| Fliers stranded with tales of woe | ||
| A STAFF REPORTER | ||
Y.K. Grace was watching TV in her Sudder Street hotel room on Monday afternoon when she learnt about Tuesday’s bandh. The 25-year-old from Manipur immediately alerted three of her friends who had accompanied her to the city and all four started packing their bags. “We shifted to a lodge close to the airport so that we faced no hassle in catching our flight to Guwahati on Tuesday morning,” said Grace. But the tourists were wrong to assume that staying closer to the airport would help them beat the bandh. “We learnt on reaching the airport in the morning that our flight had been cancelled. There is no option but to take the evening flight which leaves at 6.45pm,” said a harassed Grace, sitting outside the airport with her friends. The airport on Tuesday was teeming with people like Grace who left home early for the airport only to learn that their flights would not take off. To add to their inconvenience, the only toilet outside the terminals, run by contractors, was put under lock and key by bandh supporters. Airport officials said 41 flights, including some international ones, had been cancelled during the day. “I was shocked to learn that my flight was cancelled. Where do I go now?” asked an angry V.K. Prasad, a trader from Ranchi who had to pay Rs 500 to a cabbie to reach the airport from his guesthouse on Free School Street. On any other day, the fare ranges between Rs 200 and Rs 250. Air India was the only airline that operated during the bandh. Altogether 24 flights of the airline took off from or landed at the city airport. “Air India has been revalidating tickets without any applicable penalty on a future date for those passengers who might not have been able to report on time,” said a spokesperson for the airline. Quite a few who landed at the airport while the bandh was on were at sea as there was virtually no transport to ferry them to their destinations. The prepaid taxi booth was closed and the Volvo service from national and international terminals, too, was suspended. “It’s on the flight that we came to know about the bandh. The few cars and ambulances that were there asked for Rs 1,000 to take us to the city,” said Pitambar Agarwal, who arrived in Calcutta from Delhi with his family to meet his relatives. | ||
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We pause, we fret, we play
Lafarge In India
Prince Mathews Thomas
Lafarge has a cement plant with one leg in India and the other in Bangladesh. The plant also finds itself on both sides of law.
In 2007 the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests asked the company to stop its operations on the grounds that the mining was being done on forest land and not "nonforest land" as certified by the state administration. Though Lafarge got interim relief from the Supreme Court, earlier this year it was forced to close the mines after a new directive. Lafarge's fresh application for forest clearance is now being considered by the Apex Court.
So how did nonforest land suddenly become a forest when officers from the center checked? While Lafarge officials declined to comment on the story, local activists smell a "conspiracy to alienate native Khasi tribals," as alleged by B.M. Roy Dolloi, legal advisor of Shella Action Committee, or SAC, named after the village where part of the mining land is situated and which has filed a PIL in Meghalaya High Court.
If the ban on mining is not lifted, Lafarge's Bangladesh plant may close down "within weeks." The SAC alleges that the transfer of land to Lafarge is illegal. "The land sale was done in secrecy. How was a tribal land given to a nontribal entity? It is completely illegal," says Dolloi. He adds that under the Meghalaya Land Transfer Act, even the state doesn't have the right to transfer a tribal land to a nontribal person or entity. He cites the Samata judgment in Andhra Pradesh, where the state government had to return tribal areas that were transferred to mining companies.
Sources close to Lafarge say that the landmark judgment doesn't apply in Meghalaya, as it has its own land tenure system under the Sixth Schedule, which empowers tribal councils and chieftains in land-transfer matters. Lafarge claims it has got clearance from the local tribal body. "It is a case where too many regulatory laws are involved," observes Neerav Merchant, Associate Partner at law firm Majmudar & Co. "It remains to be seen where the final word rests," he adds.
Questions have also been raised about how Lafarge was allowed to mortgage the Indian land to raise money for its Bangladesh project. And similar to the issue of iron ore exports, there are also murmurs to restrict the across-the-border movement of limestone to conserve a national resource. Fortunately for Lafarge the state and central administrations support the company, which claims it has followed the law. Lafarge will hope the legal webs would be cleared before its Bangladesh plant runs out of limestone.
This article appears in the Apr. 30 issue of Forbes India, a Forbes Media licensee.
READ MORE - Lafarge In India
Lafarge has a cement plant with one leg in India and the other in Bangladesh. The plant also finds itself on both sides of law.
The Indian landscape is a testing territory for mining companies. While they are tempted by the immense richness of the soil, they are also put off by its uncountable hurdles--forests, native settlements and lack of infrastructure. It looked like things were getting better when French cement major Lafarge's limestone mining project in Meghalaya started off in 2006 "almost smoothly," given its complex nature.
A 17km-long conveyor belt takes the limestone across the border to Lafarge's cement plant in Bangladesh, part of the Indian government's promise to develop its neighbor's cement sector. But Meghalaya comes under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which makes its land laws vulnerable to various interpretations. So how did nonforest land suddenly become a forest when officers from the center checked? While Lafarge officials declined to comment on the story, local activists smell a "conspiracy to alienate native Khasi tribals," as alleged by B.M. Roy Dolloi, legal advisor of Shella Action Committee, or SAC, named after the village where part of the mining land is situated and which has filed a PIL in Meghalaya High Court.
If the ban on mining is not lifted, Lafarge's Bangladesh plant may close down "within weeks." The SAC alleges that the transfer of land to Lafarge is illegal. "The land sale was done in secrecy. How was a tribal land given to a nontribal entity? It is completely illegal," says Dolloi. He adds that under the Meghalaya Land Transfer Act, even the state doesn't have the right to transfer a tribal land to a nontribal person or entity. He cites the Samata judgment in Andhra Pradesh, where the state government had to return tribal areas that were transferred to mining companies.
Sources close to Lafarge say that the landmark judgment doesn't apply in Meghalaya, as it has its own land tenure system under the Sixth Schedule, which empowers tribal councils and chieftains in land-transfer matters. Lafarge claims it has got clearance from the local tribal body. "It is a case where too many regulatory laws are involved," observes Neerav Merchant, Associate Partner at law firm Majmudar & Co. "It remains to be seen where the final word rests," he adds.
This article appears in the Apr. 30 issue of Forbes India, a Forbes Media licensee.
Mizoram has second largest number of those with Aids/HIV in North East
Aizawl: Mizoram stands second in prevalence of Aids/HIV amongst the North Eastern states and was only next to Manipur.
Mizoram, having a population of around 10 lakh, has 4,169 HIV/Aids infected people including 1,592 women, while 169 people have died in the state since 1990 when the first HIV case was detected, a study by the Aizawl-based NGO, the Mizoram AIDS International Network said.
The state is now estimated to have 356 full-blown Aids cases with those in the age range of between 25 and 34 years being the highest.
According to the Mizoram State Aids Control Society (MSACS), sexual contact was a major cause of the high incidence of HIV/Aids, followed by blood transfusion and sharing of syringes and needles by drug users.
READ MORE - Mizoram has second largest number of those with Aids/HIV in North East
Mizoram, having a population of around 10 lakh, has 4,169 HIV/Aids infected people including 1,592 women, while 169 people have died in the state since 1990 when the first HIV case was detected, a study by the Aizawl-based NGO, the Mizoram AIDS International Network said.
The state is now estimated to have 356 full-blown Aids cases with those in the age range of between 25 and 34 years being the highest.
According to the Mizoram State Aids Control Society (MSACS), sexual contact was a major cause of the high incidence of HIV/Aids, followed by blood transfusion and sharing of syringes and needles by drug users.
Delhi calling for Assam's iconic mobile theatres
New Delhi, Apr 25 (PTI) What connects Titanic, Lady Diana, Ramayana and Anaconda?
These are themes of some plays enacted by the popular and technically-developed mobile theatres of Assam over the years, mostly in remote villages.
And now Delhiites will have a rare opportunity to watch three signature productions of renowned group Kohinoor during a four-day extravaganza at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) starting today.
At the invitation of the National School of Drama (NSD), Kohinoor group travelled nearly 2,000 km with three truckloads of equipment and over 115 artistes for staging "Assemat Jar Heral Seema" (When the Borders Lost in Infinity) "O'n Moi Munnaye Koisu" (This is Munna Speaking) and "Sheetare Semeka Rati" (A Chilly Winter Night).
Besides, some scenes of its famous play "Titanic" will also be shown.
Producer Ratan Lahkar is excited about the prospect of performing outside Assam for the first time.
READ MORE - Delhi calling for Assam's iconic mobile theatres
These are themes of some plays enacted by the popular and technically-developed mobile theatres of Assam over the years, mostly in remote villages.
And now Delhiites will have a rare opportunity to watch three signature productions of renowned group Kohinoor during a four-day extravaganza at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) starting today.
At the invitation of the National School of Drama (NSD), Kohinoor group travelled nearly 2,000 km with three truckloads of equipment and over 115 artistes for staging "Assemat Jar Heral Seema" (When the Borders Lost in Infinity) "O'n Moi Munnaye Koisu" (This is Munna Speaking) and "Sheetare Semeka Rati" (A Chilly Winter Night).
Besides, some scenes of its famous play "Titanic" will also be shown.
Producer Ratan Lahkar is excited about the prospect of performing outside Assam for the first time.
Flood situation worsens in Assam
Guwahati, Apr 25 (PTI) Flood situation in Assam worsened today with water level of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries showing a rising trend and affecting more than 1.5 lakh people, official sources said.
Road communication to Arunachal Pradesh through Lakhimpur and Dhemaji has also been disrupted following deteriorating flood situation caused by incessant rainfall, they said.
The flood-prone Dhemaji district was cut off from the rest of the country with the rising water of Jiadhol river breaching two embankments and submerging National Highway-5.
In neighbouring Lakhimpur district, the situation remained critical with more than 50 villages affected and flood water inundating roads and bridges in various places.
The Brahmaputra and its tributary Dihing, which were flowing above the danger level, have flooded 10 villages in Dibrugarh district, they said.
The situation in Tinsukia, where two boatmen had drowned yesterday, was also critical.
READ MORE - Flood situation worsens in Assam
Road communication to Arunachal Pradesh through Lakhimpur and Dhemaji has also been disrupted following deteriorating flood situation caused by incessant rainfall, they said.
The flood-prone Dhemaji district was cut off from the rest of the country with the rising water of Jiadhol river breaching two embankments and submerging National Highway-5.
In neighbouring Lakhimpur district, the situation remained critical with more than 50 villages affected and flood water inundating roads and bridges in various places.
The Brahmaputra and its tributary Dihing, which were flowing above the danger level, have flooded 10 villages in Dibrugarh district, they said.
The situation in Tinsukia, where two boatmen had drowned yesterday, was also critical.
DC's surprise visit to Parbung sub-division gets people talk development again
By Lalmalsawm Sungte
Parbung, April 25 : Churachandpur District Commissioner Ms Jacintha Lazarus' surprise one-day visit to Hmar villages in Manipur's Parbung sub-division on April 21 has set people talking about development issues again and the Tamilian IAS lady officer herself.
According to reports received here, the people were so impressed by Ms Jacintha's desire to meet them that in very villages she was "warmly received by the locals who aired their grievances without any reservations" .
Sources said that Ms Jacintha was scheduled to attend only the DLCC Review Meeting at Thanlon sub-divisional headquarters on April 20.But on the morning of April 21, she changed her plan and headed for Parbung sub-divisional headquarters, which is some 80-plus km away from Thanlon.
"Ms Jacintha told her team to take her to Ruonglevaisuo (Tipaimukh) area where there is practically no functional government machinery.
She had always wanted to see for herself the ground realities," the source added.
The commissioner's team made brief stoppages at Pherzawl, Damdiei, Taithu, Parbung, Lungthulien and Senvon villages.
At Parbung, representatives of Hmar Welfare Association and Hmar Students Association met Ms Jacintha at the IB Center and submitted their grievances in writing.
"We asked her to speed up the reconstruction work of NH-150 connecting Mizoram and Manipur," they said over phone.
Members of the Tipaimukh Area Development Front (TADF) also asked Ms Jacintha to take up re-construction work of Tuivai Leilak (bridge) to facilitate links with Mizoram during the monsoon season.
Another prominent demand of the representatives was the construction of a Mini-Sport Stadium at Parbung.
The sub-divisional staff members who accompanied Ms Jacintha literally turned purpled when they were openly snubbed by HSA leaders during the reception function held at Parbung.
"The SDO and TD Block staff members and the medical officials are present today here just because of you.
We don't even know their names," they told the district commissioner, who looked stunned.
In Lungthulien village, the TADF members informed Ms Jacintha that Tipaimukh constituency never got the 9000-metric tonne rice sanctioned by the Central government last year in view of Mautam.
"In the Agriculture Input Subsidy people in Tipaimukh area are given just Rs.1000/while other subdivisions got Rs 2000/-approx," Ms Jacintha was informed.
To take action.
Listening patiently to the people and their angst against state government officials, the district commissioner assured them that she will take necessary steps to make corrective changes once she is back in office.
An analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Ms Jacintha's approach and strategy is completely different from her predecessor Mr Sumant Singh.
"Mr Sumant Singh was like a stamp sent by vested groups.
This young lady is his opposite," another observer said.
Ms Jacintha had already visited Vangai TD Block under Tipaimuk sub-division last month to take stock of the ground realities.
It may be mentioned that if one is to go by the current situations in Churachandpur district, Ms Jacintha has garnered an unwavering support of all sections of the people with her USP – development.
But, the question in everyone's mind is whether this "brave" Indian civil servant from Tamil Nadu has the guts to carry forward her development plans in this trouble-torn part of the country.
Only time will tell.
* The sender of this news can be contacted at lalremlien(at)gmail(dot)com .
READ MORE - DC's surprise visit to Parbung sub-division gets people talk development again
Parbung, April 25 : Churachandpur District Commissioner Ms Jacintha Lazarus' surprise one-day visit to Hmar villages in Manipur's Parbung sub-division on April 21 has set people talking about development issues again and the Tamilian IAS lady officer herself.
According to reports received here, the people were so impressed by Ms Jacintha's desire to meet them that in very villages she was "warmly received by the locals who aired their grievances without any reservations" .
Sources said that Ms Jacintha was scheduled to attend only the DLCC Review Meeting at Thanlon sub-divisional headquarters on April 20.But on the morning of April 21, she changed her plan and headed for Parbung sub-divisional headquarters, which is some 80-plus km away from Thanlon.
"Ms Jacintha told her team to take her to Ruonglevaisuo (Tipaimukh) area where there is practically no functional government machinery.
She had always wanted to see for herself the ground realities," the source added.
The commissioner's team made brief stoppages at Pherzawl, Damdiei, Taithu, Parbung, Lungthulien and Senvon villages.
At Parbung, representatives of Hmar Welfare Association and Hmar Students Association met Ms Jacintha at the IB Center and submitted their grievances in writing.
"We asked her to speed up the reconstruction work of NH-150 connecting Mizoram and Manipur," they said over phone.
Members of the Tipaimukh Area Development Front (TADF) also asked Ms Jacintha to take up re-construction work of Tuivai Leilak (bridge) to facilitate links with Mizoram during the monsoon season.
Another prominent demand of the representatives was the construction of a Mini-Sport Stadium at Parbung.
The sub-divisional staff members who accompanied Ms Jacintha literally turned purpled when they were openly snubbed by HSA leaders during the reception function held at Parbung.
"The SDO and TD Block staff members and the medical officials are present today here just because of you.
We don't even know their names," they told the district commissioner, who looked stunned.
In Lungthulien village, the TADF members informed Ms Jacintha that Tipaimukh constituency never got the 9000-metric tonne rice sanctioned by the Central government last year in view of Mautam.
"In the Agriculture Input Subsidy people in Tipaimukh area are given just Rs.1000/while other subdivisions got Rs 2000/-approx," Ms Jacintha was informed.
To take action.
Listening patiently to the people and their angst against state government officials, the district commissioner assured them that she will take necessary steps to make corrective changes once she is back in office.
An analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Ms Jacintha's approach and strategy is completely different from her predecessor Mr Sumant Singh.
"Mr Sumant Singh was like a stamp sent by vested groups.
This young lady is his opposite," another observer said.
Ms Jacintha had already visited Vangai TD Block under Tipaimuk sub-division last month to take stock of the ground realities.
It may be mentioned that if one is to go by the current situations in Churachandpur district, Ms Jacintha has garnered an unwavering support of all sections of the people with her USP – development.
But, the question in everyone's mind is whether this "brave" Indian civil servant from Tamil Nadu has the guts to carry forward her development plans in this trouble-torn part of the country.
Only time will tell.
* The sender of this news can be contacted at lalremlien(at)gmail(dot)com .
Hopes of Meghalaya villagers trapped in legal minefield
Devjyot Ghoshal / Nongtrai (meghalaya) April 24, 2010, 0:21 IST
Green preservation gets a thumbs down, as Lafarge project a livelihood issue.
Bnes Lingdar Lynghdoh is worried. For over two decades, the headman of Nongtrai, a nondescript village in Meghalaya's East Khasi Hills that borders Bangladesh, has led his people through an assortment of difficulties.
Just when he thought things were settled, stirrings elsewhere broke the calm. And, this time, Nongtrai is seemingly helpless.
Lynghdoh recalls a past of discernible hardship. Agriculture, the mainstay of the Nongtrai tribals, has failed repeatedly in recent years. The production of their primary cash crops — areca nut, black pepper and oranges — has been unreliable. Financial uncertainty, a reality unknown for long, has since stared them in the face more than once.
Driven by necessity and enterprise, Nongtrai decided to commercially exploit the most lucrative resource captive in their lands: limestone. With the help of local partners, the village scouted for firms to mine a square kilometre land-lot.
Effectively, the villagers of Nongtrai invited French cement major Lafarge SA to their lands. Mining firms, typically, approach the state government for mining rights, subsequent to getting the consent from land owners and the local community. Officials from Meghalaya’s mining department attest this was done.
Lafarge, then, joined hands with Spain’s Cementos Molins to create Lafarge Umiam Pvt Ltd (LUMPL) for mining the limestone, which would then be transported through a 17-km conveyor belt to the French firm's cement plant in Bangladesh.
LUMPL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lafarge Surma Cement, Bangladesh, which is a JV between Lafarge and Cementos Molins.
However, a group known as the Shella Action Committee (SAC) has taken legal action against Lafarge, primarily contending the wrongful mortgaging of tribal lands and adverse environmental impact of the project.
Consequently, the Supreme Court temporarily put a stay on all mining activities in the area by LUMPL and the matter is still being heard by the apex court. It is now up to the Union ministry of environment and forests to give conditional clearance to LUMPL for resumption of mining.
Limestone, the villagers of Nongtrai had hoped, would bring them a better life. Today, they find their dreams mired in a legal minefield and their future jeopardised by claims of people they brand as outsiders.
Households, which earlier earned between Rs 1,200-1,500 per month, are getting as much as Rs 6,000 per month from the “rent” paid by LUMPL, villagers said.
Standing at a vantage point near Nongtrai, Lynghdoh points at the hillside below. The thick forests of the East Khasi Hills gradually thin as the topography changes, and the hills of Meghalaya meld into the plains of Bangladesh.
At a cusp, between the dramatic change in geography, the limestone quarries of LUMPL emerge out of the foliage. From the quarries, a thread-like conveyor belt snakes its way above a few hillocks and into the flatlands of the neighbouring nation.
“There is more limestone below than cultivable land. Almost two-thirds of it is limestone. With whatever land there is, we can't grow anything because there is no water. Not even drip irrigation can be undertaken,” Lynghdoh asserted.
At Lafarge's quarries below, the truth of the headman's word are evident. Strewn with boulders, the core mining area has a negligible layer of top soil. Trees and bushes grow out of the soil that lies engorged in cracks and fissures that run through the rocks.
But, the SAC charges that the mining is being undertaken on virgin fertile land. The Committee's secretary, B M Roy Chyne, told Business Standard: “This is the land where previously oranges were grown. It is not rocky land.”
The composition of the SAC, however, is questionable as far as the Durbars of Nongtrai and Shella, the other village within the purview of the LUMPL project, are concerned. The Durbars are local democratic institutions that act as the highest-decision making bodies in the villages of this region.
“Though they call themselves Shella Action Committee (SAC), they are not staying in Shella village. They live comfortable lives in Shillong, even as we live here with our difficulties,” said a member of the Nongtrai Durbar.
Those from Shella were more scathing. “SAC is neither recognised nor recommended by the (Shella) Durbar. This is a small group, most of whom don't live in Shella or take part in the village affairs. We feel disappointed that when we are trying to benefit the whole villages, they (SAC) are opposing it,” an elder said.
However, it is the SAC's contention that the Durbars are supporting LUMPL only because they are being financially benefited. “We have the support of all the poor people,” claimed Roy Chyne.
When asked why local villagers were seemingly content with the financial windfall from the mining venture as agricultural production plunged, Roy Chyne said: “Now these people want easy money. They don't want to work. So, suddenly they make these excuses (about falling yields)”.
But, there are those who are coming back to Nongtrai to work. Baia Hun Lynghdoh, a young graduate from Shillong, left a promising position at a private school in Meghalaya’s capital to return to her village.
“There are many students here who drop out of school, and since I am from here, I feel it’s my responsibility to educate the children. I studied and worked in Shillong, but I am happy to be back,” said Lynghdoh, standing in the small room that is both the classroom and meeting room of the Durbar in Nongtrai.
In another small room by the hillside, a group of young women are attempting to weave away from a difficult past. Lucy Skhemlon Mary, 23, is one of them at the Nongtrai Weaving Training Centre, funded by the Meghalaya government and Lafarge. An agricultural labourer, with daily earnings of about Rs 50 till a few years earlier, she is now training as a weaver, with a monthly stipend of Rs 2,500. “It wouldn’t have been possible for us to convince the government to come here without Lafarge. If they go, maybe the centre will also have to close down. At the moment, I’m not earning any money from my weaving, but I have hope for my future,” said Mary.
Clearly, there is consternation in Nongtrai. “We had become a poor village but things have improved. We will become the victims if LUMPL shuts down,” said Testulos L Rapmai, the villages' religious head.
In many ways, the invitation to Lafarge was an attempt by the village of Nongtrai to take destiny into its own hands. Incidentally, in Khasi, the local tongue, Nongtrai means 'our own land'.
READ MORE - Hopes of Meghalaya villagers trapped in legal minefield
Green preservation gets a thumbs down, as Lafarge project a livelihood issue.
Bnes Lingdar Lynghdoh is worried. For over two decades, the headman of Nongtrai, a nondescript village in Meghalaya's East Khasi Hills that borders Bangladesh, has led his people through an assortment of difficulties.
Just when he thought things were settled, stirrings elsewhere broke the calm. And, this time, Nongtrai is seemingly helpless.
Lynghdoh recalls a past of discernible hardship. Agriculture, the mainstay of the Nongtrai tribals, has failed repeatedly in recent years. The production of their primary cash crops — areca nut, black pepper and oranges — has been unreliable. Financial uncertainty, a reality unknown for long, has since stared them in the face more than once.
Driven by necessity and enterprise, Nongtrai decided to commercially exploit the most lucrative resource captive in their lands: limestone. With the help of local partners, the village scouted for firms to mine a square kilometre land-lot.
Effectively, the villagers of Nongtrai invited French cement major Lafarge SA to their lands. Mining firms, typically, approach the state government for mining rights, subsequent to getting the consent from land owners and the local community. Officials from Meghalaya’s mining department attest this was done.
Lafarge, then, joined hands with Spain’s Cementos Molins to create Lafarge Umiam Pvt Ltd (LUMPL) for mining the limestone, which would then be transported through a 17-km conveyor belt to the French firm's cement plant in Bangladesh.
LUMPL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lafarge Surma Cement, Bangladesh, which is a JV between Lafarge and Cementos Molins.
However, a group known as the Shella Action Committee (SAC) has taken legal action against Lafarge, primarily contending the wrongful mortgaging of tribal lands and adverse environmental impact of the project.
Consequently, the Supreme Court temporarily put a stay on all mining activities in the area by LUMPL and the matter is still being heard by the apex court. It is now up to the Union ministry of environment and forests to give conditional clearance to LUMPL for resumption of mining.
Limestone, the villagers of Nongtrai had hoped, would bring them a better life. Today, they find their dreams mired in a legal minefield and their future jeopardised by claims of people they brand as outsiders.
Households, which earlier earned between Rs 1,200-1,500 per month, are getting as much as Rs 6,000 per month from the “rent” paid by LUMPL, villagers said.
Standing at a vantage point near Nongtrai, Lynghdoh points at the hillside below. The thick forests of the East Khasi Hills gradually thin as the topography changes, and the hills of Meghalaya meld into the plains of Bangladesh.
At a cusp, between the dramatic change in geography, the limestone quarries of LUMPL emerge out of the foliage. From the quarries, a thread-like conveyor belt snakes its way above a few hillocks and into the flatlands of the neighbouring nation.
“There is more limestone below than cultivable land. Almost two-thirds of it is limestone. With whatever land there is, we can't grow anything because there is no water. Not even drip irrigation can be undertaken,” Lynghdoh asserted.
At Lafarge's quarries below, the truth of the headman's word are evident. Strewn with boulders, the core mining area has a negligible layer of top soil. Trees and bushes grow out of the soil that lies engorged in cracks and fissures that run through the rocks.
But, the SAC charges that the mining is being undertaken on virgin fertile land. The Committee's secretary, B M Roy Chyne, told Business Standard: “This is the land where previously oranges were grown. It is not rocky land.”
The composition of the SAC, however, is questionable as far as the Durbars of Nongtrai and Shella, the other village within the purview of the LUMPL project, are concerned. The Durbars are local democratic institutions that act as the highest-decision making bodies in the villages of this region.
“Though they call themselves Shella Action Committee (SAC), they are not staying in Shella village. They live comfortable lives in Shillong, even as we live here with our difficulties,” said a member of the Nongtrai Durbar.
Those from Shella were more scathing. “SAC is neither recognised nor recommended by the (Shella) Durbar. This is a small group, most of whom don't live in Shella or take part in the village affairs. We feel disappointed that when we are trying to benefit the whole villages, they (SAC) are opposing it,” an elder said.
However, it is the SAC's contention that the Durbars are supporting LUMPL only because they are being financially benefited. “We have the support of all the poor people,” claimed Roy Chyne.
When asked why local villagers were seemingly content with the financial windfall from the mining venture as agricultural production plunged, Roy Chyne said: “Now these people want easy money. They don't want to work. So, suddenly they make these excuses (about falling yields)”.
But, there are those who are coming back to Nongtrai to work. Baia Hun Lynghdoh, a young graduate from Shillong, left a promising position at a private school in Meghalaya’s capital to return to her village.
“There are many students here who drop out of school, and since I am from here, I feel it’s my responsibility to educate the children. I studied and worked in Shillong, but I am happy to be back,” said Lynghdoh, standing in the small room that is both the classroom and meeting room of the Durbar in Nongtrai.
In another small room by the hillside, a group of young women are attempting to weave away from a difficult past. Lucy Skhemlon Mary, 23, is one of them at the Nongtrai Weaving Training Centre, funded by the Meghalaya government and Lafarge. An agricultural labourer, with daily earnings of about Rs 50 till a few years earlier, she is now training as a weaver, with a monthly stipend of Rs 2,500. “It wouldn’t have been possible for us to convince the government to come here without Lafarge. If they go, maybe the centre will also have to close down. At the moment, I’m not earning any money from my weaving, but I have hope for my future,” said Mary.
Clearly, there is consternation in Nongtrai. “We had become a poor village but things have improved. We will become the victims if LUMPL shuts down,” said Testulos L Rapmai, the villages' religious head.
In many ways, the invitation to Lafarge was an attempt by the village of Nongtrai to take destiny into its own hands. Incidentally, in Khasi, the local tongue, Nongtrai means 'our own land'.
Irom And The Iron In India’s Soul
IROM SHARMILA’S STORY SHOULD BE PART OF UNIVERSAL FOLKLORE. IN THE TENTH YEAR OF HER EPIC FAST, SHOMA CHAUDHURY TELLS YOU WHY
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| Extraordinaire Sharmila says it’s her “bounden duty” to protest in the most peaceful way |
SOMETIMES, TO accentuate the intransigence of the present, one must revisit the past. So first, a flashback.
The year is 2006. An ordinary November evening in Delhi. A slow, halting voice breaks into your consciousness. “How shall I explain? It is not a punishment, but my bounden duty…” A haunting phrase in a haunting voice, made slow with pain yet magnetic in its moral force. “My bounden duty.” What could be “bounden duty” in an India bursting with the excitements of its economic boom?
You are tempted to walk away. You are busy and the voice is not violent in its beckoning. But then an image starts to take shape. A frail, fair woman on a hospital bed. A tousled head of jet black curls. A plastic tube thrust into the nose. Slim, clean hands. Intent, almond eyes. And the halting, haunting voice. Speaking of bounden duty.
That’s when the enormous story of Irom Sharmila first begins to seep in. You are in the presence of someone historic. Someone absolutely unparalleled in the history of political protest anywhere in the world, ever. Yet you have been oblivious of her. A hundred TV channels. An unprecedented age of media. Yet you have been oblivious of her.
In 2006, Irom Sharmila had not eaten anything, or drunk a single drop of water for six years. She was being forcibly kept alive by a drip thrust down her nose by the Indian State. For six years, nothing solid had entered her body; not a drop of water had touched her lips. She had stopped combing her hair. She cleaned her teeth with dry cotton and her lips with dry spirit so she would not sully her fast. Her body was wasted inside. Her menstrual cycles had stopped. Yet she was resolute. Whenever she could, she removed the tube from her nose. It was her bounden duty, she said, to make her voice heard in “the most reasonable and peaceful way”.
Yet both Indian citizens and the Indian State were oblivious to her.
| The humbling power of Sharmila’s story lies in her untutored beginnings. There is no rhetoric, no cliched heat of heroism |
Draconian in letter, the Act has been even more draconian in spirit. Since it was imposed, by official admission, thousands of people have been killed by State forces in Manipur. (In just 2009, the officially admitted number stands at 265. Human rights activists say it is above 300, which averages out at one or two extrajudicial killings every day.) Rather than curb insurgent groups, the Act has engendered a seething resentment across the land, and fostered new militancies. When the Act came into force in 1980, there were only four insurgent groups in Manipur. Today, there are 40. And Manipur has become a macabre society, a mess of corruptions: insurgents, cops and politicians all hand in glove, and innocent citizens in between.
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| True Gandhian For ten years, nothing solid nor a drop of water has entered Sharmila’s body Photo: LAKSHMAN |
For young Irom Sharmila, things came to a head on November 2, 2000. A day earlier, an insurgent group had bombed an Assam Rifles column. The enraged battalion retaliated by gunning down 10 innocent civilians at a bus-stand in Malom. The local papers published brutal pictures of the bodies the next day, including one of a 62-year old woman, Leisangbam Ibetomi, and 18-year old Sinam Chandramani, a 1988 National Child Bravery Award winner. Extraordinarily stirred, on November 4, Sharmila, then only 28, began her fast.
Sprawled in an icy white hospital corridor that cold November evening in Delhi three years ago, Singhajit, Sharmila’s 48-year-old elder brother, had said half-laughing, “How we reach here?” In the echo chamber of that plangent question had lain the incredible story of Sharmila and her journey. Much of that story needed to be intuited. Its tensile strength, its intense, almost preternatural act of imagination were not on easy display. The faraway hut in Imphal where it began. The capital city now and the might of the State ranged against them. The sister jailed inside her tiny hospital room, the brother outside with nothing but the clothes on his back, neither versed in English or Hindi. The posse of policemen at the door.
“Menghaobi”, the people of Manipur call her, “The Fair One”. Youngest daughter of an illiterate Grade IV worker in a veterinary hospital in Imphal, Sharmila was always a solitary child, the backbencher, the listener. Eight siblings had come before her. By the time she was born, her mother Irom Shakhi, 44, was dry. When dusk fell, and Manipur lay in darkness, Sharmila used to start to cry. The mother Shakhi had to tend to their tiny provision store, so Singhajit would cradle his baby sister in his arms and take her to any mother he could find to suckle her. “She has always had extraordinary will. Maybe that is what made her different,” Singhajit says. “Maybe this is her service to all her mothers.”
There was something achingly poignant about this wise, rugged man on the sidelines – loyal co-warrior who gives the fight invisible breath, middle-aged brother who gave up his job to “look after his sister outside the door”, family man who relies on the Rs 120 a day his wife makes from weaving so he can stand steadfast by his sister.
| Ten years on, her fast is unparalleled in the history of political protest. If this will not make us pause, nothing will |
ARRIVING IN DELHI on October 3, 2006, brother and sister camped in Jantar Mantar for three days – that hopeful altar of Indian democracy. Typically, the media responded with cynical disinterest. Then the State swooped down in a midnight raid and arrested her for attempting suicide and whisked her off to AIIMS. She wrote three passionate letters to the Prime Minister, President, and Home Minister. She got no answer. If she had hijacked a plane, perhaps the State would have responded with quicker concession.
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| Tehelka expose The killing of Sanjit in a fake encounter by commandos, caught on camera |
But, in a sense, the humbling power of Sharmila’s story lies in her untutored beginnings. She is not a front for any large, coordinated political movement. And if you were looking for charismatic rhetoric or the clichéd heat of heroism, you would have been disappointed by the quiet woman in Room 57 in the New Private Ward of AIIMS in New Delhi. That 34-yearold’s satyagraha was not an intellectual construct. It was a deep human response to the cycle of death and violence she saw around her — almost a spiritual intuition. “I was shocked by the dead bodies of Malom on the front page,” Sharmila had said in her clear, halting voice. “I was on my way to a peace rally but I realised there was no means to stop further violations by the armed forces. So I decided to fast.”
On November 4, 2000, Sharmila had sought her mother, Irom Shakhi’s blessing. “You will win your goal,” Shakhi had said, then stoically turned away. Since then, though Sharmila has been incarcerated in Imphal within walking distance of her mother, the two have never met.
“What’s the use? I’m weak-hearted. If I see her, I will cry,” Shakhi says in a film on Sharmila made by Delhi-based filmmaker Kavita Joshi, tears streaming down her face. “I have decided that until her wish is fulfilled, I won’t meet her because that will weaken her resolve… If we don’t get food, how we toss and turn in bed, unable to sleep. With the little fluid they inject into her, how hard must her days and nights be… If this Act could just be removed even for five days, I would feed her rice water spoon by spoon. After that, even if she dies, we will be content, for my Sharmila will have fulfilled her wish.”
This brave, illiterate woman is the closest Sharmila comes to an intimation of god. It is the shrine from which she draws strength. Ask her how hard it is for her not to meet her mother and she says, “Not very hard,” and pauses. “Because, how shall I explain it, we all come here with a task to do. And we come here alone.”
For the rest, she practices four to five hours of yoga a day — self-taught — “to help maintain the balance between my body and mind”. Doctors will tell you Sharmila’s fast is a medical miracle. It is humbling to even approximate her condition. But Sharmila never concedes any bodily discomfort. “I am normal. I am normal,” she smiles. “I am not inflicting anything on my body. It is not a punishment. It is my bounden duty. I don’t know what lies in my future; that is God’s will. I have only learnt from my experience that punctuality, discipline and great enthusiasm can make you achieve a lot.” The words — easy to dismiss as uninspiring clichés — take on a heroic charge when she utters them.
For three long years later, nothing has changed. The trip to Delhi yielded nothing. As Sharmila enters the tenth year of her fast, she still lies incarcerated like some petty criminal in a filthy room in an Imphal hospital. The State allows her no casual visitors, except occasionally, her brother — even though there is no legal rationale for this. (Even Mahasweta Devi was not allowed to see her a few weeks ago.) She craves company and books – the biographies of Gandhi and Mandela; the illusion of a brotherhood. Yet, her great — almost inhuman — hope and optimism continues undiminished.
But the brother’s frustration is as potent. The failure of the nation to recognise Irom Sharmila’s historic satyagraha is a symptom of every lethargy that is eroding the Northeast. She had already been fasting against AFSPA for four years when the Assam Rifles arrested Thangjam Manorama Devi, a 32-year-old woman, allegedly a member of the banned People’s Liberation Army. Her body was found dumped in Imphal a day later, marked with terrible signs of torture and rape. Manipur came to a spontaneous boil. Five days later, on July 15, 2004, pushing the boundaries of human expression, 30 ordinary women demonstrated naked in front of the Assam Rifles headquarters at Kangla Fort. Ordinary mothers and grandmothers eking out a hard life. “Indian Army, rape us too”, they screamed. The State responded by jailing all of them for three months.
Every commission set up by the government since then has added to these injuries. The report of the Justice Upendra Commission, instituted after the Manorama killing, was never made public. In November 2004, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set up the Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee to review the AFSPA. Its recommendations came in a dangerously forked tongue. While it suggested the repeal of the AFSPA, it also suggested transfering its most draconian powers to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Every official response is marked with this determination to be uncreative. The then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee had rejected the withdrawal or significant dilution of the Act on the grounds that “it is not possible for the armed forces to function” in “disturbed areas” without such powers.
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| Manorama mothers Manipuri women pushed to the brink after the horrific rape of Manorama Devi Photo: UB PHOTO |
Yet, three years later, nothing has changed. After the boundless, despairing anger of the ‘Manorama Mothers’, the government did roll back the AFSPA from some districts of Imphal city. But the viral has transmitted itself elsewhere. Today, the Manipur police commandoes have taken off where the army left off: the brutal provisions of AFSPA have become accepted State culture. There is a phrase for it: “the culture of impunity”. On July 23 this year, Sanjit, a young former insurgent was shot dead by the police in a crowded market, in broad daylight, in one of Imphal’s busiest markets. An innocent by-stander Rabina Devi, five months pregnant, caught a bullet in her head and fell down dead as well. Her two-year old son, Russell was with her. Several others were wounded.
But for an anonymous photographer who captured the sequence of Sanjit’s murder, both these deaths would have become just another statistic: two of the 265 killed this year. But the photographs – published in TEHELKA – offered damning proof. Manipur came to a boil again.
Four months later, people’s anger refuses to subside. With typical ham-handedness, Chief Minister Ibobi Singh first tried to brazen his way through. On the day of Sanjit’s murder, he claimed in the Assembly that his cops had shot an insurgent in a cross-fire. Later, confronted by TEHELKA’S story, he admitted he had been misled by his officers and was forced to set up a judicial enquiry. However, both he and Manipur DGP Joy Kumar continue to claim that TEHELKA’s story is a fabrication.
Still, hope sputters in small measure. Over the past few months, as protests have raged across the state, dozens of civil rights activ ists have been frivolously arrested under the draconian National Security Act. Among these was a reputed environmental activist, Jiten Yumnam. On November 23, an independent Citizens’ Fact Finding Team released a report called Democracy ‘Encountered’: Rights’ Violations in Manipur and made a presentation to the Central Home Ministry. A day later, Home Secretary Gopal Pillai informed KS Subramanian, a former IPS officer and a member of the fact-finding team, that the ministry had revoked detention under the NSA for ten people, including Jiten. In another tenuously hopeful sign, Home Minister P Chidambaram has said on record in another TEHELKA interview that he has recommended several amendments in AFSPA to make it more humane and accountable. These amendments are waiting Cabinet approval.
IN A COMPLEX world, often the solution to a problem lies in an inspired, unilateral act of leadership. An act that intuits the moral heart of a question and proceeds to do what is right — without precondition. Sharmila Irom’s epic fast is such an act. It reaffirms the idea of a just and civilized society. It refuses to be brutalized in the face of grave and relentless brutality. Her plea is simple: repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. It is unworthy of the idea of the Indian State the founding fathers bequeathed us. It is anti-human.
It is true Manipur is a fractured and violent society today. But the solution to that can only lie in another inspired, unilateral act of leadership: this time on the part of the State. Eschew pragmatism, embrace the moral act: repeal AFSPA. There will be space beyond to untangle the rest.
But unfortunately, even as the entire country laces up to mark the first anniversary of Mumbai 26/11 – a horrific act of extreme violence and retaliation, we continue to be oblivious of the young woman who responded to extreme violence with extreme peace.
It is a parable for our times. If the story of Irom Sharmila does not make us pause, nothing will. It is a story of extraordinariness. Extraordinary will. Extraordinary simplicity. Extraordinary hope. It is impossible to get yourself heard in our busy age of information overload. But if the story of Irom Sharmila will not make us pause, nothing will.
Cong promises peace & prosperity to tribals
AGARTALA, April 24 Congress has unveiled its poll manifesto for the upcoming Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections scheduled to be held on May 3.
In the manifesto, the party promised to install democracy, peace, prosperity and rule of law in the tribal council if the Congress is voted to power. Empowerment of ADC in true sense, filling up of all vacant posts in ADC, direct funding from Centre to ADC, handing of different departments to the tribal council authority also figured prominently in the manifesto.
Releasing the manifesto here on Tuesday, PCC president Surajit Dutta called upon the voters to vote for Congress to end the alleged Marxist misrule in ADC. “If you want to uproot the CPM-led Left Front Government from the State, start with the ADC election”, he said. Dutta also criticised the Left Front Government on the malpractice on the selection of candidates for graduate teachers.
Speaking at the press meet, PCC spokesman Ratan Chakraborty said that the objective of creation of the ADC is yet to be fulfilled. “The then Prime Minister late Indira Gandhi had gifted the ADC to the people of the State to ensure autonomy of the people living in the tribal council. Unfortunately, the aspirations of the people remain a distant dream due to step-motherly attitude of the Left Front”, he said.
Chakraborty alleged that the development process has virtually stalled in the ADC areas in spite of availability of funds. “The basic needs of the people like water, healthcare and education are yet to be extended to the grass root level because of lack of will”, he said.
Vehemently protesting the CPM campaign that Congress had opposed the formation of ADC, Chakraborty said that it was the Congress which had offered the autonomous district council for socio-economic development in the State’s backward region.
READ MORE - Cong promises peace & prosperity to tribals
In the manifesto, the party promised to install democracy, peace, prosperity and rule of law in the tribal council if the Congress is voted to power. Empowerment of ADC in true sense, filling up of all vacant posts in ADC, direct funding from Centre to ADC, handing of different departments to the tribal council authority also figured prominently in the manifesto.
Releasing the manifesto here on Tuesday, PCC president Surajit Dutta called upon the voters to vote for Congress to end the alleged Marxist misrule in ADC. “If you want to uproot the CPM-led Left Front Government from the State, start with the ADC election”, he said. Dutta also criticised the Left Front Government on the malpractice on the selection of candidates for graduate teachers.
Speaking at the press meet, PCC spokesman Ratan Chakraborty said that the objective of creation of the ADC is yet to be fulfilled. “The then Prime Minister late Indira Gandhi had gifted the ADC to the people of the State to ensure autonomy of the people living in the tribal council. Unfortunately, the aspirations of the people remain a distant dream due to step-motherly attitude of the Left Front”, he said.
Chakraborty alleged that the development process has virtually stalled in the ADC areas in spite of availability of funds. “The basic needs of the people like water, healthcare and education are yet to be extended to the grass root level because of lack of will”, he said.
Vehemently protesting the CPM campaign that Congress had opposed the formation of ADC, Chakraborty said that it was the Congress which had offered the autonomous district council for socio-economic development in the State’s backward region.
Mamata assures to increase wagons to NE
NEW DELHI, April 24 – Holding out some hope, Railway Minister, Mamata Banerjee assured that her Ministry was willing to increase the supply of wagons and rakes for the North Eastern Region (NER).
“We give special attention to the region. We always give them protection, and whatever they want, according to our capacity. We are willing to give them. We always give it to the NER,” she said, responding to a question by Biren Baishya, during a Question Hour discussion in Rajya Sabha on Friday.
However, she quickly added that planning for wagons for material supply is done on yearly basis. Sometimes, it is yearly because we divide it into four quarters. During the peak season demands for wagons from the Railways go up, Banerjee stated.
Earlier, Baishya said due to lack of infrastructure in the NER, transportation is a very big problem. Lack of proper connectivity in the region has led the States to totally depend on the railway transportation.
READ MORE - Mamata assures to increase wagons to NE
“We give special attention to the region. We always give them protection, and whatever they want, according to our capacity. We are willing to give them. We always give it to the NER,” she said, responding to a question by Biren Baishya, during a Question Hour discussion in Rajya Sabha on Friday.
However, she quickly added that planning for wagons for material supply is done on yearly basis. Sometimes, it is yearly because we divide it into four quarters. During the peak season demands for wagons from the Railways go up, Banerjee stated.
Earlier, Baishya said due to lack of infrastructure in the NER, transportation is a very big problem. Lack of proper connectivity in the region has led the States to totally depend on the railway transportation.
EC notice to 15 political parties
NEW DELHI, April 24 – At least five regional parties are among 15 parties including Opposition party BJP, which have been show caused by the Election Commission of India for not submitting details of expenditures incurred in elections.
The five regional parties from the region include Arunachal Congress, Manipur People’s Party, Mizo National Front, Zoram Nationalists’ Party and United Democratic Party (UDP), the EC notification said.
The parties were directed to file the statements of election expenditure latest by March 5, and it was made clear to the party that failure to file the statements by the said date would be treated as failure to comply with a lawful direction of the Commission.
The party has not submitted the requisite statements till date.
The parties were show caused as to why action should not be taken against them under the provisions of paragraph 16A of the Election Symbols (Reservation & Allotment) Order, 1968. The reply, if any, should be submitted to the Commission latest by April 29. If no reply is received by then, it will be presumed that the party has nothing to say in the matter and the Commission will take appropriate action against the party, without any further reference to the party, the notice said.
Some of the other parties which have been show caused include RJD, Janata Dal (Secular), All India Forward Block, RSP and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) amongst others.
READ MORE - EC notice to 15 political parties
The five regional parties from the region include Arunachal Congress, Manipur People’s Party, Mizo National Front, Zoram Nationalists’ Party and United Democratic Party (UDP), the EC notification said.
The parties were directed to file the statements of election expenditure latest by March 5, and it was made clear to the party that failure to file the statements by the said date would be treated as failure to comply with a lawful direction of the Commission.
The party has not submitted the requisite statements till date.
The parties were show caused as to why action should not be taken against them under the provisions of paragraph 16A of the Election Symbols (Reservation & Allotment) Order, 1968. The reply, if any, should be submitted to the Commission latest by April 29. If no reply is received by then, it will be presumed that the party has nothing to say in the matter and the Commission will take appropriate action against the party, without any further reference to the party, the notice said.
Some of the other parties which have been show caused include RJD, Janata Dal (Secular), All India Forward Block, RSP and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) amongst others.
India-asean Fta: Implications for India's Northeast
Introduction
India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)[i] have concluded negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) after years of hard negotiations. This agreement will be signed into a treaty at the India-ASEAN Summit to be held in Bangkok on December 2008 and will come into force from January 1, 2009 if everything goes as intended.
Expectations from the India-ASEAN FTA are high. The Joint Media Statement of the Sixth ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM)-India Consultations stated that “the AIFTA could be a major avenue in harnessing the region’s vast economic potentials towards sustained progress and improved welfare not only for ASEAN and India but for the greater East Asian region as well.”[ii]
The India-ASEAN FTA is the upshot of many international and domestic factors. On one hand, the trend of international regionalisation and the proliferation of FTAs and the failure of the Doha round of many-sided talks to yield concrete results led both India and the ASEAN countries to consider alternative solutions towards freer trade. On the additional, the adoption of policies by India and ASEAN to develop better cooperation with their immediate neighbours in contemporary years has helped accelerate this negotiation.
In this context, India’s Northeast came to be seen in a new light. Several steps have been taken to improve relations with India’s immediate neighbour Myanmar. India has also trade relations with Thailand and Singapore. India and Myanmar shared a 1643 km long border. Myanmar being a member of ASEAN, the north eastern states of India become an vital link between the two parties.
This paper is an attempt to analyse what forebode India and its Northeast states in the light of the much-hyped India-ASEAN FTA. It will start by looking into the relationship between India and ASEAN and culminate with the present agreement. After that, the paper will analyse the implications the AIFTA can have on the north eastern states of India. It will, but, not delve into the security-insurgency dimension that has nearly become an anthem for most writers on north eastern India except in giving some passing remarks. It will, instead, try to highlight the many projects, plans and proposals that has been undertaken in the north east during the past few years and explore possible opportunities, problems and solutions for this region and for the FTA.
India and ASEAN: Shared ties, different policies and convergence?
Although India and ASEAN countries have shared cultural and historical ties, India’s interactions with ASEAN countries was quite limited during the Cold War as the two pursued policies which were not very conducive to deep rooted interactions and commitments to each additional. Soon after the end of the Second World War, India championed the administer of decolonisation and drew recognition and appreciation from different parts of the world. It became one of the founding members of the Nonaligned Movement (NAM). Even though Indonesia was also a member of NAM alongside India, this relationship did not extend beyond that.
The arrival of bipolar politics in Southeast Asia, the Vietnam crisis and India’s close ties with the Soviet Union led to the adoption of different policies by both India and ASEAN. ASEAN was formed in 1967 during the Vietnam War primarily to diffuse regional conflicts and to promote better relations between members. Communist victories in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia soon worsened the by now fragile security situation of Southeast Asia. Thus by 1976, ASEAN was forced to contemplate to become an association with security as its main concern. The reunification of Vietnam and the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia made another security dilemma. While ASEAN chastised Vietnam, India supported Vietnam. ASEAN’s suspicions of the Soviet Union and the paranoia it had with anything communist led many, including India, to regard ASEAN as allies of the capitalists or a pro-American bloc. Suspicion was so high during this time that India refused to hold dialogues with ASEAN twice in 1975 and 1980.
But with the end of the Cold War, interactions between India and ASEAN became more frequent; and relations between the two started to improve at a very quick pace. Following the end of the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Union, India started to adopt liberalisation policies. Meanwhile, ASEAN had also emerged as an vital regional organisation with fantastic potentials and opportunities for growth. The transformation of the international logic and new outlooks led to the adoption of the Look East Policy by India. When India initiated its Look East Policy in 1991, it marked a strategic shift in its foreign policy and perceptions towards its eastern neighbours. ASEAN’s strategic importance in the larger Asia-Pacific region and the potentials it has in becoming India’s major partner in trade and investment also added an impetus to India to develop closer ties with it. In addition, considering that the proposed South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) is unlikely to produce any solid outcome, this policy shift and agreement on the part of India is as strategic as it is vital. The Indian Prime Mister Manmohan Singh commented thus, “This was not merely an external economic policy; it was also a strategic shift in India’s vision of the world and India’s place in the evolving global economy. Most of all it was about reaching out to our civilizational neighbours in the region.”[iii]
In persistence of India’s Look East Policy, the administer of interregional cooperation was institutionalised with India becoming a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992; a full dialogue partner in 1995 and member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1996. India became a summit-level partner of ASEAN in 2002 and concluded the ASEAN-India Partnership for Peace, Progress and Shared Prosperity in 2004. India also became engaged in regional initiatives such as the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). India has now become a member of the East Asia Summit (EAS) since December 2005.
The deepening of relationship between India and ASEAN is reflected in the buoyancy of trade figures between the two. During April-September 2007-2008, trade grew from US$ 15.06 billion to US$ 17.02 billion, that is, trade grew by 13 per cent. India’s Foreign Trade with ASEAN, according to the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS), is also on the rise. During the period 2005-2006 to 2006-2007, India’s exports to ASEAN registered a growth rate of 20.67 per cent. Similarly, India’s imports from ASEAN during the same period registered a growth rate of 66 per cent. India-ASEAN trade stood at US$ 38.37 billion in 2007-2008 and is projected to get to US$ 48 billion during 2008-2009.[iv]
At the first India-ASEAN Summit held at Phnom Penh on November 5, 2001, India called for an India-ASEAN FTA within a 10-year time frame. In this context, the second India-ASEAN Summit held at Bali on October 8, 2003 was a significant landmark in India-ASEAN relations. This Summit saw the signing of the Framework Agreement for Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between India and ASEAN. This agreement envisaged the establishment of an FTA within a period of ten years. In March 2004, an ASEAN-India Trade Negotiations Committee (AI-TNC) was established to negotiate the implementation of the provisions of the Framework Agreement. India has, since then, entered into numerous agreements with ASEAN. At the sixth India-ASEAN Summit held at Singapore on November last year, India proposed to increase its two-pronged trade with ASEAN to the tune of US$ 50 billion by the year 2010. The latest agreement is therefore, the upshot of many years of tactful policies that led to the thawing of the ice between these two vital emerging economic powers in Asia.
In addition to these agreements with ASEAN, India has also made consistent efforts to develop two-pronged ties with ASEAN members. With Thailand, India has 61 years of diplomatic relations. India also has a Free Trade Agreement with Thailand that was signed in 2004. The framework agreement on two-pronged FTA of 2003 was the basis of this FTA with Thailand. Trade between the two augmented from a mere US$ 606 million to US$ 3.14 billion in 2006-2007.
With the CLV countries (Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam), India entered into a number of two-pronged agreements for cooperation in the fields of trade, knowledge and technology , agriculture, defence, visa exemption, tourism, IT and culture. India has major projects in the fields of education, entrepreneurship development and IT in these three countries. In 2004, India extended a credit line of US$ 27 million to Vietnam.
Malaysia is a major fund of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for India, particularly in the areas of LPG, power plants and highway constructions. Trade between the two rose from US$ 2.2 billion in 2002-2003 to US$ 6.6 billion in 2006-2007. Indian public sector undertakings such as BHEL and IRCON have also undertaken and completed a number of projects in Malaysia. Presently, after the India-ASEAN FTA negotiations, it is reported that about 150 Indian commerce firms are eying to diversify their export base in ASEAN markets and are plotting to make Malaysia the regional hub to penetrate the region.[v] Many of these companies are exploring the possibilities of joint ventures, technology transfers and investment opportunities.
It was mainly because of the insistence of Indonesia that India became a part of the East Asia Summit in 2005. Relations between the two had been very excellent for many years. Two-pronged trade between the two augmented by 44 per cent from 2005-2006 to 2006-2007.
India has a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) with Singapore since 2005. This agreement included two-pronged investment promotion treaty, double taxation avoidance agreement, an air services agreement and an FTA. Singapore, along with Indonesia had been an vital factor for India’s inclusion into the East Asian Summit. In addition, it was Singapore’s role that paved the way for India’s association with the ARF. Singapore is the largest fund of FDI for India among ASEAN countries. During the period 2000 to 2008, the cumulative FDI of Singapore into India was worth a whooping US$ 4.35 billion. Concurrently, over two thousand Indian companies were based in Singapore.
India also has plans for a free trade area with Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia by 2011 and with the remaining ASEAN countries by 2016. Since 1995, India had actively engaged Myanmar in trade. It has signed several agreements and MOUs including the Tripartite Maritime Agreement with Myanmar and Thailand, Border Trade Agreement and for cooperation between civilian authorities between India and Myanmar. Since 2000, a number of high level visits have taken place. During these visits, several agreements and MOUs have been signed in areas ranging from hydroelectric projects on the Chindwin River and IT cooperation to cultural exchange programmes. In the year 2003 alone, seven Agreements/MOUs were signed to promote trade and communication facilities. By 2006-2007, two-pronged trade between India and Myanmar reached US$ 650 million as compared to US$ 341.40 million in 2004-2005.
India-ASEAN FTA, Look East Policy and the Northeast
The announcement came after the conclusion of the 6th ASEAN AEM – India Consultations held at Singapore on 28 August 2008. The text of the India-ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement will be finalised before the India-ASEAN Summit to be held in December 2008 at Bangkok where it will be formally signed into a treaty and will come into force from January 1, 2009. This Summit will be attended by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
This agreement, it is expected, will upshot in a free trade regime to about two billion people from 11 countries with a combined GDP of $2,381 billion as of 2007. The agreement covering billions of dollars in trade in goods but not in services was supposed to have been concluded last year but talks were bogged down because of differences over products that India wanted excluded from tariff cuts. India had submitted a list of 1,414 products but ASEAN’s target was only 400. In the end, the agreement permits India to have 489 products in the ‘exclusion list’ and 606 sensitive goods that will come below partial duty reductions.
This agreement is to be viewed hostile to the backdrop of the long pinched-out Doha round of many-sided talks. As the Doha talks continue to drag on, this agreement between India and ASEAN can be seen as a natural course of action for countries refusing to entangle themselves in the protracted Doha round of talks. This agreement, along with the comprehensive FTA between ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand (AANZ FTA), became the first major trade agreement in the post-Doha era of trade policy negotiations.
The India-ASEAN FTA is also the upshot of contemporary changes in ASEAN’s policy towards its immediate neighbours and additional vital trading partners all over the world. In contemporary years, ASEAN has been involved with its major trading partners in concluding FTAs. In 1999, the ASEAN+3[vi] was formed for the establishment of a common market and a currency. China was the first to conclude an FTA with ASEAN followed by Japan and South Korea. The present FTA between India and ASEAN, and the AANZ FTA completes this trend. ASEAN will now be able to strike a fine weigh in trade among its immediate neighbours.
The India-ASEAN FTA also needs to be viewed in the broader context of global trends towards regional or two-pronged trading arrangements (RTAs/FTAs). Out of the 108 RTAs told to the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) over the period 1948-1994, 33 of them had been established in the early 1990s. By the year 2000, nearly half of the 220 RTAs told to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are initiated after the Cold War. Such is the importance accorded to RTAs or FTAs in contemporary times that no country can ill afford to ignore it. Till July 2007, some 380 RTAs have been told to the WTO.[vii]
For India, this agreement will be a major milestone in its Look East Policy that started after the end of the erstwhile Soviet Union. The contemporary agreement will take India far beyond its existing trade agreements with Myanmar, Thailand and Singapore.
It is in these contexts that India’s Northeast came to be seen in a new light. Rajiv Sikri, the Secretary East of the Ministry of External Affairs remarked that the Look East Policy “envisages the Northeast region not as the periphery of India, but as the centre of a thriving and integrated economic space linking two dynamic regions with a network of highways, railways, pipelines, transmission lines crisscrossing the region.”[viii]
Myanmar, now being a member of ASEAN and having shared a 1643 km long border with India, is now becoming the major link between India and ASEAN countries. The Northeast states of India have now also been seen as the ‘gateway’ to the ASEAN countries.
One early outcome of the Look East policy was the Indo-Myanmar Trade Agreement signed in 1994. According to this agreement, border trade between the two is to be conducted through Moreh in India and Tamu in Myanmar; Champhai in India and Hri in Myanmar and additional places that may be told by mutual agreement. Several Indian companies are also engaged in oil and gas exploration in Myanmar.
In 2001, India upgraded the 160 km long Tamu-Kalewa-Kalemyo highway. Plans for a 1400 km long trans-Asian highway that will connect India, Myanmar and Thailand is now being finalised. A railway link that will extend up to Imphal in Manipur in the first phase and up to Myanmar in the second phase is also being intended. Two-pronged trade between India and Myanmar has also been expanding at a significant rate since 2001. India has extended a number of general and project-specific credit lines in the last few years. Some major projects between the two, besides the ones by now mentioned include the Rhi-Tiddim and Rhi-Falam Roads in Myanmar, the Kaladan Multimodal Convey Project and the Tamanthi Hydro Electric Power Project.
The Kaladan Multimodal Transit-cum-Convey project agreement was signed in April this year. Jairam Ramesh, the Minister of State for Buying said that the Rs. 548 Crore project will help increase connectivity between the two countries. This project will link Kolkata and Sittwe, Kaleutwa in Myanmar by road and would go through Mizoram in India. It also envisages the development of a 225 km waterway on the Kaladan River and the construction of ports along the way. The minister said that north eastern India will be able to boost its border trade with Myanmar. We will also consider notch up of trading points in Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. At present, we have only one trading point at Moreh in Manipur. This project will also help India to successfully integrate with the ASEAN region through Myanmar.[ix] Plans to allocate free movement of Myanmarese citizens up to Moreh town in Manipur is also afoot. The Manipur Government has also submitted a Rs. 200 Crore project proposal to the Central Government to develop infrastructure at Moreh.
In 2006, a proposal for a bus service between Imphal and Mandalay was painstaking and accepted by the Indian Government. But till now, no such service has been undertaken. But during the September 2008 visit of a 17-member trade delegation from Myanmar at Imphal, the Myanmar trade delegation expressed their desire to implement the proposed Imphal-Mandalay bus service certainly. This visit was a reciprocal visit after a trade delegation from Manipur visited Mandalay during the month of April 2008. After holding a run of meetings, both the sides agreed to place pressure on their respective governments to improve the existing border trade between India and Myanmar.
Earlier in April 2008, after the visit of a strong Myanmar official and business delegation to India, both the two countries had agreed to increase border trade that is restricted to only 22 bits and pieces, all being agricultural products. There are now plans to free more bits and pieces including life saving drugs, fertilizers, outfits, x-ray papers and motor parts.
The latest agreement signed between India and Myanmar is the four-point economic cooperation agreement signed in June this year. This agreement was signed by the Indian Minister for Buying and Power Jairam Ramesh and the Myanmar Minister for National Plotting and Economic Development U Soe Tha. First, the Two-pronged Investment Promotion Agreement (BIPA) was signed to encourage investment between the two countries. Second, a credit line agreement between the Exim Bank of India and the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank was signed to finance three 290 kv transmission lines in Myanmar. This US$ 64 million project will be executed by the Power Grid Corporation of India. Third, a credit line agreement for US$ 20 million between the Exim Bank of India and the Myanmar Trade Bank was signed to finance the establishment of an aluminium conductor steel reinforced wire manufacturing facility. This facility will be used for the expansion of power distribution network in Myanmar. Fourth, the United Bank of India (UBI) and the Myanmar Economic Bank signed an agreement to encourage border trade through Moreh. There are also plans to expand trade centres to include Arangkhu and Lungwa in Nagaland, Zokhawthar in Mizoram, Pangsan Pass in Arunachal Pradesh and Behiang, Skip and Tusom in Manipur.[x]
At present, only Moreh border trade centre in Manipur is functional with additional centres becoming non-functional.
Till now, results are far below expectations, especially for the Northeast. In practice, the agreements between India and Myanmar do not extend much beyond granting formal sanctions to the by now existing exchanges between the local people. In effect, border trade remains insignificant and did not contribute much towards economic growth for neither country. Among the many problems faced by both countries, security concerns and the poorly developed infrastructure for trade are the most acute. For trade and buying to flourish, the entire network of convey and communication, industries and agriculture throughout the Northeast also needs to be revamped and developed. Unless this is done, the much touted India-ASEAN FTA will be just another statistics in the minds of a very few researchers, academicians, scholars and administrators in Northeast India.
An vital point to note is that although trade performance has improved with India’s eastern neighbours, many of these exchanges had been done through seaports, leaving the northeast states in the lurch. If the northeast is to benefit from any improved trade relations or any present or future FTAs, the numerous plans and proposals that has been place forth and are in paper only must be implemented and brought to fruition first. The very few roles that the northeast states are playing right now should also be promoted to a more central role so that the north east states could reap the fruits of its own fields.
In a nutshell, Northeast India, a storehouse of fantastic natural resources but very backward economically, needs to be built up and readied if it is really going to be the ‘gateway’ or ‘centre’ of trade between India and East Asia. Unless the region is developed to bump up with the rest of the country in its growth rate and development, it will be hard to achieve what the people aspired for – peace, security, prosperity and all round development. To make this possible, significant investment in infrastructure, construction of roads, bridges, communication networks, harnessing of the region’s vast natural resources and additional physical infrastructures that will facilitate trade and economic progress needs to be developed.
With the impending AIFTA, India’s Northeast region has suddenly become the centre of focus once again. But this region has been lacking behind additional Indian states in most respects in spite of its vast natural resources and strategic position as a link between India and Southeast and East Asian countries. The main reasons why this region remains backward are the lack of any infrastructure that could facilitate any development in the region, poor market access and, to some degree, security issues.
The Indian government also concedes that the Northeast has a long way to go to achieve the national growth rate of nearly 9 per cent. The growth rate of Northeast is only 4 per cent. To increase the growth rate and economy of this region will be an vital step because herein lies many solutions to some pressing political and security problems.
Therefore, in the context of the present FTA, the author is of the opinion that unless the Northeast region is developed wholeheartedly, neither India nor ASEAN will really benefit from it.
Concluding Remarks
Lately, there has been a flurry of activities that are of fantastic importance to the north east states with some conscious efforts being made to develop this region. The Union Minister for the Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Mani Shankar Aiyar said that the Centre is aiming to promote the region as a major FDI destination and an export centre. The minister added that these are all attempts to make the region the arrowhead of India’s future economic growth. On July 2, 2008, the Indian PM released the North Eastern Region Vision 2020 document which contained detailed reports for the development of the north eastern region. The PM gave his assurances that the visions contained within this document will be made a reality. To quote him extensively, he said, “Infrastructure deficiency remains a major concern of the Government. You will be pleased to know that we have chose to link all State Capitals with railway lines. These projects have been given the status of National Projects with a special funding pattern. Airports are being modernized and new ones are being built. An ambitious programme of road building has been taken up below the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for the North East (SARDP-NE) and an amount of Rs. 31,000 Crore is being invested on roads in the 11th Five Year Plot. There are relaxed guidelines for rural roads below the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) so that even the farthest hamlets on the border are linked by road. Within the 11th Plot period, these interventions will start to show positive results. To bridge the infrastructure gap in the region, our Government has taken several initiatives. Work on the Tipaimukh and Loktak Downstream Hydro Electric Projects, costing about Rs.6,000 crores and Rs. 800 crores respectively, has been expedited. The 726 MW Palatana Gas based Power Plant, with an outlay of Rs.3,000 crores, a 750 MW Thermal Power Plant at Bongaigaon with an outlay of Rs. 4375 crores, and the Assam Gas Cracker Project have all broken ground. The Kumarghat-Agartala railway line has been approved as a National project, with an outlay of Rs. 750 Crores. The Jiribam–Tupu-Imphal railway line, which will place the Manipur valley on the rail map of India, has also been sanctioned as a National project for Rs. 727 Crores.”[xi]
On September 12, 2008, Lt. General ML Naidu visited Imphal and discussed with the Manipur Chief Minister issues pertaining to security, law and order situation in Manipur. It is still not clear if this visit has any significance in the context of our contemporary discussions, but is certainly significant if we take into account the timing of the visit and the rank of the visitor.
End Notes
[i] ASEAN was formed in 1967. Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines constituted the five original members. Brunei became a full member in 1984; Vietnam in 1995; Laos and Myanmar in 1997; and Cambodia in 1999.
[ii] http://www.aseansec.org/21895.htm
[iii] Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh's address at the 16th Asian Corporate Conference driving global business : India's new priorities, Asia’s new realities. URL: http://www.indianembassy.org/newsite/press_release/2006/Mar/35.asp
[iv] India’s trade statistics and additional commercial information can be had from the DGCIS website at http://www.dgciskol.nic.in/
[v] http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news_business.php?id=351756
[vi] ASEAN+3 include ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea.
[vii] http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/region_e/region_e.htm
[viii] http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050412/asp/opinion/story_4590622.asp also see http://meaindia.nic.in/speech/2005/05/31ss02.htm
[ix] http://www.financialexpress.com/news/India-Myanmar-expects-Kaladan-project-to-increase-border-trade/292285/
[x] See http://buying.nic.in/PressRelease/pressrelease_detail.asp?id=2280
[xi] http://pmindia.gov.in/speech/content.asp?id=693
READ MORE - India-asean Fta: Implications for India's Northeast
India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)[i] have concluded negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) after years of hard negotiations. This agreement will be signed into a treaty at the India-ASEAN Summit to be held in Bangkok on December 2008 and will come into force from January 1, 2009 if everything goes as intended.
Expectations from the India-ASEAN FTA are high. The Joint Media Statement of the Sixth ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM)-India Consultations stated that “the AIFTA could be a major avenue in harnessing the region’s vast economic potentials towards sustained progress and improved welfare not only for ASEAN and India but for the greater East Asian region as well.”[ii]
The India-ASEAN FTA is the upshot of many international and domestic factors. On one hand, the trend of international regionalisation and the proliferation of FTAs and the failure of the Doha round of many-sided talks to yield concrete results led both India and the ASEAN countries to consider alternative solutions towards freer trade. On the additional, the adoption of policies by India and ASEAN to develop better cooperation with their immediate neighbours in contemporary years has helped accelerate this negotiation.
In this context, India’s Northeast came to be seen in a new light. Several steps have been taken to improve relations with India’s immediate neighbour Myanmar. India has also trade relations with Thailand and Singapore. India and Myanmar shared a 1643 km long border. Myanmar being a member of ASEAN, the north eastern states of India become an vital link between the two parties.
This paper is an attempt to analyse what forebode India and its Northeast states in the light of the much-hyped India-ASEAN FTA. It will start by looking into the relationship between India and ASEAN and culminate with the present agreement. After that, the paper will analyse the implications the AIFTA can have on the north eastern states of India. It will, but, not delve into the security-insurgency dimension that has nearly become an anthem for most writers on north eastern India except in giving some passing remarks. It will, instead, try to highlight the many projects, plans and proposals that has been undertaken in the north east during the past few years and explore possible opportunities, problems and solutions for this region and for the FTA.
India and ASEAN: Shared ties, different policies and convergence?
Although India and ASEAN countries have shared cultural and historical ties, India’s interactions with ASEAN countries was quite limited during the Cold War as the two pursued policies which were not very conducive to deep rooted interactions and commitments to each additional. Soon after the end of the Second World War, India championed the administer of decolonisation and drew recognition and appreciation from different parts of the world. It became one of the founding members of the Nonaligned Movement (NAM). Even though Indonesia was also a member of NAM alongside India, this relationship did not extend beyond that.
The arrival of bipolar politics in Southeast Asia, the Vietnam crisis and India’s close ties with the Soviet Union led to the adoption of different policies by both India and ASEAN. ASEAN was formed in 1967 during the Vietnam War primarily to diffuse regional conflicts and to promote better relations between members. Communist victories in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia soon worsened the by now fragile security situation of Southeast Asia. Thus by 1976, ASEAN was forced to contemplate to become an association with security as its main concern. The reunification of Vietnam and the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia made another security dilemma. While ASEAN chastised Vietnam, India supported Vietnam. ASEAN’s suspicions of the Soviet Union and the paranoia it had with anything communist led many, including India, to regard ASEAN as allies of the capitalists or a pro-American bloc. Suspicion was so high during this time that India refused to hold dialogues with ASEAN twice in 1975 and 1980.
But with the end of the Cold War, interactions between India and ASEAN became more frequent; and relations between the two started to improve at a very quick pace. Following the end of the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Union, India started to adopt liberalisation policies. Meanwhile, ASEAN had also emerged as an vital regional organisation with fantastic potentials and opportunities for growth. The transformation of the international logic and new outlooks led to the adoption of the Look East Policy by India. When India initiated its Look East Policy in 1991, it marked a strategic shift in its foreign policy and perceptions towards its eastern neighbours. ASEAN’s strategic importance in the larger Asia-Pacific region and the potentials it has in becoming India’s major partner in trade and investment also added an impetus to India to develop closer ties with it. In addition, considering that the proposed South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) is unlikely to produce any solid outcome, this policy shift and agreement on the part of India is as strategic as it is vital. The Indian Prime Mister Manmohan Singh commented thus, “This was not merely an external economic policy; it was also a strategic shift in India’s vision of the world and India’s place in the evolving global economy. Most of all it was about reaching out to our civilizational neighbours in the region.”[iii]
In persistence of India’s Look East Policy, the administer of interregional cooperation was institutionalised with India becoming a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992; a full dialogue partner in 1995 and member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1996. India became a summit-level partner of ASEAN in 2002 and concluded the ASEAN-India Partnership for Peace, Progress and Shared Prosperity in 2004. India also became engaged in regional initiatives such as the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). India has now become a member of the East Asia Summit (EAS) since December 2005.
The deepening of relationship between India and ASEAN is reflected in the buoyancy of trade figures between the two. During April-September 2007-2008, trade grew from US$ 15.06 billion to US$ 17.02 billion, that is, trade grew by 13 per cent. India’s Foreign Trade with ASEAN, according to the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS), is also on the rise. During the period 2005-2006 to 2006-2007, India’s exports to ASEAN registered a growth rate of 20.67 per cent. Similarly, India’s imports from ASEAN during the same period registered a growth rate of 66 per cent. India-ASEAN trade stood at US$ 38.37 billion in 2007-2008 and is projected to get to US$ 48 billion during 2008-2009.[iv]
At the first India-ASEAN Summit held at Phnom Penh on November 5, 2001, India called for an India-ASEAN FTA within a 10-year time frame. In this context, the second India-ASEAN Summit held at Bali on October 8, 2003 was a significant landmark in India-ASEAN relations. This Summit saw the signing of the Framework Agreement for Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between India and ASEAN. This agreement envisaged the establishment of an FTA within a period of ten years. In March 2004, an ASEAN-India Trade Negotiations Committee (AI-TNC) was established to negotiate the implementation of the provisions of the Framework Agreement. India has, since then, entered into numerous agreements with ASEAN. At the sixth India-ASEAN Summit held at Singapore on November last year, India proposed to increase its two-pronged trade with ASEAN to the tune of US$ 50 billion by the year 2010. The latest agreement is therefore, the upshot of many years of tactful policies that led to the thawing of the ice between these two vital emerging economic powers in Asia.
In addition to these agreements with ASEAN, India has also made consistent efforts to develop two-pronged ties with ASEAN members. With Thailand, India has 61 years of diplomatic relations. India also has a Free Trade Agreement with Thailand that was signed in 2004. The framework agreement on two-pronged FTA of 2003 was the basis of this FTA with Thailand. Trade between the two augmented from a mere US$ 606 million to US$ 3.14 billion in 2006-2007.
With the CLV countries (Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam), India entered into a number of two-pronged agreements for cooperation in the fields of trade, knowledge and technology , agriculture, defence, visa exemption, tourism, IT and culture. India has major projects in the fields of education, entrepreneurship development and IT in these three countries. In 2004, India extended a credit line of US$ 27 million to Vietnam.
Malaysia is a major fund of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for India, particularly in the areas of LPG, power plants and highway constructions. Trade between the two rose from US$ 2.2 billion in 2002-2003 to US$ 6.6 billion in 2006-2007. Indian public sector undertakings such as BHEL and IRCON have also undertaken and completed a number of projects in Malaysia. Presently, after the India-ASEAN FTA negotiations, it is reported that about 150 Indian commerce firms are eying to diversify their export base in ASEAN markets and are plotting to make Malaysia the regional hub to penetrate the region.[v] Many of these companies are exploring the possibilities of joint ventures, technology transfers and investment opportunities.
It was mainly because of the insistence of Indonesia that India became a part of the East Asia Summit in 2005. Relations between the two had been very excellent for many years. Two-pronged trade between the two augmented by 44 per cent from 2005-2006 to 2006-2007.
India has a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) with Singapore since 2005. This agreement included two-pronged investment promotion treaty, double taxation avoidance agreement, an air services agreement and an FTA. Singapore, along with Indonesia had been an vital factor for India’s inclusion into the East Asian Summit. In addition, it was Singapore’s role that paved the way for India’s association with the ARF. Singapore is the largest fund of FDI for India among ASEAN countries. During the period 2000 to 2008, the cumulative FDI of Singapore into India was worth a whooping US$ 4.35 billion. Concurrently, over two thousand Indian companies were based in Singapore.
India also has plans for a free trade area with Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia by 2011 and with the remaining ASEAN countries by 2016. Since 1995, India had actively engaged Myanmar in trade. It has signed several agreements and MOUs including the Tripartite Maritime Agreement with Myanmar and Thailand, Border Trade Agreement and for cooperation between civilian authorities between India and Myanmar. Since 2000, a number of high level visits have taken place. During these visits, several agreements and MOUs have been signed in areas ranging from hydroelectric projects on the Chindwin River and IT cooperation to cultural exchange programmes. In the year 2003 alone, seven Agreements/MOUs were signed to promote trade and communication facilities. By 2006-2007, two-pronged trade between India and Myanmar reached US$ 650 million as compared to US$ 341.40 million in 2004-2005.
India-ASEAN FTA, Look East Policy and the Northeast
The announcement came after the conclusion of the 6th ASEAN AEM – India Consultations held at Singapore on 28 August 2008. The text of the India-ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement will be finalised before the India-ASEAN Summit to be held in December 2008 at Bangkok where it will be formally signed into a treaty and will come into force from January 1, 2009. This Summit will be attended by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
This agreement, it is expected, will upshot in a free trade regime to about two billion people from 11 countries with a combined GDP of $2,381 billion as of 2007. The agreement covering billions of dollars in trade in goods but not in services was supposed to have been concluded last year but talks were bogged down because of differences over products that India wanted excluded from tariff cuts. India had submitted a list of 1,414 products but ASEAN’s target was only 400. In the end, the agreement permits India to have 489 products in the ‘exclusion list’ and 606 sensitive goods that will come below partial duty reductions.
This agreement is to be viewed hostile to the backdrop of the long pinched-out Doha round of many-sided talks. As the Doha talks continue to drag on, this agreement between India and ASEAN can be seen as a natural course of action for countries refusing to entangle themselves in the protracted Doha round of talks. This agreement, along with the comprehensive FTA between ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand (AANZ FTA), became the first major trade agreement in the post-Doha era of trade policy negotiations.
The India-ASEAN FTA is also the upshot of contemporary changes in ASEAN’s policy towards its immediate neighbours and additional vital trading partners all over the world. In contemporary years, ASEAN has been involved with its major trading partners in concluding FTAs. In 1999, the ASEAN+3[vi] was formed for the establishment of a common market and a currency. China was the first to conclude an FTA with ASEAN followed by Japan and South Korea. The present FTA between India and ASEAN, and the AANZ FTA completes this trend. ASEAN will now be able to strike a fine weigh in trade among its immediate neighbours.
The India-ASEAN FTA also needs to be viewed in the broader context of global trends towards regional or two-pronged trading arrangements (RTAs/FTAs). Out of the 108 RTAs told to the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) over the period 1948-1994, 33 of them had been established in the early 1990s. By the year 2000, nearly half of the 220 RTAs told to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are initiated after the Cold War. Such is the importance accorded to RTAs or FTAs in contemporary times that no country can ill afford to ignore it. Till July 2007, some 380 RTAs have been told to the WTO.[vii]
For India, this agreement will be a major milestone in its Look East Policy that started after the end of the erstwhile Soviet Union. The contemporary agreement will take India far beyond its existing trade agreements with Myanmar, Thailand and Singapore.
It is in these contexts that India’s Northeast came to be seen in a new light. Rajiv Sikri, the Secretary East of the Ministry of External Affairs remarked that the Look East Policy “envisages the Northeast region not as the periphery of India, but as the centre of a thriving and integrated economic space linking two dynamic regions with a network of highways, railways, pipelines, transmission lines crisscrossing the region.”[viii]
Myanmar, now being a member of ASEAN and having shared a 1643 km long border with India, is now becoming the major link between India and ASEAN countries. The Northeast states of India have now also been seen as the ‘gateway’ to the ASEAN countries.
One early outcome of the Look East policy was the Indo-Myanmar Trade Agreement signed in 1994. According to this agreement, border trade between the two is to be conducted through Moreh in India and Tamu in Myanmar; Champhai in India and Hri in Myanmar and additional places that may be told by mutual agreement. Several Indian companies are also engaged in oil and gas exploration in Myanmar.
In 2001, India upgraded the 160 km long Tamu-Kalewa-Kalemyo highway. Plans for a 1400 km long trans-Asian highway that will connect India, Myanmar and Thailand is now being finalised. A railway link that will extend up to Imphal in Manipur in the first phase and up to Myanmar in the second phase is also being intended. Two-pronged trade between India and Myanmar has also been expanding at a significant rate since 2001. India has extended a number of general and project-specific credit lines in the last few years. Some major projects between the two, besides the ones by now mentioned include the Rhi-Tiddim and Rhi-Falam Roads in Myanmar, the Kaladan Multimodal Convey Project and the Tamanthi Hydro Electric Power Project.
The Kaladan Multimodal Transit-cum-Convey project agreement was signed in April this year. Jairam Ramesh, the Minister of State for Buying said that the Rs. 548 Crore project will help increase connectivity between the two countries. This project will link Kolkata and Sittwe, Kaleutwa in Myanmar by road and would go through Mizoram in India. It also envisages the development of a 225 km waterway on the Kaladan River and the construction of ports along the way. The minister said that north eastern India will be able to boost its border trade with Myanmar. We will also consider notch up of trading points in Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. At present, we have only one trading point at Moreh in Manipur. This project will also help India to successfully integrate with the ASEAN region through Myanmar.[ix] Plans to allocate free movement of Myanmarese citizens up to Moreh town in Manipur is also afoot. The Manipur Government has also submitted a Rs. 200 Crore project proposal to the Central Government to develop infrastructure at Moreh.
In 2006, a proposal for a bus service between Imphal and Mandalay was painstaking and accepted by the Indian Government. But till now, no such service has been undertaken. But during the September 2008 visit of a 17-member trade delegation from Myanmar at Imphal, the Myanmar trade delegation expressed their desire to implement the proposed Imphal-Mandalay bus service certainly. This visit was a reciprocal visit after a trade delegation from Manipur visited Mandalay during the month of April 2008. After holding a run of meetings, both the sides agreed to place pressure on their respective governments to improve the existing border trade between India and Myanmar.
Earlier in April 2008, after the visit of a strong Myanmar official and business delegation to India, both the two countries had agreed to increase border trade that is restricted to only 22 bits and pieces, all being agricultural products. There are now plans to free more bits and pieces including life saving drugs, fertilizers, outfits, x-ray papers and motor parts.
The latest agreement signed between India and Myanmar is the four-point economic cooperation agreement signed in June this year. This agreement was signed by the Indian Minister for Buying and Power Jairam Ramesh and the Myanmar Minister for National Plotting and Economic Development U Soe Tha. First, the Two-pronged Investment Promotion Agreement (BIPA) was signed to encourage investment between the two countries. Second, a credit line agreement between the Exim Bank of India and the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank was signed to finance three 290 kv transmission lines in Myanmar. This US$ 64 million project will be executed by the Power Grid Corporation of India. Third, a credit line agreement for US$ 20 million between the Exim Bank of India and the Myanmar Trade Bank was signed to finance the establishment of an aluminium conductor steel reinforced wire manufacturing facility. This facility will be used for the expansion of power distribution network in Myanmar. Fourth, the United Bank of India (UBI) and the Myanmar Economic Bank signed an agreement to encourage border trade through Moreh. There are also plans to expand trade centres to include Arangkhu and Lungwa in Nagaland, Zokhawthar in Mizoram, Pangsan Pass in Arunachal Pradesh and Behiang, Skip and Tusom in Manipur.[x]
At present, only Moreh border trade centre in Manipur is functional with additional centres becoming non-functional.
Till now, results are far below expectations, especially for the Northeast. In practice, the agreements between India and Myanmar do not extend much beyond granting formal sanctions to the by now existing exchanges between the local people. In effect, border trade remains insignificant and did not contribute much towards economic growth for neither country. Among the many problems faced by both countries, security concerns and the poorly developed infrastructure for trade are the most acute. For trade and buying to flourish, the entire network of convey and communication, industries and agriculture throughout the Northeast also needs to be revamped and developed. Unless this is done, the much touted India-ASEAN FTA will be just another statistics in the minds of a very few researchers, academicians, scholars and administrators in Northeast India.
An vital point to note is that although trade performance has improved with India’s eastern neighbours, many of these exchanges had been done through seaports, leaving the northeast states in the lurch. If the northeast is to benefit from any improved trade relations or any present or future FTAs, the numerous plans and proposals that has been place forth and are in paper only must be implemented and brought to fruition first. The very few roles that the northeast states are playing right now should also be promoted to a more central role so that the north east states could reap the fruits of its own fields.
In a nutshell, Northeast India, a storehouse of fantastic natural resources but very backward economically, needs to be built up and readied if it is really going to be the ‘gateway’ or ‘centre’ of trade between India and East Asia. Unless the region is developed to bump up with the rest of the country in its growth rate and development, it will be hard to achieve what the people aspired for – peace, security, prosperity and all round development. To make this possible, significant investment in infrastructure, construction of roads, bridges, communication networks, harnessing of the region’s vast natural resources and additional physical infrastructures that will facilitate trade and economic progress needs to be developed.
With the impending AIFTA, India’s Northeast region has suddenly become the centre of focus once again. But this region has been lacking behind additional Indian states in most respects in spite of its vast natural resources and strategic position as a link between India and Southeast and East Asian countries. The main reasons why this region remains backward are the lack of any infrastructure that could facilitate any development in the region, poor market access and, to some degree, security issues.
The Indian government also concedes that the Northeast has a long way to go to achieve the national growth rate of nearly 9 per cent. The growth rate of Northeast is only 4 per cent. To increase the growth rate and economy of this region will be an vital step because herein lies many solutions to some pressing political and security problems.
Therefore, in the context of the present FTA, the author is of the opinion that unless the Northeast region is developed wholeheartedly, neither India nor ASEAN will really benefit from it.
Concluding Remarks
Lately, there has been a flurry of activities that are of fantastic importance to the north east states with some conscious efforts being made to develop this region. The Union Minister for the Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Mani Shankar Aiyar said that the Centre is aiming to promote the region as a major FDI destination and an export centre. The minister added that these are all attempts to make the region the arrowhead of India’s future economic growth. On July 2, 2008, the Indian PM released the North Eastern Region Vision 2020 document which contained detailed reports for the development of the north eastern region. The PM gave his assurances that the visions contained within this document will be made a reality. To quote him extensively, he said, “Infrastructure deficiency remains a major concern of the Government. You will be pleased to know that we have chose to link all State Capitals with railway lines. These projects have been given the status of National Projects with a special funding pattern. Airports are being modernized and new ones are being built. An ambitious programme of road building has been taken up below the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for the North East (SARDP-NE) and an amount of Rs. 31,000 Crore is being invested on roads in the 11th Five Year Plot. There are relaxed guidelines for rural roads below the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) so that even the farthest hamlets on the border are linked by road. Within the 11th Plot period, these interventions will start to show positive results. To bridge the infrastructure gap in the region, our Government has taken several initiatives. Work on the Tipaimukh and Loktak Downstream Hydro Electric Projects, costing about Rs.6,000 crores and Rs. 800 crores respectively, has been expedited. The 726 MW Palatana Gas based Power Plant, with an outlay of Rs.3,000 crores, a 750 MW Thermal Power Plant at Bongaigaon with an outlay of Rs. 4375 crores, and the Assam Gas Cracker Project have all broken ground. The Kumarghat-Agartala railway line has been approved as a National project, with an outlay of Rs. 750 Crores. The Jiribam–Tupu-Imphal railway line, which will place the Manipur valley on the rail map of India, has also been sanctioned as a National project for Rs. 727 Crores.”[xi]
On September 12, 2008, Lt. General ML Naidu visited Imphal and discussed with the Manipur Chief Minister issues pertaining to security, law and order situation in Manipur. It is still not clear if this visit has any significance in the context of our contemporary discussions, but is certainly significant if we take into account the timing of the visit and the rank of the visitor.
End Notes
[i] ASEAN was formed in 1967. Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines constituted the five original members. Brunei became a full member in 1984; Vietnam in 1995; Laos and Myanmar in 1997; and Cambodia in 1999.
[ii] http://www.aseansec.org/21895.htm
[iii] Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh's address at the 16th Asian Corporate Conference driving global business : India's new priorities, Asia’s new realities. URL: http://www.indianembassy.org/newsite/press_release/2006/Mar/35.asp
[iv] India’s trade statistics and additional commercial information can be had from the DGCIS website at http://www.dgciskol.nic.in/
[v] http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news_business.php?id=351756
[vi] ASEAN+3 include ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea.
[vii] http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/region_e/region_e.htm
[viii] http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050412/asp/opinion/story_4590622.asp also see http://meaindia.nic.in/speech/2005/05/31ss02.htm
[ix] http://www.financialexpress.com/news/India-Myanmar-expects-Kaladan-project-to-increase-border-trade/292285/
[x] See http://buying.nic.in/PressRelease/pressrelease_detail.asp?id=2280
[xi] http://pmindia.gov.in/speech/content.asp?id=693
The author has a Ph. D. in International Politics from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
His areas of interest are Southeast Asia, Southern Africa and Latin America and writes mainly on the politics of regional integration in these areas. He also writes on issues pertaining to South Asia, particularly on India's Northeast.
His areas of interest are Southeast Asia, Southern Africa and Latin America and writes mainly on the politics of regional integration in these areas. He also writes on issues pertaining to South Asia, particularly on India's Northeast.
Tripura films highlight tribal issues
Agartala /New Delhi, Apr 19 (ANI): Tripura's film industry received a boost when film Yarwang, which means Roots, won the first national award for the state.
'Yarwang' meaning roots is a feature film in Tripura's tribal language Kokbarak, which highlights issues related to the tribal community.
The 95-minute film tells the story of large-scale displacement of tribal people that took place in the northeastern state when a hydel project was set up there in the late 1970s.
A national award to Yarwang opens new vistas for regional cinema, which can project the indigenous way of life of the northeast.
Speaking to ANI, National Award Winning Director, Joseph Pulinthanath said filmmaking would generate employment in the region.
"Unfortunately, there isn't much film making take place in the region accepts for a couple of states. But I think if filmmaking comes to the region in a serious manner it can benefit us in many ways," Pulinthanath said.
"Not only on unfold stories of these beautiful region will be seen by people but to be practical it will provide employment to numerous people who would like to get employed," he added.
Yarwang has been screened in India and major cities around the world including New York, Brisbane, Moscow, Taipai and Dhaka.
It has also won a Special Jury Mention Award at the 3rd Eye Asian Film festival held in Mumbai in 2008.
Actress Meena Debbarma said people of Tripura are no way behind
" After we received the national award it has been proved that the people of Tripura are no way backward, infact we are as good as the people of those places where big films are produced. Not only films, in different fields we are as good as the people of mainland. We are no way behind rather I believed we are at par," said Debbarma.
"Realizing the power of this medium the youth are now taking up this profession. And it is a fact that one can express oneself, a crisis or emotion better through this medium. And recently the National Award that Father Joseph Pulinthant's film "Yarwng" received will surely encourage them to improve their work," said Biplab Goswami, film Director.
The technical team of Yarwng came from Kerala while the support team was from Guwahati.
The cast, however, was made up mostly of indigenous people who were victims of displacement and had no experience whatsoever in acting.
Indeed! Cinema can play an important role in raising issues of concern to the northeast. (ANI)
READ MORE - Tripura films highlight tribal issues
President Pratibha Patil handed over the award to Don Bosco priests Joseph Kizhakechennadu and Ft. Joseph Pulinthanath, the producer and director of the film at the 56th National Film Awards (2008) in New Delhi on March 19 this year.
'Yarwang' meaning roots is a feature film in Tripura's tribal language Kokbarak, which highlights issues related to the tribal community.
The 95-minute film tells the story of large-scale displacement of tribal people that took place in the northeastern state when a hydel project was set up there in the late 1970s.
A national award to Yarwang opens new vistas for regional cinema, which can project the indigenous way of life of the northeast.
Speaking to ANI, National Award Winning Director, Joseph Pulinthanath said filmmaking would generate employment in the region.
"Unfortunately, there isn't much film making take place in the region accepts for a couple of states. But I think if filmmaking comes to the region in a serious manner it can benefit us in many ways," Pulinthanath said.
"Not only on unfold stories of these beautiful region will be seen by people but to be practical it will provide employment to numerous people who would like to get employed," he added.
Yarwang has been screened in India and major cities around the world including New York, Brisbane, Moscow, Taipai and Dhaka.
It has also won a Special Jury Mention Award at the 3rd Eye Asian Film festival held in Mumbai in 2008.
Actress Meena Debbarma said people of Tripura are no way behind
" After we received the national award it has been proved that the people of Tripura are no way backward, infact we are as good as the people of those places where big films are produced. Not only films, in different fields we are as good as the people of mainland. We are no way behind rather I believed we are at par," said Debbarma.
"Realizing the power of this medium the youth are now taking up this profession. And it is a fact that one can express oneself, a crisis or emotion better through this medium. And recently the National Award that Father Joseph Pulinthant's film "Yarwng" received will surely encourage them to improve their work," said Biplab Goswami, film Director.
The technical team of Yarwng came from Kerala while the support team was from Guwahati.
The cast, however, was made up mostly of indigenous people who were victims of displacement and had no experience whatsoever in acting.
Indeed! Cinema can play an important role in raising issues of concern to the northeast. (ANI)
Assam, Mizoram, West Bengal get grant for rural sanitation
New Delhi, April 19 (IANS) The central government has released grants to Assam, Mizoram and West Bengal to ensure total sanitation that includes doing away with the practice of open defecation in rural areas.
“The ministry of rural development has released grant in aid worth Rs.564.03 lakh to two districts in Assam under the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC). The grant has been released to Rajiv Gandhi Rural Water and Sanitation Mission, Assam, an agency executing the works for Rural Sanitation Programme in the state,” an official statement said Monday.
Similarly, the ministry released a grant of Rs.277.84 lakh to five districts of Mizoram and Rs.580 lakh to four districts of West Bengal under the TSC of the Central Rural Sanitation Programme.
The TSC is a comprehensive programme to ensure sanitation facilities in rural areas with a broader goal to eradicate the practice of open defecation.
“The TSC follows a principle of ‘low to no subsidy’ where a nominal subsidy in the form of incentive is given to rural poor households for construction of toilets,” the statement added.
The campaign also lays emphasis on spreading awareness of the issue.
READ MORE - Assam, Mizoram, West Bengal get grant for rural sanitation
“The ministry of rural development has released grant in aid worth Rs.564.03 lakh to two districts in Assam under the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC). The grant has been released to Rajiv Gandhi Rural Water and Sanitation Mission, Assam, an agency executing the works for Rural Sanitation Programme in the state,” an official statement said Monday.
Similarly, the ministry released a grant of Rs.277.84 lakh to five districts of Mizoram and Rs.580 lakh to four districts of West Bengal under the TSC of the Central Rural Sanitation Programme.
The TSC is a comprehensive programme to ensure sanitation facilities in rural areas with a broader goal to eradicate the practice of open defecation.
“The TSC follows a principle of ‘low to no subsidy’ where a nominal subsidy in the form of incentive is given to rural poor households for construction of toilets,” the statement added.
The campaign also lays emphasis on spreading awareness of the issue.
On a dramatically changing terrain
Gustasp and Jeroo Irani
Monday, April 19, 2010 AT 12:00 AM (IST)
The elephant safari at Kaziranga National Park in Assam is a brief affair — a 40-minute ride into the grasslands — but it did ensure a close encounter with the star attraction of the wildlife park: the magnificent Asiatic one-horned rhino. Other sightings include the wild Indian water buffalo and the barasingha, the males carrying their 12-point antlers with ballerina-like grace. The early morning elephant safari, however, is only an overture to a larger adventure.
We entered the park through a long archway of trees which led to a sweep of grassland streaked with pools of water: a popular grazing ground of elephants and rhinos. Here we climbed up an observation tower and gazed out at pelicans swimming in front of a wading rhino; wild ducks lazing on fingers of land stretched across the water; black necked storks balanced on red stilt like legs in the shallows; flocks of birds gracefully soaring into the blue skies above…
Since most of the Kaziranga is open country covered by wetlands and grasslands, the wildlife viewing is not only a treat here but probably the best in India. Around January each year, the tall elephant grass that provides a cover for animals is burned by the forest department in controlled stages and from February onwards up to the monsoons — when the park closes — animal sightings are at their very best. And the park brims with abundant game: rhinos, tigers, elephants, deer, wild boar… Even if it did not have any mammals, Kaziranga would still be one of the best bird watching sites in India as it is home to over 500 species of birds.
In fact, Kaziranga’s conservation effort is an amazing success story. Poachers had been systematically killing the rhino for its horn and in 1904, it was believed that only 12 remained in the forest. Saddened by the plight of the beast, Lady Curzon, wife of the then Viceroy of India, prevailed upon her husband to declare Kaziranga as a protected area. In 1926, Kaziranga was classified a Reserve Forest, in 1940, a Wildlife Sanctuary and soon after, a National Park. Meanwhile, the rhino population touched 366 in 1966, 1,164 in 1993 and currently stands at over 2,000. Though Kaziranga is technically not included in Project Tiger, the big cat has benefited by the protection it offers the rhino and currently the park is believed to have the highest density of tigers in the world. However the chance of sighting these elusive big cats is rare.
Back on the safari trail, the terrain changed dramatically as the grasslands gave way to dense forests that were watered by the Brahmaputra River which floods the park during the monsoons forcing the rhinos and other residents of the park to retreat to the surrounding highlands. There is not much one can do about nature’s wayward ways. But the sight of rhinos gazing in the marshlands was a reassuring reminder that over the hundred years of its existence, Kaziranga had done a remarkable job of saving the magnificent animal from extinction. Now if only they could do something about the dwindling tiger population.
(Gustasp and Jeroo Irani are well-known travel writers)
Infiltration from B'desh cannot be ruled out: BSF
Shillong, Apr 19 (PTI) The BSF today said infiltration, movement of militants and smuggling of arms from Bangladesh into India through the porous international border in Meghalaya cannot be ruled out.
"Smuggling of arms and cross-border movement of militants cannot be ruled out. The nature of border is very hostile and it is difficult to completely check the menace unless the fencing project is completed," BSF Inspector General (Assam and Meghalaya frontier) Prithvi Raj said.
The statement comes close on the heels of intelligence inputs indicating that the porous Meghalaya-Bangladesh border continues to be a major route for entry of militants from Bangladesh and transshipment of arms and explosives into India.
Revelations from a couple of top arrested militants had prompted the BSF to strengthen vigil along the border, particularly in the Garo hills belt of Meghalaya.
READ MORE - Infiltration from B'desh cannot be ruled out: BSF
"Smuggling of arms and cross-border movement of militants cannot be ruled out. The nature of border is very hostile and it is difficult to completely check the menace unless the fencing project is completed," BSF Inspector General (Assam and Meghalaya frontier) Prithvi Raj said.
The statement comes close on the heels of intelligence inputs indicating that the porous Meghalaya-Bangladesh border continues to be a major route for entry of militants from Bangladesh and transshipment of arms and explosives into India.
Revelations from a couple of top arrested militants had prompted the BSF to strengthen vigil along the border, particularly in the Garo hills belt of Meghalaya.
DoT, Govt of Meghalaya plans to promote lesser known destinations to increase tourist arrivals
The Department of Tourism (DoT), Government of Meghalaya is planning to promote lesser known destinations such as Balpakram National Park, Mawlynnong Village and Cherrapunjee, besides traditional destinations like Shillong, in order to increase tourist arrivals in the state.
The state tourism department has also decided to develop destination circuits and tourist lodges. Although DoT sources did not reveal names of the circuits, they informed that the state tourism department will be developing tourist lodges around lesser known places such as Jakrem Hot Spring.
The state tourism department has also sent a proposal to Ministry of Tourism (MoT) to allocate heliports at Khasi and Garo Hills for increasing tourist arrivals. The state received five lakh tourists last year from both domestic and foreign travellers. This information was provided by Eva P Pariat, Information and Publicity Officer, Department of Tourism, Government of Meghalaya.
READ MORE - DoT, Govt of Meghalaya plans to promote lesser known destinations to increase tourist arrivals
The state tourism department has also decided to develop destination circuits and tourist lodges. Although DoT sources did not reveal names of the circuits, they informed that the state tourism department will be developing tourist lodges around lesser known places such as Jakrem Hot Spring.
The state tourism department has also sent a proposal to Ministry of Tourism (MoT) to allocate heliports at Khasi and Garo Hills for increasing tourist arrivals. The state received five lakh tourists last year from both domestic and foreign travellers. This information was provided by Eva P Pariat, Information and Publicity Officer, Department of Tourism, Government of Meghalaya.
Meghalaya braces for fourth govt in two years
Shillong: Meghalaya is heading towards formation of the fourth government in two years in the same assembly with chief minister DD Lapang today conceding that he has lost majority support in the CLP and going to quit shortly.
The beleaguered chief minister, who faced a revolt from disgruntled Congress MLAs demanding a change in leadership, is likely to be replaced by his deputy Mukul Sangma who has claimed the support of over 20 of the total 28 party MLAs.
"Mukul Sangma has the majority. I met the 18/19 MLAs (Congress and non-Congress) who are in Delhi. I asked them whether they support Sangma, they said "Yes". I will inform Madam (Sonia Gandhi) about the situation," Lapang said over phone from New Delhi today.
Asked if he would resign, Lapang, who is expected to meet Gandhi later this evening, said, "Definitely, in a democracy the number counts."
Sangma yesterday rushed to Delhi with 14 Congress MLAs. Two other pro-Sangma MLAs are expected to fly to the national capital today.
When asked about the developments, Sangma said, "the matter is in the court of AICC. We are awaiting its decision."
If Sangma gets the 'go ahead' from the AICC, his government will be the fourth government in two years.
The ruling alliance, sworn in last year after the fall of the NCP-led government, enjoys the support of 44 MLAs -- 28 of Congress, 9 of UDP, two of Hill State Peoples Democratic Party, one of Khyun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement and four Independents in the House of 60.
Lapang was sworn in after the assembly elections in March, 2008 but he had to resign after ten days having failed to muster majority in the House.
The NCP with 15 MLAs then cobbled up the regional parties and Independents to form a government, which did not even last one year.
Lapang returned after a one-and-half months president's rule in May last year, mustering the support of the regional parties and Independents.
Political instability has been haunting Meghalaya ever since it was carved out in 1972 with the state witnessing 21 governments in the last 38 years.
SC Marak, who headed the Congress-led alliance in 1993-1997, was the only Congressman to complete full five years as chief minister after Williamson Sangma, the first chief minister of the state.
READ MORE - Meghalaya braces for fourth govt in two years
The beleaguered chief minister, who faced a revolt from disgruntled Congress MLAs demanding a change in leadership, is likely to be replaced by his deputy Mukul Sangma who has claimed the support of over 20 of the total 28 party MLAs.
"Mukul Sangma has the majority. I met the 18/19 MLAs (Congress and non-Congress) who are in Delhi. I asked them whether they support Sangma, they said "Yes". I will inform Madam (Sonia Gandhi) about the situation," Lapang said over phone from New Delhi today.
Asked if he would resign, Lapang, who is expected to meet Gandhi later this evening, said, "Definitely, in a democracy the number counts."
Sangma yesterday rushed to Delhi with 14 Congress MLAs. Two other pro-Sangma MLAs are expected to fly to the national capital today.
When asked about the developments, Sangma said, "the matter is in the court of AICC. We are awaiting its decision."
If Sangma gets the 'go ahead' from the AICC, his government will be the fourth government in two years.
The ruling alliance, sworn in last year after the fall of the NCP-led government, enjoys the support of 44 MLAs -- 28 of Congress, 9 of UDP, two of Hill State Peoples Democratic Party, one of Khyun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement and four Independents in the House of 60.
Lapang was sworn in after the assembly elections in March, 2008 but he had to resign after ten days having failed to muster majority in the House.
The NCP with 15 MLAs then cobbled up the regional parties and Independents to form a government, which did not even last one year.
Lapang returned after a one-and-half months president's rule in May last year, mustering the support of the regional parties and Independents.
Political instability has been haunting Meghalaya ever since it was carved out in 1972 with the state witnessing 21 governments in the last 38 years.
SC Marak, who headed the Congress-led alliance in 1993-1997, was the only Congressman to complete full five years as chief minister after Williamson Sangma, the first chief minister of the state.
Dispur to shift soil centre from NC Hills
Nagaon, April 18: Dispur plans to shift the soil conservation department’s training centre at Mahur in North Cachar Hills to a “comfortable” place, considering the volatile security situation and the staff’s reluctance to work in the district.
A soil conservation department source said decisions regarding “shifting” were in the “finishing stage” and the new venue would be finalised during a round of discussion with the North Cachar Hills district autonomous council.
“Kohora in eastern Karbi Anglong or Guwahati are the two options. The centre would be shifted to one of the two,” the source said.
The training institution — Mahur Soil Conservation Training Centre — in the heart of Mahur town, was established in July 1983 with a superintendent and two deputies, three technicians, 10 field workers, five clerks and seven grade IV staff.
It is the only centre of the department where newly recruited staff were trained and routine departmental training was carried out from time to time.
The institution was closed in 2004 soon after the Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel) launched a series of attacks in the district.
Later, the centre was used to accommodate the Territorial Army’s Assam regiment, which was deployed for anti-insurgency operations in the troubled hill district.
“Right now, we have no technical staff at the institution. Five clerks, seven grade-IV staff are engaged. A Guwahati-based engineering-level district officer has been given the additional charge of superintendent,” said soil conservator director R.K. Doley over telephone.
Doley said two types of training are being imparted by the institution, which include a six month-long training for the departmental field workers and a 11-month training for the technical staff (junior).
“For the last couple of years, we were continuing the training in neighbouring Meghalaya. We hope that shifting of the institution might streamline the training system,” he said.
Soil conservation training institution is one of the three state-run institutions in the northern part of North Cachar Hills.
“As far as the climatic condition is concerned, North Cachar Hills is the best place for the training centre as it has enough resources to impart both theoretical and practical classes to the trainees. But the remoteness and law and order situation are forcing us to retreat,” said a departmental source.
Tripura assures to provide land for NH-44 expansion
Agartala, Apr 17 :The Tripura government has assured the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to provide land required for the expansion of National Highway-44 for connecting the state with the rest of India through Assam.
Official sources here today said the state government had entered into an agreement with the NHAI and agreed to provide the right of access to 45 metres on both sides of the existing national highway. The state government would also facilitate environmental clearances and other local level permits required by the NHAI, officials said adding the NH-44 was announced in the Centre's plan for development of 9,713 km road in the northeastern region under Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for North East (SARDP-NE) in two phases.
The Tripura government had been pursuing for the project's implementation that would boost inter-state surface transport and the Centre was committed to building highway between Aizwal and Agartala, it was learnt.
The highway would be improved to two-lane standards, while all the villages and hamlets would be connected through surface transport.
The existing NH-44 from Shillong to Southern tip of Tripura (Sabroom) would be made four-lane, providing efficient highways to Barak Valley and Mizoram, officials maintained.
The ministry has also decided that the National Highways in Mizoram would be improved to two-lane standards and four lanes would be provided up to Aizwal and all the eight district headquarters of the state would be connected by two-lane roads.
A trade route from the proposed Sittwe port in Myanmar would be established to facilitate transport of goods by water route through the Bay of Bengal. Widening and improvement of 706 km-long national highway, stretching to four lane for improving further the connectivity of Agartala, Aizwal, Imphal and Kohima, would be taken up under National Highways Development Project, Phase III (NHDP-III) on Build, Operate and Transfer basis. According to the plan, toll would be levied on the upgraded highways that included four stretches of Doboka- Dimapur (124km), Kohima-Imphal (140km), Shillong-Churaibari (252 km) and Silchar- Aizwal (190km), the officials added.
READ MORE - Tripura assures to provide land for NH-44 expansion
Official sources here today said the state government had entered into an agreement with the NHAI and agreed to provide the right of access to 45 metres on both sides of the existing national highway. The state government would also facilitate environmental clearances and other local level permits required by the NHAI, officials said adding the NH-44 was announced in the Centre's plan for development of 9,713 km road in the northeastern region under Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for North East (SARDP-NE) in two phases.
The Tripura government had been pursuing for the project's implementation that would boost inter-state surface transport and the Centre was committed to building highway between Aizwal and Agartala, it was learnt.
The highway would be improved to two-lane standards, while all the villages and hamlets would be connected through surface transport.
The existing NH-44 from Shillong to Southern tip of Tripura (Sabroom) would be made four-lane, providing efficient highways to Barak Valley and Mizoram, officials maintained.
The ministry has also decided that the National Highways in Mizoram would be improved to two-lane standards and four lanes would be provided up to Aizwal and all the eight district headquarters of the state would be connected by two-lane roads.
A trade route from the proposed Sittwe port in Myanmar would be established to facilitate transport of goods by water route through the Bay of Bengal. Widening and improvement of 706 km-long national highway, stretching to four lane for improving further the connectivity of Agartala, Aizwal, Imphal and Kohima, would be taken up under National Highways Development Project, Phase III (NHDP-III) on Build, Operate and Transfer basis. According to the plan, toll would be levied on the upgraded highways that included four stretches of Doboka- Dimapur (124km), Kohima-Imphal (140km), Shillong-Churaibari (252 km) and Silchar- Aizwal (190km), the officials added.
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