Round-up of regional news

INDIA
Ousted again

A decades-old injustice was reopened recently when hundreds of people in Tripura began returning to their former lands, which had been flooded during the 1970s by a hydroelectric project. The 10-megawatt Gumti project was originally commissioned in 1974, over the fierce protest of the 40,000 local residents whose lands were to be flooded by the dam's reservoir. Human-rights workers say that less than 20 percent of those affected were ultimately compensated by the government, due to the fact that the displaced families, mostly Reangs, held no official lease on their traditional lands.

Due to drastically reduced water levels, by mid-March state Power Minister Manik Dey admitted that Gumti was no longer producing any electricity. The problem has reportedly arisen due to agricultural and illegal logging activities in the catchment area – traceable largely to the Reang oustees – which have raised the reservoir's silt bed. Now community members have begun attempting to reclaim some of the emerging land (see photo). Tripura has around 25,000 landless farmers, and advocates say that they could all be comfortably resettled in the reservoir's 65 sq km, if the government were to agree to dismantle the dam.

At the moment, though, Tripura's government is resisting doing so. Despite promises to undo exactly these types of historical injustices, the state's Left government has responded to the situation by pledging that no land will be reclaimed. Police are now chasing off anyone who attempts to strike root in the dry reservoir bed.

REGION
Cross-sharing stocks

Getting into the spirit of regional synergy just prior to the 14th SAARC Summit, a meeting of the South Asia Federation of Exchanges (SAFE) discussed the possibility of 'cross-listing' local stocks in a Southasia-wide exchange. Officials from the exchanges of the then-seven SAARC countries proposed a regional system through which investors could invest in any company anywhere in Southasia. This would entail the launch of a new SAFE index and exchange-traded fund, which would initially operate within each country and later be traded throughout Southasia.

If it ever comes to fruition, such a system would certainly herald a new era in economic cooperation, through which Indian investors, for instance, could invest in Pakistani companies for the very first time. Such prospects paint a rosy scenario for Nepal and Bangladesh's finance sectors, with observers suggesting that they would be likely to initially receive the most requests for cross-listing. The benefits would not be unlimited, however, since the markets in those two countries are yet to reach the standards of India's. Indeed, critics suggest that such a system would be more appropriate for countries possessing similar markets, such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

While true integration of the various exchanges may seem remote for now, a few years ago the very possibility that these various groups could meet would have seemed unimaginable. We can now truly say that Southasia is beginning to look bullish!

PAKISTAN
The big deal

Long-simmering reports of a secret deal in the offing between Pervez Musharraf's government and Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) have suddenly picked up significant steam. First, the government fuelled speculation during the first week of April when it halted an investigation of Bhutto by a long-time anti-corruption investigator, Hassan Wassim Afzal.

Just days later, Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said that talks between the PPP and General Musharraf's administration had "entered into a semi-final stage". Despite the government's subsequent vociferous denials of Ahmed's characterisation, observers suggest that the situation shows either the current chaos in Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's cabinet, or that the whole charade was a deliberate ploy to confuse the opposition.

With Islamabad under increasing international pressure to put in place real democratic reforms by the next election, many are now concluding that Gen Musharraf may be ready to accept a government led by Bhutto – if it backs his continued presidency.

PAKISTAN/INDIA
Samjhauta tickets on the rise

Following the 19 February bombing that killed at least 68 people on the Samjhauta Express, there has been a surprising surge in passengers clamouring for tickets on the twice-weekly train between Delhi and Lahore. The increase has been so marked that railway authorities have now decided to increase the crossborder train's maximum number of passengers from 576 to 750.

Wannabe riders have evidently been teeming at railway stations in Lahore and New Delhi, demanding tickets and harassing railway authorities. "Pakistan Railways has requested the Indian authorities to induct two additional passenger coaches with the Samjhauta Express to accommodate the increasing number of passengers traveling between the two countries," Lahore Divisional Superintendent Muhammad Khalid said in late March.

Kalid also confirmed that, following the February bombing, both India and Pakistan were cooperating on sharing passenger information as a security measure. With New Delhi and Islamabad in mid-April renewing their agreement on the train for another three years, why not take the opportunity to bump up the Samjhauta's sojourns to thrice weekly? Actually, a daily service would be more like it.

NEPAL/INDIA
What's the rush?

One of India's largest steel manufacturers, the Bhushan group, in late March said that it would be closing down its Nepal operation. The owners put the decision down to the ongoing flux in Nepal, saying that they could "do better business in India". Bhushan, which is worth roughly USD 650 million, set up shop in Nepal in 2001, employing around 300 workers in Biratnagar town under the name Aarti Strips.

As Nepal's prospects have looked up over the past year, outwardly it would appear that so too have Bhushan's. Company officials say that last year their Nepal operation brought in around INR 5 billion, and that they currently have contracts for INR 1 billion more this year. While general manager Roshit Unnithan says that the Nepal office "didn't suffer a loss" last year, he notes that "the tension became unbearable". Those headaches have included regular power outages and a stiff export tax, but also the increased instability of the Tarai plains, which has included a step-up in trade-union activities. The move follows a similar decision made last year by Hindustan Steel. Bhushan will now be relocating eastwards, to the pro-industry entrepots of either Assam or West Bengal. Nepali officials meanwhile believe that Bhushan is making a mistake, leaving just as the country is about to turn the corner.

INDIA
Peace parks  

In late March, a meeting was convened in New Delhi by the Indian environment ministry (along with other ministries, including defence) to attempt to identify a likely location for a future crossborder national park. The aim of the meeting was to look at existing parks on India's frontiers, and identify one that could be a candidate for crossborder cooperation with the relevant neighbouring country. In addition to increasing people-to-people cooperation, one environment official said that such a trans-national project would also help with long-term conservation and anti-poaching efforts.

The meeting came on the back of two previous meets held between the ministry and head park officials, who reportedly have offered widespread backing for the plan should the central government approve it. Of particular interest has been the Dampa reserve in Mizoram, Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, Manas in Assam, Dudhwa in Uttar Pradesh and Namdhapha in Arunachal Pradesh.

While the Siachen glacier has frequently been mentioned as one such possibility as well, the prospect seems notable though far-off. Nonetheless, in what observers have dubbed a step towards Manmohan Singh's desire to see Siachen turned into a 'mountain of peace', New Delhi recently began installing seismic sensors on the glacier.

Although there is not much seismic activity near Siachen – rarely registering over one or two on the Richter scale – India's seismic-monitoring network has been sparse to date, and Siachen's military presence made it an easy extension of that network. Indeed, with the project being jointly overseen by the army – and with bilateral talks over Siachen again breaking down in early April – the glacier could now become something of a 'mountain of paranoid listening'.

BURMA/INDIA
No Burmese gas?

By late March, India's hopes to secure rights to Burma's offshore Shwe gas field appeared to have come to naught. The Myanmar Oil & Gas Enterprise (MOGE) called a meeting between consortium members of the two most lucrative gas blocks in the Shwe field – the so-called A-1 and A-3 blocks, which together hold an estimated 200 billion cubic metres of natural gas. On the table: the possibility of selling most or all of that gas to state-run PetroChina. One Indian consortium member expressed his fear that MOGE had "made up its mind to give the gas to China".

New Delhi dispatched top officials to attempt to salvage the deal, but Rangoon seems to have decided to quash energy-crunched India's increasingly frantic hopes to pipe in Burma's gas. One obstacle to this plan had been Dhaka's longstanding refusal to allow New Delhi to use Bangladeshi territory for any such pipeline. But two solutions had recently appeared to be in the offing to this problem: India's decision to develop the Kaladan River, from Burma's Sittwe port into Mizoram; and Dhaka's recent decision to go back to the negotiating table regarding transport through its territory.

As for Rangoon's preference for China, despite India's siding with Burma over a recent United Nations attempt to censure the junta, according to a leaked memo China's steadfast veto of the move in the Security Council seems to have finally swayed Rangoon's decision. When it comes to the crunch, Rangoon evidently trusts Beijing more than New Delhi, even if the latter bends over backwards to pamper the dictatorship. There's a message here for Dr Manmohan.

AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN
The Pakistani 'roadblock'

Even as Afghanistan was readying itself to officially join the SAARC organisation at the Summit in New Delhi, the Afghan Foreign Minister, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, was warning that Pakistan was standing in the way of the country's integration with the rest of the Southasian region. Spanta was referring to Islamabad's ongoing intransigence towards allowing transit rights for Indian goods bound for Afghanistan.

While Kabul is looking forward to potentially tapping into the soaring economies of the Subcontinent – particularly India's – Islamabad has been holding the transit issue hostage to Indo-Pakistani negotiations, including over Kashmir. Indian businessmen say that flying or shipping goods into Afghanistan (the latter of which is currently allowed through the Karachi port) is prohibitively expensive. At a time when some are wondering about the prospects of a proxy war being played out in Afghanistan between India and Pakistan, the standoff has allowed the latter to hold onto a significant influence advantage in the former – despite the continuing, though lessened, acrimony between Kabul and Islamabad.

INDIA/BURMA
India drops Bahadur Shah

After deliberating for nearly six decades, India has finally given up its request for Burma to 'return' the remains of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar. Born in 1775 in Delhi, Bahadur Shah was the son of Akbar Shah from his Hindu wife, Lalbai. He attained power in 1837, and was the last in the 300-year line of India's Mughal emperors. A painter, cartographer and poet ('Zafar' was his penname), Bahadur Shah became a figurehead of unity during the rebellion of 1857, and it was expected that he would rule the region after the British were thwarted. Instead, after the failure of the uprising, the British exiled him to Rangoon in 1858. He died four years later, at the age of 87.

The request to have his remains shipped back to his birthplace originated in 1949, when the Bahadur Shah Zafar Memorial Society expressed the need to bring the "mortal remains of the last Mughal king from Yangon to New Delhi". But 58 years later, Indian Culture Minister Ambika Soni recently told Parliament that, "It was decided that the proposal need not be pursued." Soni did not elaborate further on what may have prompted the decision to let Zafar's remains remain, ensconced near the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon.

BURMA/INDIA
Kaladan development

After long discussing the possibility, Indian Union Minister for Development in the Northeast, Mani Shankar Aiyar, has officially announced that New Delhi will be helping to develop the Kaladan River, which runs between Burma and Mizoram. The announcement followed three days of deliberations in mid-March by the North Eastern Council (NEC), which Aiyar chairs, which were aimed at speeding up the river's evelopment as much as possible.

Prospects for New Delhi's hopes to use the route to transport Burmese gas into India (bypassing Bangladesh) dimmed dramatically in the weeks following Aiyar's announcement, when Rangoon all but decided to sell most of its gas to China. It is yet to be seen how this development will impact on the Kaladan plan.

More than likely, the impact will be negligible. In its favour, India's USD 103 million refurbishment of the Sittwe port in Burma, at the mouth of the Kaladan, is slated to negate the need for the Northeast to access Bangladesh's Chittagong port. Sittwe sits 160 km from the Mizoram border, and the three-part scheme in the offing would include the development of a 70-km road from the upstream Burmese port city of Kaletwa to Mizoram. According to Aiyar, "The Sittwe port will be an exit point to mainland India. It is only 12 hours from Haldia, 36 from Vishakapatnam and 48 from Tuticorin."

All of these convoluted plans, one might add, will self-destruct the moment Bangladesh allows itself to be used as a corridor between the mainland and the Northeast.

NEPAL/INDIA
Five small extensions

Although the discussion has long lingered on the block, by the second week of April extending India's rail network to Nepal had reportedly become a "top priority". The Nepal-India border region, long a backwater where the metre-gauge 'choti line' has lingered till now, is thus ready for a broad-gauge makeover.

The reason for the Indian step-up might be linked to China's keenness to extend its own spanking-new train line to Nepal's northern border. Beijing is also planning on extending its rail line (which currently runs only into Lhasa) to the Tibetan town of Chomo, near the Nathula pass into Sikkim. Nathula and the Qinghai-Lhasa passenger-train service both opened during the first week of July last year.

Experts have found that a railroad into Nepal from Tibet across the Himalayan ramparts would be economically unfeasible, but this has not quelled New Delhi's emphasis on tit-for-tat strategic footholds. As such, India's Railway Ministry now wants to extend its rail network to five Nepali cities – Nepalgunj, Bhairahawa, Bardibas, Biratnagar and Kakarvitta – a cumulative track extension of around 160 km. It might soon also be time to discuss whether the Indian line should not be joined with the Tibetan line, an action that would change the face of this part of Asia.

SRI LANKA
Repatriation quandary  

Faced with dramatically escalating levels of human-rights violations in Sri Lanka, European officials have begun reassessing their policies on repatriation of asylum seekers from the island. By the first week of April, the estimated number of internally displaced people throughout the country had risen to 290,000, while international rights groups were stepping up criticism against the Colombo government's increasingly draconian clampdown on dissent.

Against such a backdrop, European countries have continued to repatriate Sri Lankans who have fled the ethnic conflict but fail to meet individual governments' qualifications for asylum. Switzerland, for instance, which recently scheduled a meeting to discuss a possible change in repatriation policy, has received nearly 330 Sri Lankan requests for asylum during the first three months of this year alone. The majority of such requests have come from Tamils. Of those, 23 were officially sent back to Sri Lanka, while another 22 went back of their own accord; another 76 reportedly left Switzerland with no known destination.

Other countries have not yet even begun to have the discussion. In England, for instance, where the arrival of Tamil refugees during the mid-1980s prompted a significant tightening of immigration procedures, officials say that the government currently has no plans to revisit its repatriation policy towards Sri Lanka.

INDIA/BANGLADESH
Four decades at the station

After a 40-year lag, Dhaka and New Delhi are nearly set to restart passenger-train service across the Indo-Bangladeshi border. Although irregular cargo service has continued running across the border, no passenger trains have been allowed to do so since 1965, when the India-Pakistan war sealed the border. It was not until the early 1990s that even a passenger-bus service was allowed to restart between the two neighbours.

The new passenger train, which New Delhi has reportedly been eager to get on the rails, will run from Joydevpur, near Dhaka, to the Sealdah station in Calcutta. The current agreement is not new, but rather an extension of one signed in 2001, which was scheduled to run out in July. A bilateral meeting is scheduled to take place soon, to evaluate the decrepit state of infrastructure, which rumour has it will push off the train's opening until late 2007. Hopefully that will be the project's biggest obstacle.

AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN
Crossborder jirga

The first major meeting of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Jirga Commission took place over three days in mid-March. Despite the ongoing vituperation between Kabul and Islamabad, reactions following the jirga's first meeting were almost uniformly positive.

In the course of the jirga, members agreed not to trade allegations about the other side, and to adopt a common strategy towards extremist activities. In the near future, a national-level jirga would also be created in Pakistan, which has no tradition of such a body.

The crossborder jirga evidently has its work cut out for it – as particularly noted by its failure to convene as scheduled during the second week of April, due to unassigned "technical" reasons. Problems had already cropped up the week the jirga began its meetings, however, when the Afghan Defence Ministry accused Islamabad of having begun to fence the border between the two countries.

Indeed, by mid-April, Pakistani officials were said to be just waiting for the necessary fencing equipment to arrive. It would seem that the jirga would do well to suggest that Islamabad consult with New Delhi about whether border fences work, given the latter's experience along the Pakistan border.

TIBET
From Beijing, with love

Perhaps safe in the knowledge that investment dollars (or yuan) cannot buy freedom (or autonomy), the Chinese government has announced that it will be

investing nearly USD 13 billion in Tibet. The new construction is to be completed before 2010.

One Tibet official, Hao Peng, has said that the new projects will be particularly aimed at remote herding villages. The money will be spent on 180 separate projects, including the improvement of electricity, telephone and drinking-water infrastructure in rural Tibet; the extension of the new Qinghai-Lhasa train line, as well as the construction of a whole new track linking Lhasa with Tibet's second largest city, Xigaze (Shigatse); and the upgrading of airport facilities.

But the same week that Beijing announced its latest largesse, the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) warned that, 500 days away from the start of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government was still failing to comply with commitments that it had made in 2001 in its bid to land the coveted prize of hosting the 2008 games. In particular, ICT activists emphasised Beijing's failure regarding pro-mises to: protect minority nationality rights; become a more open society; allow foreign journalists to "travel anywhere in China"; and to institute transparent governance throughout the Olympics process.

REGION
Far from home

The Taliban claimed responsibility for a bomb blast in Kandahar on 17 April that took the lives of four Nepali contractors and an Afghan driver who were traveling in a United Nations vehicle. It was one of the deadliest attacks on UN personnel since 2001, and served as a reminder of the large number of Southasians working as peacekeepers in Afghanistan and around the world.

Globally, around 40 percent of UN personnel are made up of workers from the Subcontinent, and the USD 85-a-day salary is a lucrative pull for many. But with so many Southasian boots on the ground, the region's related death toll is striking as well. As of this past March, 354 Southasians had been killed in active duty for the UN – 123 Indians, 95 Pakistanis, 80 Bangladeshis and 56 Nepalis. Four more need now be added to that last figure.