Shafaqna Pakistan: On a remote island in the Andaman Sea, bulldozers are cutting through untouched forests that are home to one of the world’s most isolated indigenous communities, as part of India’s plan for a $9 billion megaport, airport, and urban development project.
The initiative, backed by the government of India, is designed to compete with China’s expanding infrastructure investments across the Indian Ocean. The development is planned for Great Nicobar Island, which offers a strategic position closer to Southeast Asia than mainland India.
Authorities say the project aims to drive major economic transformation at the entrance to the Strait of Malacca, one of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes, through which up to 30% of global trade passes.
Alongside its civilian infrastructure goals, the plan also includes significant strategic and defence components, including upgraded or newly constructed runways for both military and civilian use.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the Great Nicobar Island project in September as being of “strategic, defence and national importance,” saying it would transform the region into a major hub of maritime and air connectivity in the Indian Ocean region.
Access to parts of Great Nicobar requires special permits, particularly for any contact with Indigenous groups.
Roads, bridges and docks will be built on the island, opening it up for port activity and tourism, and serving expanded military installations.
But the project, nearly 3,000 kilometres (1,860 miles) from New Delhi, has also sparked opposition from residents and environmentalists.
Roughly 95 per cent of the 910 square kilometre (351 square mile) island, encircled by lagoons and coral reefs, is biologically under-explored forest rich in unique species.
Nearly a fifth of the land will be cleared for the project.
Rights group Survival International warned that the island’s Indigenous groups face “genocide in the name of ‘mega-development'”.
Totalling around 1,200 people, these include the Nicobarese as well as the Shompen, hunter-gatherers who shun contact with outsiders, who Survival describes as “one of the most isolated peoples on Earth.”
Strategic
The government insists it has met all “green” requirements and has pledged to protect Great Nicobar’s people, communities, as well as its unique flora and fauna, by establishing protected zones.
India’s environmental court has said that it did “not find any good ground to interfere” with the plans. “We have also noted… the area is located in China’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy, which is sought to be countered by Indian authorities under India’s ‘Act East’ policy,” the court added.
Beijing has long been accused of seeking to develop facilities around the Indian Ocean — a so-called “string of pearls” — to counter India’s rise and secure its own economic interests.
Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav has said that the project “poses no threat to the island’s tribal groups, does not come in the way of any species, and does not jeopardise the eco-sensitivity of the region”.
The first $4 billion phase on Great Nicobar — construction of a port at Galathea Bay and airport at Campbell Bay — should be completed within three years, according to the archipelago’s governor, former navy admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi.
Source: Express Tribune
