India offers to contribute $3 million for the BIMSTEC to start functioning
PRAVASISAMWAD.COM
In the recently concluded three-day virtual meeting on ‘Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Corporation’ (BIMSTEC), India offered to contribute $3 million for the center to start functioning, Arab News reported.
Speaking on the last day of the meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a New Delhi-sponsored initiative to revive the cooperation of Bay of Bengal nations in addressing natural disasters and climate change.
India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, and Thailand are members of the regional group BIMSTEC. The BIMSTEC member nations are constantly under the impact of climate change, including cyclones, rising sea levels, flooding, drought, tidal surges, and coastal erosion.
“In this region the threat of natural disaster has always been there. For cooperation in disaster management especially disaster risk reduction the Center for Weather and Climate is an important institution. For the center to start functioning, India is willing to contribute $3 million,” he said in his address to the BIMSTEC session.
Arab News quoted Dr. Ashish Kumar Mitra from the Noida Center. “India’s initiative to step up collective efforts in disaster management is a good move, as the region is home to some of the world’s countries most vulnerable to climate-change disasters,” he said.
“What is happening in the climate crisis is that the severe weather conditions have gone up. To predict the severe weather we have technology, but there is less cooperation. Through greater cooperation it will become effective,” he said.
“Our problems are the same and greater exchange of information and data would help.”
“In this region the threat of natural disaster has always been there. For cooperation in disaster management especially disaster risk reduction the Center for Weather and Climate is an important institution. For the center to start functioning, India is willing to contribute $3 million.”
— Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India
The report also quoted Prof. S. Janakarajan, an environmentalist from Chennai, as saying, “Modi’s announcement of $3 million funding is a progressive step.”
He, however, called for studies to look into environmental disasters induced by human activity, not climate change alone.
“This itself is not a bad idea. Nobody can question the intent of it and motivation is very good. The key issue is what kind of action plans we have, what is the database we have to support the action plan?” he added.
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