India is not the loser either, claims NDTV

Though leading Indian media outlets described recent verdict on maritime delimitation as a victory for Bangladesh, NDTV ran a story on Sunday claiming India was not the loser, reports UNB.
The report titled 'UN Tribunal Resolves 40-Year-Old Maritime Dispute between India and Bangladesh' updated on its website on Sunday afternoon claimed that NDTV has accessed an internal government of India note that 'suggests otherwise'.
"So has India lost out?...even though India believes the delimitation has been done in an arbitrary fashion, it is not the loser. Control of the disputed New Moore Island and concomitant access to Hariabhanga river is a significant gain," says the report.
The island, supposedly rich in oil and natural gas, has been a traditional sore point between the two neighbouring countries.
The Hariabhanga river, which flows around the Sundarbans in West Bengal and borders Satkhira district of Bangladesh, and the region holds twice the amount of hydrocarbons as compared to the Krishna-Godavari basin in Andhra Pradesh.
The verdict is also good news for the fishermen of both countries who now have access to a larger area for fishing.
Ending a 40-year-old dispute, a United Nations tribunal delivered its verdict on Tuesday on India and Bangladesh's maritime boundaries in the Bay of Bengal, awarding nearly four-fifth of the 25,000 sq km of the exclusive economic zone to Bangladesh.
The verdict, binding on both countries, opens the way for Bangladesh to explore for oil and gas in the Bay of Bengal, and ends a dispute over a sea border with India that has ruffled ties between the neighbours.
Both the governments have called it a win-win situation. "It's the victory of friendship and a win-win situation for the people of Bangladesh and India," Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said on Tuesday after the ruling of the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA).
 "The settlement of the maritime boundary will further enhance mutual understanding and goodwill between India and Bangladesh by bringing to closure a long-pending issue," India's Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
Besides, Firstpost.com, an India media outlet, ran an analysis titled 'UN panel verdict allows India access to Hariabhanga gas reserves, Dhaka gets 20 K sqkm EEZ.'
 "For India too it is a matter of satisfaction and also a diplomatic victory for several reasons. One, the United Nations' Permanent Court of Arbitration in Hague acknowledged India's sovereignty over New Moore Island and grants India concomitant access to the Hariabhanga river," Rajeev Sharma, Firstpost Consulting Editor and a strategic analyst, writes.
The disputed region was near the mouth of the Hariabhanga river, an area of huge strategic importance for India in the coming decades. In 2006, India had discovered 100 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in a creek about 50km to the south of the mouth of the Hariabhanga within the contested region, he mentioned in his write-up. The Hariabhanga gas reserves are estimated to be almost twice what the entire Krishna-Godavari basin holds.
New Moore Island, better known as South Talpatty in Bangladesh, has been claimed by both India and Bangladesh ever since it came into being in Bay of Bengal following a cyclone in 1970.
Nonetheless, the UN tribunal's acknowledgment of the Indian sovereignty in the area hands over considerable strategic leverage to India. That is because the region is said to be rich in oil and natural gas reserves. Now India can legally explore and exploit the natural resources in this area, says the analytical report.
The second reason is equally important for India. While it is true that Bangladesh has 'gained' close to twenty thousand square kilometres in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), India has reasons to be happy as the award has split the area in question in favour of India which is significantly closer to India's claim than to that of Bangladesh, it says.
Over and above these reasons there is a huge diplomatic take-away for both India and Bangladesh from the historic UN tribunal award, Rajeev Sharma mentioned in his write-up.