Modi raises a contegious issue in SAARC

Quite surprisingly, Modi raises a very sensitive issue of Mumbai attack in his  SAARC address on last Wednesday i.e 26th instant. He says that type of heinous attack in the form of a crime is to be curbed by the cooperation and support of all the member countries of SAARC  unanimously. As per Modi, this attack on Mumbai could happen in any other countries, causing enormous casualties and so, all the members must come forward to combat terrorism and trans-national crimes of this nature.

In the SAARC meeting, Modi tried not to make any direct contact with Pakistan's Prime Minister Sheriff and in his this effort, he was successful at least for the first two days. Even though, they shared the podium, but they were not in any communique except the customary pleasantries. His this move was purposeful to avoid any unpleasant confabulations with the Pakistan’s PM. Although Modi met all the Prime Ministers of all the countries and discussed various political and economical issues in details, he was not that keen to have a meaningful dialogue with Pakistan’s PM.

Modi vehemently raised the issue of barbaric and unjustified crime of taking the lives of  poor civilians and common folks by this terrorism. In line with his thought, he appealed to all the nations of the SAARC to pledge their full support to arrest this terrorism. This undemocratic way of disturbing the peaceful lives of the citizen must be stopped and without taking anybody’s name, he has explained his views to the gathering. All the members have understood  Modi’s inkling.

The 18^th SAARC summit of the first day ended with a disturbing news that Pakistans had blocked India’s stance by expressing their reservation for three key agreements between the SAARC countries, one of which is very important and is related to establishing a regional power grid for common and mutual benefit. In fact, all most all the countries were interested to sign an agreement to improve upon the connectivity and trade operations of power in the region. It would have been  definitely brought an economical upliftment and progress between these countries. Pakistan did not ratify to this agreement showing the reason that they require more time to discuss internally. Pakistan’s lackluster behavior, in this respect, created an annoyance  between the members of SAARC. The members  raised this issue again on 27^th instant and as usual Pakistan did not bulge from their earlier  stance. Lastly, almost all the members decided, in principle, that a regional power grid must be established.

Though, both the leaders of India and Pakistan exchanged some pleasantries, but most of the time, they were seemed not to be very friendly and engaged in fruitful discussions. People in India, of course, except that both the leaders would exchange their views on many issues related to political to financial changes between India and Pakistan. But it was not what was anticipated by many. Except, of a smile clubbed with a not so warm handshake, nothing important in terms of cordial talks took place. The issue of terrorism, apart from Modi, was also raised by Bhutan and Afghanistan and in their respective speeches, they condemned the undemocratic and unlawful  behavior of any country, who is advocating terrorism. The Afghan President Ashraf Ghani spoke about the need to stop this atrocity arise out of terrorism and he would not allow anybody to wage a disturbance on its territory.

One of the prominent SAARC members, namely Nepal has raised the issue of China  for  its case of full membership of SAARC. Sheriff pointed out in his address that the grouping of all the countries could benefit from greater interaction with observer countries like China. Sheriff identified that China, South Asia and Central Asia are the three zones, which are slated to be in the path of vigorous growth in the near future.

From the speech of Modi, who is the main focus of the summit, it is evident that he wants a consensus between all the  SAARC countries to reduce the terrorism, focus more for the growth of this particular zone and to initiate a deep bonding between all the countries of SAARC to establish a common platform to introduce many changes for their respective country and their countrymen.