 Meeting host ask Leon Hermann's for permission to record to my device. Yeah, I'll I am now recording the session. Okay, the cloud to my zoom cloud. So yeah. Okay, then I'm going to start. Welcome you everybody to this webinar of our Transparency Plan Project of 15 April two thousand and twenty four. Good to see you all. I also see that we have some new names amongst us, Vina and Vidas. Welcome you both to the project and to this webinar series, which we are hosting on a monthly basis. And today we have our friends from the Brahmaputa River basin note. And in their research, they focus on inland water transport between India and Bangladesh, which is also very much represented as a hallmark of local or regional cooperation between the countries. And well, Anna Mika and her team are doing research on this potential of this inland water transport system to catalyze transformative change within and amongst the basin communities. And by analyzing the social economic dynamics and the environmental sustainability of it. No, I've said by me, thank you everybody for joining us. And then I would like to give the floor to the Brahmaputra note. And thank you for it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for the introduction. So we have four presenters, but we'll be quick. We thought to keep it inclusive. So we brought everybody on board. So what I'm going to do is quickly share the screen and what we are just, I hope you can see my screen, right? OK, so so as you can see here on the slide and as you all mentioned, the focus of the Brahmaputra note is on inland water transport focusing on two countries that is Bangladesh and India. And on a river basin, which is called the Brahmaputra River Basin, I'm going to talk more about what this river basin is like. And what we are trying to see is, of course, whether this intervention on the river basin between these two important South Asian countries, is it leading to a transformative change? What you see here on the picture is a picture from Marjuli, which we took when we went for the fieldwork. And so this is also the place where we plan to bring you for the fieldwork when you come here in December. And the river is the Brahmaputra River from the India side. OK, so before I go into the presentation, I thought it was important to introduce everyone to the Brahmaputra note team. And as you can see, IIT Gohati is taking the lead in this project. And with me, Mizo, Gittima and Jaya are working on this project. We have two regional partners. We have Joy Deep as a media partner and Sumit as knowledge partner. Then we also have partners in India and Bangladesh, who are a part of the Brahmaputra note. Dr. Patha is heading an organization called Aranya in India, which is which focuses mostly on the environment and climate change issues. And in Bangladesh, we have Zakir from JJS and we have Malik Fida from CEGIS. They are both going to help us at the fieldwork and also in the policy assessment part. We have Dr. Vina, who is from Cuts International, and she is basically going to work across the India and the Bangladesh part. So for us, Vina is the regional partner within the Brahmaputra note. So just one thing that I wanted to add is that today what we are presenting is in contribution from the entire team. OK, now moving on the river basin that I was talking about, which we are calling it as Brahmaputra River Basin, but the name is very long. It is called Yalong Sangpo in China. It is called Brahmaputra in India and it is called Yamuna in actually Bangladesh. It also falls, the Brahmaputra also falls in the catchment of Brahmaputra River Basin and there are two tributaries which joins the river. And that is why we call it that the river is shared by China, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh. It's an interesting river basin because, you know, that most of these South Asian countries has a huge population and the river when it flows through this different communities, the community is lively, who depends a lot on this river, particularly agriculture plays a very, very important role. And there are also pockets of community which are still not very well off in terms of economic, you know, conditions. So poverty seems to be and continues to be a major challenge for the community residing on this river basin. The river is also interestingly known as River of Sorrow and Opportunity Sorrow because there are yearly devastating floods, which takes away lives and livelihood. It's earlier, it used to be only a yearly flood, but now with climate change, it has moved, it has become much more recurrent. And every time this flood comes in, there is a lot of economic, law, social, and psychological impact to people. And Opportunity because the river also provides a lot of opportunity, which are not entirely explored, but it has a lot of hydropower potential. It has a lot of navigation potential, which is also a case that we are going to study. So we call it, therefore, the river, the water or this river actually has an enormous potential as well to bring a lot of prosperity to the community who depends on this river. However, every country sharing this river basin has diverse interests. So that has been a big challenge to bring countries together into one platform and identify how we can jointly invest on this river basin. And this has been made even more difficult because there are several bilateral MOUs that exist between, for example, China, India, Bangladesh, China, India, Bhutan, India, Bangladesh, but we don't have anything which brings all the four countries together. And also this river basin continues to be kind of an under-research river basin compared to other South Asian river basins such as Ganges and Indus. But yes, we do see that in the last decade, there is a lot of interest on the river basin. We are also seeing some investment coming on. And there are interests from the countries and the governments as well. Now, in this context, it is very interesting for us to actually explore this very, you know, and this actually a renewed intervention, I would say, because Ilan Water Transport between India and Bangladesh, there was already a trade agreement which was signed between these two countries in 1972. And the idea was, of course, this whole channel of navigation will help in moving lots of goods and services. But due to several political issues between 2001 and 2015, it stopped. So there was nothing happening for those many years. But in 2016, there was a conversation between the governments of the country, a renewed interest, and they also decided that we should renew this contract and this renewal, the way they did it, that for five successive years it will go on automatically. It will get renewed unless a particular government of any country raise any objection. And during this time, they also decided the country, the governments also decided that there needs to be some addendum to the old protocol. There were several meetings. Two of the meetings one happened in New Delhi in India and another in Dhaka in 2019. What came out of these meetings and what addendum we see is that there has been extension of the protocol routes, their inclusion of new routes and also declaration that new ports would be developed. There was emphasis on what kind of vessels would be allowed to be moving on the international river. And I specifically bring this up because this matters a lot when we will be presenting to you the cases, the case studies. And also a very important thing is that how can we make these, you know, transportation between India and Bangladesh movement of goods between England and Bangladesh less bureaucratic, less difficult. And so how can we improve the customs and immigration procedures? So these were some of the important points that were emphasised and discussed and so that this particular intervention can become much more successful than what we have seen in the past. Now, just to very quickly tell you that why this river, particularly Brahmaputra River is an interesting case is because as you can see in the left side of the diagram that there are several 111 national waterways that India has. But NW2, which is the Brahmaputra River, it actually connects to Bangladesh. So what you see on the other side of the on this diagram from Saudi is the point it actually connects from here. This is the border port between India and Bangladesh. It moves down and here you see India Bangladesh protocol route. This is the this is the route that our study is focusing on. And we plan to focus on four cases, two in India and two in Bangladesh. Two India is Marjuli and Thuburi and two in Bangladesh is Chilmari and Sirajganj. And the reason why we picked these up is that you would see that while Thuburi is a place where a lot of offloading and uploading of goods happen, Marjuli is another interesting case because this protocol agreement also talks about passenger you know cruises, for example, cross border cruises. So how the cross border proof can actually enhance likelihood was the reason why we picked up Marjuli and two case studies in Bangladesh. They are all very, very close to where the border is. Today in our presentation, we are going to talk about Thuburi and Marjuli as the Bangladesh case study. The field visit is going to happen from the month of I think around in the month of May or June, so that when next time we can present to you the Chilmari and Sirajganj case. So this is the background based on which we started this work. I'm now going to hand it over to Sumit, who is going to tell us how we are planning to do this, what's the methodology or what's the research design around this this study. But what overall we are trying to understand is that the larger question that we are actually trying to research around is that can we learn what to transport, bring transformative changes in the basin community across gender, class, religion and environment and at the same time ensuring that it is inclusive, transparent and it takes a participatory approach. So over to you, Sumit. Thanks, Anamika. Very quickly, I'll keep it short today because we have two more speakers coming in. My idea was to tell a bit more about how do we operationalize the the key question that Anamika just raised. So what we are doing right now is like we in the last few months we created an analytical framework on transformation. What we basically did is to not focus so much on what why of the transformation, because Anamika already mentioned that we are looking the whole aspect of inland water transport as a possible transformation in the Brahmaputra basin and how it could change lives or not. That is also one of the key elements that what is not transformative about this whole intervention that is being proposed to bring cooperation between the different countries. But the idea was to also think of how do we bring this transformation and for whom that was a key question that we focused on. I'm not going to go into the detail of the framework that we created. It's called the spirit framework, which I discussed in the Mexico workshop. And also I'm going to talk about a bit more in the in the PhD and postdoc forum this week. So there will be a bit more details on this particular framework and how do we analyze and look at the existing policies, whether they are talking about transformation or not. So we are going to look into that. But in terms of the real field work and to understand what has happened, we had two broad methods to understand this. First one, of course, the policy document analysis, where the policy assessment come and the spirit framework comes in to look at the gaps in the existing policies. A lot of government, quite a few government policy documents, or at least their public outreach has been that the inland water transfer will bring transformation. But in practice, in reality, in the policy documents, we wonder whether there is or not. We don't want to make a judgment simply based on what is said in these political statements. So we are going to go a step back and make this assessment whether they are talking about the scalability of these policies, whether they are power inclusive or not. We are looking into the temporality angle of how long are they talking about when they are proposing interventions around inland water transport. So all those aspects will be looked into in quite detail. The second, which is the core of the work in terms of on the ground realities is the critical living labs, which is more based on action research and kind of capturing what is really needed by the people or the voices that are not yet heard. So you will hear in the coming slides from Jaya as well as Mizo that in the two sites in India, in Marjuli and Dhubri, whose voices are not yet heard and what kind of challenges exist there. So we kind of did a reconnaissance visits in those two places. The details will be shared in the coming slides by the two two researchers, Mizo and Jaya. I will not go into that, but I will quickly mention that. How did we operationalized it in a couple of minutes? So what we did is in the last in in 2023, we made these visits but and try to identify what are the key gaps or challenges that are yet not been addressed by the inland water transport policy domain. They are making these big claims that there will be trade and all sorts of things. But what are the key challenges for the people on the ground? There are these small boat dwellers. There are these people who are working on the on the boats. What kind of challenges exist for them? How can we say that they are transformative in nature? So we look into that. And also this will not be the end of it. The idea is to identify those gaps, which we have identified. You will hear about them in the coming slides. But somehow find these low hanging fruits, which we in the next two years, at least within this project boundaries, we could make those interventions and bring those agendas on board with the state or with other actors that are responsible for this. I will stop here very quickly. I think it will be Jaya next, who will talk about Dhoobri and Jaya. It's over to you now. Thank you, Sumit. Hello, everyone. So as Sumit already mentioned that we have already done our reconnaissance survey in our two studies side. So first, we went to Dhoobri. So in Dhoobri, we visited last year from 12 to 14 December. And there we interacted with IWI officials, some private company representative, Fisher Hopeboat Association members, Indian traders, Bangladeshi traders and Char residents. So Char is a localized term that is used for the river in Iceland. Because of its geographic location, the Char's are prone to erosion and submersion during floods. So the Char communities, they are very essential part of our study because they are the most vulnerable ones. So first visit, we did in Dhoobri. And the second visit we did in Marjuli. We went to Marjuli in February. And there we interacted with the local communities, which includes the village headman, Char community, Fisher folks and government officials. So I will give more emphasis on the Dhoobri. So before going into the detail, I would like to set up a overall overview of Dhoobri. So it's geographic and demographic position. Dhoobri is a key district in Assam because it is a gateway to both interstate and interstate border of Assam. And it's also shared international border with Bangladesh. And because of this, there are many native and migrant community who lives in Dhoobri. Second is its economy. Dhoobri's economy is primarily dependent on agriculture. Although there are people who work as a daily wage labor, some of them also owns very small shop. But overall, in industrial development, Dhoobri is very backward. There is no industrial development because of which Dhoobri is a poor state in Assam. Next is its ecology. Dhoobri has quite rich biodiversity, especially in term of fishes. There are dolphins which are found in the Brahmaputra river. And they are very important species because they are considered as the indicators of the river health. But the most important characteristic of Dhoobri is its inland water navigation. So why it is very important? Because there are two ports in Dhoobri. First is international port and second is domestic ports. So as in this map, you can see the green square box. This is the Dhoobri port. And at the corner, you can see a red triangle, which is the Bangladesh international port, Chilmari. And these red lines, it represents the trade that is happening between India and Bangladesh. Apart from this, you can see there are many thinner lines who are spread all over. So these lines show the domestic port, domestic trade, which is happening within the Assam from Dhoobri. And from Dhoobri, these trade are taking place with Meghalaya as well. Meghalaya is a neighboring state of Assam in the northeast India. So there are two ports in Dhoobri and two types of trade dynamic is happening in Dhoobri. So first, I will like to give an idea about what is happening in the international port. So during our first day visit in the field, we went to the international port, where we interacted with the government officials, private entity and the traders. And we paid our observations as well. So from our study site, we found some interesting aspects. First is the trade commodity. So at present during the time of the study, only two commodities were being transported from that port. That was the coal and the stone. And however, this port is open to trade with other form of other commodities as well. But it is not happening at that time. So there is a less diversification. So while interacting with one of the Bangladeshi trader, he mentioned that maybe there are chances that from the Bangladesh side, the demand is lower. That is why this port is not dealing with other commodities. However, we are not very sure of it because we have not made our visit to the Bangladesh yet. So in future, we are definitely going to look into this aspect. The second important interesting development that has happened in the Dhubri port is its privatization. So in 2023, the government of India has leased out this port to a private company for five years on the basis of operation management. This is a public-private partnership model. And in this model, the private entity holds the 60% of the share and the government owns the 40% of the share. And because of its PPP mode, its governance structure is also quite interesting. The committee has been formed where there are the representatives from private company, IWI officials, custom officials and traders as well. There is a clear cut demarcation between the role and responsibilities of private entity and the government. So the private entity is responsible for taking care of all the activities which is related to the trade that is loading and unloading. Whereas the government's responsibility is to manage the channel which are used for navigation to a depth of 2.5 meters. After privatization, a lot of challenges has arisen in the international port. So I'll discuss each of them one by one. So first one is the tariff hike. So before privatization, the government used to charge a tariff of Rs. 75 per ton for the stones. And after privatization, this tariff has increased to Rs. 335. So there is a huge increase in the tariff price. And because of this, overall the trade in the Dhubri has gone down. So as per the data which we received from the field was that in 2022, the trade, the volume of the trade that took place from the port was 1.5 million ton. However, in 2023, it reduced to 20,000 tons. So when we were in the field, we observed that a kind of a negotiation was going on between the traders and the private company because of the increased tariff. These private traders, they were not happy at all. And a continuous dialogue was going on between both of them. So after this negotiation, the company, they reduced their tariff price. They reduced it to Rs. 225. And they clearly mentioned that this is the lowest tariff that they can provide to the traders. They cannot go beyond that. And although they have reduced the tariff price, but still it is much higher than what the government used to charge. The third challenge is the poor infrastructure. Previously, when IWAI was taking care of the port, so they installed a conveyor belt which used to facilitate the loading and unloading activities quite smoothly at the port. And after privatization, the belt was removed. And since then, the operational efficiency of the port has gone down. So when we were in the field, we saw that there were four or five Bangalore issue vessels were standing there from the past four or five days. Until then, they were not loaded. So when we were having the conversation with the Bangalore issue traders, they mentioned that because of this poor operational efficiency at the port, their overall businesses also suffers. And the last observation which we made in context of the challenge was the relationship with the trader. We observed that this private entity, they are not able to build that interpersonal relationship with the traders. And one of the reason could be is the language because the trader speaks SMEs and all the employees of the private company are not from the SM. So they cannot speak SMEs. So there was this lack of the interpersonal relationship. However, this trader had a good interpersonal relationship with the IWAI officials because they were able to speak in SMEs. So these are our insights from our first day field visit. On the second day of the field visit, we visited to the domestic port. And in the domestic port, we were actually quite surprised to see the kind of the activities that were happening. The port was very busy, unlike the international port. There were passenger boats, there was this trading boat, a lot of loading and unloading of items like potato, beet, spices, all these were happening. So the port was very busy. So we moved ahead and we interacted with the local traders who were involved in this activity. We interacted with them. We wanted to know their perspective on this inland water transport, how they understand it, what are the problems they face. So while interacting with them, we came to know that these local traders, they are very keen to do this trade in international waters. However, they are unable to do it because of the licensing requirement. So in India, we have an Indian vessel act 1917. And as per this act, there are only certain kind of the vessels who are allowed to go to the international port and do the business. And these small boats, which these local trader owns, they do not fall in that category. Hence, they have been refrained from doing the business in the international water. But interestingly, although there is this formal restriction in the trade, informal trading is happening between India and the Bangladesh. So what exactly is happening is all these items, whatever has been transported from the Dhubri port, they are going to the local areas like Mankachar and other local ports. But these Mankachar and these local ports, they are closer to the Bangladesh border. So from there, these items are eventually going to the Bangladesh, but through the informal channel. And because there is no accounting of this trade. So we are not very sure that what exactly is the volume of the trade that is happening because of this informal trade. And then the last observation which we made in the field was there were no female trader, neither in international port, nor in the domestic port. So while we were having the conversation with the local trader, they mentioned that there is a woman who lives in Dhauki, Meghalaya. She is the women trader we came across. And we have planned that in our next field visit, we are definitely going to meet her. And we will try to bring her perspective related to this inland water transport into our study. So apart from these international and local trade dynamics, an interesting infrastructure development is taking place in Dhubri. That is the construction of the bridge. So a bridge is under the construction. As you can see in this picture, this bridge has already been constructed to some extent. So this bridge will connect Dhubri in Assam to Fulbari in Meghalaya. And lots and lots of positive hopes has been attached to this bridge. Like it will improve the connectivity. It will reduce the travel time. It will bring the regional integration because Assam and Meghalaya, these two states, they are quite rich in their own culture. So with this bridge will help to integrate these cultural diversity among each other. But one of the negative aspect that is also associated with this bridge is once the bridge is ready and it's operational, so there are very high chances that the trade, which is happening through the river, might shift into the road-based trade. And if this happens, these local traders' business future is quite high in risk. So after spending the two days in our field, these are the problems we found. And we also identified the two low-hanging fruits in Dhubri. So first one is, as I earlier mentioned, because of the licensing requirement, these traders are unable to operate formally in international order. So we are planning to set up a dialogue with the government so where we would like to advocate with the government to bring some form of flexibility in this Indian vessel lab so that these boat operators who cannot do the international trade can also come under the umbrella of this app and can also operate. So this will improve the inclusivity of the app as well. And to do this, we will, the CUTs International, who is our regional partner, we will take help from them because they have been advocating about it since long back and they have done a good amount of groundwork, which is definitely going to help us. Second is, we observe that there is a communication gap between India and Bangladesh traders. There is no platform where they both can come and meet and discuss. So we are planning to set up an informal platform where the traders from both India and Bangladesh can come. They can discuss the demand from both the side and how they can meet this demand. So this informal platform will not only enhance the trade dynamics, it will also increase the cooperation between these two countries in the BRV region. So we have identified these two fruits and in the future we are going to look into these aspects more deeply. Now from here, I will hand over the presentation to Mizo who will explain our next study site, that is Marjuli. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Jaya. So moving on to our next field site, which is Marjuli. Marjuli is a large island in the Brahmavata River in Gaza. It's one of the economically poor states in Gaza. Gaza means communities along with tribal communities and other marginalized communities as I said there. The local economy basically revolved around the agriculture activities, agriculture and other activities of primarily fishing. Marjuli communities do commercial fishing and most of the households are involved in the substance fishing. And the unique geography of Marjuli is developed with a rich aquatic life and a rich bird population. And it's also subject to animal floods and the related assaults. Marjuli can be saying unique culture, heritage, as a sort of neo-Islamic movement believing in a casteless and egalitarian society worshipping Lord Krishna. Inland water transport is very much tied with the daily lives of the local communities in terms of employment, education, and accessing health services. And the inland water transport is very important for Marjuli, not only because of the dependence of the local community. It's also because like Marjuli has an important industry budding as a tourism industry, local tourism industry. As you can see in the map, the cross-border river cruise operates from a city called Varnasi in Amutha, India states, Kothabadesh, and it crosses India, and then enters Bangladesh, and finally carries an increasing number of domestic and international tourists to Marjuli. So moving on to the insights from the fieldwork. Our fieldwork pointed towards the livelihood prices of local communities. So first I will discuss the case of Peshawok. Peshawok mostly belongs to Marjuli's caste, and because of the dealing, fishing population, and disappearing water bodies, the fishing is no more as a viable livelihood option. As a result, youth are migrating out of Marjuli, and the elders are moving to other casual jobs and precarious nature of Viji labor. And the second case is about the missing tribal community. The missing tribal community, historically this chair, the livelihood is tied with the riverine ecology, and the riverine ecology, so increasing the nature of the annual floods and riverbank erosion, force them to move away from their riverbanks. So as a result, they are disconnected from the, their historical culture. So when we talk about the other communities, other Marjuli's communities stay at the chariots, they are also forced to move away from the riverside to other individual parts of Marjuli. Then we will discuss the case of women across the Marjuli's communities. They are said, responds to the livelihood. They mostly engage in small-scale, high-level weaving, hydro-smaking, and the southern groups play an important role there. And then we can see all the Marjuli's highly related to their vulnerability to floods also, like the geographical location of the riverside community, make them vulnerable to annual floods and related hazards, while Assamese communities settle in the core of the, core areas of Marjuli, and they are kind of less impacted by the floods. So given this scenario, the question arises, what inland water transport can do to provide a sustainable livelihood to the local communities? So moving on, one of the recent infrastructure development happening at Marjuli is construction of a bridge, which ended into the local development in Marjuli Nation in multiple ways. First case, increasing connectivity. It promises a connectivity to outside wealth, a 24-hour connectivity, because now the very piles till 3.30 p.m. So the local communities are facing problems, especially during medical emergencies, et cetera. And the bridge promises an increasing accessibility, accessibility in terms of environmental opportunities and educational opportunities, which mostly they are finding outside of Marjuli. The disciplines of new wise movements, particularly raise the concern about the integration of Marjuli's culture with other parts of Assam. For example, the unique culture of Marjuli will dilute with other cultures, and the increasing number of population may bring more industry pollution and waste damage, et cetera. So the women, local women aware of the construction of bridge, and they are kind of anxious about what will happen to their small-scale business, will it bring more competition or will it increase access to market opportunities? Because the ferry service, they are kind of afraid, especially during the monsoon season, because of the increasing number of accidents, et cetera. But the question to Ponder is about the last minute and activity. For example, the Char, the communities resided in Char areas, this way around 20 kilometers away from the construction site of bridge. So a company ship away from the ferry service to bridge, will it reproduce the existing inequality in Marjuli? So based on the field insights, some long-time thoughts how MAS, because this need to have a multi-mortar transportation, like a persistence of transport to the bridge and a ferry service, which can cater to the multiple needs of local communities. Second is a potential for developing sustainable livelihood around tourism. As we discussed earlier, tourism is a budding industry in Marjuli. So we can provide a sustainable livelihood around tourism and to overcome the livelihood crisis of local communities. Then TEDA aspect is river and aquatic biodiversity through community-based conservation. One of our peer-to-peer scholar, Gideel Mandas, particularly working on this aspect. So I'll hand it over to Anand Meghana. Yeah, so thank you. So these were the two cases that we have, we just made preliminary visit to these study sites. Of course, a lot needs to be explored. And so the next step that we have is a similar kind of requisite would be conducted in Bangladesh with the help of JJS and the CUTs. We are also planning for policy assessment and we plan to collaborate with CEGIS for the policy assessment part. We also are planning to do traders meet in collaboration with ECMOD in Nepal with support from CUTs. And we are also, I mean, Svita is here already. Maybe he can come in later. So Svita already is working very closely with the Bangladesh government. So the idea is to know where are the gaps and how at the policy level, where are the gaps and how can we bring all that nuances we found in Majuli and Hiburi case to the policy level so that these gaps can be bridged. So overall, what we really found is that there's a lot of hype going on, a lot of discussion going on at the bureaucracy level, both in India and Bangladesh. But when we went to the ground, really nothing much was happening. So it was very disappointing for us as well. We are also planning to explore the possibility of setting up living labs in Majuli. And of course, all of these we would like to discuss with you when you all come for the annual workshop in India in between 4th and the 7th December. So I'm going to stop here. And this is the picture that Sumit took when we were in Majuli. And I think it's a very beautiful picture. So if you have not yet signed up, you should now open your Excel sheet and put your name and sign up because this is where we will be bringing you for the fieldwork. So thank you very much. Thank you very much, Anamika and all other speakers as well, also for your promotional talk here at the end. So I invite everybody to this beautiful scenery. In the meantime, several people have submitted some questions in the chat. And maybe we can just first start addressing some of those questions. And potentially the persons who wrote these questions could give some further explanation. So the first question that was entered into the chat box to my awareness was the remark from Emanuele who is interested on the idea of the critical lab. Emanuele, would you give some additional words to our written comments? Yeah, no, my thanks for all the presentations. I think after listening to Sumit, I was first of all interested by this idea of critical living labs because usually living labs, according to my limited knowledge are not so critical. But I think one of the reasons is that, because as you said, once you open up the Pandora Box of power relations, like real conflict might arise. So I was wondering also as a researcher, which role will you take in facilitating mediating and how will you do that if those conflicts arise? And there was also a reference to action research. So I was wondering, are you combined it to methods? Yes. For approach. Thanks Emanuele. Very interesting question. And you rightly said it's not limited knowledge that living labs are not very power sensitive. So it is correct. And that's the reason we particularly during thinking about it during our preparation of the research design, I thought maybe it's a good idea to take a step forward. And there were a couple of elements that we wanted to borrow from stakeholder platforms because stakeholder platforms, the way they are designed are specifically for conflict resolution. However, living labs are not necessarily thought about it. They are more technologically driven, at least in the European context, the way they are designed. They are about to implement things or more cooperation is at the forefront of it, but not necessarily conflict resolution. So what we've thought about is because and that's where the role of action research comes. We wanted to test few things before creating living labs to really visit places to talk to people and see what kind of dynamics does exist on the ground. And we could clearly see that there is very strong dynamics between these traders, which Anamika was mentioning about and the state who wants to promote inland water transport for these big items like the coals and the boulders, which are usually not done by small and marginal traders. These are done mostly by big traders. What happens to these small boat builders then? That's the question arises. And if the bridge comes into picture and all sorts of infrastructure develop, what happens to these local small traders and how are they going to connect? Because in the policy, there is no clear categorization that you can trade this or you cannot trade that. So why there is a clear preference or action plan towards big traders? So why are these small traders who are still doing their trade domestically could not trade with Bangladesh, for example. And what happens to them when these large traders come into picture? Some of them don't even get access to the main ports. They are still working on these smaller, without any infrastructure on these ports. To get that knowledge, we did these visits and it will kind of set a path to get that feedback into it, which is the action research part. And then we are going to set up these living labs where there will be questions of these clear power interplay. Of course, there is an aspect of it in the setting there. There is a process of learning, collaborative learning that will be aimed at, but also the design elements who are invited to these meetings, what are they informed about, who is inviting them? All these aspects will be considered before we set up these living labs. So they will make them a bit more sensitive. I would not say completely take away the power interplay because that's impossible. But at least there is a possibility to reduce these power struggles when they come forward in these settings. So that's a bit longer answer to your question because it needs a bit more elaboration, but that wasn't. I hope it answered, but we can have more discussion about it later. Thanks, Emmanuel, for the question. Yes, and thank you for your explanation, Sumit. I think quite clear and indeed nice stuff to further talk about later. Then, Jordi Gupta has very specific questions that are also addressed already in the chat box. Yet, at the same time, I think it's also interesting to think about these very specific questions in relations to what is then also the transformations going on in this landscape. He asked about the clearance of the bridge and so that gives us an idea on what kind of transportation, of course, is still able to pass underneath without problems and have with the kind of shipping or is it just then small ships or large ships? So apparently it gives a clearance of 10 meters, which I don't know the vessels that are traveling, but maybe on the Mikei. So is this considered that then still large ships are being able to pass through? I saw a very big cruise ship, also in one of the pictures. Would that still be able to go through or is 10 meters too low? Yeah, I think so if you saw, so it comes from very up in Varanasi, which is another part, but yes, it is happening, although what Joy Deepak was the frequency, but we really don't know. I don't really know. I don't know. Maybe Vina would like to respond to that if she's aware of the frequency of these cross-border cruises. So maybe Vina, you can come. Just one thing before I go to that, I could see Leon's question on something similar to what you also spoke about, yeah, and whether these low-hanging foods in both the places are something that we are connecting with the transformative changes. For now, I would say yes, because we have not yet connected the links, but how or what we felt when we were in the field, particularly in the case of Dhupuri, was that, for example, those small traders who were engaged in trading between Assam, the state of India, to another state of India, which is Meghalaya, they are the locals of those areas. They are engaged in such trade. But if you really look at the conditions and the economy conditions, the living standards, they are really, really not good. I mean, every time when flood comes, they have to move. And so there is no really good capital as such with them that they can take it ahead or they've become better every year. So the lens that we are putting up here is that if, suppose, we can advocate for these small traders to also participate in the international river and get engaged in international trade, particularly with this bridge coming in, which might actually reduce their trade even within the country, so will it actually help their living conditions, give them an uplift in terms of economic well-being as well? That is one thing. The other thing is we also feel that that can boost the local economy, because a lot of things are produced locally as well in Thuburi. It's one of the states where rise cultivation is very high. And that is also exported to Bangladesh. So will such trade also boost the economy, local economy, and also bring many more people on board? So that's the lens we are taking. But of course, we have to see how it moves. And I do understand that we have to explore more and connect the better. This is going to really bring transformative change, not now, maybe 10 years down the line or five years down the line, maybe not, of course, during the project period, similarly for Marjuli as well. Yeah, so I can see, Sumit has raised, maybe Sumit, you would like to add something to this? Yeah, no, I think it's a very fair question of what is transformative. And I think that's where I started with Leon, that we also have to see what is not transformative, particularly when we are dealing with these communities in Dhubri, specifically not even Marjuli, because Marjuli, I still feel the standard of living is quite all right. But in Dhubri, the standard of small changes, small changes can be considered transformative. And so the question comes, transformative for whom and how do they understand that change, right? For someone, a small change can be transformative for someone, a big change can be considered a very minor thing. So I think it's very relative. And I think within the scope of the project, we have three years now or two and a half, I think we should be also optimizing our efforts in the understanding of what it could bring as a change for them. And then of course we can connect it with the larger literature and the future of things, of how they have evolved. I think one of the things, this particular aspect, we have clarified in our research note now. It's a bit longer than I thought of, which has now come out to almost 12 pages of document. I would really like to share with everyone and see. And we have discussed about the concept of transformation there, but also how we are connecting and trying to achieve this through low-hanging fruits. So I think those kind of answers would be there. The second question that I really wanted to answer was for Joydeep. Joydeep was asking about the frequency of dredging. I don't know particularly in Dhubri, but it's very often now that I'm 100% sure because when we met the IWA officials there, they were saying that in the upstream of Brahmaputra, from Dhubri, I mean to say, there is a channel which particularly needs regular dredging so that the trawlers can come down and then further move to Bangladesh in case they are doing that. So that's one thing they do very frequently, they're dredging in a bit upstream of Dhubri, very often so that the channel is clear for them. And they also showed us in the map and everything where they particularly do that. We might have a picture on that. So that's that. Regularly, yeah, that's what they do it regularly. Veena, yeah, please. Yeah, so on the question on cruise movement through protocol route, I think the MB Gangavila's cruise was, you know, was the one which went marginally right from Varanasi to, you know, Deeprugad. But I think the bookings are done annually for that cruise. So next time it usually coincides with the flight season when the water level is convenient for the big vessel movement and all. So it will happen probably in August, September, this year. Other than that, there are some other cruise operators also in Bangladesh. So they also, I mean, it's not very frequent, hardly one or two voyages happen, like cross-border voyages happen in the year. That's the case now. And yeah, as Anamika already has already said. So right now, so the upcoming bridge is going to, you know, displace the small boat owners and those who are engaged in that movement of trade within the state or between Assam and Meghalaya and with the opening of the new trade route or if they can participate in the international trade. So that would be an additional opportunity for them. And this can bring, you know, some change in their livelihood. And so this is not easy as it is said and there are several regulations involved in it, including vessel registration and also the traders who are interested should have the import, export license and all. So they are not aware of the procedures and all but are also not clear about the picture on the other side of the border. And that's why we thought like, you know, meeting where we can bring in the traders together because trade is happening, but it is through land route now and how much of it can be taken to the river route and how profitable it would be is something which they need to understand and discuss. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, one of the things which was very interesting for us, which we couldn't find an answer particularly in Thaburi was that why, apart from these restrictions, why is the small traders not really getting access to the international port? I mean, what I'm saying is that, well, if they see that there is potential, they will be able to, you know, put pressure on the government, at least to the local government that, you know, we also want to be a part of it. That was the time we realized that trade is already happening, but it's more informal. So they don't really bother because their work somehow is happening, but what is not happening now is not formalized. It's very informal, which they don't like to talk. They're not supposed to do this trade ideally. So we also couldn't really document it as such. But yeah, informal trade between India and Bangladesh is happening through one point from where it goes by road transport, not through water. So yeah, we have to explore more on that as well. Yeah, thank you. Many questions also come in my mind, but I would like to give the floor also to other people if there are still other questions from Warden here with us. There are some questions from Joydeep, which I think I have responded to each of these. Let me see. Yeah. Yeah, yes, please, Joydeep, if you want to add something. Yeah, I know Anamika has responded to almost all of them. There's one, I think I didn't make myself clear in the question. So it was basically, it's coal and stone that's being moved. So where is the coal being mined or whatever and who's buying it? Who can India, Bangladesh, who's buying, who's selling and stone, who's doing the query, who's buying? You mean to say between countries who is buying? Yeah, so is Bangladesh buying the coal from India or from Bhutan? Yeah, and what about the stone, same thing? Stone is coming from Bhutan. So it's Bhutan to Bangladesh via India. No, no, Bhutan to India to Bangladesh. Right, yeah, okay, so the querying. So is there any, are there any goods in the other direction? What does, what's Bangladesh, what are the Bangladesh boards bringing into it? No, nothing, empty. That's the most interesting. They come empty, they collect and then they go. That's very interesting. But Joydeep, there's one more thing Anamika, you remember when we went, they are saying that the stones are coming from Bhutan, but actually they are not coming from Bhutan. They're coming from the lower ridges, which are called Bhutan, but they're India. Now, the reason they do that is that they lower their taxes. So there is a lot of informality there. Yeah, because the stones that would come from Bhutan are cheaper, but they are actually Indians, Indian stones. Yeah, I can see a lot of resistance to formalizing on this. Yes, yeah, please go ahead. Yeah, no, it's actually both ways. Stone is coming from Bhutan and stone is also collected from parts of North Bengal. And sometimes it is also labeled as it is coming from Bhutan to avoid tax. And a lot of informalities are there in the trade happening between India and Nepal. And on the question on vessels coming from Bangladesh, so right now the entire, you know, all the vessels are Bangladeshi vessels and they are coming empty. So once an effort was taken to bring cotton waste, you know, while they are coming to India. So there are a lot of cotton wastes of high demand in Assam site and it comes from Bangladesh. But since it was done for the first time and there were some custom compliance and other issues, so it was stuck for almost one month. And hence the traders were, you know, very upset about it. And they're very skeptical to go again. But this is one thing which is very promising and which can come through waterways, cotton waste from Bangladesh site. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then I'm going to still pose one of the questions that popped in my mind because in your presentations, you also mentioned that this bridge is presented as something to contribute to cultural integration between these different parts. Therefore, I was thinking, is this part of a national narrative of, well, maybe as an India national kind of thing and cultural integration or is this also more prevention? So what is the, maybe that higher level transformative idea of one united India? Or I, well, I see hats going. So I think you understand what my question is. But whatever came to your mind as a bulb is the right thing to ask. So I may go ahead. I hope I don't say anything offensive on this channel. But current populist government in India is based on two things. Their agenda sets on two things. One is to create infrastructure to show that there is tangible development. And second is polarization. And they both work wonderfully in both the places. Dubai is a place where there are traditionally people from Bangladesh who have moved to India, not anymore. So there is always a narrative around it that people are still coming. It's absolutely not correct. But in the past that has happened. And that's one of the reasons they have been kind of secluded and kept in that part of it. So you will see the kind of indicators, the development indicators are very, very, I would say they're not doing great in that part of the country. Second, the bridge in Majuli has a different story. There have been several accidents that have happened in River Brahmaputra where people have lost their lives. And there have been several efforts to build this bridge because it's a river island and it keeps moving. We don't know how technically it is feasible to build such a bridge. I'm sure there is technological advancements and everything. But the impact assessments of such projects have been completely kept classified. We have had no access to it. Even the DPRs for such projects are not accessible for public information. So you can imagine what is going on behind the scenes to showcase that how development is happening in India, the infrastructure development is happening. But along on the lines of polarization, whenever there is an opportunity, and our sum is particularly a prime example of polarization between the Hindus and the Muslims. And one of the sites we have chosen to agree is categorically representative of that. Yeah, can I just... It fits very well in the narrative of what the government is trying to do. Just one line to what Sumit is saying that, but there was a demand from people of Majuli for a bridge that has always been there because that was before even this government came because they have faced a lot of problems because of very lack of connectivity. So the question that we want to understand is that given the fact that there is already a bridge going to be there, how is then inland water navigation going to enhance their livelihood? Or why are you then focusing so much on the inland water navigation when somebody can reach the place much easier than traveling for so many hours? So that's something we thought that would be interesting to explore. And so we are looking at it more from a multi-modal form of transportation. Yeah, there's one more thing about the bridge. It's of course there's a demand, but it is contested and it is yet still contested. Yeah, so let me just go because what I find interesting how I also realize in this story that you tell, so a bridge often is of course presented as something that is connected, bridging a gap and bridging community, all that kind of. But it reminded me maybe of a picture that you also know in some of workshops that you see a deer crossing a road. And then people ask you, what do you see on this picture? And then people will say, well, most of the people will say, I see a deer crossing a road. And then the facilitator will tell you, no, you see a road that crosses the home of a deer. And so with the bridge, maybe also the barrier that crosses the river rather than it has. So I like that the bridge, well, of course it has an alley key, but it also pushes us now in this transformation to maybe look differently. When we look at the inland water transport on what is maybe the barrier created here across this river and who is then winning, losing and what is transformation then going on. So that was the idea that sparked in my... No, you're right. I would resonate it. No, you're absolutely right. Just one thing to add. We only talked about one river island, which is Majuli. And Dupri is of course a bigger region, but there are maybe hundreds of river islands there. And how many bridges are you going to construct to connect these river islands? That's the question that comes at the end. So I think there is a lot to think about when we talk about these bridges and they are absolutely contested, but let's see what the future unfolds for the people after decades and decades of protest of having the bridge or not having the bridge. Thank you. With that being said, I also look at the time. It's 10 past our ending time. Local differences included. To be very frank, I do not have the schedule in front of me for our next meeting, for our next time. So I'm unable to tell that by heart. So therefore I leave it with that for this moment to thank you everybody for participating in this webinar soon. Next week we will have some webinar sessions around the learning in this project. So on Monday 22nd there will be two webinars based on the time zone. So for me in the Netherlands it will be in the morning and the late afternoon and in the Thursday as well for the Dutch and Kenya partners around midday. So thank you everybody for that. Maybe Leon or Anamika on behalf of the Project Lead do you want to say something? Otherwise we go to thank you everybody for your participation and thank you for your very interesting and inspiring presentations. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.