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Be Aware of the Burmese Conscription Plans in Shan State
Where is happiness in Burma for Waso festival ?
Monks, generals and karma
A talking shop – or an EU of the east?
To go or not to go?
The dark side of paradise
Thai Army pushes back Karen refugees
TBBC's monthly e-Letter
PowerGrid Corp transmission network to light up Myanmar
India plans to import 1 MT of pulses from Myanmar
Bangladesh may turn to Myanmar for rice import'

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Be Aware of the Burmese Conscription Plans in Shan State

The Burmese regime plans for recruitment in Shan, Karenni, Karen, Kachin, Chin, Arakan and Mon states.  

The regime will document family members in each household. The regime will persuade or threaten villagers in to join. On the other hand, the junta wants to be ensured that members of the anti-Burmese Army, are not present in the villages.  

Many times, the fighters dress up and disguise as villagers whilst operating in the villages. Persons who are not in the family list, will be punished if found.

After getting the list, the Burmese Army will force the men, aged between 18- 30s to train at the military camps. Those who passed the training will dispatch to other states instead of serving in its own state. In the past, during the parliamentary era, the First Shan Battalion was sent to position in Rangoon and Pego Divisions. Later, it was disappeared.  
SPDC neglected to improve the interest of people and failed to introduce a better-off economic and education systems. Obviously, they did three things:

* To stick to the seized power as long as it could,
* To strengthen the army,
* To possess the most destructive weapons, nuclear. It is one of its efforts to wipe out the resistance groups and to play a bigger role among the powerful countries.

For the ceasefire group, the Burmese regime has strategies:

* Pressurize the cease- fire groups to form political parties and discuss or deal their problems in the Upper and Low House of representatives.

* The armed groups must be under the control of Regional Commanders of SPDC. Some groups and its leaders may accept the calls, if unaware of political games. Only those who care for the people and nation can predict the next step of the regime. Of course, the calls will be refused by the ceasefire groups and will approach for a peaceful political settlement with the regime. However, political talks had rejected by the regime on several times. As a result, they have to fight, as other options are not available. Thus, Shan State people should be alert that peace is still far beyond but more potential clashes.

* Ideologically, everyone loves the country. No one wants the foreigners to invade their lands, as well as Shan State people. Therefore, if we do not have autonomous power and sovereignty, we will not be able to do whatever we want. Moreover, other people will deprive our rights.

Golden Cherry (Shan State)

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Where is happiness in Burma for Waso festival ?
Diary Entry by Ashin Mettacara

Today is the full moon day of Waso. The day of Waso marks the day of the Buddha's first sermon and the start of a monsoon season retreat.

In Burma, full-moon is for contemplation, and monks do not travel. In this special day, the Buddha tried to spread His teaching of peace and happiness to all mankind. The Waso festival, a popular Burmese celebration is thus an important occasion to commemorate the teachings of Lord Buddha. The monks, also called Sangha, as the important pillar of Buddhism, play an important role during the festival.

This day marks the beginning for Buddhist monks of a retrat wich will lasts at least three months. During the Waso festival people offer flowers to the Buddhist image ushering all their devotions. One of the most important events in the course of the Waso is the offering of robes to the Monks which they generally worn during their retreat . People also offer them candles, known as the "Waso candles".

Waso is also the time for people to do meritorious deeds, practise contemplation and self-denial. Every one make it a point of fasting and observe special precepts one day in the week. Even habitual drinkers take a vow of abstinence, for the season, at least, and practise in these days self discipline.

Marriages are taboo during the retrat. However, this has nothing to do with any religious concept. Monsoon season is a busy time for people and it is more convenient to celebrate weddings after the harvest... Thus the impatient lovers rush off to wedlock before the Waso begin.

Therefore the full moon day of Waso is the holiest day for all Buddhists to make an opportunity to do meritorious deeds.

But this year Waso in Burma will not be celebrated happily. Many people recently were killed by Nargis cyclone. Many people lost everything, are still hungry and without hope. Many monks were killed in last year Saffron Revolution. Some are now unable to continue their religious studies at monasteries and are rejected because of their leading roles in last year's Saffron Revolution.

Where is happiness in Burma for Waso festival ?

http://ashinmettacara-eng.blogspot.com/

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Monks, generals and karma
Giles Ji Ungpakorn
Published 17 July 2008
Buddhism and politics

Throughout history, rulers and rebels alike have used religion to justify their actions. Despite its peaceful image, Buddhism, the majority religion of Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, can also be turned to political purposes.

The repressive Thai and Burmese states use Buddhism to legitimise their rule. The Burmese generals claim that they are good Buddhists. But the population, including Buddhist monks, can rise up against them. The Laotian communists of the "Pathet Lao" movement can use Buddhism to justify socialism and the ultra-right-wing Thai priest Kittiwutto can say that "killing communists is not a sin".

The Buddhist concepts of reincarnation and karma (or kam in Thai) are aimed at instilling fatalism in the population. You are born poor or disabled because of what you did in a past life. Kings and millionaires are superior to ordinary people; men are above women. If you are very naughty, you may come back as an animal "longer than it is tall". These attitudes encourage people to accept their fate and not seek to overthrow bad rulers, given that these rulers will surely have to pay, via kam, for what they have done.

Buddhism is also concerned with ending suffering, or took. Took is more than just suffering. The Buddhist trinity of truth (trilak) states that change is always present. Nothing remains the same and change comes from the contradiction of took or suffering.
For the ruling elites, this concept is used to teach the masses that they should look to their personal lives. They should not bother with material or bodily desires and jealousies, as they are never desires for anything permanent. Let the rich remain rich. The Buddhist ruling against killing is used to ban abortion and denounce violent acts against the state.

Yet Buddhism, like all other religions, is never "pure". It must be understood not from texts alone, but from how people practise and interpret it. So, for the oppressed, the struggle to end suffering or took is justified. The rich should renounce their material wealth, or even be made to do so, in order that the poor can survive. Kam doesn't have to be about the next or past life. It can be here and now. If there is a revolt that overthrows a bad ruler, that is the ruler's kam.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn is a lecturer in politics at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok

http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2008/07/buddhism-suffering-buddhist

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A talking shop – or an EU of the east?
Philip Bowring
Published 17 July 2008

Philip Bowring asks if the Association of South-East Asian Nations has a future
Last year Asean celebrated its 40th anniversary, but the ten-state grouping must now face the question of whether its evolution has stalled. The organisation's response to the catastrophe unleashed by Cyclone Nargis on Burma in May this year was hesitant and tardy, and its condemnation of the Burmese regime's crackdown last September was both late and ineffective. Is there the remotest chance of it becoming an EU of the east?

At one level Asean represents the apparent triumph of a market-oriented, pro-western model. It was founded in 1967 as an anti-communist bastion when the Vietnam War was at its height and the Cultural Revolution was in full swing. The recently independent nations of south-east Asia were feeling vulnerable, and so Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore formed the new group, with Brunei joining on full independence in 1984.

Communism's triumph in Indochina and the subsequent Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia helped hold the initial members together - as did the durability and golf-course camaraderie of its leaders Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos and Lee Kuan Yew, with their joint belief in the value of the US military presence. A sense of shared identity, too, came from rapid economic growth in most of the countries, fuelled by foreign trade and investment (particularly from Japan) and from the ethnic Chinese business in the region. Asean solidarity also helped keep border disputes from getting out of hand.

The 1990s brought a shift. The Cambodian War was settled and Vietnam focused on development and the gradual transition to a market economy. Asean then pursued two, not necessarily compatible goals. One was to bring all countries of the region into the grouping, and the other to enhance economic co-operation. In 1992 it launched a preferential tariff scheme with the ultimate goal of becoming a free-trade area. But with Asean driven by Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad, geographical expansion took precedence over issues of compatibility, leading to the admission of the three Indochina states and, most controversially, Burma.

Free-trade goals then had to be pursued on a two-tier basis - fast track for the original members and slow for the new ones, which had very different economic systems. Last year the association adopted a charter of common commitments and standards and a mechanism for sanctioning breaches. But it is all very vague.

Meanwhile, intra-regional trade has grown very fast, but mainly because of developments in global manufacturing driven by Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and by the emergence of China as a world trade giant. Asean is in the throes of a free-trade deal with China, but at the same time, individual members - Singapore in particular - have made bilateral deals with countries from Mexico to New Zealand. This "noodle bowl" of trade pacts creates confusion and undermines Asean's broader goals.

Some sense of shared community (generally excluding Burma) does exist, at least among the political, bureaucratic and business elites. The rise of China should give renewed political impetus - though Beijing tries hard to keep substantive issues on a bilateral basis. For the first time Asean has a secretary general, the Thai former foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan, with a high profile and active agenda. The annual Asean Regional Forum has become a significant event, though seemingly endless meetings and a shortage of obvious achievements often give it the appearance of a talking shop.

The Asean area - predominantly Malay, but heavily Indian-influenced - has a common history and culture that transcend differences of religion and language. But weaving these into a coherent organisation with well-defined goals is tough; as is persuading individual countries to surrender a mite of independence for the greater good.

Philip Bowring is a columnist for the International Herald Tribune and a former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review

http://www.newstatesman.com/asia/2008/07/asean-east-trade-burma-china

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To go or not to go?
Ruth Padel
Published 17 July 2008

Should you visit Burma? Not if you want to discover the harsh realities of life under the generals

In May 2002, with Aung San Suu Kyi temporarily released from house arrest, I was doing poetry workshops and readings in Mandalay and Rangoon. It was just before the monsoon, and the dawn air was like a sauna as I walked round the Golden Palace, destroyed by the Japanese and rebuilt with forced labour. Restored, it feels like an emptied concentration camp, aggressively regimented and dead: the way the junta would like to keep the whole country. Above is Mandalay Hill, from which, at dusk, the largest lit-up building you can see is Mandalay Correction Facility, the city's jail.

In Rangoon the monsoon broke. The swirling streets were ankle-deep. I talked to writers about how British poetry had been revived in the 1970s by translations from eastern European poets struggling with censorship - which Borges called "the mother of metaphor". They identified instantly. I wish I'd had more books with me. They have no access to other writing, and drew straws for the books I had to give.

I asked Suu Kyi what she thought of tourists coming to Burma. "Let the junta know tourism is waiting to happen the moment they change on human rights," she said. "But now tourists shouldn't come; they won't see the truth."

"No," said a writer friend. "Let tourists see for themselves." "No, she's right," said another. "What would they see?"

I agree. On the surface you see poverty but not the misery: forced labour, surveillance, writers tortured for "distributing information regarding repression to international press agencies and western diplomats" or "spreading information injurious to the state". Incessant power cuts illustrate the unseen truth. My friends got eight hours of electricity in 72. In hotels, the air-conditioning just switched to generator.

What tourists do see are "The People's Desires", painted on walls and prefacing all printed matter. "Oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views; oppose those trying to jeopardise stability of the State and progress of the Nation; oppose foreign nations interfering in internal affairs of the State; crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy." Writers have to pay to print this on the front page of their books.

Conservation is another matter. Burma has the largest tiger reserve in the world. Whether conservation is a Canute-like operation against relentless Chinese exploitation of Burmese timber or not, western conservation agencies, like welfare groups, have to operate there - or the animals will disappear. For that, I would go again. Otherwise not.

Ruth Padel's "Tigers in Red Weather" is published by Abacus (£8.99)

http://www.newstatesman.com/asia/2008/07/burma-tourists-mandalay

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The dark side of paradise
The New Stateman
Sholto Byrnes
Published 17 July 2008

The dreamy, white-sand beaches of south-east Asia will welcome millions of western tourists this summer. From the west coast of Thailand, excursions will head to Ko Tapu, the island made famous as the lair of the Bond villain Scaramanga in The Man With the Golden Gun. Others will be lured by the clifftop kecak dances on Bali, where flames illuminate the tales of the Ramayana, performed in an 11th-century Hindu temple as the sun sets on the Lombok Strait. Cultural visitors will head to the ancient royal capital of Angkor in Cambodia, while the South China Sea is heaven for divers.

But cast your mind back to the beginning of this year, and there is another picture that speaks to a somewhat darker truth about the region than the paradisiacal vistas painted by tourist brochures suggest.

As General Suharto lay dying in a Jakarta hospital in January, western commentators bemoaned the failure to bring the former Indonesian dictator to justice. A "tyrant", they called him, a man responsible for murdering up to half a million of his countrymen in a purge of communists in the late 1960s, accused of stealing as much as $35bn from the state during his 31-year rule (which ended in 1998) and who held the dubious honour of being declared the most corrupt leader of all time by the NGO Transparency International.

None of this stopped a string of local luminaries coming to pay their respects. Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister of Malaysia for 22 years; Singapore's founding father, now minister mentor, Lee Kuan Yew; the sultan of Brunei: all visited as Suharto fought his last battle. "I feel sad to see a very old friend with whom I had worked closely over the last 30 years, not really getting the honour that he deserves," said Lee, who came to full power in 1965, two years before Suharto. Dr Mahathir held the old dictator's hand and shed a tear. Even the leader of East Timor, José Ramos-Horta, had kind words for the man who ordered the invasion and subsequent repression of his country in 1975, and he asked the Pope to pray for him.

After his death, the west was unanimous in its condemnation of his rule. "Suharto's legacy speaks for itself. We regret that, on this occasion, we must write harshly of the dead. Very harshly," concluded a New Statesman leader. Yet closer to home, different sentiments were expressed. The president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, praised Suharto's promotion of regional unity, while Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono eulogised the "many great services" he had done for the nation. The truth is that, surprising - even repugnant - as outside observers may find this seeming indulgence of a man they considered a brutal despot, it was only to be expected that his death would be marked more generously in the region. For although in some respects Suharto may have been an exception, in many others he was the rule.

Most tourists continue to be blissfully unaware of the region's internal politics. Few larking about in the water park on Singapore's Sentosa Island turn their thoughts to Chee Soon Juan, the long-standing opposition leader who has been bankrupted by defamation suits, banned from standing for elections and frequently imprisoned - all for actions and campaigns that would be taken for granted in a liberal democracy. Nor does it seem likely that many who visit the Shoe Museum in Manila, home to Imelda Marcos's footwear collection, reflect for long on how it was that her late husband, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, managed to turn the Philippines into a nation of "40 million cowards and one son of a bitch", as a US official put it.

Yet, as the balance of power and wealth moves inexorably east over the course of what China's Deng Xiaoping and India's Rajiv Gandhi predicted would be the "Asian century", governments and businesses need to know more about the group of countries to the south-east of "Chindia". Skyscraper cities are the visible evidence of decades of growth (5.7 per cent across the region in 2008, according to the Asian Development Bank; down from 6.5 per cent in 2007, but still buoyant compared to the 1.8 per cent the OECD estimates for the UK this year). Individually, the members of Asean (the Association of South-East Asian Nations) may not be big players, but collectively they are a part of what Fareed Zakaria, in his book The Post-American World, refers to as "the rise of the rest". And at a time when Islam's place in the world and the extent to which liberal democracies should either accommodate or confront it is the subject of constant debate, not to seek a greater understanding of an area with more Muslims than the entire Arab Middle East would be foolhardy in the extreme.

Asian values

Chief among the lessons that need to be learned are the historical reasons why liberal democracy has been so absent from the region, and why one should not expect its imminent arrival. The western powers will have to accept that their future partners - and they must act towards them as partners, shedding any lingering superiority to their former imperial possessions - may be part of the growing club of nations where an authoritarian "guided democracy" holds sway. Indeed, proponents of the "Asian values" school of thought reject the suggestion that modernisation should be accompanied by liberalisation.

As Lee Kuan Yew put it in a speech in Tokyo, in 1992: "With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries . . . What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural background, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient."

Put bluntly, liberal democracy has no historic roots in the Asean countries; and after independence (all were colonised apart from Thailand) there were plenty of reasons why more authoritarian forms of government swiftly became the norm. These were states, but not nation states in the classic 19th-century European sense. Some owed their very creation to European empires. The boundary between Malaysia and Indonesia, for instance, corresponds to the early 19th-century division of influence agreed by the British and the Dutch. Singapore was a swampy island populated by a few fishermen until it was founded as a city state by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. The Philippines never existed as a unit prior to rule by the Spanish and then the Americans (400 years of convent, 50 years of Hollywood, as the saying goes). They, and many other neighbouring states, faced not only battles to maintain territorial integrity on independence, but also struggles to forge national identities.

Far from aiding this process, experiments with democracy in the 1940s and 1950s suggested it was a system that gave too free a voice to separatist tendencies and stoked racial tension. After 17 different cabinets in 13 years, President Sukarno introduced "guided democracy" in Indonesia in 1957. Five years later, the military took over in Burma, ending democracy for good. No one disputes the countless atrocities the generals have since inflicted on that unfortunate country. At the time, however, many were sympathetic to the move. "If they hadn't stepped in, the country would have disintegrated," one diplomat then stationed in Rangoon told me.

The lack of homogeneity caused serious problems. Did the large Chinese diaspora, which held levels of wealth disproportionate to its size in many countries, owe its allegiance to the new states, or did it look to the home country? It was an important question during the decades of the domino effect, when first Vietnam, then Cambodia and Laos, fell under communist rule.

Singapore grip

Stability became the goal. And the means to achieving it - removing dissent from the public sphere, building up institutions such as the monarchy in Thailand and the army in Burma - were presented as being both necessary and true to local values and customs. To adat, the system of customary law ingrained in the culture from Malaysia, across Indonesia, to the Muslim south of the Philippines, and to compadrazgo, the network of client-patron kinship in the rest of that country; to Confucianism in the Chinese communities; drawing on the passivity and fatalism of Buddhism in the northern countries, and on the essentially conservative nature of the Muslim south.

Why is all this relevant today? The answer lies in the fact that there is still not one functioning liberal democracy in south-east Asia. Burma's tragic story is well known. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are only beginning to recover from the decades when communists of various shades, supported by both China and the USSR, wreaked havoc throughout Indochina; Vietnam and Laos are still nominally communist today, while Cambodia's prime minister is a former member of the Khmer Rouge.

Thailand continues its well-worn pattern of oscillating between tentative democracy and army-led coups, with the monarchy playing a stabilising, moderate role. Singapore's elections are a byword for predictability, not least because any party other than the ruling PAP faces huge obstacles to getting on to the ballot. The rigidity of Malaysia's political system has been highlighted recently by the response of the governing coalition to the prospect of losing power for the first time, provoking a crisis in which the opposition leader has been framed for sexual assault. And in the Philippines and Indonesia, both supposedly democracies since the falls of Marcos and Suharto, respectively, elections are so marred by corruption and vote-rigging that it would be a joke to suggest they merit the description "free and fair".

If they paused to consider the political repression in the region, it would seem intolerable to the tourists jetting in to the airports of south-east Asia. But those shiny new temples of commerce, many of which put Heathrow or Charles de Gaulle to shame for space, convenience and cleanliness, are symbolic of why revolution is not around the corner, and why the citizens of many of these countries accept more authoritarian forms of government. It has been those governments that have kept the order necessary for growth.

Such cultural factors should also call into question the levels of demand for western-style liberal democracy. The Thai people showed that there was something more important to them than democracy when they accepted the coup against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006 because it was thought to be sanctioned by the king. There is at least some truth to those Asian values that Lee Kuan Yew talked about. Dr Mahathir put it another way in 2003: "In some countries sleeping naked on the beach as a sign of protest is considered democracy - if that is democracy then this is not needed."

That "not needed" may sound chilling to Europeans baking in the tropical sun this summer. Should they be lucky enough to enjoy lengthy interaction with local people, however, they may be surprised to find that many are not bothered by such remarks. The west had better wake up to the fact that other parts of the world don't necessarily share its values. In the age of the Asian century, it's time we stopped being surprised.

http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2008/07/democracy-philippines

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Thai Army pushes back Karen refugees
By The Nation

Thai army on Thursday pushed back 58 Karens, mostly women and children, displaced by fighting between Burmese government troops and rebel soldiers from Karen National Union, according to a border sources.

The 58 displaced Karens had been residing at the Mae Ra Maluang refugee camp in Mae Hong Son's Mae Sareing district since March. They had fled fighting in northern region of Burma's Karen State.

According to the source who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Thai troops from Mae Sareang Unit 105 came at about 07:00 hrs Thursday morning to remove the displaced refugees and took them to a boat dock where three long-tail boats awaits for them.

The exact location as to where they 58 displaced Karens were being taken was not disclosed for fear that the Burmese soldiers would retaliated but The Nation was informed that the boat trip was about five hours long.

"Besides the fact that the area has been raining heavily, we are concern for their safety as fighting between the KNU and the Burmese troops in the area in question have yet to cease," said the source. "The decision to force them back appeared to have been made hastily," he added.

Mae Ra Maluang refugee camp is the home for more than 16,000 Karen refugees who had been residing there for decades after fleeing Karen State because of the fighting there.

Thai Army policy is to prevent the number of displaced Karens and other ethnic nationalities from Burma from increasing, thus, the forced repatriation today.

More than 140,000 refugees from Burma are residing in various camps that dotted the northern border. It has been estimated by various sources that more than 500,000 people have been displaced internally inside Burma due to fighting between government troops and rebel forces fighting for self-rule.

http://nationmultimedia.com/2008/07/17/national/national_30078329.php

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TBBC's monthly e-Letter

Dear all,
We are pleased to forward to you the third issue of TBBC's monthly e-Letter.
Please find the e-Letter attached. It can also be downloaded at:

http://www.tbbc.org/announcements/2008-07-eletter-03.pdf

Yours sincerely,

Mina Jhowry

Communications Officer
Thailand Burma Border Consortium - TBBC
12/5 Convent Road, Silom
Bangrak, Bangkok 10500
Thailand
Tel.:+66 (0)2 238 5027 8
Fax: +66 (0)2 266 5376

www.tbbc.org

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ShweGas News Headlines

1. PowerGrid Corp transmission network to light up Myanmar

2. India plans to import 1 MT of pulses from Myanmar

3. Bangladesh may turn to Myanmar for rice import'

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PowerGrid Corp transmission network to light up Myanmar
Sanjay Jog
Posted online: Thursday , July 17, 2008 at 23:45 hrs
Updated On: Thursday , July 17, 2008 at 23:45 hrs

The state-run PowerGrid Corporation of India has embarked upon a plan to set up transmission line in Myanmar. The power ministry and PowerGrid Corporation, which is a central transmission utility in India under the Electricity Act, have already held talks in this regard. The power ministry has asked the PowerGrid Corporation to send a delegation to Myanmar in regard to the execution of the transmission works there.

Sources at the power ministry and PowerGrid Corporation told FE, "PowerGrid Corporation will be the executing authority for three transmission lines in Myanmar. The Centre has supported Exim Bank of $64.07 million to Myanmar for setting up of the transmission infrastructure. The distribution of this credit amount among different transmission network is as follows. Thahtay Ghauung-Oakshitpin 230 kv transmission line ($13.577 million), Thahtay Chaung-Thandwe- Maei-Ann 230 kv transmission line ($30.5 million) and Thandwe-Athoke 230 kv transmission line ($20 million)."

It must be mentioned here that PowerGrid Corporation is currently involved in the setting up of transmission network in Afghanistan. The company had made an attempt to take the control of transmission network in Phillipines. However, it did not work finally. Besides, the PowerGrid Corporation has also evinced its interest in Nigeria and other African countries.

http://www.financia lexpress. com/news/ PowerGrid- Corp-transmissio n-network- to-light- up-Myanmar/ 336477/

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India plans to import 1 MT of pulses from Myanmar
Posted online: Thursday , July 17, 2008 at 02:33 hrs
Sanjay Jog

India has taken up the issue of importing about 1 million tonne of pulses from Myanmar for partially meeting domestic demand due to shortfall in production.
Union minister of state for commerce Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday met his Myanmarese counterpart and discussed the issue of pulse imports. Sources told FE that India is looking at Myanmar for the import of pulses as it produces 2.7 million tonne while the domestic consumption only 0.5 million tonne.

"Wednesday's discussion was about the possibility of import of an assured quantity of pulses – urad, tur and moong from Myanmar at reasonable rates. Myanmar has a scheme of band of minimum export price of different quantities of pulses," sources said.

The total production of pulses in India is in the range of 14 to 14.5 million tonne.

However, the domestic consumption is to the tune of 17-17.5 million tonne. The gap of 3 million tonne is filled through imports. About half the imports are of yellow peas primarily from Canada. The other imports are from Australia and some African countries as well as some European countries.

Sources said a medium term arrangement of import of pulses from Myanmar is likely to augment on an assured basis, availability of pulses in the Indian market.

http://www.financia lexpress. com/news/ India-plans- to-import- 1-MT-of-pulses- from-Myanmar/ 336704/

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Bangladesh may turn to Myanmar for rice import'
Posted: 7:45p.m IST, July 16, 2008

Dhaka, July 16 (IANS) Bangladesh, which banked on India for its imports of rice when the country was hit by cyclone Sidr last year, may now turn to another neighbour Myanmar for more supplies to meet additional needs, said a Bangladeshi newspaper.

The New Age daily Wednesday said Dhaka was considering Myanmar, 'one of the most convenient sources', for import of rice for meeting shortfalls or additional needs in times of exigency.

However, the report made no mention of the 400,000 tonnes of rice India exported to Bangladesh after External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee pledged the assistance during his December visit.
The imports witnessed prolonged parleys on the price, triggering speculation and domestic price rise which were blamed on India.

The total annual demand for rice in Bangladesh is 30 million tonnes while the deficit of 1.2 to 1.4 million tonnes is usually imported from India.

Officials said the commerce ministry was examining a proposal from the food ministry and the Bangladesh Bank to raise the ceiling of the volume of tradable goods, particularly rice, through its Teknaf river border in the south-eastern region so that higher quantities of rice can be imported in the future.

'We are keen to talk to the Myanmar authorities to increase the volume of border trade and also contract farming in that country,' Commerce Secretary Feroz Ahmed was quoted as saying in the report.

According to the proposal, the border trade volume should be increased to goods worth $2 million from a meagre $20,000 for more import of 'atap' [fine] rice from Myanmar.
The commerce ministry has already amended certain provisions of the country's import policy for allowing a higher quantity of imports from Myanmar. Paddy, rice, wheat, onion, maize, pulse and fish are imported from Myanmar under the import policy.

Much of Myanmar-Bangladesh trade is through small barges and is unofficial.
'Border trade should also be accepted by the Chittagong Port so that the two neighbouring countries can exchange more goods and commodities,' said an official.

Earlier, Myanmar's Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu said his country has one million tonnes of surplus rice for export per annum, and exporting 300,000 tonnes of rice to Bangladesh on a regular basis should not be a problem.

Sources in the business sector said those who trade with Myanmar do not send the money through regular banking channels due to the US' embargo against that country.

http://news. smashits. com/272982/ -39Bangladesh- may-turn- to-Myanmar- for-rice- import-39. htm

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The Shwe Gas Pipeline Campaign Committee- India
shwecampaign@ gmail.com
shweinfo@gmail. com
www.shwe.org
" You are never a loser, until you quit trying"

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