Round-up of regional news

INDIA/PAKISTAN More trains, not too many New Delhi and Islamabad have given signals recently that they are keen to build on the initial success of their crossborder train lines. In October, they made preliminary agreements to introduce a freight-train service between Munabao and Khokhrapar, and to step up the number of freight trains running between Attari and Wagah. The decision was made following three days of talks in pursuance of agreements made in March during the third round of Composite Dialogue talks. Around 20 trains currently ply the tracks between Attari and Wagah every month, and the new agreement would increase that number to around two a day. Also discussed were plans to ease immigration procedures on the Thar Express line in the Sindh-Rajasthan sector. Islamabad seems a bit wary of too much of a good thing, however. During the week the agreement was signed, the Pakistani government rejected an Indian plan to start a train service between Amritsar and the Sikh holy town of Nankana Sahib. Currently there is only a bus service between the two. Although the Railways Ministry had recently found the proposal to be economically viable, the government dismissed the scheme after the Interior Ministry raised concerns. Over in New Delhi, South Block is said to be wary about the Punjab government being overly enthusiastic about developing cultural links with Pakistani Punjab on its own (see accompanying story). THE MALDIVES/INDIA Help wanted: democracy, military New Delhi has promised to help the Maldives make revisions to its Constitution and judicial system. The pledge came at the end of a week-long trip to India by the Maldivian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Shaheed. During a meeting with Manmohan Singh, Shaheed delivered a letter from President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom requesting a "closer engagement" between the two countries. The letter also explained President Gayoom's contentious reforms roadmap, which includes the modernisation of the country's electoral and security infrastructure, as well as its media and judiciary. Prime Minister Singh subsequently promised India's fullest cooperation, cautioning that the atolls' reforms must be sought peacefully. The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), the main opposition, meanwhile, has been increasingly critical of the government for trying to stall any meaningful democratic progress. A pro-democracy rally in Male sponsored by the MDP, slated for 10 November, was called off in advance due to worries that the government was planning a violent crackdown. In addition to seeking help on democratic reforms, Foreign Affairs Minister Shaheed also met with then-Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee (he now heads Foreign Affairs), and pushed for greater military ties with India. One of the primary emphases of Shaheed's trip was reportedly to reassure New Delhi that the Maldives' growing relationship with Beijing is not an attempt to play the two powers off one another. Saying that the Male government "sees the world through the Southasian perspective", the foreign minister dismissed as "a canard" reports that China has been allowed to build a naval installation on land leased by the Maldivian government. REGION Siphoning Brahmaputra Reports have been surfacing of a preliminary plan by the Beijing government to dam the Brahmaputra (Tsangpo), diverting roughly 200 billion cubic metres of water per year into the Yellow River. Dubbed the Greater Western Water Diversion Project, the plan reportedly has the blessing of President Hu Jintao, himself trained as a water engineer. Given China's ability to push mega projects and its willingness to disregard environmental and humanitarian issues in the process, there is every reason for India and Bangladesh to be alarmed over this design on the Brahmaputra/Jamuna. China wants to divert water to areas in its northeast, which it projects will soon be parched, as the Yellow River faces a drier future. Siphoning off the Brahmaputra, however, would immediately diminish one of India and Bangladesh's most vital water sources. The project is only one part of a much larger water-diversion programme already underway in China, which aims to take water from the waterways of the south to the semi-arid north. The elevated position of Tibet in this context becomes an immediate geo-strategic advantage for the People's Republic. New Delhi is said to be worried enough to have initiated a dialogue with Beijing on the matter. Meanwhile, this is much more of a clear and present danger for Bangladesh than would be India's 'river-linking' scheme, which has caused such bad blood with New Delhi. NEPAL A new hub? Recent months have seen a sudden spate of planning of potential flights between Nepal and other Southasian countries. Late in October China Southern Airlines had sought permission to fly between Guangzhou and Kathmandu. It expects to tap the Chinese tourism market, given that Nepal is approaching peace, and also because the Chinese authorities have designated it an 'approved country' for its touring citizens. Meanwhile, G M G Bangladesh Airlines, which began flying internationally in 2004, is set to begin flying between Kathmandu and Dhaka thrice weekly. In mid-September, the newly renamed 'Indian' resumed its Kathmandu-Benaras-Kathmandu flights after an 18-month break. Authorities in India and Nepal are also looking to increase the number of seats available on flights between the two countries. Sri Lankan Air has announced its intention to start flights to Nepal in the near future, as have more airlines from the Gulf, Korea and Thailand. With so much expatriate flying, the news about Nepal's own airlines is not so good. The country's first budget airline, Cosmic Air, suspended operation of its single remaining Fokker jet (down from four) in mid-October for maintenance reasons. INDIA/BHUTAN Menon to Bhutan The new Indian Foreign Secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, made his first trip abroad as the country's top diplomat to Bhutan. During his three-day visit, Menon brought up New Delhi's desire to revise the 1949 treaty between Bhutan and India, particularly in the context of the Druk Yul's slated unveiling of a new Constitution in 2008. Among other things, the 1949 agreement includes a clause, dating back to 1910, that gives India direct influence over Bhutan's foreign policy. We wish we could report what it was that Menon proposed. While it is clear that Thimphu would want to wriggle out of that particular clause, could it be that New Delhi too wants to let go? INDIA/TIBET 'South Tibet' A controversy erupted on 14 November over the long-simmering bilateral issue of Arunachal Pradesh, just a week before the much-heralded arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao in India. In a televised interview, Chinese ambassador to India Sun Yuxi stated: "In our position, the whole of what you call the state of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory, and Tawang is only one place in it and we are claiming all of that. That's our position." Tawang is AP's northwestern district, and for the past half-century has been considered by Beijing to be part of Shannan Prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region. AP itself is referred to in China as South Tibet. Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee responded the same day, saying that Arunachal Pradesh is an "integral" part of India. With warming relations between the two superpowers, optimism had surfaced in recent months that the border dispute between China and India may have seen progress before President Hu's visit. Sun's statement, however, showed that there is enough that has been pushed under the carpet for things like this to surface at odd times and add turbulence to developing Hindi-Chini bonhomie. Incidentally, New Delhi is currently planning to build roughly 3000 km of new roads in Arunachal Pradesh, to strengthen both its connection and its claim to the state. INDIA Indian army, landowner There are around six lakh soldiers of the Indian Army stationed in Jammu & Kashmir, making it the most militarised corner of Southasia. We now know that the military is also owner of a large amount of land in the state. The military recently purchased 5000 kanals (about 625 acres) of land in Kupwara District, just one kilometre's distance from a military camp that stands on 10,000 kanals of land. There is a third camp about three kilometres away. All in all, villagers say that the army's occupation of roughly 25,000 kanals of land within the three-kilometre radius has kept them from building any new houses or tilling any new soil. Similar complaints are being made elsewhere in the Kashmir Valley. According to official figures, Indian military and paramilitary forces currently occupy around 150 sq km of land in J & K. Land acquisition is currently in progress in 51 additional cases, involving a total of more than 13,000 acres. INDIA/BANGLADESH An obvious market Over the past financial year Bangladeshi exports to India have risen sharply, narrowing the trade deficit between the two countries to an all-time low of around 14 percent. Current annual exports from Bangladesh to India total nearly USD 242 million, compared to less than USD 144 million last year. Indian exports to Bangladesh, meanwhile, dropped eight percent during the same period. The 68 percent climb in Bangladeshi exports has come about mainly because of Dhaka's reaching out to the states of the Indian Northeast. A recent report out of Dhaka suggested that this market had remained untapped by Bangladeshi traders until now largely due to Indian bureaucracy and foot-dragging. One factor that particularly aided Bangladesh's entrance into the Northeastern market was the new ability of Indian banks to open lines of credit to traders from the neighbouring country. If all this is indeed true, then we can conclude that relationships in the east will improve, as trade oils the inter-state connections through shared economies and trades- people's interactions. INDIA/TIBET Tidying up A head of a visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to India, New Delhi threatened a prominent Tibetan activist with deportation to Tibet if he left the confines of Dharamsala before 25 November. President Hu is slated to be in India from 20-23 November. Tenzin Tsundue is the general-secretary of the pressure group Friends of Tibet, and has led several high-profile protests during the visits of other Chinese premiers, including prime ministers Wen Jiabao and Zhu Rongji. Tsundue, who was born a refugee in India, was served with the warning from the office of the Superintendent of Police, and threatened with prosecution under the Foreigners Act of 1946. Among other things, this Act gives the government broad powers over anyone deemed to be a foreigner, including "requiring him to reside in a particular place" or "imposing any restrictions on his movements". TIBET Fewer and fewer Under a new decision by the Chinese government, the amount of direct participation by Tibetans in administering the Tibet Autonomous Region is now set to be lower than at any time in the past 40 years. For the first time since 1980, the Communist Party committee in Lhasa will be overseen by an ethnic Han Chinese, Qin Yizhi. The Chinese Constitution stipulates that a majority of representatives of the government and ruling Peoples Congresses of a particular area must be members of that area's ethnic majority. Such laws do not apply to the Communist Party apparatus, however, which effectively controls all other governmental bodies. The new move is merely a continuation of a long decline. In 1986, 80 percent of the Lhasa party committee were Tibetan; by 1997, that number had dropped to around 55 percent. With only eight out of 30 members of the new party board being Tibetans – around 26 percent – the new composition will have the lowest Tibetan represen-tation since 1966. The further we go, the sadder it gets. . . REGION Take your money elsewhere If you thought the government of Manmohan Singh would always opt for economic openness and liberalisation, you may wonder how he is going to react to some regressive suggestions made by India's National Security Council (NSC). New Delhi in fact is said to be planning legislation that would discourage foreign investment from several countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and China. The move came following a recent meeting by the NSC, which took note of Chinese investments in the telecom sector and recommended limiting future Chinese FDI. Similar recommenda-tions have been made against the three Southasian neighbours, as well as Taiwan, North Korea, Macau and Hong Kong. The NSC warned that foreign direct investment under the present set-up could pose an opportunity for both money laundering and unregulated hawala money transfer – both of which the NSC considers threatening to India's economic stability. More likely, however, some businesses are using this back door entry to block competition. On a Southasian scale, this discrimination could be seen as an unfriendly act that goes against the SAARC ethos. INDIA Her highness A state government ruling in Madhya Pradesh recently brought an end – some would say a wrong-headed one – to a longstanding feud between the state's tourism minister, Yashodhara Raje Scindia, and her civil-service underlings. The Scindias are the former royal rulers of Gwalior, which later became part of Madhya Pradesh. Despite the fact that the Indian Constitution outlawed royal titles more than a half-century ago, Minister Scindia has reportedly been refusing to show up at official functions and meetings when invitation cards do not address her as shrimant, which can be translated as 'highness'. And despite that ban, the Madhya Pradesh government ruled in her favour. Meanwhile, the minister (who has Nepali blood from her mother's side) said, "All over the world and in Europe, royalty is given due recognition." Even while politicians of all stripes deride the BJP government's ruling, the government says that it sees the issue merely as an official name-change. Scindia will simply be known by the name she put on her nomination documents for the state's most recent polls. INDIA/PAKISTAN A cautious forum More than a year after the idea was mooted, the India-Pakistan Forum of Parliamentarians is finally set to begin working at the end of the year. While the Indian part of the forum was set up last year, the Pakistani side has now been created and will reportedly begin work in December. The two committees are supposed to act as a high-level go-between, bringing the executives in the two countries closer together. Indeed, the parliamentarians are expected to provide a great back-up to what is agreed to between the governments, for they have a greater ability to generate public acceptability. So, good that the MPs have joined the gig, and may the forum meet often – unrestricted by visas and city-specific reporting problems. AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN Don't fence me in India has built border fences along its Pakistan and Bangladesh frontiers. This has given Pakistan ideas, and Islamabad now wants to fence its frontier with Afghanistan. A spokesman for Hamid Karzai in early November said that Afghanistan would "never" allow its border to be fenced. Amidst increasing militant activity in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands, which has resulted in increased tensions between Kabul and Islamabad, the Pakistani government had again raised the issue, by way of Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri. The exact location of the 2500 km-long border,the so-called Durand Line, has long been disputed by Afghanistan, which remains anxious about any attempt to internationally standardise the frontier. Besides its other functions, that is what a fence would achieve. Kabul said that fencing of the border would not effect a "rooting out" of militant organisations. On that front, it put out in the same week a general call to militants to turn away from violence and come to the negotiating table. No pre-conditions would be placed on the talks. The offer, which was also extended to one of the country's most notorious warlords, former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, follows similar offers made last month to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. REGION Pipeline knots In what many admit is a last-ditch effort, an international consultant was trilaterally appointed in mid-October to study the gas-pricing issue on the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline. The UK-based Singaporean consultant, Gaffney Cline, is scheduled to submit a report ahead of a working-group meeting in Tehran before the end of the year. The plan, thought to be sure-fire just two years ago, was to have Iranian gas from the South Pars field brought to the Indian market via Pakistan, which would also get to partake of the supply. While Tehran wants to sell its gas to its eastern neighbours at international prices, Islamabad and New Delhi have made offers of roughly half that figure. The pricing issue has held up all progress on the USD 7.4 billion gasline for nearly a half a year. By early November, however, a new player had solidly entered the fray – Russia's mammoth Gazprom, which is offering both technical and financial assistance. Gazprom's involvement was welcomed by the petroleum ministries of both India and Pakistan. By and large, however, regional pipelines are facing dire problems. Two current projects are being slowed down by violence along the routes, including the IPI and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan line. A third, which would run between Qatar and Pakistan, was recently halted after Qatar said that it did not have enough gas reserves to sell to Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Balochistan problems have suddenly created further uncertainties with regards to the Iranian pipeline. BURMA Gambari returns United Nations Undersecretary General Ibrahim Gambari returned to Burma in early November, nearly six months after he last visited the country. At the time of his previous visit, he became the first foreigner and the highest-ranking member of the UN to be allowed to meet opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in more than two years. During Gambari's four-day visit this time around, he met again with Suu Kyi, as well as with junta leader Than Shwe. Gambari's last trip set in motion some of the most concrete actions ever undertaken by the international community with regard to Burma. The country was officially added to the Security Council's agenda in a move led by the US, which is now also pushing for a Security Council resolution on Burma. Gambari's last trip had little immediate effect within the country, however. Immediately following his departure in May, the junta had again extended Suu Kyi's house arrest sentence for another year. Nonetheless, some observers have noted that by allowing Gambari to return, Rangoon may be preparing to offer some concessions. The junta, meanwhile, will be hoping that the Undersecretary General endorses its recently re-started National Convention, the first step in its highly criticised seven-step roadmap to democracy. "The first meeting was diplomatic, an opening," Gambari noted after his four-day mission ended. "But now there is hard bargaining and give-and-take." SRI LANKA Northeast merger 'illegal' On 16 October, the Sri Lankan Supreme Court ruled that the merger between the northern and eastern provinces of the island is in fact illegal. The two provinces, both with a Tamil-speaking majority, were 'temporarily' merged in 1987, following the peace accord brokered by India. But the agreement by which this was done also stipulated that the LTTE militants would subsequently have to lay down their arms, something that has still not taken place. The case, brought to court by two MPs of the radical Sinhala Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party, subsequently considered whether the deal could now be nullified given that intransigence. The judgment "knocks the bottom out of the peace process", noted a member of an opposition group in Parliament, "as a merged northeastern province must be the basis for any peace negotiations". Critics also argued that the court had not allowed any Tamil testimony during the case. President Mahinda Rajapakse, meanwhile, has stressed that the issue needs to be resolved through a referendum, as the original Indo-Lankan accord had stipulated. This judgement seems to be one more addition to a process of relentless polarisation in the island. INDIA/PAKISTAN Frowning upon Punjab-Punjab games The Indian External Affairs Ministry has castigated the Chandigarh government for going forward with plans to step up crossborder relations with Punjab province in Pakistan without first informing the ministry's desk officers in Delhi. South Block took umbrage at the recent unilateral visit by chief parliamentary secretary Rana Gurmeet Sodhi to Pakistan to finalise plans for the Punjab-Punjab games, scheduled to take place later this year. The ministry also noted its displeasure at the September attempts by Punjab Minister of Transport Mohinder Singh Kaypee to look into the possibility of adding more crossborder bus lines to Sikh holy places in Pakistan. All confidence-building measures, the ministry warned, must have prior approval by the Centre. Might we add that some such measures are needed between the state and union governments? Why not leave Punjab alone when it seeks to build relations with Punjab? SRI LANKA Atrocities investigation In early November the Colombo government reversed its previous stance, officially announcing that it would launch investigations into 15 cases of alleged human-rights abuse that have taken place in the country since August 2005, perpetrated by both the government and LTTE rebels. A committee will be appointed that will be headed by a Supreme Court judge and overseen by representatives of the international community, including the EU, US, England and Japan. Among the incidents the committee will look into will be two that took place this past August: the highly contentious killing of 17 Tamil aid workers in Muttur town, and an air strike that reportedly killed 61 schoolchildren. The committee will also investigate the June 2006 mine attack that killed 64 people, and the October 2006 killing of 99 people, including a group of Sri Lankan sailors. The committee will report back within a year. A look at this brief timespan alone indicates how the violence has escalated in Sri Lanka, and why any action to demand accountability is welcome. While the dead are gone, at least this may help control excesses in the future.