[Reader-list] Fwd: Reminder: 21 & 22 March meetings (tomorrow and day after)

[Rakhi Sehgal]

FYI
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: psaarc india <psaarc.india at gmail.com>
Date: 20 March 2014 14:47
Subject: Reminder: 21 & 22 March meetings (tomorrow and day after)
To:


Dear Friends,

A quick reminder about the two meetings we are organizing on 21 and 22
March in New Delhi.

*21 March,* *2-6pm* - Roundtable on India's Look East Policy titled
'Looking East through the Northeast: People's Perspectives'  at *NFI
Conference Room, India Habitat Centre (Core 4A, Upper Ground Floor)*

*22 March,* *9am-5:30pm *- A symposium on 'South Asian Water Commons:
People's Visions on Transboundary River Sharing' at S
*peakers Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg.*

We hope to see you there.

Regards,
Rakhi & Vishnu


*Annexure 1:*



*ROUNDTABLE ON*

*Looking East through the Northeast: People's Perspectives*



*21 March 2014, Friday*

*2pm - 6 pm*



*NFI Conference Room*

*India Habitat Centre (Core 4A, Upper Ground Floor)*

* New Delhi*



*Organized by*

*People's SAARC-India*



Although the *Look East Policy* emerged as one of the prominent foreign
policy initiatives India launched in the aftermath of the Cold War in
1991-92. Yet, after nearly a quarter century of the policy initiative there
has been no policy paper that defines the contours of engagement nor is
there a clear perspective on how it can involve the people and states of
the Northeast.



According to some analysts in the second phase of the *Look East Policy*,
since 2003, India has sought to engage with ASEAN through LEP and inclusion
in regional forums such as the ASEAN, APEC and the BIMSTEC as a way to
escape the SAARC which came to be held hostage to its volatile relations
with Pakistan.



The *Look East Policy* was meant to be a major shift in India's policy
priorities by boosting trade, security and cultural ties with its ASEAN
neighbours and helping the region overcome the handicap of its landlocked
and peripheral condition by opening up access to global markets. The
Northeast was meant to be 'reinvented' through the efforts of the Ministry
of Development of the North Eastern Region (MDoNER).



Analysts such as Samir Kumar Das highlight the gaze that India's LEP casts
on the Northeast and 'how it constitutes and imagines into existence a
space that extends beyond the region'. Others point out the persisting
notion of a frontier inherited from the British colonial legacy that
continues to dominate the construction of the perception towards the region
by the ruling classes of post-colonial Indian State. The issue of
historical and cultural 'otherness' and alienation from the rest of India
has captured attention in recent days due to the continuing discrimination
and attacks on people from the Northeast.



Security fears have also shaped the developmental strategies (or lack of
them) in the region. One that also posed a significant challenge in
realizing the vision of the LEP was the lack of physical infrastructure and
connectivity between India's Northeast and Southeast Asia. Thus India
initiated a number of infrastructure projects - both bilateral and
multilateral - such as the Moreh-Tamu--Kalewa Road, India-Myanmar-Thailand
Trilateral Highway, Trans Asian Highway, India-Myanmar rail linkages,
Kaladan Multimodal project, the Stilwell road, Myanmar-India-Bangladesh gas
and/or oil pipeline, Tamanthi Hydroelectricity project and optical fiber
network between Northeast India and Southeast Asia to name some.



However, the Northeast region has been caught in a discourse that either
looks at it in terms of a gateway to boost economic development for India
(not the Northeast) or as a site of insurgency, counter insurgency and
widespread unrest, including ethnic conflicts.



Lost in these complex constructions around economic (trade, commerce) and
security concerns of the post-colonial Indian State is the neglect of the
concerns of the people of the Northeast, the impact of these development
and infrastructure projects on the livelihoods and environment of the
region for example. There are fears that the opening up of the economy of
the Northeast will reduce it further to a market for the developing
economies of Southeast Asia just as it has been a market for mainland India
and in the process destroy the mostly subsistence economy and fragile
household industries of the region.



The roundtable will seek to understand the LEP through the lens of the
Northeast and how the LEP can be democratized to ensure that concerns of
the people of the Northeast are incorporated and addressed even as the
Government of India 'reaches' out to its eastern neighbours.





*Annexure 2:*

*On the occasion of World Water Day 2014*



*A SYMPOSIUM ON*



*SOUTH ASIAN WATER COMMONS:*

*PEOPLE'S VISIONS ON TRANSBOUNDARY RIVER SHARING*



*22 MARCH 2014*

*9.00am-5:30pm*



*Constitution Club*

*New Delhi*





*Organised by*



*People's SAARC-India*

*South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People &*

*ActionAid India*



 *The South Asia region is characterised by numerous river basins,* *that
do not coincide with national boundaries. Many of these basins* *are shared*
 *between countries of unequal size and power*. Sharing waters of
transboundary river systems has been a source of ongoing tensions and
conflicts in the region for more than half a century. Further, China's
growing use of the eastern Himalayan waters is a source of concern.



Nearly all the water in Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan comes from
a river shared with at least one other South Asian state. India's
trans-boundary riparian policies affect four countries - Pakistan, Nepal,
Bhutan and Bangladesh - on four river systems - the Kosi, the Indus, the
Ganga and the Brahmaputra. China's riparian policies affect nine countries
to the south - Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand,
Cambodia and Vietnam - on five river systems - the Indus, the Ganga, the
Brahmaputra, the Salween and the Mekong.



Bhutan, India and China are planning inter-basin water transfers to feed
their rapid economic expansion through hydropower dam constructions.
Hydropower and dam projects impact local communities in upstream and
downstream, livelihoods, cultures, lands, rivers, forests, biodiversity and
disaster potential of the river basins. There are no credible - project
specific or basin level - impact assessments, mitigation plans or
compliance systems in place with free, prior and informed involvement of
the basin communities. These impacts are accentuating the climate change
impacts and adaptation capacity of the communities. Whatever benefits are
generated from these projects, they are largely going to outside the
affected region.



The onging inter-state conflicts over water have not necessarily addressed
issues that impact ordinary people of South Asia - their access to water
and impact on livelihoods for example. The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basin
covering North Eastern and Eastern India, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh, in
addition to upstream China, Nepal, and Bangladesh has been dubbed South
Asia's "poverty square", with substantially more people below the
dollar-per-day poverty line than in all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa
combined.

There is an urgent need to evolve a regional policy and mechanism on water
commons that work transparently, with accountability, and with
participation of local people and impacted people, (especially the more
vulnerable such as dalits, women, minorities, farmers and peasants) along
with ensuring sustainability of the water commons, ecology and biodiversity.



The SAARC's energy policy is also pushing for harnessing hydropower on
these rivers, sometimes with UN funding of hydropower and other projects
under the UNFCCC's Clean Development Mechanism and funding from other
bilateral and multilateral aid agencies, so there is need to evaluate and
propose an alternative approach, maybe a 'South Asian Water Commons
Convention' that takes into account equity, justice, sustainability and
livelihood concerns.





-- 
People's SAARC (PSAARC) India Secretariat
O-63, Second Floor, Lajpat Nagar II
New Delhi 110024
Ph: 011-41328040
Email: psaarc.india at gmail.com
Blog: www.psaarcindia.wordpress.com <https://psaarcindia.wordpress.com/>