With China pro-actively pursuing South Asian nations for launching satellites,a wary India is now planning to approach the smaller South Asian neighbours Maldives and Sri Lanka to let their empty orbital slots to be used by Indian satellites. It is widely known that these smaller countries have empty orbital slots,and both India and China are now keen to use them. This new and emerging concern in the Indian establishment has given rise to an opportunity for the Indian space agency ISRO to launch satellites,in the slots of other countries. What bothers Delhi is also that Chinas stated purpose for these satellites needs to be verified against its actual activities. It is learnt that the Indian government held discussions within its space and foreign ministries,and have decided to talk to these neighbours towards this end. This week,the Indian establishment is going to raise the issue with the visiting Maldives Defence Minister Colonel (Retired) Mohamed Nazim. While the strategic objective is the main consideration,the financial implications of launching satellites is a factor that needs to be deliberated within the government.New Delhi has been watching the reports of Chinese-Sri Lankan collaboration in the area of space with some alarm,as a Sri Lankan firm is likely to launch its first communication satellite with Chinese help in 2015. The Sri Lankan company,Supreme SAT (Pvt.) Ltd,signed an agreement with the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka in May 2012 to launch the telecommunication satellite at a cost of $320 million in partnership with China Great Wall Industry Corporation,a state-owned Chinese company. Subsequently,it was also decided to set up a space academy-cum satellite ground station at Kandy. Now,there is a move that India should offer to build and launch satellites for Colombo,and a mutually beneficial cooperation arrangement for building satellites and operating them with increased coverage areas over India can be worked out so capabilities on satellites can be used by both countries. It is also learnt that India was likely to raise objections at an international level when the issues of orbital slot,frequency coordination and downlinking of foreign channels come up to safeguard its national security and commercial interests. India to push for elaborate mechanism on rivers with China Almost three weeks after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suggested setting up a joint mechanism on trans-border rivers to Chinese President Xi Jinping,Beijing is yet to respond. But New Delhi has decided to press the Chinese side further on the idea especially as the Chinese premier Li Keqiang would visiting India in the later half of May. Earlier,before the PM took up the issue,China is understood to have told the Indian interlocutors that the present Expert-Level Mechanism (ELM) is adequate. Chinese officials had also said that the country will abide by the international laws on sharing of trans-border rivers. Despite the negative response,India will continue to press for a broader mechanism to assess construction of dams on Brahmaputra river in Tibet. The PM had on his way back from Durban after meeting Xi on the sidelines of BRICS Summit said that he had requested China to provide a joint mechanism to assess the type of construction activity going on in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The PM had made the request in the wake of construction of three more dams on the Brahmaputra by China. The President of China assured that they were quite conscious of their responsibilities and interests of lower riparian countries. As regards the specific mechanism I had suggested,he said he would have it further looked into, the PM had said. Singh had also said that the Indian analysis did not show any immediate cause for concern as the construction has not affected the water flow to India. As of now,our assessment is that whatever activities taking place on Brahmaputra are essentially run-of-the-river projects and there is no cause for worry, he said. Both countries have a mechanism at a technical level to share hydrological data on water flow of Brahmaputra and Sutlej. But India has been keen on a more elaborate mechanism. Under the current ELM,the two countries only share hydrological information (water level,discharge and rainfall) on Yaluzangbu/ Brahmaputra river during the flood season.
