Tit bits from Southasian region

Burma
Gambari and Burma's neighbours
During the second week of July, the UN secretary-general's special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, held a series of high-level meetings in two of Rangoon's most crucial neighbouring capitals, Beijing and New Delhi. This followed up on two highly publicised fact-finding trips to Burma, in November and May, when Gambari became the first foreigner in years to speak with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Both Beijing and New Delhi have, over the past year, been repeatedly criticised by human-rights groups for increasing their economic ties with the Rangoon junta.

Late last year, the US spearheaded an attempt to convince the UN Security Council to take up the issue of Burma's ongoing human-rights violations, though that push was ultimately thwarted by China and Russia. Nonetheless, Washington, DC remains a key player in dealing with Burma, and in preparation for his July trip, Gambari met with US officials. At that time, the US also restarted direct communications with Burma for the first time in years, at a high-level meeting in Beijing.

U Han Thar Myint, the spokesperson for Suu Kyi's political party, the National League for Democracy, welcomed Gambari's return to Asia, but cautioned that the only way towards progress would be to convince the junta to hold talks with the country's opposition political groups and minority communities. "Given the close relationship between the military junta and China," he noted, "there is no other country but China that could send a clear message to the Burmese regime." (Gambari is slated to return to Burma itself in September.)

From India, Gambari travelled to Japan, one of Burma's largest donors. There was no official explanation as to why Gambari was not visiting Bangkok, which is currently helping the junta build the USD 6 billion Ta Sang dam on the Salween River.

Tibet
Cash for Tibet
It could be considered an expensive allegation, in a country where they execute the corrupt. According to a Canadian political scientist named Charles Burton, back in September 2005 Chinese diplomats offered their Canadian counterparts increased leverage over the Chinese human-rights situation in exchange for a variety of cash gifts. The offers were said to have been made during a meeting (which Burton attended) between Canadian officials and members of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

According to Burton, Chinese officials stated that the Canadian government could be given more sway in an annual bilateral human-rights-related dialogue, if Ottawa were to agree to pay for university scholarships for Chinese students, as well as make a USD 60,000 gift to a district in southwestern China.

Beijing had long rejected any discussion of Tibet in the annual Canada-China dialogue. From what we hear, the Canadians turned down the offer of largesse for the privilege of discussing Tibet.

The Maldives
Referendum set?
Nearly a year after the vote was initially supposed to be held, the Maldivian Election Commission has finally announced a firm date for the countrywide referendum on the Maldives's future form of governance (presidential or parliamentary). The vote, which will include all Maldivians over the age of 18, is now slated to be held on 18 August. Thereafter, the Special Majlis, the constituent assembly, will have until 30 November to agree on a new constitution.

It was three years ago that President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom made a pledge to work towards democratic reforms; under that agreement, the country's new constitution was to come into effect this summer. The referendum itself has come about due to the fact that the Special Majlis, after two years of debate, has been unable to settle on a decision as to governance structure. This stalemate has been largely due to a split between the ruling and opposition parties, with President Gayoom's party pushing for a presidential system, while the opposition parties want a parliamentary set-up. (A recent report by Amnesty International put equal blame on both sides for the impasse.)

The Special Majlis has also recently decided that the new constitution would be debated and adopted in sections, rather than as one document, which is what the ruling party had been pushing for. Still, many Special Majlis members have expressed concern about the new timetable, worrying that it does not allow time for adequate preparation.

With President Gayoom announcing in late June that he intends to run for president yet again (he has been in power since 1978), the referendum is now being seen increasingly as a vote on the president himself.

Bangladesh/India  
Fish wars
Right in the midst of the annual Hilsa season, the Dhaka government recently decided to halt all export of the national fish, also known as the Ilish, for the next six months. The aim was to ensure adequate supply and maintain prices in the face of depleted stocks. Between June and September, schools of the small, silvery Hilsa flood into Bangladeshi rivers from the Bay of Bengal, where they are eagerly caught, sold and bought by a population that has long placed the fish at the centre of Bengali cuisine and lore.

Although the Hilsa is commonly sold in markets in Calcutta and Bombay, it fetches only a third of the price there that traders can get in Bangladesh. Furthermore, over the past two decades Hilsa numbers have reportedly plunged by as much as 60 percent, probably due to over-fishing. As prices for the fish soared in Bangladeshi markets this year (one kilogram was fetching BDT 800, or USD 11.50), the government decided to step in.

In the face of the ban, fish-eaters in India suddenly found that they valued the Hilsa more than they had realised. Within a week of the decision, Indian officials had warned that they may choose to halt rice exports to Bangladesh, if Dhaka's decision was not reversed. Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry officials subsequently promised that they would review the halt of exports "as part of the improving bilateral relations".

Tibet
Sixth round of 'divergence'
The Dalai Lama's top envoys were in Beijing from 29 June through 5 July for what was being billed as the sixth round of talks between Dharamsala's government-in-exile and Chinese officials. As could have been expected from the increasingly bitter rhetoric that has been emanating from Beijing towards Dharamsala of late, the meetings began on a bad note.

To begin with, the Dharamsala representatives, Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, had to try to convince officials of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Works Department, which is tasked with dealing with religious leaders, to even sit for talks in the first place. Initially, Beijing's Foreign Ministry officials denied even that Gyari and Gyaltsen were envoys of the Dalai Lama, claiming that the two were simply Tibetan expatriates who, like many, had returned to visit relatives.

Things never did get much better, actually. Although the talks – the sixth since 2002 – did eventually go forward, Gyari later reported that little more took place than "both sides [expressing] in strong terms their divergent positions".

India/Pakistan  
Locusts!
In early July, the United Nations warned that India and Pakistan would soon be locked in battle – but fighting on the same side. Within weeks, two massive swarms of locusts were forecasted to cross over the Indian Ocean – one from the eastern Horn of Africa, and the other from West Asia – and make landfall on Indian and Pakistani soil.

The locusts' presence will be compounded by the heavy monsoon downpours that have recently hit western India and Pakistan, which the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said would create an "unusually favourable" breeding environment for the insects through October. Even as the FAO was sounding the alarm, a few early stragglers had already been sighted in Kutch, Gujarat, which last experienced a small locust infestation in 1993. UN officials warned that even a small fraction of an average swarm of 'desert locusts' (see pic) can in one day eat up as much as can 2500 people.

Coasting on monsoon winds across the Indian Ocean has been part of the locusts' natural course for eons, and scientists say the insects can cover up to 150 km a day riding the high winds. Islamabad and New Delhi have prepared to launch a large-scale programme to deal with the infestation in the Gujarat, Rajasthan, Cholistan and Tharparkar deserts, where locals have been urged to begin safeguarding their crops. Although the two countries will be fighting the same pest, there is no word yet as to whether any collaborative, crossborder effort is on the horizon.

India/Bangladesh
Coin contraband
West Bengal and states throughout the Indian Northeast are suffering an acute shortage of coin currency, as millions of Indian coins are being smuggled into Bangladesh to be turned into – razorblades! The scarcity is evidently so great that shops eager to maintain a supply of change have entered into arrangements with beggars, who sell them coins at a significant mark-up. Some tea estates have even issued cardboard currency for use on their premises.

In Guwahati, small-denomination coins, such as the 50 paisa, have gone entirely out of circulation. Meanwhile, in Calcutta alone, the Reserve Bank of India distributed coins worth nearly USD 150,000 over just a few weeks in June, in an attempt to overcome the shortage. The Calcutta police report that the one-rupee coin has gained a street value of upwards of 35 rupees, because five to seven blades can be made from it.

While melting of Indian coins used to take place only after they had crossed the border into Bangladesh, the opportunity for such massive economic turnarounds has led to large-scale operations in India itself – 'at source', as they say. The Border Security Force has reportedly been put on high alert to interdict contraband coins. It seems India's coin shortage will not end in the near future – unless Bangladeshis stop shaving.

Bangladesh/India
From Tata to Mittal 
Even as negotiations restarted recently between the Dhaka interim government and India's Tata group over the latter's long-stalled offer of a USD 3 billion investment (in gas, steel and associated industries), there were rumours in June of similar deal-making with another Indian mega-company.

Global Oil and Energy Limited (GOEL), a UK-based offshoot of Mittal Steel's original Ispat Industries, announced that it was considering investing around USD 2.9 billion in Bangladesh's energy sector. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bangladesh Board of Investment (BOI) to look into a variety of options, including coal and natural-gas exploration, as well as the possibility of setting up a petrochemical plant. This last project would take up roughly half of the proposed investment amount.

Vinod Mittal, GOEL's managing director and son of patriarch Mohan Mittal, called the new deal "comparable with Tata's investment move". Explaining why the interim administration felt comfortable going forward with the Mittal bid despite the fact that the Tata negotiations have remained mired for nearly two years, the BOI's acting chairman, Nazrul Islam, said that GOEL's offer was less "complex" than Tata's. Islam went on to claim that the current atmosphere in Bangladesh was conducive to investment.

Nepal/India  
Gorkhas under fire
Seven regiments of Nepali Gorkha soldiers may lose their jobs in the Indian Army if the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has its way. In the past, Nepal's Maoists have repeatedly expressed their opposition to Nepali soldiers risking their lives for other countries, and in late June, CPN (M) leader Baburam Bhattarai voiced his party's opinions once again: "It is totally wrong for our young men to be sacrificing their lives to protect the sovereignty of other countries."

Despite the Maoist stance, the Indian Army has long remained unfazed, and the rules governing the recruitment of Gorkha soldiers have not changed. Of the seven Gorkha regiments currently in the Indian Army, two serve with the United Nations' Peacekeeping Forces. Eighty percent of the members of these regiments are Nepali citizens, and money made by Nepali soldiers serving has long contributed a substantial allotment of yearly remittances.

With the CPN (M) now a significant part of the interim government in Kathmandu, will its members finally act on their longstanding ideological opposition to the foreign Gorkha regiments? Nobody is worrying just yet. No party hoping to win elections – as is the case with the CPN (M) – can hope to win among the 'martial' hill tribe of Nepal by pushing a stance against Gorkha (or Gurkha, in the case of the British Army) recruitment. Most likely, the Maoists will let the anti-recruitment rhetoric weaken the closer they get to the Constituent Assembly elections, slated for late November.

Region
Failing states 
A new ranking of the world's 'failed states' was recently unveiled, which placed four Southasian countries among the top 20. Afghanistan heads the pack at number eight, followed by Pakistan (12), Burma (14) and Bangladesh (16). Nepal came in at 21, four places ahead of Sri Lanka, while Bhutan placed at 47. In the list of the 60 countries ranked as the most paradigmatic examples of 'failed' states, India and the Maldives manage to stay absent.

Sudan, Iraq and Somalia respectively topped the global list, which has been prepared by the Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine. The rankings were based on indicators that included demographic pressures, refugees and displaced persons, human flight, uneven development, public services and human rights. In each of the 12 categories, countries were marked out of 10, with those attaining full marks being the worst off. In the category of 'delegitimation of state', for instance, Sudan received a full 10 out of 10, while Iraq received the same grade in both 'group grievance' and 'security apparatus'. Afghanistan is the only Southasian country to receive a full 10 in any category, which came under the heading of 'external intervention'.

Pakistan/India  
Super Basmati to court
After years of threats and rhetoric, the Pakistani government announced in early July that it was planning on taking legal action against India over the issue of patenting the so-called Super Basmati strain of rice. Islamabad lawyers accused India of deception following India's patenting of the strain according to geographical location, under what is known as a Geographical Indicator.

Researchers at the Pakistan Rice Research Institute at Kala Shah Kaku developed the Super Basmati strain in 1996. While New Delhi admits that the seeds originally came from Pakistan, Indian researchers say that the current strain was subsequently evolved in Indian laboratories. What seems to be the case, however, is that Indian officials simply beat their Pakistani counterparts to the punch, with regards to the patent, as well as the registration of the strain in the European Union.

While the case is now slated to be heard in India's Supreme Court, Pakistani and Indian Basmati traders planned to meet later in the month to discuss the possibility of joint registration and joint export of the rice strain.

India/Burma
About the militant
One of the Indian Northeast's largest militant groups, the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah faction), the NSCN-IM, released a book recently accusing the Burmese junta of dividing up the traditional Naga homeland. The book, Naga Homeland in Danger: The politics of constitution-making in Myanmar, was formally unveiled by NSCN-IM Chairman Isak Chishi Swu at the group's general headquarters in Dimapur, and was attended by the group's general secretary, Thuingaleng Muivah.

Naga Homeland recounts how the Nagas' ancestral lands were cut up by the British through the solidification of the Indo-Burmese border, a boundary that ran "through villages, fields and even homes". To coincide with the book's release, the NSCN-IM's Information Ministry issued a press release that warned that the "gross injustice done to the Nagas by successive governments in Myanmar (Burma) can no longer be tolerated by the Nagas in general and the NSCN in particular."

Burma's National Convention, which has been tasked with rewriting the country's constitution, reconvened earlier this year, and is set to release a draft of the new constitution for international appraisal sometime this summer. "What exactly is the National Convention?" asks the release. "Find out from the book and its implication on the Nagas."

Nepal/India
Police nab police
Nepali police recently took into detention three of their Indian counterparts. They were charged with being in Nepal without permission, and for illegally attempting to arrest a Nepali citizen. The Indian policemen, all of whom were from Noida, outside Delhi (they had traveled a fair distance), said that they had crossed the frontier to investigate a complaint made by an Indian citizen against a Nepali, said to have run away from Delhi with the complainant's daughter several months ago. Although the frontier area between India and Nepal is porous, it is not so for police action. The three were subsequently handed over to the Indian authorities.

There has been a long history of frustration among Nepali security personnel over what has been perceived as the overstepping of their jurisdiction on the part of Indian colleagues in the border regions. Occasionally, Indian police have even infiltrated Kathmandu neighbourhoods, and gone in hot pursuit into the hinterland districts. In fact, the suspicion among many is that Indian police are (secretly) active in Nepal all the time, but only make the news from time to time.

Bangladesh/India
The Moitree rails
On 8 July, a six-car train chugged into Dhaka amidst general euphoria. The train was only carrying a handful of officials, and was two hours late, but no one seemed to mind. The trial run of the Moitree (Friendship) Express heralded the first reconnection of passenger-train service between India and Bangladesh in 42 years. Although cargo service was resumed years ago, passengers have been disallowed on the crossborder trains since the 1965 war between India and Pakistan. (A bus service across the frontier began in the early 1990s.)

When full passenger service begins in mid-August, fares will be available between Dhaka and Calcutta for USD 8-20. Though there has been much celebration of the symbolism of the renewed connection, it would seem that it is the material fact of the train service that will affect real changes in Bangladesh-India relations, as increasing numbers of people from the two Bengals interact in years to come.

The resumption of train service followed foreign-secretary-level talks between India and Bangladesh, after a break of two years. Alongside the train-related festivities, however, officials from both countries were working furiously to wrap up loose ends. Even as the Moitree chugged along, Bangladesh was still opposed to India's proposal to fence the full length of the crossborder tracks, saying that doing so would contravene the current agreement between the two countries not to fence within 150 yards of the border.

Additional issues, including the frequency of train trips (not to mention the line's schedule, which already looks dubious), also had yet to be worked out. Bangladesh wants a daily service, but the Indians are balking, perhaps because of the volume of visa processing this would require.

Afghanistan/Pakistan
Afghans looking westward
Official statistics recently confirmed that trade levels with Afghanistan's only direct Southasian neighbour, Pakistan, have plunged dramatically – 36 percent over the last fiscal year, or around USD 361 million. The strengthening of Afghanistan's trade relations with Iran and several Central Asian countries is thought to explain the drop, although hot rhetoric between Islamabad and Kabul in recent months cannot have helped matters.

A senior Pakistani official termed the drop "intolerable", noting that Afghanistan's cumulative trade in 2005-06 was USD 1.5 billion, of which Pakistan's exports made up USD 1.1 billion.

The sale of Pakistani petroleum products in Afghanistan fell by USD 119 million, for instance, because Kabul began to import such commodities from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. Other Pakistani products that lost out were rice, which went down by USD 14 million, cement (USD 17 million), sugar (USD 22 million), and fruits and vegetables (USD 10 million). Pakistani exports to Afghanistan are expected to drop a further 15 percent in the coming year – not at all a good sign for relations between two wary Southasian neighbours.

India/Pakistan
Looking through the LOC
At a meeting in Srinagar in mid-July, J & K Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad received a public report on the progress being made in upgrading some of the roads that cross the Line of Control. The road that connects Srinagar with Muzaffarabad is currently being widened into a full double-lane thoroughfare up to Uri; the section from Uri to Kaman, the last Indian military point, will be completed by next March.

During the meeting, Azad noted that improving the cross-LOC roads was crucial for the overall development of Kashmir. Emphasising that it would offer an important alternative route between the two parts of Kashmir, the chief minister requested local road authorities to have the improvements on the Daksum-Islamabad road completed by July 2008 – instead of 2010, as was originally planned. Updates were also given on the ongoing improvement of four additional cross-LOC roads.

Meanwhile, Indian and Pakistani officials are trying to figure out how to implement a free-trade zone in the areas adjacent to the LOC. The idea was originally put forward by an official Indian working group headed by former Foreign Secretary Maharaja Krishna Rasgotra during a late-April roundtable on Kashmir.

In the intervening months, a range of trade and other representatives from both countries have visited the LOC to discern possibilities and access local reactions. Evidently, they have encountered great enthusiasm. Although a tentative agreement was in theory already in place to allow for the trade of raw products between the two sections of Kashmir, the working group's proposal would also allow for trade in a variety of value-added products, including cement, medicine and various types of machinery.