The Big Story: A SAARC winter

In the end, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not go to Islamabad to attend the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in November. With India having decided to launch a diplomatic offensive and isolate Pakistan, this decision was only waiting in the wings. It comes, however, at a regrettable cost. As Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan threaten to follow suit, the entire summit seems to be at peril. Once more, SAARC has been held hostage to the vagaries of India-Pakistan ties.

SAARC was created in 1985 to boost trade ties and create greater cohesion in a deeply riven subcontinent. But the optimism wore thin over the years as conflicts took centre stage. SAARC summits were suspended between 1998 and 2002 as tensions between India and Pakistan escalated over nuclear tests, the Kargil war and the Parliament attack. But this is the first time that India has decided to boycott a summit. A former secretary general of the regional body said that it would be sad if the SAARC were "euthanised" but economic integration would be impossible if the two biggest economies in the subcontinent did not work together. Despite this, SAARC has also been a theatre for moments of amity between India and Pakistan – President Pervez Musharraf walking up to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee after four years of hostility in 2002, Modi and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif shaking hands at the 2014 summit, in the midst of bilateral tensions.

Britain's exit from the European Union and the fading of the United Nations suggest that multilateral bodies are increasingly inadequate to tackling a complicated world, that they deal in platitudes but are powerless to solve the real conflicts between nations. Still, such bodies still have their uses. First, because they may act as shock absorbers in times of conflict, allowing warring parties to meet in a neutral forum. Second, because the big summits offer countries a chance for quiet meetings of real significance on the sidelines – it is now said that Modi and Sharif met secretly during the 2014 SAARC summit. As India turns away from SAARC, it cuts off the channels of low-key diplomacy that the summit may have offered.

The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day's big story

Ajai Sahni calls for a consistent policy to deal with aggressions from Pakistan.

Raghu Raman lists seven ways to respond to Pakistan without crossing the border.

Girish Sahane reflects on courage, cowardice and the smokescreen of outrage.

Political pickings

  1. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah struck a defiant note on Tuesday, saying the Supreme Court order directing the state to release water to Tamil Nadu cannot immediately become law.
  2. Residents of Barsoor village in Bastar district say the two boys shot by the Chhattisgarh Police last week were local teenagers on their way to a relative's house, not Maoists.
  3. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley hints the defence budget could go up, according to a report in The Times of India.

Punditry

  1. In the Indian Express, Rajshree Chandra writes how preventive detention has become a method of routinised state oppression.
  2. In the Hindu, Shiv Visvanathan draws a firm line between Dalit caste struggles and agitations by dominant castes.
  3. In the Economic Times, Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar warns of a storm in emerging markets.

Giggles

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GS Radhakrishna on how new districts in Telangana take away Adivasi rights to land:

Gummadi Narasaiah, a five-time tribal legislator from Khammam, suggested that Advasi areas should remain part of Adivasi districts, regardless of the size of the district. “The move to carve out new districts is, in a basic sense, the negation of the Adivasis’ right to self-rule,” he said.

Telangana Telugu Desam Party leader A Revanth Reddy said that mergers will erode the rights of Adivasis over land. “The new districts clubbing tribal regions [with non-tribal area] will help the ruling TRS to overcome the Constitutional limitations of Act 1/70 in alienation of tribal lands,” said Reddy. According to Act 1/70, non-Adivasis cannot legally purchase land in these areas.