved in natural resources deals.
In the latest auction, companies will be able to bid for rights to up to three of the thirty oil and gas exploration blocks, including full rights for nineteen deep water blocks. This will be a departure from the usual requirement for foreign companies to form partnerships with the state-owned oil and Gas Company, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise in oil and gas production.
Bidders for the remaining 11 shallow water blocks, however, will be required to enter production-sharing arrangements with MOGE, according to the country’s ministry of energy.
Source: Financial Times, April 11, 2013
Bharti Airtel, a finalist
India’s mobile-major Bharti Airtel is among the 12 final contenders for a telecom licence in Myanmar. The company’s pre-qualification bid was approved by Myanmar’s telecom authority that has invited Bharti Airtel to participate in the final stage of the licence awarding process.
Myanmar’s Ministry of Communications, Posts and Telegraph said that pre-qualified applicants will be required to submit their applications to the committee by June 3, 2013, and the winner will be declared on June 27.
India’s largest telecom company by revenue had put in a bid for national licence in Myanmar in January to increase its footprint in Asia. Bharti Airtel already has operations in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Myanmar government had invited foreign companies in January to submit applications for two nation-wide mobile permits, which it plans to issue by June. The permits would be valid for 15-20 years and would carry an option of renewal.
Source: The Economic Times, April 12, 2013
Nepal
NC gears up for elections
While terming the upcoming election a matter of ’life or death’ for the party, Nepali Congress (NC) President Sushil Koirala has directed party cadres to start election campaign to make NC the largest party.
Addressing the concluding ceremony of the four-day Mahasamiti meeting that ended with a 16-point Trivenidhaam Declaration on April 11, Mr Koirala directed the Mahasamiti members to mobilise entire rank and file of the party for the election campaign. "Election environment has already begun. All of you should actively participate in the election campaign. Nepali Congress must win the election to safeguard democracy," he said.
Senior party leader Sher Bahadur Deuba argued that the party failed to win the last election because the cadres and leaders were unprepared. "Elections are due anytime soon. So, we must start preparations," said Deuba while directing Mahasamiti members to give their best for the elections. Arguing that the Constituent Assembly (CA) failed to deliver new statute as NC did not have majority in the CA, Vice President Ram Chandra Paudel asked the party leaders to actively engage in election campaign to make NC the largest party.
All three leaders assured Mahasamiti members to incorporate their views and suggestions in the political paper presented by Paudel. The Mahasamiti meeting has formed a nine-member committee under Paudel to incorporate those suggestions.
The 16-point Trivenidhaam Declaration demanded that the Interim Council scrap all the political appointments made by the erstwhile Baburam Bhattarai-led government to ensure free and fair elections and hold the fresh poll by mid-December. The declaration has also decided to take special initiatives to hold talks with the disgruntled political parties to bring them onboard the election process.
Source: Republica, April 12, 2013
Govt okays election-related ordinances
A Cabinet meeting endorsed five Ordinances related to election and citizenship distribution and forwarded them to the president. A separate Cabinet meeting had endorsed three other budget-related ordinances and forwarded them to the President.
According to Bimal Gautam, Press advisor to Chairman of the ’Election Government’ Khil Raj Regmi, the Government endorsed the Nepali Citizenship Act-2063 with a view to allowing distribution of citizenship certificates by descent to the children of citizens by birth. There was a controversy over distribution of citizenship to the children of around 172,000 people, who had been granted citizenship by birth prior to Constituent Assembly election in 2008.
The Election Commission had to halt its latest voter registration campaign due to objection by Mahesh-based parties as they have been demanding citizenship for the children of citizens by birth. Earlier, leaders from major political parties had reached a political agreement to this effect. The Cabinet also endorsed another ordinance related to the voter registration process.
Similarly, the Cabinet meeting held earlier decided to withdraw three different ordinances that had been forwarded by the previous Baburam Bhattarai-headed government to the president. The cabinet meeting held later endorsed and forwarded them to the President.
Source: Republica, April 9, 2013
Prechanda’s India visit ’after China trip’
Upon the invitation of the Indian Government, United CPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prechanda will visit the southern neighbour, most probably from April 24. This will be his third visit to the country after his party joined mainstream politics in 2006.
Although, both the United CPN (Maoist) and the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu are tight-lipped about the visit, a close aide to the Maoist chairman told the Post that Dahal will leave for New Delhi "immediately after his return from China on April 21."
Dahal is leaving for Beijing on April 14. After his return, Dahal will attend a training programme in Bardiya for two days before leaving for Delhi, the Maoist boss’ aide said.
In November 2006, Dahal and party Vice-Chairman Baburam Bhattarai had visited India to attend the Hindustan Leadership Summit, their first India visit after they joined open politics. As Prime Minister, Dahal visited New Delhi in September 2008.
Relations between Dahal and Delhi hit a low when his government sacked the then Army Chief Rookmangud Katawal in April 2009. During the subsequent Madhav Kumar Nepal government, when the Maoist party launched an agitation for ’sovereignty and nationality’, the relations further soured as Dahal went on an offensive against India’s policy on his party.
Sources close to Dahal said the Maoist boss was, however, keen to visit New Delhi before heading for Beijing so as to avoid the kind of criticism that followed his first visit to China after becoming PM in 2008. In recent times, it has become a tradition for a new Nepali PM to make the first official visit to India.
Source: The Kathmandu Post, April 12, 2013
Budget for NRs 404.82 billion
The Government has announced a full budget of Rs 404.82 billion for the current fiscal year, allaying fears of fiscal strains that absence of a complete fiscal policy could have left on the economy. The budget announcement made on April 9 was the third in a series this fiscal year --something that happened for the first time in the country’s history.
The budget, which includes estimates of the government’s income and expenditure for this fiscal year, was prepared by adjusting amounts appropriated in the two financial ordinances presented by the Baburam Bhattarai-led government on July 15 and November 20.
The current budget has allocated Rs 6 billion for polls and additional Rs 8 billion for security arrangements for election
Source: Republica, April 10, 2013
Pakistan
Musharraf summoned
The up-and-down return to Pakistan of former President Gen Pervez Musharraf continued during the past week. Musharraf was summoned by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which sought to take up five petitions seeking his prosecution for high treason. However, a two-judge bench from the Supreme Court rejected a petition to have Musharraf, who was not there in person, arrested. This arrest would have come for Musharraf’s imposing a state of emergency in 2007. The Supreme Court gave Musharraf and his legal team until 15 April to respond to all charges against him.
Despite the pending charges, Musharraf has returned to participate in elections and to "save Pakistan." Unfortunately for him, his candidacy papers were rejected in Islamabad, Karachi and Kasur National Assembly constituencies. However, because he has not yet been convicted of any crime, the Returning Officer for NA 32 in Chitral accepted his nomination papers.
Source: The Dawn, April, 8, 2013, The Dawn, April 9, 2013
Ashraf nomination rejected
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) received more than 27,000 applications for roughly 1,000 legislative seats to be determined during the 11 May elections. The scrutinising process was quite contentious, especially regarding the fake degrees cases.
In a surprising development, recent Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf had his own application rejected. Additionally, National Assembly Opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had his papers rejected for ’financial discrepancies’, although he resolved the issue and the previous ruling was overturned on appeal.
Prime Minister Ashraf’s nomination papers were rejected on the basis of Article 62 of the Constitution, which requires all candidates to be "upright, trustworthy, and honest." A recent judgement against Ashraf relating to two development projects he approved, stated, "(They are the) result of colourable exercise of authority, irrelevant considerations, a naked corruption, polluted mannerism, offensive to public exchequer and an infringement to constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights."
The ECP created nine tribunals to deal with nomination appeals by 17 April, and opinions differ as to whether Ashraf will ultimately be permitted to contest. He is undeniably popular in his constituency, making the prospect of a successful ’backup’ campaign by Ashraf’s son a likely prospect.
Source: The Express Tribune, April 8, 2013, The Friday Times, April 12, 2013
Sri Lanka
US wants action on media-attacks
The US has called for concrete action against those responsible for a series of attacks on Sri Lankan journalists and media institutions. US Ambassador Michele J Sisson, during a meeting with the Foreign Correspondents Association in Colombo last week said that there had been very little progress in the investigations into assaults on the Sri Lankan media.
"Attacks against journalists continue to this day and the suspects are rarely apprehended. In the few cases where there had been some arrests, they are almost never convicted," she said. Just the previous week the Uthayan newspaper office in Killinochchi was attacked by masked assailants -- another in a series of unsolved violence against the newspaper and its employees over the past several years. The Ambassador noted that many prominent journalists have fled the country and a number of assaults on the media remain unresolved.
In a participatory democracy, people must have access to accurate information about the situation in their country and the activities of their government, if they are to make informed choices which provide the fundamental legitimacy of the government that represents them, Sison noted. Support for freedom of expression, she said was in fact one of the many recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) Report and was also raised in the March 2013 resolution on Sri Lanka at the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Source: The Island, April 12, 2013
Can US ignore TNA’s complicity, ask Gota
Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa yesterday said that US Ambassador Michele J. Sison was either ignorant of the post-war situation in the country or chose to ignore it in deeping with the US?agenda. Ambassador Sison’s recent speech was meant to strengthen those still pursuing a separatist agenda, both here and abroad, Defence Secretary Rajapaksa told The Island.
The outspoken official was responding to Ambassador Sison’s address to members of the Colombo based Foreign Correspondents Association (FCA) on Wednesday evening. Commenting on the Ambassador’s assertion that the resumption of a dialogue with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on political devolution is crucial, Rajapaksa said the US should realise the TNA was playing politics with the issue. He emphasized that the TNA had regained its right to represent Tamil speaking people again only after the eradication of the LTTE in May 2009. Until then, the TNA simply acted as the LTTEs mouthpiece both here and abroad.
"Maybe Ambassador Sison still does not know Prabhakaran compelled the TNA to recognise the LTTE as the sole representative of Tamil speaking people way back in 2001. That effectively kept the TNA out of the Norwegian-led negotiating process. As TNA leaders feared for their lives, they remained silent. None of the Colombo based diplomatic missions, including the US, intervened on behalf of the TNA," the Defence Secretary said.
He said that latterly the TNA joined the LTTE in its strategy to pursue the eelam project and contested the December 2001 parliamentary under the auspices of the LTTE. European Union Election Monitoring Mission, in its report alleged that TNA candidates had benefited from the LTTE unleashing violence on other political parties in the fray, he said. The visiting EU monitors even reported how the LTTE stuffed ballot boxes on behalf of the TNA candidates, he said.
The official said that those demanding accountability on Sri Lanka’s part for alleged atrocities were strangely silent on the TNA’s role during the conflict. "Let TNA at least explain its position on the LTTE using children as cannon-fodder as well deploying them on suicide missions," the Defence Secretary said. He said that the LTTE went to the extent of depriving people of the Northern and Eastern Provinces of their franchise at the November 2005 presidential polls.
In fact, the polls boycott decision had been announced by the TNA in Kilinochchi in the run-up to the November 17, 2005 election, the Defence Secretary said. Today, the TNA is presented as Tamil peoples only choice, Rajapaksa said, urging US Ambassador to clarify matters with the TNA, which in fact backed the LTTE’s war to the hilt to the very end, he added.
Source: The Island, April 11, 2013
Washington PR firm paid $ 100 m
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka has engaged the services of a Washington based PR agency for a consideration of Rs. 100 million (approx. US$ 800,000) in order to deepen defence, investment, trade and cultural links with the US ahead of the UNHRC sessions in 2013.
The Central Bank would pay Rs. 100 million for a year’s service provided by the Thompson Advisory Group Llc, USA (TAG). The contract was signed by Central Bank Deputy Governor BDWA Silva and Robert J. Thompson, Chairman TAG on March 16, 2013 as the US government sponsored a second resolution against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC sessions in Geneva.
The deal was brokered by Thilak Siriwardena who will provide strategic consultancy services to the Central Bank for a consideration of US$ 7,000 a month for one year, Opposition MPs disclosed.
Source: The Island, April 11, 2013
Anti-SL protest by Muslims in UK
The Sri Lankan Muslim community in the United Kingdom did not participate in a demonstration staged by a group of Muslims opposite the Sri Lankan High Commission in London last week.
The protesters warned of ’jihad’ (holy war) if Buddhists and the Sri Lankan government continued "to oppress Muslims". However, they said that if the Sri Lankan government wants peace, they will be happy to have a dialogue.
Source: The Island, April 12, 2013
JHU slams Govt’s casino plans
In the wake of the Government’s push to open up the country’s casino industry to international developers, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) has urged it to reveal the areas where the casinos would be located. The JHU said that it was vehemently opposed to the establishment of casinos in Sri Lanka and criticized the way the casinos were expanding in the country.
Speaking of the Government’s intention to develop tourism industry with the help of casinos, the JHU argued that the foreigners would not come to Sri Lanka for casino. If they want to gamble they would go to Macao or Goa in India, he said.
Sri Lanka should not be a hub of betting and gaming, the JHU said adding that it went against tenets of the State religion. If large numbers of casinos were set up in Sri Lanka, the country would get a bad name and people would no longer be able to be proud of the country.
JHU General Secretary and the Technology, Research and Atomic Energy Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka said that the casino clubs were not necessary for Sri Lanka to promote tourism, as the country was blessed with natures gifts and a rich cultural, historical and religious heritage.
Source: The Island, April 12, 2013
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