General Awareness Updates – December 2009

Places in News

In an unprecedented move, Bangladesh has deported two top leaders of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) to India. Sashadhar Choudhury, ULFA’s Foreign Secretary, and Finance Secretary Chitraban Hazarika have been sent to ten days police custody by a Guwahati court.

The ULFA, estimated to have a depleted strength of around 700-800 combatants, is now left with only three leaders, Chairman Arabina Rajkhowa, Commander-in-Chief Paresh Barua and his deputy Raju Barua.

In 2006, New Delhi called off a truce with the ULFA when the security forces realised that the rebels used the ceasefire to regroup. The ULFA accuse New Delhi of plundering the region’s mineral and forest resources, neglecting local economy and giving them back nothing in return.

India says that ULFA rebels have found safe havens in Bangladesh over the last two decades. Bangladesh had earlier denied such allegations. But the Awami League government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has assured New Delhi of its cooperation in evicting Indian separatists from Bangladesh.

The National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) has confirmed that construction was on at the Zangmu site on the Chinese side of Brahmaputra river, prompting the government to take up the matter with China at a ‘political’ level’. Brahmaputra is called by the Chinese as the Yarlungzangbo (and as Yarlong Tsangpo by the Tibetans).

In its presentation to the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) formed to assess Chinese plans regarding possible diversion of Brahmaputra’s water, the NRSA presented evidence of “houses, construction / excavation, and movement of trucks” in and around a 3-4 km range at the site.

Accordingly, the CoS, headed by Cabinet Secretary K. M. Chandrasekhar, decided that the issue was too significant to be handled by the expert-level mechanism on flood-water data-sharing. Instead, it decided that it would be better to tackle the issue at the political level through the Ministry of External Affairs. The meeting of the CoS, also attended by RAW chief K. C. Verma, representatives of Environment, Water, Power, and External Affairs Ministries, decided to “constantly monitor” various aspects of the construction through different sub-groups set up by the CoS. The CoS also decided that a subgroup on power should coordinate with all departments concerned to “expedite” hydro-power projects in Arunachal Pradesh.

Analysts said it is possible that construction was for a water storage project. However, the real intention of the project isn’t very clear. It is learnt that the Zangmu hydroelectrical project was inaugurated on March 16 this year and the first concrete was poured on April 2. The proposed dam was planned to generate 540 MW; its height at 116 m, length 389.5 m, width at the top 19 m and at the bottom, 76 m.

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had taken up this matter with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao on the sidelines of the ASEAN-India and East Asia Summit in October 2009. The construction raised concerns as there is no treaty between the two countries over trans-boundary rivers. Both set up an expert level group in 2006 to discuss sharing of flood-related data.