THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary-March 9, 2017- Topic 1
Dire straits
There is no certainty about the circumstances
that led to the killing
of a Tamil Nadu fisherman somewhere between the
Indian and Sri Lankan coast on Monday night. There is no telling who pulled the
trigger — whether it was the Sri Lankan Navy or some armed group. It is also
not clear where the shooting took place, whether in Sri Lankan waters or
elsewhere. Unmistakably though, this was a tragedy waiting to happen, the
direct fallout of the long-standing dispute between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lankan
Tamil fishermen over fishing rights in the Palk Bay.
While the Sri
Lankan Navy denies it had a hand in the killing,
the shooting exposes the lack of progress in the implementation of the
agreement between the two countries on preventing loss of life while managing
the fishing dispute through official channels. Last year, the two countries agreed
on establishing a Joint Working Group (JWG) on
fisheries to help resolve the dispute. A hotline between the Coast Guards of
India and Sri Lanka, convening of the JWG once in three months, and meetings of
the fisheries ministers every half-year were the components of the mechanism to
be put in place. But short-term measures lose their efficacy in the absence of
any forward movement toward long-term solutions. Without arriving at a
settlement on sustainable exploitation of the marine resources that would end
the use of bottom trawlers from Tamil Nadu, India and Sri Lanka will not be
able to ensure incident-free fishing in the strait.
Although instances of Indian fishermen crossing
into Sri Lankan waters have always been commonplace, the consequences for such
transgressions in recent years have been limited to seizure of boats and
prolonged detention. Unlike during the period of Sri Lanka’s war with the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, when its Navy indiscriminately shot at boats
and trawlers fearing smuggling of contraband by the Tamil rebels, the last few
years have seen few instances of firing at fishermen. But to view Monday’s
killing as an aberration is to underestimate the political and economic
contours of the problem. After he returned to power in 2015, Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe said Indian fishermen who crossed
the maritime boundary to fish in another country’s territorial waters would
be fired upon. Indian fishermen, who
invoke traditional rights to justify their incursions, want a three-year
phase-out period before they end trawling. But unless they take to deep-sea
fishing, and inland alternatives, India’s fishermen will be locked in a
conflict with their Sri Lankan counterparts as well as with a hostile Sri
Lankan Navy.
Vocabulary
Trigger: cause an event or
situation to happen or exist.
Example: An allergy can be
triggered by stress or overwork
Synonyms: precipitate, prompt, elicit, trigger
off, set off
Fallout: the adverse side
effects or results of a situation.
Example: Almost as dramatic
as the financial scale of the mess is the growing political fallout
Synonyms: repercussion, reverberation, aftermath
Tragedy: an event causing
great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime,
or natural catastrophe.
Example: A tragedy that
killed 95 people
Synonyms: disaster, calamity, catastrophe, cataclysm, misfortune, mishap
Hotline: a direct telephone
line set up for a specific purpose, especially for use in emergencies or for
communication between heads of government.
Example: A domestic
violence hotline
Exploitation: the action of
making use of and benefiting from resources.
Example: The Bronze Age saw
exploitation of gold deposits
Synonyms: utilization, use, making
use of, making the most of, capitalization on
Transgression: an act that goes
against a law, rule, or code of conduct; an offense.
Example: I'll be keeping an
eye out for further transgressions
Synonyms: offense, crime, sin, wrong, wrongdoing, misdemeanor
Contraband: imported or
exported illegally, either in defiance of a total ban or without payment of
duty.
Example: Contraband drug
shipments
Synonyms: smuggled, black-market, bootleg, under
the counter, illegal, illicit
Hostile: unfriendly;
antagonistic.
Example: A hostile audience
Synonyms: unfriendly, unkind, bitter, unsympathetic, malicious