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Challenges at BIMSTEC

Kathmandu : The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit.
2016: BRICS-BIMSTEC Outreach Summit
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) stagnation.
This limited both the scope of India’s growing economic aspirations as well as the role it could play in improving regional governance.
2014: India proposed the SAARC Motor Vehicles Agreement. Pakistan resisted and the idea failed.
This compelled Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal (BBIN) to sign the BBIN Motor Vehicles Agreement in 2015.
Pakistan also opted out of the ambitious SAARC Satellite project proposed by India, leading to a change in its name to the South Asia Satellite.
There is a tendency in some quarters to see India’s interests in BIMSTEC as part of its strategy to isolate Pakistan and position BIMSTEC as an alternative to SAARC.
The main motivation for India to push BIMSTEC is thus not Pakistan; rather, it is in the country’s interest to ensure that the region does not lag behind and that an unstable neighborhood does not drag its growth. India’s desire to link South Asia to the economically dynamic Southeast Asia is also part of this strategy.
India is currently the largest contributor to the BIMSTEC secretariat’s budget.
2017-18: 32% or ₹2cr • Indian dominance or smaller nations ganging up?
India and its economic rise: all neighbors can benefit out of it
India will have to carefully navigate the emerging regional geopolitics, as many of the elements that made SAARC hostage to political rivalry and turned it into a defunct mechanism can reemerge in BIMSTEC

A people’s campaign to rebuild Kerala

The material loss due to the Kerala floods has been estimated at ₹26,000 crore, but beyond this there has been an immense loss of natural, human, and social capital for which no estimates are available.
The immediate task in the State is relief and rehabilitation, but it is crucial to simultaneously identify the root causes of the havoc.
Flouting of laws: safeguard natural capital
Shah Commission: illegal mining in Goa
Degradation of human capital: in terms of health and employment
Coca Cola factory: overuse and pollution of water resources
Scientific knowledge and advice: continually disregarded • Serious erosion of social capital.
We must enhance the sum total of man-made, natural, human and social capital.
Our Western Ghats panel proposes several such incentives — for example, payment of conservation service charges for protecting important elements of biodiversity such as sacred groves (called Sarpa Kavus in Kerala), and payment towards soil carbon enrichment by switching to organic farming.
Implement the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments in letter and spirit.
Let people decide type of environment they want: Biodiversity Management Committees
This will be a broad-based inclusive approach to conservation and development, and will be in the spirit of the People’s Plan Campaign of the 1990s in Kerala, which was spearheaded by the State Finance Minister, Thomas Isaac.

How not to do an environmental assessment

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) are a critical component of India’s environmental decision-making process.
The EIA reports are also important to define measures that the project could take in order to contain or offset project impacts.
The consultant for the Nauroji Nagar project has used material from copyrighted papers, webpages and other EIA reports.
It even mentions that the water quality study was undertaken in 2015, one year before the project was commissioned to NBCC.
Such research practices in EIAs continue unabated because of the Environment Ministry’s failure to come down heavily on this. In the end, it is citizens who have to bear the brunt.
EIA-based approvals for most projects also involve the process of conducting public hearings in order that the views and opinions of people who are likely to be affected can be taken on board before a decision to approve the project is made.
In a world that is challenged by environmental degradation and social conflicts, scholars have upheld public participation to be a “threshold condition” for development.
The Delhi High Court that is hearing this matter must ensure that these redevelopment projects reapply for approvals as a single integrated one, and in accordance with the law.

Power play

The RBI decision, of February 12, requires banks to complete insolvency resolution proceedings within 180 days of defaults.
Across the banking system, about 70 firms with loans of around ₹3.8 lakh crore outstanding were expected to face insolvency proceedings.
Thirty-four of the troubled accounts are from the power sector and constitute nearly 54% (or ₹2.02 lakh crore) of banks’ exposure in these cases, according to the credit rating agency ICRA.
A Power Ministry report suggests these power producers have planned generation capacities of 39 gigawatts, and are in trouble.
fuel shortages
absence of power purchase agreements signed by State discoms
delayed clearances
Heartening that the High Court refused to give relief.

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