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A roadmap for peace initiatives in South Asia

Staff Correspondent

CHANDIGARH: An integrated approach to harness shared values like cultural capital, water, energy, technology and other scarce resources among India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Nepal could build up people's stakes in peace.

It would be worthwhile to examine the extent to which policy reforms discouraged the use of informal channels to promote formal trade routes, which impacted the building people's stake.

These were some points discussed by the participants of a three-day international consultation here on "Identifying Peace Issues for Research in South Asia", jointly organised by the Chandigarh-based Institute for Development and Communication (IDC) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Delhi.

The participants underlined that the new reality of globalisation has contributed in shaping conflicts and throwing up challenges to a dominant world view in South Asia, which was nurtured by the cold war era, when cultures, territories, identities and economies had fixed boundaries.

These developments have a bearing on issues relating to human security, environmental degradation, deteriorating ecological balance, population mobility, poverty, distributive justice within the domain of multicultural settings.

It was agreed that a strong case for the importance of a regional perspective be presented to illustrate that the conflicts in South Asia were interconnected.

While these disputes involved at least two countries of the region, the role of an extra regional actor in each situation was vital.

The participants were of the opinion that strong emphasis on sovereignty meant little space for third parties, while conflicts could not be resolved directly by the parties.

Such a situation led to availability of restricted options, which impede on creative solutions like evolving a South Asian identity.

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