Briefs

India   India heads down under     Reports have recently surfaced of a top-secret project by the Indian government to lay claim to broad tracts of the Indian Ocean floor, where lies a bounty of mineral and petroleum reserves. The project, said to have begun in 2002, includes a joint effort by oceanographers and diplomats to carry out the task of asserting sovereign right over the seabed.   The push comes ahead of a new international law, scheduled to go into effect in 2009, that will allow certain ocean-bound countries to claim territory all the way to the edge of the continental shelf on which they are located. Currently, India claims the legally stipulated 370 km band of nautical territory that surrounds it. But under new UN guidelines this could be almost doubled to nearly 650 km, assuming that the country can prove its inherent – and unique – link to the continental shelf.   According to a 2000 study by the International Seabed Authority, India's extended continental shelf holds more than two billion barrels of oil and gas, in addition to a wealth of minerals.   In September, researchers finished exploring 32,000 km of the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. But while the ministries of Earth Sciences and External Affairs are hoping to finalise the area for which they will be staking their claims within the coming two months, the details of that claim are being kept top secret. Neighbouring countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, are doubtless hoping to stake claim to what is being referred to as the "final frontier".     Pakistan / Afghanistan   Stay awhile   In mid-October, Pakistan finally started the formal registration process of the millions of Afghan refugees that live within its borders. Those registered will be eligible for official identity cards, valid for three years, which recognise them as Afghan citizens living in Pakistan.   The USD six million registration exercise, the first-ever for the Afghan refugees, is slated to be completed by the end of the year. Only those refugees that were included in an early 2005 census will be eligible for registration. Although around 130,000 Afghan refugees returned to their homeland during the first half of 2006 alone, the refugee agency UNHCR estimates that around 2.5 million remain in Pakistan, with another 900,000 in Iran.   Returnee rates have plummeted as fighting in Afghanistan has increased this year. Those rates are now 60 percent lower than they were during the same period last year. Since UNHCR began its returnee operation in 2002 – the largest such programme it has undertaken anywhere – around 3.7 million refugees have voluntarily returned to Afghanistan.     India / Nepal   Now you try   Where the government has failed, the private sector will now give it a go. In mid-September a two-day summit took place in Kathmandu between private-sector interests from Nepal and India, aimed at jumpstarting Nepal's as yet miniscule hydroelectric industry. Several hydro projects within Nepal were up for grabs, and by the end of the summit investors had agreed to build two crossborder 220-kilovolt transmission lines, although no timetable was initially set.   Nepal and Bhutan have two of the highest hydroelectric potentials in the world. But while Bhutan has been able to nearly float its economy due to India-built hydro projects – including the massive Tala dam that began producing in late June – Nepal is only currently producing around 600 megawatts of hydro energy (out of a total 83,000 MW potential). The country is forced to purchase power on an annual basis from energy-strapped India.   Given this atrocious record of implementation over the past fifty years, the central theme of the summit was a handing-over of parts of the hydroelectric sector from the Kathmandu government to the private sector. A future strengthened hydro sector would allow Nepal to keep up with demand during the dry months, and to sell its surplus to India during the monsoon. Nepali technocrats are bullish after a recent 'discovery' that the early monsoon in eastern Nepal can provide energy that western and northern India need in their driest months, when energy demand is highest.   The organisers of the Kathmandu meet and Nepali citizens now have to watchdog the process to ensure that private sector involvement can indeed open doors where government was unable to do so. At the same time, they have to keep a careful eye open, to make sure that these new 'private interests' keep the emphasis on the interests of the Nepali people. The hydropower sector in Nepal is notoriously inefficient and corrupt.     India / Burma   Closing doors, opening windows   After a 'breakthrough' during mid-September talks between the Indian and Burmese home secretaries, New Delhi has moved fast to capitalise on a new opportunity. At the annual meeting, Rangoon had agreed to launch an operation targeting Northeast militant groups that are operating out of Burmese borderland territory.   New Delhi claims that several militant groups in the Indian Northeast are operating out of Burma, including the ULFA, NSCN (K) and NSCN (IM). The two countries share a 1650 km-long frontier.   The proposed operation, which would be similar to the 2004-05 anti-insurgency operation that flushed out ULFA fighters from southern Bhutan, was originally slated to begin during the coming winter. By the first week of October, however, a senior rebel leader with the Khaplang faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland reported seeing hundreds of Burmese soldiers moving into rebel-held areas, as well as "98 trucks, loaded with weapons and ammunition being sent by the Indian government," crossing into Burma through Moreh, in Manipur. New Delhi's military supplies to the junta were subsequently confirmed by a high-ranking Indian Army official days later.   Just weeks after New Delhi received Rangoon's promise of cooperation, a delegation of Indian officials visited Moreh, one of the most heavily used trade points between the two countries. The visit came immediately before a project to fence off the entire international border was slated to begin. A continuation of New Delhi's fence-building policy carried over from the Pakistan and Bangladesh frontiers, this India-Burma barrier is intended to cut down on contraband (drugs and weapons) and movement of insurgents. As the fencing got underway, however, New Delhi received an official complaint from Rangoon. The construction is said to be presently suspended.   Meanwhile, India's Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh on 29 September announced that a new free trade policy would be implemented, doing away with the current limit of 22 select items. A new INR 700 million facility is now being constructed to facilitate greater bilateral trade at Moreh, and a new bus service to the border point is planned. The latter will undoubtedly become more important once border fencing resumes.    
India / Pakistan   Crossborder banking brightens   The governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, Shamshad Akhtar, has confirmed that plans are going forward that would allow two Pakistani and two Indian banks to open crossborder branches. Akhtar made the announcement during a Bombay meet organised by the Indian Banks' Association and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).   Although Akhtar said that several banks on either side of the border had expressed interest in tapping their neighbouring markets, she declined to name the financial institutions ahead of receiving a regulatory green-light. After a period of privatisation, Pakistani banks are now about 80 percent privately held – and evidently itching to expand their horizons.   Pakistan / Afghanistan Span the Khyber   Even as Kabul and Islamabad hurl acc-usations across their porous border regarding the aiding and harbouring of Taliban militants, the two countries are making headway in opening up some new frontier-crossing points.   On 14 September Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz attended the inauguration of a refurbished crossborder highway running from Torkhum in the Northwest Frontier Province to the Afghan city of Jalalabad, up and across the fabled Khyber Pass. Islamabad funded the new construction at a cost of nearly PKR two billion. At the ribbon-cutting, Aziz, accompanied by several other Pakistani ministers, stressed that Afghanistan's economic stability would benefit the entire region. He announced that the Pakistani government would be assisting in making the Torkhum-Jalalabad section a two-way highway.   The prime minister also spoke of the possible extension of the railway line from Chaman on the Pakistani border to Spin Boldak in Kandahar province, southwest of the Khyber. The following week, there were reports that Islamabad had invited foreign investment in two railway lines – the Spin Boldak track, as well as a second one into Iran. Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said that Pakistan Railways was ready to start the trains running to Afghanistan as soon as "the brotherly neighbouring country" gave the go-ahead.     Region   Not for lack of warning   One of Southasia's most instantly recognisable animals could well completely disappear from the wild, says a report released in late-September by the Wildlife Protection Society of India and the international Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). The two organisations warned that the Royal Bengal tiger was facing imminent extinction in India due to an ongoing illegal pelt trade between the Subcontinent and Tibet, through Nepal. The report, "Skinning the Cat", made similar warnings about other large Southasian cats, including the snow leopard.   Despite tiger hunting having been outlawed in India in 1972, and international legislation banning the trade in tiger or leopard parts coming into effect three years later, the smuggling of pelts has today become a multi-million dollar business. Despite the use of traditional small-scale trading routes, "Skinning the Cat" says that the illegal sector has all of the trappings of an international organised crime operation.   With tiger pelts in Lhasa selling for around USD 20,000 a piece, the lure of big – and relatively easy – money has been disastrous for India's tiger population. While a century ago the tiger worldwide – including the Royal Bengal and other species – stood at around 100,000, today it is down to 5000, with half of that living in the Subcontinent. Poachers kill an estimated 200 tigers every year in India alone. EIA investigators say that tiger pelts have become status symbols in an increasingly prosperous China, to whom roughly 80 percent of the skins are sold.   But while India, Nepal and China are all signatories of international and national regulations banning the sale or trade in these items, "Skinning the Cat" suggests that not only is enforcement not nearly strong enough – in some places it has actually weakened in recent years. After associating itself for centuries with the Royal Bengal tiger's stoic face in tourism campaigns, India may soon be forced to distance itself when the day dawns that the last tiger has been killed.     India / Pakistan   Dividing the marsh   An unsung breakthrough has taken place regarding the four-decade standoff over Sir Creek, the 60-mile estuary in the Rann of Kutch, which separates Gujarat from Sindh province. Following the optimism of a May meeting, Manmohan Singh had announced in September that he was preparing a proposal for joint petroleum exploration in the area with Islamabad.   Sir Creek has long been viewed as one of the more 'solvable' of issues between India and Pakistan, and an agreement was reached later that month that will now launch a five-month joint survey of the area. Officials say that the findings of the survey, to start in November, should also allow the two countries to formally demarcate their international frontier through the soggy marshland.   Pakistan has long rejected India's suggestion that a border simply be made down the centre of the estuary. While some in India have interpreted this hesitancy as a signal that Islamabad wants to lay claim to the mineral and petroleum deposits that are thought to lie underneath, others suggest that complete Pakistani ownership would make it easier for Pakistan-based militants to sneak into India.   What a breakthrough it would be if, in the aftermath of a survey and agreement, there were actually to be a joint investment in exploration.     Region   Joint Himalayan study   Starting in the middle of October, scientists from Bhutan, China, India and Nepal will be traversing the Himalayan mountain range in an extensive joint research programme, unique particularly for the many countries involved. Although myriad scientific expeditions have studied individual areas of the Himalaya through the years, the new cooperative project will for the first time bring together disparate groups to conduct comparative research on the north versus south sides of the Himalayan chain.   Such collaborative scientific work has not previously been allowed to take place due to both the prohibitive nature of the region's geography itself, as well as the difficult political relations in the sensitive rimland over the past half-century. According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, under whose aegis this project is taking place, 13 scientists from the four countries will begin a one-month expedition in mid-October, comparing the landscapes, climates, wildlife and social cultures on the opposing Himalayan faces.     Sri Lanka   Militarising the island   A new report has found that Sri Lanka is Southasia's most militarised country. No surprise there, you might say. The Bombay-based Strategic Foresight Group (SFG), in a report titled "Cost of Conflict in Sri Lanka", said that the country has 8000 military personnel per million citizens. This is twice the number for Pakistan – commonly believed to be the region's most heavily militarised society – which has just 4000 military men per million. Other regional countries boast significantly lower numbers: 2700 for Nepal (which saw dramatic increase in military combatants in the last few years), 1300 for India and 1000 for Bangladesh.   And Sri Lanka did not come out on top only in terms of security personnel ratios. For military expenditure compared to GDP, Colombo is again ranked first, at 4.1 percent, a figure that does not take into account money spent by the LTTE. This compares to 3.5 percent for Pakistan, 2.5 percent each for India and Nepal, and 1.5 percent for Bangladesh.   Colombo's current military budget – which was as high as 6.3 percent in 2000 – was significantly higher even than other war-torn countries, including Burma, Colombia and Sudan. More worryingly, the SFG study was conducted off of figures collected from 2004-05, well before the current upsurge in violence. According to reports in early October, Colombo is now planning to increase its defence budget by 45 percent for next year – to nearly USD 1.4 billion. Military purchases are likewise projected to triple.     Pakistan   Appeal for Kalat   For the first time in 130 years, a grand jirga of Baloch sardars took place in late September. The group of prominent elders condemned the 26 August killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti by the Pakistan Air Force, calling for an investigation into the death by an international medical board. The sardars urged Baloch unity so that Bugti's "martyrdom" would not "go in vain", as well as the formation of a clear plan that would make them "owners of their resources". The group also vehemently derided a previous government-sponsored 'jirga', which had announced the end of the sardar system in the area.   The jirga also looked into some other areas, which is bound to increase headache for Islamabad. Meeting in the Shahi Darbar (royal palace) in the former state of Kalat – the entire event was chaired by the Khan of Kalat, Mir Suleman Dawood – the jirga's members emphasised a problem that they say has been persistent for more than a half-century. According to a tripartite Partition-era agreement between the state of Kalat, the colonial government and the new Pakistani government, Kalat was given a measure of independence, but was soon forced to join Pakistan. Claiming that the agreement had been violated ever since, the jirga agreed to ask the International Court of Justice at the Hague to intervene.     India   Justice stayed   Mohammed Afzal Guru, the prime accused in the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, was originally scheduled to be hanged on 20 October. Days before that date, Afzal's death sentence was stayed. As human-rights activists and legal scholars review the case, what is revealed is a conspicuous lack of justice at several levels.   Afzal's confession to aiding the conspirators was given under duress in police custody, allegedly without having been offered a lawyer. Afzal also underwent two trials without the legal counsel of his choice, before courts decided against him. For the state to kill over a crime when the accused is proven guilty is an issue that divides plenty of people. But the systemic flaws underscored by Afzal's case should not divide anyone.   No matter what is believed of Afzal's motives – and there are many opposing views – it is clear that he was compelled to support the State Task Force of Jammu & Kashmir for years, and tortured into informing on others. In this regard, Afzal's treatment is paradigmatic in a place where many have information on the militant movement, regardless of whether they are directly involved. It is no wonder that his case has come to represent the lack of justice for an entire people, as well as the pitfalls of a system that includes the death penalty as a punitive option.   India is one of five Southasian countries that continue to allow the death penalty, the other three being Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and China. The other five regional countries have either passed de facto bans on the practice, or outlawed it entirely. The first to see fit to do so was the Maldives in 1952, while the most recent was Bhutan in 2004.
Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Mirza Tahir Hussain, a British national who has been in prison for the past 18 years on charges of killing a taxi driver, has received another presidential stay of execution. Hussain has been given several such stays since December 2005. Around 250 others in Pakistan are currently awaiting execution.     India   Corrupt company   With people comes corruption? That seems to be the indication of Transparency International's latest study on bribery. According to TI's Bribe Payers Index, released in early October, the world's two most populous countries, India and China, are also home to the companies most ready to pay bribes to do business in other countries.   The study looked at the world's 30 largest exporters, which together make up about 80 percent of global exports. Also making the top five were Russia, Turkey and Taiwan.   While some observers have suggested that the Sino-Indian proclivity to grease the trade wheels is linked to these countries' recent dramatic rates of industrialisation and development, it is more likely that this is simply an 'export' of a vigorous national industry in both cases. Meanwhile, TI also has another category of countries: those most likely to pay bribes only in developing countries. TI singled out France and Italy on that score, with the US tied with Belgium about a third of the way down. Unmentioned in the tally, however, is who's doing the receiving of all this under-the-table money.     India / Pakistan   Tourism minister caught dreaming   A recent miscommunication between Islamabad's ministries should have some cheeks glowing red with embarrassment – or frustration. Appearing at the Wagah border on 27 September, on the occasion of World Tourism day, Pakistani Tourism Minister Nilofar Bakhtiar announced that Pakistan would begin offering visas-on-arrival to citizens from 24 countries, including India. The minister further elaborated that Pervez Musharraf himself had drafted the new legislation.   The following day, however, the Tourism Ministry released a hasty clarification: Islamabad would indeed be offering visas-on-arrival to citizens of more than 20 countries, but not to the eastern neighbour. Saying that Bakhtiar had been "misquoted" by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan, the ministry said that the duration of visa validity would simply be extended as far as Indian visitors were concerned.     India / Pakistan   Elders' stipends restored   In the midst of heightened tensions between Kabul and Islamabad, Hamid Karzai's government has decided to reinstate a long-halted programme of paying stipends to tribal elders in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal regions, harkening back to a time when loyalties were up for grabs. The monthly stipends, which reportedly vary from PKR 1000-40,000 (USD 17-660) depending on an elder's influence, were stopped in 1992 after the fall of communist president Mohammad Najibullah's government, with the takeover of a relatively Pakistan-friendly Mujahideen government.   In North and South Waziristan, Kabul is now paying around 2000 elders on a monthly basis. Not only have the amounts of the stipends increased, but so have their number. In Khyber Agency alone, for instance, the number of stipends has increased from 100 to 250 since 1992.   The sudden restart of the old crossborder programme has Islamabad on edge. One Pakistani newspaper quoted an anonymous analyst as suggesting that Kabul may eventually want to use the stipends to fund "sabotage activities" within Pakistan.     India / Pakistan   Kashmir 'not pressing'   Although some will cry foul, for the first time in 13 years Kashmir was not included on the United Nations Secretary-General's list of 'festering' global problems, in his annual report released in New York in late September. The Himalayan state was first included as a pressing dispute by then-Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1993, over India's strenuous objections. Since that time, the conflict has been included in the report every year, oftentimes being categorised among the worst conflicts in the world.   In recent years New Delhi has reportedly stepped up attempts to have the reference to the Vale removed, a campaign that met with success this year in the immediate run-up to the 61st General Assembly in New York. Indeed, only Pakistan formally objected to the move to de-list the issue. The omission does not take Kashmir off of the Security Council's official agenda, however, where it has remained listed since 1948.   Observers say that New Delhi's success this year reflects the rising position of India within the UN system.