NEW DELHI: After blocking India’s demand at the UN to declare Masood Azhar an international terrorist, China has now thrown the spanner in the works in India’s Project Mausam. A Ministry of Culture official said, “We have been trying to move UNESCO to get a transnational heritage status for the project. China is countering us on the pretext that it will affect its proposal to revive the maritime silk route.”
The Narendra Modi government announced the initiative in 2014. Project Mausam’s objective is to counter the swelling Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean Region. Once it gets the heritage status, no other project can interfere with the designated area. It will study monsoon winds that helped sailors in ancient times en route to South East Asia in reducing sailing time.
India has identified 39 countries, including China and Pakistan, to be brought on board the project. Beijing has been aggressively pushing for the revival of the Maritime Silk Route and has sought India’s support. Sri Lanka and Myanmar have also shown a keen interest to be part of China’s project.