THE HINDU (SUNDAY) - APRIL 3, 2022

 

THE HINDU NEWS (SUNDAY) - APRIL 3, 2022

 

New Criminal Bill How does the new Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022 propose to collect sensitive data? VIJAITA SINGH The story so far: On March 28, Minister of State for Home Ajay Kumar Mishra introduced The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022 in Lok Sabha. If passed, it will allow police and prison authorities to collect, store and analyse physical and biological samples including retina and iris scans of convicted, arrested and detained persons. At the introduction stage, Opposition members opposed. At the introduction stage, Opposition members opposed the Bill terming it “unconstitutional” and an attack on privacy. What is the legislation about? -The Bill seeks to repeal The Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920. The over 100-year-old Act’s scope was limited to capturing of finger impression, foot-print impressions and photographs of convicted prisoners and certain category of arrested and non-convicted persons on the order of a Magistrate. The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the 2022 Bill said that new “measurement” techniques being used in advanced countries are giving credible and reliable results and are recognized the world over. It said that the 1920 Act does not provide for taking these body measurements as many of the techniques and technologies had not been developed then. What are the major changes proposed? -It proposes four major changes. First, it would define “measurements” to include “signature, handwriting, iris and retina scan, physical, biological samples and their analysis, etc.” It does not specify what analysis means, implying that it may also include storing DNA samples. The “etc.” mentioned in the text of the Bill could give unfettered powers to law enforcement agencies to interpret the law as their convenience, sometimes to the disadvantage of the accused.     Second, it empowers the National Crime Records Bureau of India (NCRB), under the Union Home Ministry, to collect, store and preserve the record of measurements for at least 75 years. The NCRB will be able to share the data with other law enforcement agencies as well. Police is a State subject and NCRB works under the Union government, and experts contend this provision may impinge on federalism.     Third, it empowers a Magistrate to direct any person to give vital details, which till now was reserved for convicts and those involved in heinous crimes. Fourth, it empowers police or prison officers up to the rank of a Head Constable to take details of any person who resists or refuses to do so. What are some other changes? -The Bill also seeks to apply to persons detained under any preventive detention law. The Bill also authorizes taking vital details of “other persons” for identification and investigation in criminal matters. It doesn’t define the “other persons”, implying its ambit extends beyond convicts, arrested persons, or detainees. The Bill’s stated objective is it provides legal sanction for taking such details and will make the investigation of crime more efficient and expeditious, and help in increasing the conviction rate. Congress member Manish Tewari pointed out in the Lok Sabha that Article 20(3) of the Constitution stats that “no person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.” BSP member Ritesh Pandey opposed the Bill saying it proposes to collect samples even from those engaged in political protests. Is there a precedent? -The Karnataka Assembly passed The Identification of Prisoners (Karnataka Amendment) Bill in 2021, to amend the 1920 Act for application in the State. The Bill expands the collection to include blood samples, DNA, voice and iris scans “for effective surveillance and prevention of breach of peace and crime.” It empowers the Superintendent of Police or Deputy Commissioner of Police to order collection in addition to a magistrate to avoid delays and reduce the workload on the Judiciary. As the provisions of the Bill were repugnant with the 1920 Act, a Central Government’s Act, Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot reserved the Bill for consideration of the President of the India. Under the process, the Bill is sent for inter-ministerial consultation. The Bill is yet to be cleared by the MHA. Now, the Government has introduced a fresh legislation to replace the 1920 Act that will be applicable across the country. The States have been empowered to notify rules under the Act to specify the manner in which details could be recorded, preserved, disseminated and destructed and “any other matter which is to be prescribed, or in respect of which provision is to be made.”     Tamil Nadu introduced and notified The Identification of Prisoners (Tamil Nadu Amendments) Act in 2010. The act allows the police the draw “blood samples” other than the specified measurements from the limited categories of suspects and convicts defined in the 1920 Act. Though President’s assent is awaited for the Karnataka Bill, the Tamil Nadu Act has been in practice for more than a decade after it received the assent of the Governor.

Why is Sri Lanka under a state of Emergency? What has brought on the economic crisis is the island nation? How are India and other countries helping? MEERA SRINIVASAN The story so far: On Friday night, a day after angry citizens converged in front of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Colombo residence, demanding he step down immediately, he declared a state of Emergency in Sri Lanka. An extraordinary gazette notification said the Emergency, coming into immediate effect, was “in the interest of public security, the protection of public order and the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the community.” On Saturday, the government imposed an all-island curfew, restricting movement until Monday morning. Sri Lanka is in the midst of a sharp economic downturn that has led to severe food shortages and growing public resentment. What triggered the crisis? -Sri Lanka’s economic crisis can be traced to two key developments in the immediate past – the Easter Sunday bombings of 2019 that deterred tourists and the pandemic since early 2020 that stalled recovery and further drained the economy. As it grappled with an unprecedented challenge, the Rajapaksa regime made policy choices that are now proving to be costly. It cut the government’s tax revenue substantially and rushed into an ‘organic only’ agricultural policy that will likely slash this year’s harvest by half. The weak and debt-ridden economy with the lingering strain of the pandemic and ill-advised policies accelerated the downward spiral. What were the economic indicators? -COVID-19 hit Sri Lanka’s key foreign revenue earning sectors hard. Earnings from tourism, exports, and worker remittances fell sharply in the last two years. But the country could not stop importing essentials, and its dollar account began dwindling. Fast draining foreign reserves, a glaring trade deficit, and a related Balance of Payments problem came as crucial signals. Colombo’s huge foreign loan obligations and the drop in domestic production compounded the economic strain. When did things begin to worsen? -The long-simmering crisis made its first big announcement during last August’s food emergency, when supplies were badly affected. It was soon followed by fears of a sovereign default in late 2021, which Sri Lanka averted. But without enough dollars to pay for the country’s high import bill, the island continued facing severe shortage of essentials – from fuel, cooking gas, and staple foodgrains to medicines. How did the crisis manifest itself on the ground? -Consumers could not find the most basic things such as petrol, LPG cylinders, kerosene, or milk in the market. They spent hours waiting in long queues outside fuel stations or shops. Supermarket shelves were either empty or had products with high price tags that most could not afford. For instance, the price of one kg of milk powder, a staple item in dairy-deficient Sri Lanka, suddenly shot up to nearly LKR 2000 in March.    Be it cooking gas, oils, ice, pulses, vegetables, fish, meat, consumers found themselves paying substantially more, or simply had to forego the item. The fuel shortage has led to long blackouts – up to 13 hours the island. What is the situation now? -The value of the Sri Lankan rupee has dropped to 300 against a U.S. dollar (and even more than 400 in the black market), putting importers in a difficult spot.     The government is unable to pay for its import shipments, forcing consignments to leave the Colombo port. For the average citizen contending with COVID-induced salary cuts and job losses, the soaring living costs have brought more agony. Has the government sought help? -Yes, including from India which has extended $2.4 billion this year, and China, that is considering a fresh request from Colombo for $2.5billion assistance, in addition to the $2.8 billion it has extended since the pandemic broke out. The government has decided to negotiate an International Monetary Fund programme, while seeking support from other multilateral and bilateral sources. But even with all this help, Sri Lanka can barely manage. Recovery will neither be fast nor easy, say experts. How has it affected the people? -Sri Lankans are seething with anger, going by public demonstrations and protests. They want the President to step down immediately and the ruling clan to leave the country’s helm. They have been agitating in different parts of the country, including near the President’s home. Former military man Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who came to power on a huge mandate in 2019, is Sri Lanka’s most unpopular leader today. In a televised address on March 16, he promised “tough decisions to find solutions to the inconveniences that people are experiencing.” Following the protests near his home, Mr. Rajapaksa said “extremists” were plotting an “Arab Spring and on Friday night, he declared a state of Emergency.                                              Roubles for fuel, defence deals with Russia How is India circumventing the sanctions route to ensure supplies are not stopped? What is in the pipeline? DINANKAR PERI The story so far: The last two weeks saw a flurry of visits by senior officials from the West to convince India not to undermine sanctions on Russia by opting for payments in national currencies as also not to increase purchase of discounted oil from Russia. On Friday, Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was in New Delhi, the first high-level visit since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine. What is the status of oil purchases from Russia? -“We have started buying Russian oil and have bought at least three to four days of supply,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday. Mr. Lavrov reiterated that Russia is moving ahead with the use of national currencies in lieu of dollar payments with both India and China and these efforts would be “intensified”.     “I have no doubt that a way would be found to bypass the artificial impediments which illegal unilateral sanctions by the West create. This relates also to the area of military and technical cooperation. We have no doubt that the solution would be found and respective ministries are working, “ Mr. Lavrov said, addressing a press conference after bilateral talks with his Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar.      The developments came a day after the U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser for international Economics Daleep Singh warned of “consequences” to countries that actively attempt to circumvent or backfill the sanctions.      In sharp comments on Thursday during a conversation with visiting U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Mr. Jaishankar termed it a “campaign” against India for buying Russian oil at discounted prices while European countries remain the biggest buyers of oil and gas from Russia despite their announcements to scale it down.     India and Russia have been working on streamlining payments through the rupee-rouble mechanism circumventing the SWIFT systems and the dollar route. Towards this, earlier in the week, a team from Russia’s central bank met officials from the Reserve Bank of India to iron out issues and identify banks that have no exposure to the Western sanctions through which payments can be made. Mr. Jaishankar informed Parliament recently that a special inter-ministerial group led by the Finance Ministry has been tasked with resolving payment issues for trade with Russia.     According to Reuters, India bought at least 13 million barrels of Russian oil since the Ukraine war began on February 24, a steep rise from last year, when India bought 16 million barrels of Russian oil in all of 2021. What about defence deals? -The defence Ministry and the Services have carried out assessments and are closely monitoring the impact the sanctions can have on timely deliveries and supplies from Russia as several major deals are also underway. Officials have stated that while some shipping delays were possible, there would not be any dent in the Army’s operational preparedness along the borders especially the Line of Actual control.     In addition, the armed forces have also made significant emergency procurements in the last two years since the standoff in eastern Ladakh and have stocked up on spares and ammunition. So, there shouldn’t be any immediate urgency for spares and other requirements, officials noted.     For the two countries, payment by a rupee-rouble arrangement is not new. For instance, for the $5.43 billion deal for S-400 air defence systems signed in October 2018, with the looming threat of U.S. sanctions under CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Though Sanctions Act), the two sides had worked out payments through the rupee-rouble exchange. In fact, the delivery schedule got slightly delayed as the payment details were being worked out. Last December, India began taking deliveries and the first unit has been deployed on the western border. The second unit is scheduled to arrive shortly, officials stated.      In addition, several new deals are in the pipeline including 12 Su-30MKI aircraft and 21 MiG-29 fighter jets for the Indian Air Force. However, the Defence Ministry is carrying out a review of all direct import deals and some of them including those from Russia are expected to be dropped as part of the push towards domestic manufacturing.     According to a recent report from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), India’s defence imports reduced by 21% between 2012-16 and 2017-21 and while Russia continues to remain the largest arms supplier, the percentage has dropped. “Russia was the largest supplier of major arms to India in both 2012-16 and 2017-21, but India’s imports of Russia arms dropped by 47% between the two periods as several large programmes for Russians arms wound down,” the report said.     How has BIMSTEC finetuned its agenda? What are the aims and functions of the multilateral grouping in handling challenges in the Bay of Bengal region? KOLLOR BHATTARCHERJEE The story so far: Amid the financial crisis of 1997, leading Southeast Asian and South Asian nations came together to form the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). The underlying factor behind the grouping was that if connected together, the economic powerhouses of South Asia and Southeast Asia could deal with the challenges of pursuing free market economies in the limits imposed by local political and economic factors. In its 25th year, and at its fifth summit held in hybrid format in Colombo, the organization adopted a charter which aims at providing greater coordination among the seven members – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar and Thailand. Why is there a need to revitalize the multilateral grouping? -The new charter comes at a time when the need for an alternative regional-global organization is increasingly being felt because of the moribund nature of SAARC which has not met since November 2014. For long, BIMSTEC existed as a platform for policy dialogue but the global churning over sanctions on Russia after the war in Ukraine appears to have contributed towards finetuning the focus of the grouping. It wants to be an organization which can find autonomous space away from bigger trade and defence groupings and wok for the development of the region around of Bay of Bengal. What does BIMSTEC’s connectivity vision aim to achieve? -The BIMSTEC Master Plan for Transport Connectivity seeks to connect several major transport projects in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand and establish a shipping network across the Bay of Bengal that will benefit the littoral states as well as the Bay of Bengal dependent states like Nepal and Bhutan. The BBIN connectivity project of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal is expected to be merged with the port and infrastructure projects like the Sittwe port of Myanmar and Payra port of Bangladesh and Colombo of Sri Lanka. Is the Free Trade Agreement plan feasible? -A framework agreement for a Free Trade Agreement among the members of BIMSTEC was signed in 2004, and has been revived again. The idea is to create stronger trade relations among players in the Bay of Bengal region but negotiations on finalizing legal instruments for coastal shipping, typing up road transport and other issues will take time to be shorted out. What is the security pillar aiming to achieve? -The Bay of Bengal has enormous significance from the security point of view. It borders the Strait of Malacca which is the main energy lane for the eastern and Southeast Asian nation. That apart, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have often suffered from terrorism. The security relevance of BIMSTEC, therefore, has been growing especially after the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka in 2019. India will steer the security pillar of BIMSTEC and is expected to coordinate regionwide security cooperation on jointly agreed issues. Will it mediate in bilateral issues? -BIMSTC members like Myanmar and Bangladesh have challenges like the Rohingya crisis that both sides have been dealing with since 2017. The tense relations between the two countries had hampered smooth working of the BIMSTEC for some time. But as of now the grouping, by including Myanmar in the summit in Colombo, has indicated that it will not interfere in domestic political problems and nor will it allow any member to be sidelined within the organization. SAARC has been weighed down by bilateral problems between India and Pakistan and a lesson probably has been learnt to keep bilateral troubles away from a regional grouping for better coordination among the members.

 

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THE HINDU EDITORIAL - APRIL 2, 2022

 

THE HINDU EDITORIAL – APRIL 1, 2022

 

Sri Lanka’s rage President Rajapaksa must acknowledge popular anger and formulate a recovery plan As irate protesters gathered near the house of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a desperate bid to highlight their suffering, the worsening economic crisis in Sri Lanka has possibly reached its crescendo. The Rajapaksas, who have dominated the political and electoral scene, face an unprecedented decline in their popularity, as the people struggle for want of adequate money, fuel and food. The roots of the crisis may not lie wholly in the policies of Mr. Gotabaya, who was swept to power in 2019 as President on a platform of strong leadership and decisive action, while his party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, won a landslide in parliamentary elections a year later. The Rajapaksas did inherit some economic problems, while the pandemic cast a greater burden. However, the current administration is indeed responsible for some ill-advised populist measures such as a huge raise in the threshold for income taxes and VAT registration, leading to revenue loss. And there was a questionable order to move to fertilizer-free farming overnight, which led to loss of yield and drew sharp criticism. The chemical fertilizer ban has been rolled back, but its impact on food security remains. Yet, more than anything, what appears to infuriate the people is the perception of governmental apathy towards their plight, of denial of the existence of a crisis and the absence of a road map for economic recovery.    It may be simplistic to summarise the causative factors behind the crisis as excessive borrowings at high interest rates and a putative ‘Chinese debt trap’. However, there is behind it a tale of economic mismanagement, profligate use of public resources, and possible mishandling of monetary policy. Sri Lanka, an island nation heavily dependent on imports, gains its foreign exchange through tourism, the export of garments and tea, besides external remittances. If the Easter Sunday blasts of 2019 set back its tourism sector, the novel corona-virus pandemic almost finished it off. The heavy-handed lockdown, overseen by a military-led task force, had severe economic consequences too, as livelihoods were lost, while earnings suffered. The country needs measures to shore up its foreign exchange reserves and the balance of payment position. India has extended assistance amounting to $2.40 billion, and China is also looking at further loans. The country’s past resistance to borrowing from the IMF may not last, and it may have to accept significant conditionalities for a bailout package. However, advocating that the people tighten their belts and suffer a little more may not work. The President should acknowledge both the depth of the crisis and the rising public disenchantment. What his country needs is empathetic leadership and decisive measures to halt the downward spiral.   Quota and data No group should get exclusive reservation without data on backwardness The Supreme Court has rightly quashed the Tamil Nadu Special Reservation Act of 2021, or the Vaniyar quota law, on the ground that it was not based on updated quantifiable data. The Act had envisaged the distribution of the 20% quota for Most Backward Classes (MBC) and De-notified Communities (DNCs) in education and public employment by assigning 10.5% to Vanniyars or the Vanniyakula Kshatriya community, 7% for 25 MBCs and 68 DNCs, and 2.5% for the remaining 22 MBCs. Even though a superficial look at the law would give an impression that not just the Vanniyars but also 115 other communities have been covered, the aspect of internal reservation for one community – Vanniyars – had created the impression of special treatment. Such treatment per se is not bad in law, as caste, the Court said, can be the starting point for the identification of backward classes or providing internal reservation, though it cannot be the sole basis. Also, there must be pertinent, contemporaneous data. The Court also pointed out that no analysis had been made of the relative backwardness and representation of other communities in the MBCs and DNCs.    The Court’s decision has provided relief to many by holding that the State is competent to design sub-classification among backward classes; prescribe the quantum of reservation based on such sub-classification, and formulate an ancillary law, even with the assent of the Governor, to one included in the Ninth Schedule. Regardless of further moves by the DMK government that had defended the law in the Supreme Court, this episode had important lessons. No community should be allowed internal or exclusive reservation without making a case for it on the bases of quantifiable data. A caste-based census can help in determining the representation of various communities in public employment and in education. After all, it is adequate representation that holds the key for the special treatment of reservation. But whether caste, narrowly defined, and not the socio-economic indicators of the applicants, should be the bases for reservation is another issue. Tamil Nadu’s parties must take a relook at their position against the implementation of creamy layer rule in reservation, as otherwise there will always be demand for internal reservation from communities that feel left out. If the parties believe genuinely in the principle of equity in reservation, they should not have any problem in agreeing to the concept of creamy layer. Also, the demand for reservation will carry on if those seen as economically advanced continue to obtain a larger share of the reservation pie. Other than for the SCs and STs, the creamy layer must be excluded in providing for reservation for castes that qualify as backward classes.

Caste analysis and its reading today There is an apparent opacity of caste now, which requires fine-grained and multi-dimensional study SATISH DESHPANDE Twenty years ago, at the dawn of the new millennium and after the ‘Mandal decade’ of the 1990s, it looked as though the institution of caste had become legible in a new way (See “Caste and social structure”, The Hindu, December 6-7, 2001). The break with the past seemed decisive; a code had been cracked, and caste could be ‘read’ like never before. Like any newly literate person, we took it for granted that the change was permanent.      But the new age of caste clarity lasted barely two decades. Today, in the mid-Modi era after the novel corona-virus pandemic, we are struggling to come to terms with the perception that caste has become opaque again – the code has changed. What has changed? And how has it affected our understanding of caste? The ‘we’ To begin with, the perception of the ‘we’ has changed. It can no longer remain an unmarked universal ‘we’ that speaks for everyone, but must be acknowledged as upper caste. Specifically, this is the vantage point of the overwhelmingly upper caste liberal intelligentsia, a group that certainly has a caste location with its biases, but is more a spectator than a player in the game of caste. Unlike players (who must strategise to win the game while taking account of possible moves by opponents and aliens), the spectator tries to map all possible moves by all players.     The other changes can be divided into two kinds – those that are internal to the caste structure itself and those that are located in the larger context. Leaving the contextual changes for later, the internal changes are taken up here, initially in relation to the largest group the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).                            On the OBC's                                                                                     The re-orientation of caste in the new millennium happened largely because of the arrival of the OBCs on the national stage. The OBCs were good to think with for several reasons. First, the OBCs helped to place caste the right side up. From the Nehru era until the 1990s, the dominant ideology had presented caste as the exception and casteless-ness as the rule. The OBCs forced us to recognize that the upper castes were a minority rather than the ‘general’ or universal category. Second, because they were an intermediate group, the OBCs invited closer attention to the notion of backwardness and the interplay of graded privilege and disprivilege in different caste clusters. Third, because they were defined as a residual category – neither in the Scheduled Castes (SC) or Scheduled Tribes, nor in the upper castes – the OBCs highlighted the pros and cons of categorization and the challenge of internal disparities within large groupings. The OBCs were also important in themselves because of their demographic weight and distribution. They were present in most parts of the country and formed a large (usually largest) segment of every class group, from the poorest to the richest. That is why they had a special affinity for federalism and were instrumental in introducing coalition politics at the national level.     Is this way of reading caste still valid for caste analysis today? The short general answer is yes; but it is the particulars that matter for the more useful long answer. Internal dynamics The single most important change over the past two decades is that the process of internal differentiation within each large caste grouping has now penetrated much deeper. The impact of this process depends on the dimension of differentiation and on the contextual features which allow or prevent sub-groups from crystallizing as distinct entities with an autonomous trajectory; The most common dimensions of differentiation are economic status, livelihood sources, and regional location. The single most important contextual factor that allows or prevents crystallization as an independent entity appears to be region-specific electoral influence. For example, the Yadavs of Uttar Pradesh have not only coalesced as a coherent group, but have also facilitated the emergence of a derivative sub-group called the ‘non-Yadav OBCs’. Individual castes within this latter group, however, are yet to acquire a separate electoral identity.     Similar region-specific developments may be seen in cases such as the Mahars of Maharashtra or the Malas of Andhra Pradesh among the SC groups. But the emergent entity need not be defined as a distinct caste; and it may be an off-stage rather than on-stage actor in the drama of electoral politics. For example, economic differentiation within the upper castes has produced a division into the non-rich, rich and super-rich segments, but these are not sub-castes, and they are not (yet) a separate political constituency and refold. Nevertheless, such groups demand to be addressed politically and are of crucial ideological importance.     The upshot is that caste analysis today has no choice but to be fine-grained and multi-dimensional. This is not just a quantitative change – the crystallization of new political entities triggers qualitative shifts as well, changing the game being played without making it an entirely new game. Moreover, caste being fundamentally relational, it is the changing dynamics between and among caste groupings that matters. From the point of view of the social sciences, what this means is that macro-analysis of caste will become end up either as unhelpful (and unsustainable) generalities, or they will simply become a collection of detailed micro-studies. The sources Thus, the apparent opacity of caste today seems to have two different sources. The first is the exponential increase in the complexity of the field, largely because of the differentiation of the initial groupings that were far too big to remain coherent. It is not that the code of caste has changed but that the caste-text to be read today is far more advanced. In other words, we have not become illiterate with respect to caste but we have to raise our reading skills to a much higher level.     However, it is the second source of opacity that is far more consequential, and this is located not within caste but in its relationship to other contextual factors. The most important of these are neo-liberalism as a hegemonic world-view that re-positioned state and market; the dominance of Hindutva as a political modality; the new media regime that saturates social life; the ongoing restructuring of federalism; and finally, the change in the ecosystem of official statistics.     BIMSTEC after the Colombo summit The question to address now is whether the multilateral grouping is capable of tackling the challenges facing the region RAJIV BHATIA The fifth summit of the regional grouping, the Bay of Bengal initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), held virtually in Colombo on March 30, has undoubtedly advanced the cause of regional cooperation and integration. But a dispassionate look at the grouping, composed of five South Asian countries and two Southeast Asian countries, is needed, especially as it celebrates its 25th anniversary in June this Year. The member-states are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar and Thailand.     BIMSTEC is no longer a mere initiative or programme. The question to address is whether it is now capable of tackling the challenges facing the region. Representing a fifth of the world’s population that contributes only 4% of the global GDP, can this multilateral grouping trigger accelerated economic development? Colombo package It was clear that BIMSTEC first needed to strengthen itself – by redefining its purpose and rejuvenation its organs and institutions. The much-needed process was launched at the Leaders’ Retreat convened by India in 2016. It gathered momentum, thanks to the outcome of forward-looking summit held in Kathmandu in 2018. The eventual result is now seen in the package of decisions and agreements announced at the latest summit.     The package comprises, first of all, the grouping’s charter. Adopted formally, it presents BIMSTEC as “an inter-governmental organization” with “legal personality.” Defining BIMSTEC purposes, it lists 11 items in the first article Among them is acceleration of “the economic growth and social progress in the Bay of Bengal region”, and promotion of “multidimensional connectivity”. The grouping now views itself not as a sub-regional organization whose destiny is linked with the area around the Bay of Bengal.     The second element is the decision to re-constitute and reduce the number of sectors of cooperation from the unwieldy 14 to a more manageable seven. Each member-state will serve as a lead for a sector: trade, investment and development (Bangladesh); environment and climate change (Bhutan); security, including energy (India); agriculture and food security (Myanmar); people-to-people contacts (Nepal); science, technology and innovation(Sri Lanka), and connectivity (Thailand).     Third, the summit participants adopted the Master Plan for Transport Connectivity applicable for 2018-28. This approval was delayed, but its importance lies in the highest-level political support accorded to this ambitious plan. It was devised and backed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It lists 264 projects entailing a total investment of $126 billion. Projects worth $55 billion are un implementation. BIMSTEC needs to generate additional funding and push for timely implementation of the projects. Finally, the package also includes three new agreements signed by member states, relating to mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, cooperation between diplomatic academies, and the establishment of a technology transfer facility in Colombo. Trade pillar needs support Post Colombo, a quick look at the unfinished tasks and new challenges gives an idea of the burden of responsibilities on the grouping. The pillar of trade, economic and investment cooperation needs greater strengthening and at a faster pace.     Despite signing a framework agreement for a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 2004, BIMSTEC stands far away from this goal. Of the seven constituent agreements needed for the FTA, only two are in place as of now. The general formulations of the Colombo Declaration instill little confidence about prospects of early progress. The need for expansion of connectivity was stressed by one and all, but when it comes to finalizing legal instruments for coastal shipping, road transport and intra-regional energy grid connection, much work remains unfinished. On the positive side, however, there needs to be mention of the speedy success achieved in deepening cooperation in security matters and management of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR). As security and economic development are interrelated, it is essential to ensure an equitable balance between the two pillars.     Statements by leaders at the summit gave important clues about the thinking on how to tackle the challenges. The Nepalese Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, in a most candid speech emphasized the point that “with less than a decade left, our region is not on track to achieve any of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030”. He added that the COVID-19 pandemic “has further strained our development effort”. The Thailand Prime Minister (and Defence Minister) Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha, as the new Chair, expressed his resolve to work for ‘a prosperous, Resilient and Robust, and Open (PRO) BIMSTEC’ during his tenure. As a co-founder and key driver, Thailand can contribute much, provided it marshals sufficient institutional and political resources.     It was left to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to offer an array of practical suggestion to strengthen the grouping. India was the only country to offer additional funding to the Secretariat and also to support the Secretary General’s proposal to establish an Eminent person Group (EPG) for producing a vision document. Other countries need to emulate this sincere matching of words with action.     Governments showed considerable creativity by agreeing to restrict Myanmar’s participation in the summit to the Foreign Minister’s level. This obviated diplomatic controversy. Thailand and India will need to be astute in managing Myanmar’s engagement until the political situation there becomes normal. BIMSTEC should focus more in the future on new areas such as the blue economy, the digital economy, and promotion of exchanges and links among startups and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Besides, three more suggestions deserve consideration. The personal touch First, the personal engagement of the political leadership should be stepped up. The decision taken in Colombo to host a summit every two years is welcome if implemented. But in the medium term, an annual summit should be the goal, with an informal retreat built into its programme.    Second, BIMSTEC needs greater visibility. India’s turn to host the G20 leaders’ summit in 2023 presents a golden opportunity, which can be leveraged optimally. Perhaps all its members should be invited to the G20 summit as the chair’s special guests.     Finally, the suggestion to simplify the grouping’s name needs urgent attention. The present name running into 12 words should be changed to four words only – the Bay of Bengal Community (BOBC). It will help the institution immensely. Brevity reflects gravitas.

 

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