Hello C'da
I was also at the seminar on LEP as part on the sponsors. In the security
session KPS Gill (former DGP of Assam, Punjab, CRPF) Sunil Nath (former
ULFA publicity secretary) Kirip Chaliha (MP, Congress) Arun Sarma (MP. AGP)
Nitin Gokhle (Editor NDTV) were present.
KPS Gill said during 62-64 during his stint as SP in Nagaon, he had thrown
out more Bangladeshis (East Pakistanis, EP then) than 10 years of AGP rule
(winking at Dr. Arun Sarma, who was sitting next to him). He used to take
the refugees to camps near the border.Tthe EPs used to throw out Hindus from
the border areas, thereby creating a crisis. At Nehru's behest, a home
minister level meeting was held between India and Pakistan, and Nehru
instructed 'no more evictions of EPs'. Gill and Bishnu Ram Medhi, then CM
wrote a letter to Nehru stating the grave danger this decision will pose in
future. Nehru decided not to act on the letter. He also said that Assam had
a long string of very honest CMs from Gopinath Bordoloi to Sarat Ch Sinha.
He said in '64 Nagaon had a clearly demarcated Hindu -Muslim area and a
line. Assamese Muslims had no problem. and relationship was very cordial. He
had to set up special police station to protect a lone Hindu village near
Muslim areas. When he visited the area in 74 the Muslim line had advanced by
15 km and Borduwa, the birth place of Sankaradeva was overran. He was sorry
to use the communal sounding words but he said these situations are better
explained by using the right word. When in 80s Indira Gandhi decided to
bring in the army, KPS opposed it and suggested that police be trained and
strengthened to deal with the situations. On the contrary, the army moved in
and now they will never move out as it is an industry for them.
KPS also used to write poetry in the IIllustrated Weekly of India, which was
disclosed by Kirip Chaliha. Supercop preferred to keep the poetic part a
secret
Nitin Gokhle of NDTV was also candid. He said we are unnecessarily giving
too much credit to ISI. Actually he said the DGFI of Bangladesh and certain
functionaries of the establishment are dead against India and are capable
of fomenting trouble in India without ISI. After partition as per groupings
Assam was to goto EP, that they have not forgotten. Even Mujib in his
autobiography has written that Bangladesh will need Assam's fertile valley
to support its hugely expanding population. They see denial of Assam to EP
as a historical deceit to deprive them of the north east. The Bangladesh
Ranger boss who engineered the butchering of BSF Jawans a few years back
claims in his recent book that Assam will be theirs' one day.
Nitin said that when you look east from Delhi, first you see is Bangladesh.
Bangladesh will not allow India a transit because it feels India did not
give it a transit route to Nepal once. Bangladesh will never give the
transit to India, be it through river Brahmaputra or Trans Asian
Highway/Railway. Their policy is that if they can throttle the Northeast,
the region will suffer from underdevelopment and India will have limited
access through the chicken's neck. The chicken nack is so crowded now that
only 1.2 km is available for public works, you cannot build a transmission
line to evacuate the huge hydro power of Arunachal, even if it is exploited.
In the inaugural address Mr Jairam Ramesh, MoS (Commerce) admitted that the
infrastructure is pathetic and LEP has miles to go. He said that LEP needs a
byepass surgery on Bangladesh. Govt. of India is going to develop Akyab port
by investing 100m $. Govt. is also going to fund Rs. 2500 crore in Assam to
replant the ageing tea plants.
-manoj
On 2/2/07, Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
It will be interesting to hear what the powers that be might have to say
about this.
Maybe Hazarika will forward it to the 'hard-hitting' minister to get some
answers.But I won't hold my breath.
>There is nobody to redress.
There never was. And I cannot imagine when it will be there under the
prevailing system.
All the big talk about industries and entrepreneurship are always from
people who never held a hammer in his life, or ever had to produce anything
to make a living.
At 10:25 PM +0530 2/2/07, mc mahant wrote:
Look East Policy is yet a farce.
Look what insults/losses I suffered in the last month:
With expensive bank loans I ordered 2 MIG/MAG 630 Amp Welding Machines ex
Tianjin China@ $1510 FOB.
As I wanted to do some critical construction job I asked them to
Airfreight the machines to L.G.N.B.International Airport,Guwahati via
Bangkok. No airlines would carry there. So I said--via Delhi then(They care
for the EAST and Care Dearly for the North East!-I THOUGHT).
Only Korean Air will carry the cargo--gross 200 Kg~ -- and they charged
$680. These arrived Delhi on 15 January. On one pretext or the other("Why
are you buying Chinese", "We don't accept E-mail" This Print is Hazy"----)
these were not released till today -after paying 37.5% DutyonC.I.F. and
"Delayed Collection charges". In spite Of "Hon'ble Finance Minister
announcing Pre-Budget "We are pleased to reduce Duty on Capital goods
from 10% down t0 5% (on FOB).There is nobody to redress.
NEDFI-DONER-OXOMmp's-Assam Govt-Look East--all are Bekaar!
"Look East-" is also copied from Willy Brandt's Drang nach Osten(towards
USSR) in '70s .
"Look East " will be real only in Sovereign Oxom where the main Trade will
be from Kakopothar to Chengdu in 70 minute hops.
And when bargeloads of Yunnan Phosphorites will travel Da-li to Mytkina
-to Patkoi-to Luit valley daily.
mm
P.S. Pradip -maybe you would copy this to your big address list -to whom
you posted the original
------------------------------
From: *Pradip Kumar Datta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>*
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [email protected],NorthEastIndia <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,[EMAIL PROTECTED],"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,Wake up India
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <
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[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "[email protected]" <
[email protected]>,"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>*
Subject: *[Assam] Look East Policy and development of North East*
Date: *Fri, 19 Jan 2007 04:28:55 -0800 (PST)*
*Look East Policy and development of North East
**— Rejaul Karim Laskar*
*T*he agreement reached during the fifth India-ASEAN Summit held in Cebu,
Phillippines on January 14, 2007 on the proposed Free Trade Agreement– which
will be ready by July 2007– is a significant achievement of the Look East
Policy. It is to be hoped that such a free trade agreement will open the
door to new opportunities for the development of North East which has been
stagnating due to lack of economic development for the last six decades.
With the establishment of India-ASEAN Free Trade Area, the North East will
no longer be handicapped by the Physical inaccessibility from the rest of
India, the way it has been for the past six decades. Rather, it will be the
centre of this vast Free Trade Area
which may, in all probability, be one of the largest and most dynamic free
trade areas of the world in the twenty-first century.
Though in the first phase of the 'Look East Policy' - unveiled by the
Narsimha Rao Government in the early nineties– the Government of India
focused on renewing political and economic contacts with the countries of
East and South-East Asia, in the second phase of this policy the Government
of India is giving special emphasis on the economic development of backward
north eastern region of India taking advantage of huge market of ASEAN as
well as of the energy resources available in some of the member countries of
ASEAN like Myanmar.
The 'Look East Policy' started achieving success as early as in 1992. In
January 1992, India became able to establish the first institutional linkage
with ASEAN by becoming a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in specific
areas like trade, investment, science and technology and training. The
institutional
linkage was upgraded in 1995 when India became a full dialogue partner of
ASEAN. In 1996 the institutional linkage was further upgraded when India was
admitted in ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)– which deals with security issues and
has a tremendous clout in Asia Pacific region. India also became a founder
member of East Asia Summit and has participated in both first East Asia
Summit held in December 2005 and the just concluded second East Asia Summit
held on January 15, 2007. But upgradation of institutional linkage with
South East Asia is not the only benefit of the Look East Policy, but more
importantly, this policy has led to a steady expansion of India's trade and
investment links with the East and South East Asia region. From a meagre $
2.5 billion in 1993-94, India-ASEAN trade is now more than $21 billion.
But the most important beneficiary of this Look East Policy will,
obviously be the north eastern region of India. In the second phase of the
Look East Policy
the Government of India is giving special emphasis on the development of
North East by taking advantage of the physical contiguity of this region
with the ASEAN. With the admission of Myanmar into ASEAN in 1997, North East
has now become India's gateway to ASEAN. As the process of establishment of
India-ASEAN Free Trade Area progresses North East will have the potential to
become the hub of this future growth engine of Asia. But, of course, road,
rail and air linkages will have to be improved to realise this potential.
This is the reason why the Government of India is giving special emphasis on
improving the road connectivity between North East and Myanmar by investing
in transport infrastructure in North East as well as in Myanmar. India and
Thailand have also planned a trilateral project with Myanmar to link the
three nations through a road corridor. The India-ASEAN car rally held in
November 2004 was also a conscious effort to strengthen the road linkages
between ASEAN
and the North East.
The ASEAN-India Partnership for peace, progress and shared prosperity pact
signed by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh with leaders of the ASEAN
countries at the third India-ASEAN summit on Vientine on November 30, 2004,
which outlined a multi-pronged action plan for boosting trade, investment,
tourism, culture, sports and people to people contact will not only go a
long way towards economic integration between India and ASEAN but will also
facilitate development of the North East. The plan to 'build institutional
linkages for intelligence and information sharing, exchange of information
and cooperation in legal and enforcement matters' and to 'explore developing
anti-terrorism cooperation and assistance packages covering among others
immigration control, customs cooperation, land, air and sea safety' will
contribute immensely to curbing terrorism in North East.
Another dimension of Look East Policy is the Bay of Bengal Initiative for
Multi-Sectoral Economic and Technological Cooperation (BIMSTEC)
established in June 1997 as BIST-EC (Bangladesh-India- Sri Lanka-Thailand
Economic Co-operation) but renamed as BIMST-EC (Bangladesh-India-Myanmar-Sri
Lanka-Thailand– Economic Co-operation) in December 1997 and again renamed as
Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Economic and Technological
Cooperation (BIMSTEC) in July 2004. Presently its members are Bangladesh,
India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal. The members of this
grouping have also been working for quite some time for a Free Trade
Agreement among themselves. But the postponement of the second BIMSTEC
Summit, which was scheduled to be held on February 8, 2007 has given a
setback to this endeavour. Incidentally, the North East lies at the centre
of both the proposed India-ASEAN Free Trade Area and the BIMSTEC Free Trade
Area and has the potential to be a hub of these two future growth engines of
Asia.
(Source: Assam Tribune 19th January 2007)
------------------------------
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