SAARC - South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation

[Vishwarupa]

New SAARC Secretary General Ahmed Saleem assumes office

KATHMANDU: Ahmed Saleem has taken over as the new Secretary General of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Maldivian national Saleem, who replaces first woman secretary general Fathimath Dhiyana Saeed, took over the charge yesterday here.

Fathimath had resigned from the post of Secretary General of SAARC last month over the issue of her controversial remarks regarding the arrest of Maldivian criminal court's chief justice Abdulla Mohamed.

Sixty two-year-old career diplomat Saleem is the 11th secretary general of SAARC.

"I will try to strengthen the SAARC process and will follow the footsteps of our leaders who envisioned this process", Saleem told reporters at the Tribhuvan International Airport upon his arrival.

Saleem had served as the first director from Maldives at the SAARC Secretariat in 1990 and had worked in the foreign ministry for over two and a half decade.

Saleem will serve for the remaining two years term as the SAARC Secretary General.

New SAARC Secretary General Ahmed Saleem assumes office - The Economic Times

 

[ejazr]

SAARC Election Commissions forge joint forum for cooperation, India to chair first on

SAARC Election Commissions forge joint forum for cooperation, India to chair first one - The Economic Times

NEW DELHI: Election Commissions of SAARC nations today set up a joint forum to promote mutual cooperation for enhancing their capabilities in conducting free and fair polls.

India will chair the first such forum set up at the 3rd conference of heads of election management bodies of SAARC countries, which concluded here today.

The delegates of Election Commissions of India, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka also signed and adopted a Charter to promote mutual contact and learning.

The Charter established a 'Forum of the Heads of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) of the SAARC Countries' after two days of discussions and unanimously adopted a resolution to foster cooperation and share electoral experiences through this permanent forum.

After adopting the Charter, the ECs of SAARC nations also decided that Bhutan will hold the first meeting of the forum in 2013. Bangladesh had hosted the first Conference of SAARC EMBs in May 2010 and Pakistan the second one.

Those who signed the Charter included Independent Election Commissioner of Afghanistan Fazel Ahmad Manawi, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of Bangladesh Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad, CEC of Bhutan Dasho Kunzang Wangdi, CEC of Nepal Neel Kantha Uprety, Commissioner of Maldives EC Ibrahim Waheed, Member, Election Commission of Pakistan Justice (Retd) Muhammad Roshan Essani, and Commissioner of Elections of Sri Lanka Mahinda Deshapriya.

India's CEC S Y Quraishi signed the Charter on behalf of ECI, while Election Commissioners V S Sampath and H S Brahma addressed the conference.

 

[Tshering22]

Came across this news report by Palki. She basically put it out in a summary as to why the rest of the Subcontinent is trying to distribute their eggs in different baskets.

Case and point:

Sri Lanka
Bhutan
Nepal
and now, Maldives


The most sensitive among these are Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, all of which are 1) culturally aligned to us; 2) are in our sensitive locations; and 3) Politically too immature to see what happens to them.