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Mahesh

07/04/24 07:12 AM IST

Katchatheevu pacts

In News
  • Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi blamed the Congress for “callously” giving away Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka.
Katchatheevu Island
  • Katchatheevu is an uninhabited island spanning some 285 acres in the Palk Strait that separates Tamil Nadu and northern Sri Lanka.
  • More precisely, it is located 14.5 km south of Delft Island and about 16 km to the northeast of Rameswaram.
  • It is barren, has no drinking water or infrastructure, except a sole Catholic structure dedicated to St. Anthony.
Dispute
  • The dispute was over who owns Katchatheevu. Negotiations began in 1921, between the British colonial governments of Madras and Ceylon, with both sides claiming territorial ownership.
  • The matter was settled some five decades later, after the Governments of India and Sri Lanka, under Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, signed two bilateral agreements in 1974 and 1976.
  • The governments agreed that Katchatheevu falls within Sri Lanka’s territory, and on a maritime boundary in the Gulf of Mannar and Bay of Bengal to define the two countries’ exclusive economic zones.
  • With the exclusive economic zones, India and Sri Lanka agreed to exercise sovereign rights over the living and non-living resources of their respective zone.
  • The understanding was that fishing vessels and fishermen of India and Sri Lanka shall not fish in each other’s waters, territorial sea and the exclusive zone.
  • However, despite the historic dispute over its territorial definition, fishermen from Tamil Nadu visit Katchatheevu every March, along with their Tamil-speaking counterparts of northern Sri Lanka, for the annual St. Anthony’s festival.
  • The Indian fishermen do not require a passport to visit the island in Sri Lankan territorial waters for this purpose, because the 1974 agreement expressly permitted them to access the island for rest, drying of nets, and the festival, while prohibiting any fishing activity.
Source- The Hindu

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