In the recent news, an introductory event known as the Curtain Raiser for PANEX-21 was held to bring together member nations of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). The main exercise is scheduled to take place later this year (2021).
About the Exercise
PANEX-21 is essentially a Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief exercise. Experts and delegates from seven BIMSTEC countries – India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand will be participating in it. Additionally, a Multi-Agency Exercise (MAE) that includes a static display featuring Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HDR) equipment used by the Indian Armed Forces and other civil agencies is planned as well.
Aim of the Exercise
The central goal of PANEX-21 is to encourage joint planning and enhance regional collaboration in responding to natural disasters, which are unexpected environmental disruptions exceeding the coping capacity of the impacted community, thus necessitating external help. These could be geophysical disasters like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, hydrological disasters like floods, meteorological such as hurricanes, climatological ones like heat and cold waves and droughts, or biological, like epidemics.
Significance of the Exercise
The COVID-19 pandemic, along with other natural disasters, has revealed lessons that imply changes in drills and procedures for conducting disaster mitigation and managing disaster crises. These modifications and challenges post-pandemic are taken into consideration for the PANEX-21 exercise.
About BIMSTEC
BIMSTEC is a regional organization that includes seven countries. Five of them, namely India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, are from South Asia while the remaining two, Thailand and Myanmar, hail from Southeast Asia. The organization took the backseat for some time but was reactivated a few years back as an alternative to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The SAARC, despite its potential, has met with obstacles due to frictions between India and Pakistan. By focusing on intra-regional cooperation, BIMSTEC has also created a platform along with the SAARC and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries. The Secretariat of BIMSTEC is located in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The source of this information is the Press Information Bureau (PIB).