Pointer to growing displeasure with govt’s India policy

THE comments made recently by two key figures of the Awami League-led ruling alliance — Workers’ Party of Bangladesh president Rashed Khan Menon and Jatiya Party chairman HM Ershad — about the actions and attitudes of the advisers to the prime minister vis-à-vis Bangladesh’s dealings with India, uncannily identical as they are, bring into focus, yet again, the question of these advisers’ accountability in particular and the government’s India policy in general. On Sunday, according to a report published in New Age on Monday, when addressing the House, Menon said the ‘way the advisers talk’ seemed to suggest that ‘they are no advisers to the [Bangladesh] prime minister; rather, they are advisers to the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh. The very next day, according to a report published in New Age on Tuesday, when addressing a street rally as part of his party’s long march from Dhaka to Feni, Ershad, a key ally of the AL-led government, said that ‘these advisers are not for Bangladesh, they are people of India’ and that ‘they do not talk for Bangladesh, they talk for India’, adding that ‘there is no need to have such advisers.’ The statements of Menon and Ershad seem to encapsulate increasing public displeasure with the advisers on the one hand and the government’s dealings with India on the other.

Notably, on more occasions than one in the past three years or so, the international affairs adviser, Gowher Rizvi, and the economic adviser, Mashiur Rahman, have made statements on issues related to the Bangladesh-India relations that have not gone down well with the people at large, especially the politically conscious sections of society. For example, at the height of the controversy over transit to India, Mashiur said in March 2011 imposing charges for shipment of Indian goods through Bangladesh would be ‘uncivilised’. 

Similarly, in the midst of intense public anger over India’s decision to go ahead with the construction of the Tipaimukh Dam on the trans-boundary river Barak, which, according to experts and environmentalists in both Bangladesh and India, would wreak havoc on the life and livelihood of the people on either side of the border, Rizvi commented that Bangladesh could benefit from the hydroelectric project. Such conclusions have naturally raised questions as to where the allegiance of these advisers lies.

Most importantly, such identical conclusions from ideologically and politically disparate sources within the ruling alliance should be an eye-opener for the incumbents as to how the people in general view its India policy and how unhappy they have become. Hence, besides reining in the advisers, the incumbents need to seriously rethink its policy towards India.

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Legal expert warns on mega dam

A meeting of environmental activists from South and South East Asian countries held at Manila, Philippines exposed serious flaws in the environmental impact assessments (EIA) of developmental policies and projects of governments and government agencies of these developing countries.

Besides environmental destruction caused due to such infrastructural and investment projects, people affected by such projects in the form of displacements, loss of livelihood, social and cultural impacts particularly the indigenous populations were the main concerns raised by the activists/campaigners.

Over the current protest against the Tipaimukh Dam, Hasan Mehedi an environment activist from Bangladesh told The Sangai Express that a spell of protest erupted in Bangladesh since the signing of the contract between Govt of Manipur/Govt of India, the National Hydro Electric Power Corporation and the Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd.

The activist said that the concern on Bangladesh side is the draining of the Barak river, the main source of water and apprehension of floods in the plains .

"Tipaimukh dam is a serious case" said Ritwick Dutta, a Delhi based legal expert on environment.

Speaking to The Sangai Express, the legal expert informed that projects need two environment clearances before approval, under the EIA Act of 2006 Act and 2007, both of which the expert said have not been challenged in regard to the Tipaimukh dam either in the High Court nor the Environment Court.

Explaining the seriousness of the impact of the dam, he warned that the calculation of the forests land to be cleared is actually twice the size of the estimate including 26000 hectares for the project, an additional land of similar size for resettlement of the displaced.

"All of which requires separate clearance each" said Dutta.

" 84 lakh trees will have to be cut down " he added.

He further stated that the process requires diversion of forest into non forest land prior to the approval of the project, the permission for which is given by the State Government.

"The Central Government cannot force it" said the legal expert.

Over the question of protest against the construction of the dam and issues raised by people in Manipur and also in Bangladesh the legal expert said "they have a strong ground" .

Affirming that the impact would be severe, Dutta said "diversion of 26000 hectares of forest land is unparalleled as far as the damage is concerned" .

According to Dutta, the compensation for diversion of forest land into a non forest land is approximately Rs 5-10 lakhs per hectare .

Rickwick Dutta stated that on the official records of meetings between the two countries, Bangladesh had put forward before the Indian Government (and Govt of Manipur) that there should be a minimum damage on the Bangladesh side, which was agreed and assured by the later.

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Indian River Link Project: A Death Sentence For Bangladesh

There was a time only a decade or two back when we would laugh, hearing that foreigners in the West were so fastidious that they used to buy even bottles of branded drinking water from shops. Water as a salable commodity was unthinkable to us because in the past we found pure drinking water abundantly and easily available absolutely for free in our unpolluted wells, ponds and rivers in addition to whatever quantity of water that was needed for our irrigation, agricultural and farming purposes. But now, even a poor rickshaw-puller in Bangladesh may feel a little hesitant to drink water from an open faucet on the street other than at least from a sealed sachet of drinking water for a small price, if not from a branded bottle.

With countries like China and India building dams after dams to produce electricity and reserve water and linking rivers after rivers in the up-stream to divert water to their drought-prone areas, it may just be a matter of time, you never know, when along with other products like gold, silver, petroleum, etc. bottles and drums of water, as a precious mineral or material, may also be traded on regulated commodities exchanges and in the futures markets.

The whole world is facing the scarcity of water though water is the most plentiful natural resources on our planet. The fact is, although two-thirds of the Earth is covered by water, 97 per cent of water is held by oceans that are saline water while only 3.0 per cent is sweet and freshwater. And, only 1.0 per cent of freshwater is easily accessible to humans, birds and animals as ground and surface water as the remaining 2.0 per cent is stored deep in the glaciers and icecaps. Moreover, freshwater is not evenly distributed across land surfaces. Water is a fundamental element of life whose preciousness requires diligent management.

However, the countries that are facing the acutest shortage of freshwater are the heavily populated ones like China, India and Bangladesh.

With water shortages around the world reaching real crisis levels, water may soon become the most contentious issue to trigger the next World War which may aptly be termed "Water War". Nations which would feel threatened with deprivation of their due share of river water may be tempted to resolve the problem through mutually assured destructive combats and may thus divert their resources to build up their military strength in case an existentialist "Water War" becomes inevitable. International law has already proven inadequate in defending a country's claim of equal or equitable share of water supplies in some parts of the world.

It is quite understandable that every country has every right to use water from the river that is flowing through their land and a country may also dig rivulets and canals to divert water to drier parts of their land. A country should also have a right to erect a dam on a river to harness hydropower. But, erecting a dam to divert river water to a different region depriving people of a different country in the lower riparian zone is like depriving them of their age-old birth rights. River waters, like air, should be allowed to flow in their natural courses, helping nourish the riparian habitats, vegetation, woodlands and ecosystems.

China has constructed a gigantic dam, the one and half miles wide 'Three Gorges Dam', near Yichang to help control the flooding of the Yangtze River Valley that will also be the largest electricity generating facility in the world, providing one-ninth of China's total power output. Although there is a lot of controversy surrounding the construction of the dam in terms of destroying hundreds of villages and factories, thousands of acres of agricultural lands and causing extinction of some rare species of Asian birds and animals, the construction of the colossal dam is justifiable from the perspective of China's greater interest. Plus, the dam is not directly affecting the interests and livelihood of people living in any of its neighbouring countries, such as Mongolia, Kazakhstan, India, Nepal, Burma, Vietnam and Korea.

But, we were extremely concerned when a government spokesman of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh just the other day expressed his apprehension that China could have diverted the water of the Brahmaputra river, which is known as Yarlong Tsangpo in Tibet, as Brahmaputra water has nearly dried in Arunachal Pradesh. India is always extremely nervous about the danger of its giant northern neighbor diverting rivers that originate in Tibet and flow into India, or disrupting their flow with hydroelectric plants.

Bangladeshis had also reasons to be worried because Yarlung Tsangpo, is a watercourse that originates at Tamlung Tso Lake in western Tibet, southeast of Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar. It later flows through the South Tibet Valley and YarlungTsangpo Grand Canyon, before entering India at Tuting in Arunachal, taking the name of Brahmaputra in Assam and then enters Bangladesh. The 2,900-kilometre-long river ultimately joins the Meghna River before emptying into the Bay of Bengal, along the way supplying water to hundreds of millions of farmers and residents of India and Bangladesh.

However, much to our great relief, China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei, while talking to reporters on 2nd March, denied that a dam China was building on a major river in Tibet that could impact the lower reaches of the waterway. India too said that the apprehensions expressed by the Arunachal Pradesh government spokesman about a possible diversion of the Brahmaputra river by China "is not correct and is devoid of facts". "China pays attention to the impact on the lower stream regions when developing its water resources", Hong Lei said, adding that Chinese officials had briefed India on its development of the Yarlung Tsangpo.

"China pays attention to the impact on the lower stream regions when developing its water resources" -such a statement from China sounds like music not only to the ears of Indians, but also to the ears of Bangladeshis. Shouldn't Bangladesh expect that India, now poised to be a great power, also assured its neighbouring countries in the lower stream of their due shares of water in the similar tone? But the reality tells us a different story.

Last Monday, Indian Supreme Court gave a positive ruling regarding implementation of Indian River Link Project that will redirect the flow of the Brahmaputra and the Ganges rivers towards the south and western parts of India, depriving Bangladesh of its much needed share of water. Some experts believe that at a time when northern part of Bangladesh has already turned into a kind of a desert by the impact of Farakka Barrage and Bangladesh is still bearing the punishing impact of water diversion from the Ganges and Teesta, the new Indian "River Link Project" at an estimated cost of RS 5000 billion (500,000 crore) is designed to turn the whole of Bangladesh into a barren land.

While China assured that they would not build any dam that may negatively impact the riparian people on the banks of Brahmaputra, India's plan to go ahead with the River Link Project diverting the course of 30 major rivers, including Brahmaputra, will cause an apocalyptic havoc to Bangladesh which gets about two-thirds of its dry season water from the Brahmaputra River.

It is beneficial for both India and Bangladesh to maintain a lasting friendly relationship on mutual understanding. Bangladesh should allow India transit facility provided Bangladesh is benefited not only in terms of transit fees but also for building the infrastructures of roads, waterways and highways. The amount of annual savings India would make by using the transit facility through Bangladesh should not be less than 50 billion dollar. How many billions of dollars will Bangladesh get from India, not as loan, but as non-refundable grant in exchange of transit facility?

Bangladeshis in general would like to see that every deal with India, including transit, corridor and trade should be linked with fair share of common river waters.

Bangladeshis may in the near future stand poised between life and death due to an unprecedented scarcity of water in their own home that once was brimmed with sweet water nourishing their land and made it famous for floras and faunas and many other aquatic treasures and abundances.

There is a time when humans are not tired of marching a long distance or afraid of losing their life when their very survival is at stake. A dying man clutches at any straw, hoping for survival. The day as such is perhaps not far away when Bangladeshi people may become environmental refugees.

Water, the basic building block for life, is so vital that Bangladeshis, if they are trapped in a land totally robbed of water, would envy the Indians thinking how happy they are with water in abundance and may curse their own fate. Such fatalistic philosophy on the part of a people of a neighboring country may not augur well also for India.

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A Grand Joint Misadventure

An NTPC power plant at the edge of the Sunderbans is the worst advertisement for Indo-Bangladesh ties

THIS MAY sound familiar. A government acquiring land for a mega project even before the court has decided on its merit, or its impact on the environment and local communities has been assessed. Till we come to the dumbfounding bit: the location of this 1,320 MW coal-based power plant. The $1.5 billion project is coming up just 9 km from the Sunderbans, one of the earth’s rarest ecosystems and a UNESCO world heritage site. The project site is on the Bangladesh side of the vibrant mangrove delta but it is going to be run on Indian coal by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), one of India’s Navratna companies.

It all began in 2010 with an MoU between NTPC and the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDP) for setting up a power plant in Bangladesh’s Bagerhat district. The site, perilously close to the Sunderbans and about 60 km from the Indo-Bangla border, was apparently chosen because of its proximity to the Mongla port, convenient for importing coal required for the plant.

In 2011, Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) moved the high court, which issued a stay order on the project only to withdraw it temporarily following a petition by the Attorney General. Then the Department of Environment (DoE) issued a primary location clearance, subject to an environmental impact assessment (EIA) study. Bangladesh had paid NTPC $2,50,000 in 2010 for conducting a feasibility study. The report submitted in April 2011 did not include any EIA.

Instead, Bangladesh allocated the equivalent of Rs 25 crore to acquire 1,834 acres in three villages of Lubachora in Rampal. Since January 2012, according to local media reports, Rs 1 crore (Tk Rs 2.5 crore) worth has already been distributed among 67 landowners. Then, on 29 January, NTPC Chairman Arup Roy Chowdhury and BPDB Chairman ASM Alamgir Kabir signed a 50:50 joint venture (JV) agreement. Already, the authorities are preparing to dredge 10 km of the Poshur river for easier access to ships carrying coal for the plant.

All this while a final court verdict is awaited, an EIA study yet to be commissioned and the funding of the project uncertain. Under the JV agreement, BPDP and NTPC will finance 15 percent each of the $1.5 billion project and the rest will be funded by loans. But international funding agencies such as World Bank do not finance projects without EIA clearances.

On its website, NTPC highlights its “commitment to environment”. But its Sunderbans plant will burn lakhs of tonnes of coal and spew massive amounts of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide (Indian coal is very high on sulphur content) and fly ash. The plant will discharge used hot water in the Poshur river, polluting the entire water system, the lifeline of the Sunderbans, downstream. A coal plant’s sludge waste contains hazardous metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead.

The cumulative impact on the flora and fauna of the Sunderbans will be devastating. The livelihood and health of 20,000 local fishermen, and possibly many more across the delta, will also be jeopardised.

“Indian laws will not allow such a project so close to the Sunderbans or, for that matter, any tiger reserve or biological hotspot. This plant may have serious consequences for the entire Sunderbans ecology, which is a shared heritage and cannot be managed in isolation. It is surprising that the project is moving ahead without a thorough EIA,” says PK Sen, former director of Project Tiger.

The NTPC website claims the plant will use “super critical technology” to “minimise pollution and environmental damage”. But that does not begin to reflect the impact of that minimised damage on the Sunderbans.

Contacted by TEHELKA, NTPC twice sought “more time” and is yet to answer queries on the project’s EIA, funding and threat potential. It is busy celebrating the “landmark in bilateral economic cooperation” which, if implemented, will result in an ecological disaster, a landmark Indo-Bangla ties would do well to avoid.

BY :  Jay Mazoomdaar. 

WATER ISSUES : Delhi doesn’t care a fig for Dhaka

The Indian Supreme Court has asked the central government to quickly execute its ‘River Link Project’ which plans to divert waters from the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers to its vast hinterland depriving Bangladesh in the downstream from its legitimate shares from these common rivers.

 

The Indian government plans to set up inter-basin linkages by building 30 new river linking canals in the upstream of Bangladesh borders although these steps will emerge as he biggest threat to the country’s sustenance.

Experts said if the project is implemented, which the Indian supreme court said should be carried out in ‘time bound manner’, it will turn half of Bangladesh into salinity-affected region as sea water will advance upwards in the mainland in absence of sweet water flow from the upstream rivers.

 

On the other hand the rest half of the country, that is the northwest Bangladesh, will slowly turn into sandy desert from drying soil as is already visible in desertification of the Rajshahi region.  

 

Thus the friendship which Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is earnestly trying to build with India is turning into a one-way traffic bringing a strange feeling to the nation as to why India is slighting her efforts. Why is Delhi bringing all such embarrassments to her government?

 

She is giving transit and corridor facilities to India and making all such strategic concessions to Delhi hoping that India will reciprocate it with yet bigger gestures to Bangladesh’s socio-political and economic development. She is even ignoring the domestic opposition to her India-appeasement policies. 

 

But the kind of return which Delhi is putting back to Bangladesh Prime Minister’s end is not only making her rapidly unpopular but also bringing risk to her government and her own future political stake. 

 

Analysts wonder why Sheikh Hasina is not learning from the Indian replies to her unilateral moves to win India’s heart and mind, while Delhi is working on long-term strategies aiming at punishing Bangladesh in many ways, including withdrawing water from the major rivers turning the country into a water-starved territory facing grave environmental hazards. 

 

India is not only backtracking from signing the Teesta Water sharing treaty now, or land swap at the border but also new questions have been raised recently on the Ganges water sharing treaty which, Bangladesh complaints, Delhi has imposed on it without giving the due share of water to Dhaka.  

 

Initially Indian proposal was made in Dhaka in April 18, 1975, that the feeder canal at Farakka should be run “on a trial basis” during the current period of low flow while continuing discussion on the ways of ensuring equitable share of the Ganges water between the two countries.

 

Afterwards the trial run assumed a permanent status and yet India appears not happy. In this background, the Indian government’s new river linking project is giving the impression that Delhi may want a kind of friendship with Bangladesh—-largely covered with sand and salinity—- depriving her from share of its legitimate water in the common rivers. 

 

The water blockade is emerging on all fronts. Even in the northeast, India is building the Tipaimukh Dam to regulate the natural water flow to downstream Bangladesh in the Sylhet region to use the reserves both for irrigation and electricity generation. 

 

Moreover, it appears that one of the major objectives of the river linking project is to divert water from the northeast where annual rainfall stands at 3,500 mm in the monsoon, to western zones. 

 

It means the Tipaimukh dam may also work as a reservoir to pass water to the Western front bypassing Bangladesh and drying the Meghna and its tributaries. Observers said wondering whether India is virtually working on a war on water in a subtle way while holding a extremely friendly and faithful government in Dhaka which feels shy even to protest Delhi’s wrong doings. 

 

But critics wonder why Sheikh Hasina is not taking the cautious moves to protect the country’s interest not only by taking diplomatic moves but also taking the issue to domestic politics at the people’s level. What is her stake in making Delhi unhappy while the Indian government is taking all measures, one after another, much to the disadvantage of the nation and even undermining her own political foundation at the grassroots level.  

 

New reports said India is currently building a dam at Bihar along with building a river link between the Fulhar and the Mechi rivers. It will obstruct flow to the Teesta, the Mahananda, the Dharla and the Dudkumar even during the monsoon season drying Rangpur region putting its biodiversity and agriculture at serious risks. 

 

Moreover the diversion of water from the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, which is known as the Jamuna in Bangladesh, will largely affect two major Bangladesh rivers such as the Padma and the Meghna.

       

Salinity will affect even Managing, Kustia, Goalanda, Bhairab and even Dhaka will be severely affected with water level dipping at river Buriganga and Sitalakhya, said water expert Dr.Ainun Nishat and Imamul Haque.

 

In fact biodiversity of one-half of Bangladesh including the natural mangroves of the Sundarbans will be ruined. Agriculture, fisheries, livestock and people’s livelihood at all levels will be severely affected if India withdraws water without allowing the flows of the common rivers to the downstream. 

 

India always assures Bangladesh that nothing will be done without holding talks with Dhaka but the reality is that they are unilaterally doing things ignoring what concerns Bangladesh. 

 

Even Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Sing during his visit to Dhaka in September last year assured Sheikh Hasina that they will not take any action on Tipaimukh which may hurt Bangladesh. 

 

Yet Delhi has signed the contract to build the dam keeping Dhaka in the dark. So also with regard to river linking project, Delhi has always assured Dhaka on strong protest and yet they are moving with their scheme without informing Dhaka. 

 

Dhaka is keeping trust in Delhi but Delhi’s actions are otherwise. People wonder what Sheikh Hasina will tell the nation how she is planning to protect the country’s vital interest. 

 

 Elections are not far away and opposition leader and BNP chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia made a pointed warning recently saying water issue will dominate the future course of Indo-Bangla relations. No Teesta waters, no transit, she said pointing to new controversies that await the future relations of the two nations.

 

BY : Faruque Ahmed.