Amid the row between India and the Maldives – triggered last week after three ministers’ comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi – a prominent Maldivian tourism body has called on India-based travel aggregator EaseMyTrip to re-open flight bookings, via its platform, to the island nation.

The Maldives Association of Tour and Travel Operators, or MATATO, on Tuesday called on EaseMyTrip to disregard the “regrettable” comments, and said they “did not reflect sentiments of Maldivians in general”. The statement, addressed to EaseMyTrip CEO Nishant Pitti, underlined the importance of Indian tourists – who have topped foreign arrivals to the country post-Covid – to the Maldivian economy.

“In expressing our heartfelt gratitude for the enduring friendship and partnership that defines the relationship between the Maldives and India, we want you to know the bonds connecting our nations transcend politics. We consider our Indian counterparts… as cherished brothers and sisters.”

Maldives Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators writes to EaseMyTrip CEO Nishant Pitti to re-open flight bookings to Maldives pic.twitter.com/ojCxpPar7b

— ANI (@ANI) January 9, 2024

“Tourism stands as the lifeblood of the Maldives, contributing over two-thirds of our GDP and providing livelihoods to approximately 44,000 Maldivians who work in the sector. The potential adverse impact on tourism holds the power to unleash severe repercussions on our economy.”

MATATO called Indian tourists “an indispensable force in the success of the Maldivian tourism sector, providing vital support to guest houses and small to medium-sized enterprises…”

READ | Over 2 Lakh Indians Visited Maldives Annually Post Covid, Shows Data

According to the Maldives Tourism Ministry, over two lakh Indians visited that country last year, and over 4.5 lakh travelled to the tropical paradise over the past two years. The Maldives was also one of the few countries open to tourists during the pandemic and nearly 63,000 Indians visited then.

MATATO also urged all to “refrain from contributing to divisiveness through hateful comments”.

The MATATO statement follows one by the Maldives Association of Tourism Industry, or MATI, which slammed the “derogatory comments” directed at Prime Minister Modi.

EaseMyTrip Suspends Maldives Bookings

On Monday EaseMyTrip suspended flight bookings via its website.

READ | “In Solidarity…”: EaseMyTrip Suspends Flight Bookings To Maldives Amid Row

Mr Pitti, the co-founder and CEO, posted “in solidarity with our nation…” message on X, and shared a photo of Mr Modi sitting on a beach in Lakshadweep with the hashtag #ChaloLakshadweep.

In solidarity with our nation, @EaseMyTrip has suspended all Maldives flight bookings ✈️ #TravelUpdate #SupportingNation #LakshadweepTourism #ExploreIndianlslands #Lakshadweep#ExploreIndianIslands @kishanreddybjp @JM_Scindia @PMOIndia @tourismgoi @narendramodi @incredibleindia https://t.co/wIyWGzyAZY

— Nishant Pitti (@nishantpitti) January 7, 2024

Maldives President’s “Send More Tourists” Plea To China

President Mohamed Muizzu, widely seen as a pro-China leader, is in China till Friday for a State visit and, on Tuesday, appealed to Beijing to “intensify” efforts to send more tourists to his country.

“China was our (Maldives’) number one market pre-Covid, and it is my request that we intensify efforts for China to regain this position,” he said at a meeting of business leaders in the Chinese capital.

READ | Maldives President Urges China To Send More Tourists Amid Row With India

Maldivian media later reported the two countries had signed a USD 50 million project to develop an integrated tourism zone in the Indian Ocean island.

India-Maldives Row

The India-Maldives stand-off erupted after three ministers – Malsha Shareef, Mariyam Shiuna, and Abdulla Mahzoom Majid – made critical comments about PM Modi. All three were suspended and the Maldives government called the remarks “unacceptable”, but the fury in India has not abated.

There is also pressure building on President Muizzu and the three-party ruling coalition, which faces a general election later this year. Multiple opposition MPs and political leaders have demanded he be held accountable, and even face a vote of ‘no-confidence’. Former Deputy Speaker Eva Abdulla told NDTV Indians are “rightfully angry”, while ex-President Ibrahim Solih slammed “hateful language”.

READ | “Sack President, Summon Minister”: Maldives Opposition Defends PM Modi

The comments came after Prime Minister Modi posted, on X, photos and videos of his trip to Lakshadweep, which were seen as promoting the union territory as a rival tourist destination.

A #BoycottMaldives trend broke on X – fuelled partly by posts from Bollywood celebrities and cricketers – and there was a sharp spike in interest in the union territory.

India’s response has been measured; New Delhi summoned the Maldives envoy only on Monday, days after the row, and neither the PM nor Foreign Minister S Jaishankar have made statements yet.

With input from agencies

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Escalating the face-off with the Centre at a time when Chief Minister Hemant Soren has skipped seven summons by the Enforcement Directorate, the Jharkhand government has issued instructions to all departments to not answer any queries by central agencies or hand over any documents to them directly. The departments have been asked to report all queries to the Cabinet Secretariat or the Vigilance Department for processing.

While the Jharkhand government has said that it is streamlining the process to ensure incomplete information is not handed over, experts are seeing the move as a form of non-cooperation with central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate, CBI and the Income Tax department. 

The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, which runs a coalition government in the state with the Congress as the other major partner, is a member of the INDIA alliance at the Centre. Several members of the bloc, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee – in whose state an Enforcement Directorate team was attacked on January 5 – have been lashing out at the BJP government at the Centre for allegedly misusing central agencies in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election.

‘Causes Confusion’

In a confidential letter written to all departments on Tuesday, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Vandana Dadel said that officials should not respond directly to notices and requests for documents related to any investigation by central agencies, and inform the Cabinet Secretariat and Vigilance Department instead. 

The letter notes that the central investigating agencies have been sending notices to the officials and calling them for questioning without writing to the competent authority of the state government. In many cases, it said, officials used to get involved in the investigation and hand over government documents to the central agencies without bringing the matter to the notice of senior officers, adding that this was the wrong procedure. 

Ms Dadel said the information provided is likely to be incomplete or inaccurate, leading to confusion and adversely affecting the state government as well as central investigating agencies.

New SOP

Ms Dadel, who is in charge of the Department of Cabinet Secretariat and Vigilance, said the state government has its own Anti-Corruption Bureau which reports to the department. 

Therefore, the letter states, the Cabinet Secretariat and Vigilance Department is being made the nodal department for sharing information with the central agencies to avoid confusion and ensure proper cooperation with them. 

The new procedure states that If officials get any notice from agencies like the Enforcement Directorate, CBI or the IT Department, they should inform their immediate head. The head of the department will pass on the information to the nodal agency. 

The Department of Cabinet Secretariat and Vigilance will then take legal advice and then share the information with the agencies accordingly. 

Despite the letter referring to cooperation and streamlining the process, experts see the move as a way of making it more difficult for central agencies to get information from the state. 

Summons

The Enforcement Directorate has issued seven summons to Mr Soren in a money laundering case linked to allegations of corruption and illegal change of land ownership by the mafia. 

According to a report by news agency PTI, the ED has also summoned Mr Soren’s press adviser Abhishek Prasad and Sahibganj Deputy Commissioner Ram Niwas Yadav for questioning in a money laundering case linked to alleged illegal mining in the state. Mr Prasad has been summoned on January 16 and Mr Yadav and another person, Binod Singh, have been asked to appear on Thursday and January 15, respectively.

They will be questioned under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. 

The investigating agency had earlier raided their premises and those of Sahibganj Deputy Superintendent of Police Rajendra Dubey on January 3. The action was related to a case of “illegal stone mining prevalent in Sahibganj, having proceeds of crime of more than Rs 1,000 crore”, PTI quoted the agency as saying. 

The Goa police have found empty bottles of a cough syrup in a room where the CEO of a start-up allegedly killed her four-year-old son, indicating she might have given a heavy dose of the medicine to him and that it was pre-planned murder, an official said today.

The postmortem has revealed the child was smothered to death either with a cloth or a pillow, as per officials.

The accused woman, Suchana Seth, allegedly killed her son in the apartment at Candolim in Goa and stuffed the body in a bag before taking it to neighbouring Karnataka in a taxi, police said.

She was arrested from Chitradurga in Karnataka on Monday night and brought to Goa on Tuesday.

A senior police officer told Press Trust of India that during the inspection of the service apartment room where the woman stayed, they found two empty bottles (one big and another small) of a cough syrup.

“The post-mortem conducted on the body has indicated the possibility that the child might have been smothered to death and there were no signs of struggle,” he said.

“We are examining the possibility if the woman gave a heavy dose of cough syrup to the child before putting him to death,” the official said.

Enquiries with the service apartment staff revealed the woman had asked them to buy a small bottle of a cough syrup claiming she was having cough, he said, adding the bigger bottle might have been carried by her.

“It looks like a pre-planned murder,” the official said.

According to police sources, the accused has denied her involvement in the crime during the interrogation and claimed the child was already dead when she got up from sleep.

“We don’t buy her theory. Further investigation will reveal the motive behind killing the child. As of now, we know that she and her husband were estranged because of which she might have done this,” a senior police official said.

Suchana Seth checked in the service apartment on January 6 and stayed there till January 8 before leaving for Bengaluru in a taxi.

Following her arrest, a court in Mapusa town of Goa on Tuesday remanded her in police custody for six days.

The child’s father, Venkat Raman, who was in Jakarta (Indonesia), reached Hiriyur in Chitradurga on Tuesday night and took possession of his son’s body after postmortem.

“He was strangled to death or what we call smothering. Either a cloth or a pillow was used. The child died due to strangulation. It doesn’t look like the child was strangulated using hands. It looks like a pillow or some other material was used. The rigor mortis (postmortem muscle stiffness) had resolved in the child,” Hiriyur Taluk Hospital’s administrative officer Dr Kumar Naik told reporters.

Suchana Seth is the CEO of ‘The Mindful AI Lab’, and according to her LinkedIn profile, she is an AI ethics expert and data scientist with over 12 years of experience in mentoring data science teams, and scaling machine learning solutions at startups and industry research labs.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)