It says something about the state of the subcontinent that India is a comparative sea of calm, and for nearly 200,000 refugees, India is a safe haven from oppression. However, India's refusal to sign the UN convention on refugee rights and its more baffling failure to establish a national refugee law has created gulfs in the network of protection for refugees.
The latest example has been the much publicised plight of the Rohingyas people from northern Myanmar, who in recent weeks have amassed in New Delhi to lobby for refugee status. Police responded by forcibly evicting the protesters.
Predominantly Muslim, the Rohingyas had fled persecution by the military in Myanmar. They are viewed with suspicion by the majority Buddhist population in Myanmar, largely because militant Rohingyas have been recruited to Harakat ul Jihad Al Islami, which has alleged Al Qaeda links.
As a result, they are largely stateless, and denied passports. Their mosques are boarded up or saddled with crippling taxes. Boys and girls are denied entrance to universities. Like other ethnic minorities in Myanmar, they are required to sign up for permits to get married.
Whether the potential terror threat is the driving purpose behind India's continued denial of refugee status to these people is unknown. But in the absence of any legal obligation to adjudicate the asylum claims of immigrants, India can simply wash its hands of the problem.
Tibetans and Sri Lankan Tamils form the overwhelming majority of India's refugee population. The Indian government has granted legal status to some of these refugees, but many fall under the jurisdiction of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
The reason India gives for the use of the UNHCR is that the organisation is better equipped to process refugee claims. In fact, New Delhi only steps in when the number of refugees reaches the point where the state's bureaucratic prowess is required. Thus India grants refugee status to Tamils, of which there are tens of thousands living on Indian soil, but not to the few thousand from Myanmar.
The end result is a situation where refugees from different states are accorded different rights and - in the case of the Myanmarese and other refugees from countries such as Iraq, Iran and Somalia - no certainty regarding their future right to live in India. Their right to stay in India is based on a refugee status granted by the UNHCR, which the Indian government is under no obligation to uphold, as well as legal precedent based on two articles in the Indian constitution. Asylum seekers can and have won the right to stay on in India in court. They ought not have to go that far.
India often pleads poverty when pressed to sign onto various international treaties. And with over half of its population living below the poverty line, it has a point. If India can barely feed itself, how can it be expected to feed refugees, too?
But India uses its lack of development as a shield against legitimate criticisms as well. It leaves the duty to process refugee claims of the Myanmarese to the UNHCR because that is easier. Meanwhile, it ignores claims from international organisations that there are many more refugees from Myanmar living illegally in north-east India.
The potential existence of so many undocumented refugees creates huge problems for a region already divided by tribal and ethnic rivalries. The north-east has witnessed several ugly incidents of violence by groups protesting against the incursion of some group or another into their ancestral territory.
The reasons India chooses to ignore refugees from Myanmar may be political. Since the mid-1990s India has been cosying up to the generals in Myanmar. The same motivations may explain why Tibetans receive comparatively princely treatment from the Indian government. India hosts the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile, thorns in China's side and an ace in India's negotiations with its larger neighbour.
But the Tibetans also show the danger in India's failure to hold itself accountable for the security and safety of the country's refugee population. As Indo-Chinese relations have warmed, so relations between the Tibetan people and India have cooled. If India had possessed a legal framework for the rights of refugees, the Tibetans may not have been accorded the host of benefits and political capital they now enjoy. They would not, however, risk losing what they had gained should India abandon them and embrace China.
That example is extreme, but Myanmarese refugees have a real and legitimate fear that their right to reside in India could disappear should the democratic reforms in their home country lead India and the rest of the world to forget the threat posed to ethnic and religious minorities there. This is especially true of the Rohingyas, who have been tarred with the brush of being Islamic extremists.
It is true that India has opened its doors to refugees since the country's incarnation, when millions from what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh fled across the border. But India must begin to hold itself accountable for the well-being of those people it has tacitly agreed to safeguard. At the very least, it must set up a formal framework to deal with refugee claims so that asylum seekers have legally guaranteed rights.
What is clear is that India's decision to ignore the problem when convenient is creating more problems for itself and laying additional burdens on people who came to India looking for succour.
Sean McLain is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi and a former feature writer for The National
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
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Where to apply
Applicants should send their completed applications - CV, covering letter, sample(s) of your work, letter of recommendation - to Nick March, Assistant Editor in Chief at The National and UAE programme administrator for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, by 5pm on April 30, 2020.
Please send applications to nmarch@thenational.ae and please mark the subject line as “Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism (UAE programme application)”.
The local advisory board will consider all applications and will interview a short list of candidates in Abu Dhabi in June 2020. Successful candidates will be informed before July 30, 2020.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
LA LIGA FIXTURES
Friday Valladolid v Osasuna (Kick-off midnight UAE)
Saturday Valencia v Athletic Bilbao (5pm), Getafe v Sevilla (7.15pm), Huesca v Alaves (9.30pm), Real Madrid v Atletico Madrid (midnight)
Sunday Real Sociedad v Eibar (5pm), Real Betis v Villarreal (7.15pm), Elche v Granada (9.30pm), Barcelona v Levante (midnight)
Monday Celta Vigo v Cadiz (midnight)
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young