{"id":36917,"date":"2023-08-19T10:40:16","date_gmt":"2023-08-19T05:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=36917"},"modified":"2025-04-22T09:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T03:42:07","slug":"the-katchatheevu-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/the-katchatheevu-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Katchatheevu controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<p>\u25cf Why in News?<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf Island of Katchatheevu<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf Agreement on Katchatheevu Island<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf How did the Sri Lankan Civil War impact Katchatheevu?<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf Stand of the Union Government on the Issue<\/p>\n<h2>Why in News?<\/h2>\n<p>Recently, the leader of the ruling political party attacked the main opposition party about its decision to \u201ccallously give away\u201d the island of Katchatheevu.<\/p>\n<h2>Island of Katchatheevu<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Geographical location<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Katchatheevu is an uninhabited area in the Palk Strait, between India and Sri Lanka.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"image image_resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiram-prod.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com\/Geographical_location_of_Katchatheevu_island_b4216d0989.jpg\" alt=\"Geographical location of Katchatheevu island\" \/><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>It is no more than 1.6 km in length and slightly over 300 m wide at its broadest point.\n<ul>\n<li>It lies northeast of Rameswaram, about 33 km from the Indian coast.<\/li>\n<li>It is about 62 km southwest of Jaffna, at the northern tip of Sri Lanka, and 24 km away from the inhabited Delft Island, belonging to Sri Lanka.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>History<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Being the product of a 14-century volcanic eruption, Katchatheevu is relatively new in the geological timescale.<\/li>\n<li>In the early mediaeval period, it was controlled by the Jaffna kingdom of Sri Lanka.<\/li>\n<li>In the 17th century, control passed to the Ramnad zamindari based out of Ramanathapuram, about 55 km northwest of Rameswaram.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dispute<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Island became part of the Madras Presidency during the British Raj.<\/li>\n<li>But in 1921, both India and Sri Lanka, at the time British colonies, claimed Katchatheevu in order to determine fishing boundaries.<\/li>\n<li>A survey marked Katchatheevu in Sri Lanka, but a British delegation from India challenged this, citing ownership of the island by the Ramnad kingdom.<\/li>\n<li>This dispute was not settled until 1974.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Agreement on Katchatheevu Island<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime agreement of 1974<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>In 1974, the then Indian govt under Indira Gandhi made attempts to settle the maritime border between India and Sri Lanka, once and for all.<\/li>\n<li>As a part of this settlement, known as the \u2018<strong>Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime agreement\u2019<\/strong>, Katchatheevu was ceded to Sri Lanka.<\/li>\n<li>At the time, she thought the island had little strategic value and that ceasing India\u2019s claim over the island would deepen its ties with its southern neighbour.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>1974 agreement and fishing rights of Indian fishermen<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>As per the agreement, Indian fishermen were still allowed to access Katchatheevu.<\/li>\n<li>Unfortunately, the issue of fishing rights was not ironed out by the agreement.<\/li>\n<li>Sri Lanka interpreted Indian fishermens\u2019 right to access Katchatheevu to be limited to rest, drying nets and for visit to the Catholic shrine without visa.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>1976 agreement<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Another agreement in 1976, during the period of Emergency in India, barred either country from fishing in the other\u2019s Exclusive Economic Zone.<\/li>\n<li>Again, Katchatheevu lay right at the edge of the EEZs of either country, retaining a degree of uncertainty with regards to fishing rights.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>How did the Sri Lankan Civil War impact Katchatheevu?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>During a period between 1983 and 2009<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Between 1983 and 2009, the border dispute remained on the back burner as a bloody civil war raged in Sri Lanka.<\/li>\n<li>As Sri Lankan naval forces focused on blocking LTTE supply lines from Jaffna, Indian fishermen often entered Sri Lankan waters.<\/li>\n<li>Larger Indian trawlers were particularly disliked for overfishing and damaging local fishing gear and boats.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>After 2009<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2009, the war with the LTTE ended, and things dramatically changed.<\/li>\n<li>Colombo beefed up its maritime defences, and turned focus to Indian fishermen.<\/li>\n<li>Facing a depletion of marine resources on the Indian side, they would frequently enter Sri Lankan waters as they had been doing for years, but finally began facing consequences.<\/li>\n<li>Till date, the Sri Lankan navy routinely arrests Indian fishermen and there have been many allegations of custodial torture and death.<\/li>\n<li>The demand for Katchatheevu is revived each time such an incident happens.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Stand of the Union Government on the Issue<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The successive Union government\u2019s position on Katchatheevu has largely remained unchanged.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It has argued that since the island had always been under dispute, no territory belonging to India was ceded nor sovereignty relinquished.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Q.1. What is Palk Strait?<\/h2>\n<p>The Palk Strait is a strait between India and Srilanka which connects the Bay of Bengal in the northeast with the Gulf of Mannar in the southwest.<\/p>\n<h2>Q.2. Where is Jaffna?<\/h2>\n<p>Jaffna is a port city in northern Sri Lanka, located on a peninsula at the island&#8217;s northern tip. It&#8217;s the capital of Sri Lanka&#8217;s Northern Province and has been a prominent harbor since ancient times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Katchatheevu is an uninhabited area in the Palk Strait, between India and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":36918,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}