Indian media hail maritime verdict
After a week of UN arbitral tribunal's verdict, NDTV for the first time yesterday reported that India was not "the loser" while news portal Firstpost termed the judgment a "diplomatic victory" for India.
In an article, Firstpost Consulting Editor Rajeev Sharma in the portal said a historic development has taken place a few days ago regarding the 40-year-old India-Bangladesh maritime dispute which has not been as intensely reported and commented upon in Indian media as it deserved.
"The verdict, binding on both countries, opens the way for Bangladesh to explore for oil and gas in the Bay of Bengal, and ends a dispute over a sea border with India that has ruffled ties between the neighbours," said NDTV, an Indian leading television channel, in a report posted on its website claiming that it has accessed an internal government of India note that suggests otherwise.
“So has India lost out?" mentioned the NDTV report adding, "Even though India believes the delimitation has been done in an arbitrary fashion, it is not the loser."
It said the control of the disputed New Moore Island (called South Talpatti in Bangladesh) and concomitant access to Hariabhanga river is a significant gain. The island, supposedly rich in oil and natural gas, has been a traditional sore point between the two countries.
The Hariabhanga river, which flows around the Sundarbans in West Bengal and borders Satkhira district of Bangladesh, and the region holds twice the amount of hydrocarbons as compared to the Krishna-Godavari basin in Andhra Pradesh, said the NDTV report.
The Firstpost said, "For India too it is a matter of satisfaction and also a diplomatic victory for several reasons." It cited three reasons of India's satisfaction. One is that the UN permanent court of arbitration acknowledged India's sovereignty over New Moore Island and grants India concomitant access to the Hariabhanga river.
The disputed region was near the mouth of the Hariabhanga river, an area of huge strategic importance for India in the coming decades, it said.
In 2006, India had discovered 100 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in a creek about 50km to the south of the mouth of the Hariabhanga within the contested region, mentioned Rajeev in the article.
The second reason, according to the article, is equally important for India. While it is true that Bangladesh has 'gained' close to twenty thousand square kilometers in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), India has reasons to be happy as the award has split the area in question in favour of India which is significantly closer to India's claim than to that of Bangladesh.
Thirdly, the article said this is good news for millions of Indian fishermen in West Bengal and Odisha as well as Bangladeshi fishermen as the settlement opens up miles of unchallenged open sea that was not available to them in past four decades.
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