SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES a Biannual Journal of South Asian Studies
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES A Biannual Journal of South Asian Studies Vol. 9 July – December 2016 No. 2 Editor Prof. Mohanan B Pillai SOCIETY FOR SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES UNESCO MADANJEET SINGH INSTITUTE OF SOUTH ASIA REGIONAL CO-OPERATION (UMISARC) PONDICHERRY UNIVERSITY PUDUCHERRY, INDIA 121 CONTENTS Editorial 123 Mohanan B Pillai Building the Global Climate Change Regulatory Regime: An Overview 125 Vishnu Konoorayar K& Jaya Vasudevan Suseela Post-TRIPS Contribution of Domestic Firms to Pharmaceutical Innovation in India: An Assessment 155 Dinesh Abroland Nidhi Singh ‘New Issues’ in Innovation and Trade: A Study with Reference to Information Economy in India 205 Rajesh Many Post-Arafat Palestinian Politics and the United States: An Indian Perspective 219 Prasad M.V. Evolving Indo-Afghan Relations and Regional Balance 235 P. Krishna Mohan Reddy Integration through Trade and Investment with Special Reference to SAFTA 241 Pushia K P and Jayesh G Refugee induced security challenges in South Asia: Context of India and Bangladesh 251 Alma Siddiqua and Santhosh Mathew Push factors and Identity Issues of Internal Migrants of Northeast India in Kerala 265 Salvin Paul and Swgwmkhang Brahma International Journal of South Asian Studies IJSAS July - December 2016 122 International Journal of South Asian Studies IJSAS July - December 2016 123 EDITORIAL This volume covers multiple issues related to environment, patents and innovation, migration and foreign policy. Global Climate change deliberations are always marked by North-South dichotomy, with the World always trying to find an answer to a pertinent question – who gained from these negotiations- the South or the North? Depending upon the perspective, answers vary. Is the world safe after every deliberation? If the gainer is not the environment, the planet earth, the solar system, everyone loses in the end. The paper by Konoorayar and Suseela overviews the confrontation among various stakeholders at the cost of environment. The post-TRIPS scenario in India made global integration of its pharma industries. This is profusely felt in the national pharmaceutical innovation system. In their article, Abrol and Singh investigates the achievements and limitations of the post-TRIPS innovation policy and find the weak link between domestic firms and public sector research organisations in India. The paper induces government to rethink the strategy to get domestic firms to contribute to the system building activities at home. In the present information economy, ‘information’ is a major commodity, and ICT facilitates generation and transaction of this ‘information’. This creates a deep divide between nations that produce more information and lesser information. All the major information companies are based in the US, say, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. All these companies generate their basic commodity,‘information’, from the general public beyond the national territory and amasses huge profits from peripheral regions by enabling the multilateral trade of ‘information’ generated within the national boundaries of peripheral economies. In his article,Many argues that ‘information’ is the key factor of production in an information economy and this systematically makes the developing nations dependent on the developed. Yasser Arafat was the champion of Palestinian nationalism and an embodiment of their movement against imperialism, colonialism and freedom from Israeli occupation. His death saw the end of a long involvement of political struggle against Israel and its close ally US. Arafat’s exit from the Palestinian political scene happened during a critical phase of Palestine-US relations and Palestinians themselves. The paper by Prasad discusses developments from the end of Arafat era to the democratic elections and to the new Palestinian president and the impact of this on the Palestine - US relations. In his paper, Reddy examines the evolving Indo-Afghan relations in the context of the post Bonn Conference scenario in the West Asian region. Because of the increased interest shown by the US and European countries in the path of development chosen by Afghanistan, it is scrutinized by IR scholars. India is also compelled to modify its policies to face the changing situation in South Asia since terrorism emanates from Afghanistan and Af-Pak region. In the light of a comfotable relations with Afghanistan, New Delhi needs to be proactive. International Journal of South Asian Studies IJSAS July - December 2016 124 Being the nation that shares borders with almost all the South Asian nations, and being a regional power, the role played by India in architecting the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) is significant. The paper by Pushia and Jayesh highlight recent trends in India’s total trade relationship with SAFTA economies, in general, and with each members of the trade bloc, in particular, from 2010 to 2016. The paper attempts to find establish the growth rate of exports and imports in South Asia and analyse India’s trade with south Asian countries. The paper states that both imports and exports have increased over time except for the emergence of negative export trade balance with Pakistan and negative import trade balance with Nepal and Maldives. The state security- traditional and non-traditional- in south Asia are at stake. The paper by Siddiqua and Mathew assesses the state security challenges related to refugee or illegal migrants from other south Asian countries. The refugees living in inhuman conditions and are in a humanitarian crisis. They are also posing security threat for the host country. Among the eight countries of South Asia, only Maldives is free from such problems. The refugee crisis is further aggravating the issues of smuggling of narcotics, small arms and other exotic weapons, and the growing nexus between arms dealers, drug traffickers, militants and frustrated populations is putting an ominous shadow on the security aspects in South Asia. The paper sheds light on the relatively overlooked state security issues caused by the illegal migrants and refugees in South Asia, especially in Bangladesh and India. The migration in South Asia nations is intense inside the borders too. For instance, in the last few years, Kerala has been witnessing a huge influx of migrant labour from different parts of the country, especially from Northeast India, that shares borders with Bangladesh. It is notable that the North east region known for ethnic, cultural and linguistic richness is also a hotbed of conflicts and human rights violations. This acts as push factor that propels migration from these states. This has become one of the major sources of Kerala’s migrant workers. An examination of the push factors of migration, from the four Bodoland area districts, along with the heterogeneous, ethnic and demographic composition of Northeast Indian people – which constitutes a large chunk of Kerala’s migrant workers, often overshadowed by the collective nomenclature of ‘Bengali Bhai’ – would be of significant interest, to understand what attracts them to the ‘Kerala model of development’ even at the cost of their own identity. The article by Paul and Brahma examines these factors. Editor Prof. Mohanan B. Pillai International Journal of South Asian Studies IJSAS July - December 2016 125 Building the Global Climate Change Regulatory Regime: An Overview Vishnu Konoorayar. K & Jaya Vasudevan Suseela Abstract An analysis of the developments in climate change from the perspective of North- South divide raises a fundamental question i.e. who gained from these negotiations; the South or the North? There are different perspectives to this question and answers vary depending upon the perspective. However, if the gainer is not the environment, the planet earth, the solar system, then everyone loses in the end. This paper overviews the confrontation among various stakeholders at the cost of environment. Key Words: Climate Change, Environmental Protection, International Environmental Law, Global Climate Change Regulatory Regime, UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement. 1. INTRODUCTION The threat of climate change was sufficiently established through scientific evidence by the 1980’s, which pressurized the policy makers around the world to search for various options (Joseph (1998). They were also aware that, as a global phenomenon, climate change would hit both the developing and the developed countries with no particular preference. It is also a documented fact that the developing countries are likely to be the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change due to their general dependence on agriculture and more significantly for their limited capacity to adapt to the changed environmental demands (lack of adaptive capacity) and capacity to mitigate their GHG emissions (lack of mitigation capacity).1 The fact that the majority of low-lying and island nations fall within the Third World also entails a more obvious susceptibility to climate change for developing countries(Lal1993). It also appears that the international response to climate change will have major impact on life-style choices of individuals to the extent that it would require significant modifications in practices relating to consumption of resources. All of this will incur huge cost and would therefore have impact on international trade and the state of economy worldwide (Daniel 1993). Responding to these concerns, the UN General Assembly (hereinafter referred to as UNGA) established the ‘Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee’ (hereinafter