It changes before
you look…
Today
morning, an article appeared in Pakistani newspaper ‘The Dawn’. The link for
the article is also provided below. During the day, I could collect a few more
threads also. The prominent of them are summarised below.
a) China, as appeared in the article of ‘The Dawn’,
is going to invest $290 billion in the petroleum sector and another $120
billion in infrastructure sector on Iran. It also will have the first right of
refusal on all projects in Iran and a 12 per cent guaranteed discount on energy
imports from there.
b) India had taken up development of Chabahar port
to serve as the land-gateway to middle east in general and Afghanistan in the
immediate short run. It always had its ups and downs. But presently the work
has slowed down significantly.
c) As of late April, India had dropped its
dependency on Iranian oil from about 2.5 billion tonnes a month to 1 million
tonnes a month, the Economic Times reported on 24th May, 2019.
d) India has been consistently opposing CPEC,
because it passes through Gilgit-Baltistan. There has been an opposition to
this ambitious project in Baluchistan also. Baloch rebels have been attacking
the worksites of the project. Pakistani analysts are actually divided on the
benefits, particularly financial, arising from this project to them. But China
is pushing it in spite of all odds.
e) There has been a widespread feeling in the
subcontinent, that after the virtual abrogation of article 370 by India, POK
could turn out to be the centre stage of next action. The feeling, at present,
seems to be only a popular sentiment. But Kashmir is an unpredictable area.
f) There was a widespread scepticism in India that
her efforts in the recreation of Afghanistan have been ditched by the peace
negotiations between the Taliban and the US government. The negotiations
neither included India nor appeared to have addressed India’s concerns about
post-US Afghanistan. However, the process has abruptly been called off. The US
President has declared that the process is ‘dead’ and US would not allow a free
hand to Taliban in Afghanistan.
g) It appears that the US President is creating a
calculated confusion on his stand on Kashmir. He has been a cause of
contradictory statements on this matter.
h) It is rumoured that Indian Defence Minister,
during his visit to South Korea, has requested Korean companies to pack up from
POK and Gilgit-Baltistan.
The threads
have just been collected and posted as they appeared from time to time. I get a
strong feeling that these threads are interconnected in some way or the other.
The link, however, is not catchable so far, at least to me.
