{"id":47361,"date":"2016-07-13T20:43:06","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T00:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=47361"},"modified":"2016-07-13T20:43:06","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T00:43:06","slug":"northern-provincial-council-must-pussyfooting-and-take-firm-stand-against-poaching-by-indian-fishermen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=47361","title":{"rendered":"Northern Provincial Council Must Pussyfooting and Take Firm Stand against Poaching by Indian Fishermen"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Text of Editorial Appearing in “The Island”of July 14th 2016 Under the heading “Of that Piscatorial issue”)<\/strong><\/p>\n

F<\/strong>inding a solution to the problem of illegal fishing in Sri Lankan waters has become a Sisyphean task owing to the wrong remedies being applied. It looks as if the process of solving the piscatorial issue would drag on till hell freezes over.<\/p>\n

Northern fishers took to the streets on Tuesday and held a demonstration opposite the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), calling for action to prevent their Indian counterparts from poaching in Sri Lankan waters. It is time the NPC stopped pussyfooting around and took a firm stand on the issue affecting the livelihood of thousands of fishers in the North.<\/p>\n

The central government of India has chosen the path of least resistance; it is busy trying to resolve the issue through diplomatic means to appease the Tamil Nadu politicians instead of plucking up the courage to stand up to Jayalalitha et al and tackle the issue.<\/p>\n

The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government is too timid to tell India what needs to be done for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Indian fishermen employ internationally banned, destructive methods. (Strangely, the EU, which is all out to put an end to such illegal practices, is silent on Indian fishers using bottom trawling.) If they are allowed to fish in Sri Lanka waters for a specific number of days a year as proposed by some Indian fishermen\u2019s associations their Sri Lankan counterparts will be left with no fish to harvest for the rest of the year. This is the harsh reality. The proposed method is like hurling a chunk of Maldive fish at a thieving cat running away with a piece of meat as a local saying goes. No compromise formula should be adopted, from which legitimacy accrues to a blatantly illegal practice.<\/p>\n

One main reason why the poaching issue cannot be resolved is that it has become part of a political game the Tamil Nadu politicians are playing. They are fishing in troubled waters to garner votes.<\/p>\n

Dr. Rajitha Senaratne pointed out, when he was the Fisheries Minister of the Rajapaksa government, that most of the fishing craft, engaged in poaching, belonged to Tamil Nadu politicians; those anti-Sri Lankan politicos rented or leased their vessels on the condition that they be used in Sri Lankan waters, Senaratne said. Their strategy is patently clear; they are mounting assaults on Sri Lanka\u2019s sovereignty and trying to strain the relations between the two countries. This is the elephant in the room where India is concerned.<\/p>\n

A sine qua non for solving the poaching problem is for the governments of Sri Lanka and India to let their navies, coast guards and police to handle it. The fishers of both countries must be told in no uncertain terms that if they engage in poaching they do so at the risk of losing their vessels and being thrown behind bars on foreign soil; there will be leniency only if the circumstances under which they stray into the territorial waters of the two countries are beyond their control such as inclement weather conditions and mechanical defects.<\/p>\n

It was once thought that the poaching problem could be solved through talks between Indian and Sri Lanka fishermen\u2019s associations. Several rounds of negotiations have been held, but in vain. That is an exercise in futility given the Tamil Nadu factor.<\/p>\n

The voice of the northern fishers must be heeded. New Delhi and Colombo have been barking up the wrong tree all these years. The onus is on the former to grasp the nettle with the latter reciprocating. There doesn\u2019t seem to be an alternative to stern action. Let that be the bottom line.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Island<\/em><\/p>\n

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(Text of Editorial Appearing in “The Island”of July 14th 2016 Under the heading “Of that Piscatorial issue”) Finding a solution to the problem of illegal fishing in Sri Lankan waters has become a Sisyphean task owing to the wrong remedies being applied. It looks as if the process of solving the piscatorial issue would drag …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Northern Provincial Council Must Pussyfooting and Take Firm Stand against Poaching by Indian Fishermen’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47361"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47362,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47361\/revisions\/47362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}