It has nothing to do with China.
1# Myanmar and India have a history of grievances.
2# Myanmar and India has border dispute.
3# China fleet stationed in Myanmar Bassein and Sittwe. Myanmar and China have a covenant.
4# Each year, India andaman exercises held against Myanmar.
5# Indian People's Party and the Indian National Congress is hostile to Myanmar.
Do you feel that good diplomatic relations between Myanmar and India? What makes you think that way?
Strategically, Myanmar has great importance to both India and China. While India has pushed for democracy, China has been at ease to operate without qualms with the military regime because China is accustomed to such equations, being a totalitarian regime.
China also gives low-interest loans, grants, development projects, technical assistance etc and for a nation that is under sanctions, it is a manna Myanmar. Myanmar’s questionable human rights record does not irk China, being birds of the same feather.
When it became obvious that the Myanmar military will not relinquish power even thought Aung San Suu Kyi winning the election, India took a pragmatic view since insurgency and narcotics smuggling were assuming alarming proportions in the states bordering Myanmar. Contact was established and a flurry of agreements were signed to deal with cross-border terrorism and narcotics smuggling and to promote trade and economic development along the Indo-Myanmar border.
The most pragmatic Narashima Rao, the then PM of India realized that giving too much weight to human rights and democracy in Myanmar over strategic considerations may not be in its long term interests. He moved to bring change not by isolating Myanmar and instead by engaging and persuading Myanmar. This invited criticism from the ‘democracy or nothing’ groups in India, apart from the international criticism.
India’s interest was in Energy which is in abundance with Myanmar, as also to curb the use of Myanmar as a sanctuary by the China promoted insurgency, in the NE.
It was decided, after consultations, the construction and operation of a multi-modal transit and transport facility on the Kaladan River, on intelligence exchange to combat transitional crime including terrorism, and an agreement on avoidance of double taxation and prevention of fiscal evasion.
Myanmar and India had reached four more economic cooperation agreements, during the visit of Minister of State for Commerce and Power in 2008. These agreements include bilateral investment promotion, a USD 20-million credit line between the Exim Bank of India and the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank (MFTB) for the establishment of a manufacturing facility, another 64-million-dollar credit line for three 230 KV transmission lines; and for establishing banking arrangement between the Myanmar Investment and Trade Bank and the United Bank of India.
The economic transactions between the two governments, have been in areas like agriculture, telecommunications, aviation and gas exploration. Myanmar has shown interest in pharmaceuticals, cement, fertilizer, steel, IT and food processing. Indian firms seem reluctant to invest, for fear of a repetition of the earlier nationalization drive.
Myanmar-compiled figures show that India's contracted investments in Myanmar reached USD 219.57 million as of January 2008, of which USD 137 million was in the oil and gas sector. India has given USD 100 million credit for Myanmar’s infrastructure, while USD 57 million has been offered to upgrade the railway system. A further USD 27 million in grants has been pledged for road and rail projects, but there is little yet to show in terms of concrete benefit.
India-Myanmar bilateral trade reached USD 995 million in 2007-08, with Myanmar's exports accounting for USD 810 million. India is Myanmar's fourth largest trading partner (after Thailand, China and Singapore) and absorbs about 25% of its total exports. India hopes to double by 2010 the bilateral trade that now stand at $ one billion.
It is axiomatic that Myanmar needs help from her friends. In order to improve Myanmar’s multi-lateral trade, India can take the initiative by bringing in the ambit of bilateral trade products like bicycles and spare parts, life saving drugs, fertilizers, textiles, gold plated jewelry, fruits, pulses, tea, gems etc. Already, India imports about 60% of Myanmar’s export of pulses. India can provide the technology to improve productivity in Myanmar’s tea industry. Indian expertise in gem cutting and polishing can be harnessed
India and Myanmar are considering the upgradation of the border trade carried out at Reedkhoda (India) and Tamu-Moye (Myanmar) to “normal” trade. This was discussed at the third meeting of Myanmar-India Joint Trade Committee held in October 2008 during the second visit of Indian Minister Jairam Ramesh.
In return for various economic concessions (and support in the UN), China seems to have been given preferential access to exploit Myanmar's natural resources and port facilities along Myanmar's coast. Chinese investment includes involvement in the Shwe gas project off Myanmar's western coast. Human rights organizations allege that the offshore project and a dual oil and gas pipeline being constructed from the coast to Kunming have already resulted in human rights abuses and will likely result in many more as the projects progress.
China was scheduled to begin (in September 2009) the laying of 1,100 kms-long, parallel oil and natural gas pipelines from the deep-sea port at Kyaukpyu (on Myanmar’s Arakan coast in the Bay of Bengal) to Kunming. The pipeline will also tap into key blocks in Myanmar’s energy-rich Shwe gas fields that have been given on a 30-year lease to a Chinese-led consortium. The pipeline project was agreed to during the visit Maung Aye to Beijing in mid-June 2009. It will reduce China’s dependence on the narrow Malacca Straits, through which 80% of its oil imports of four million barrels per day currently pass. When the oil and gas pipelines are completed by 2013, Chinese tankers will dock at Kyaukpyu port to transport 600,000 barrels per day from West Asia and Africa. The gas pipeline can move about 12 billion cubic meters of gas annually.
In late September 2007, when the pro-democracy protests were under way, India’s Minister for Petroleum (Murli Deora) visited Myanmar and secured a contract for three deep-water gas exploration projects for the ONGC.
The 160 km India-Myanmar Friendship Road, between Tamu and Kalemayo (Myanmar) and going on to Kalewa, was built by India in 2001. It is now being strengthened and resurfaced. It effectively links Manipur with Myanmar. Two other sections at Rhi-Tidim and Rhi-Falam across the border from Mizoram are under way.
An optical fibre network has been laid from linking Kolkata with Yangon and Mandalay.
The Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit-cum-Transport Project is essentially transportation project on the River Kaladan, which flows in and out of Mizoram and is navigable all the way to the sea. It empties into the Bay of Bengal near the port of Sittwe (formerly known as Akyab). This port will be developed by India into a major commercial hub, to distribute Mizoram's bamboo crops and Myanmar's forest wealth. Besides 225-km waterway, the project also envisages construction of two roads, ie.e 117 km extending NHI54 to the border and 52 km from the border to Kaleutwa. Sea lanes are also to be developed between Sittwe and Kolkata and Visakhapatnam. Sittwe could also become a major distribution center for oil and gas supplies to India’s North-East.
Kaladan, a wide river with perennial water flow, originates in the upper reaches of Myanmar, enters Mizoram and then meanders back into Myanmar to continue its passage south to the Bay of Bengal. Navigation with 500-ton river crafts is possible all the way from Mizoram. Gooda from the North-East could easily be transported by river to the Bay of Bengal and then onwards to markets in India and elsewhere. The circuitous surface route via Assam and through the Siliguri Corridor could be avoided, cutting transportation costs by nearly half.
Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Jairam Ramesh, announced on 7 January 2008 that India has decided to undertake the project at a cost of more than USD 120 million. The port will be India’s gift to Myanmar, but India would have usage rights. Ramesh termed it as “the most significant initiative the Indian government has taken in South-East Asia”.
When Myanmar realizes the full potential of this project, it may begin utilizing the river for domestic navigational purposes also. Sittwe could eventually become the onshore hub of Myanmar's gas industry once the vast reserves in the Shwe fields in the Bay of Bengal are developed. It is a win-win situation for both India and Myanmar. Further development of the Sittwe port into a gas and oil transshipment terminal may add to its importance. More funds will be required to develop Sittwe to its full potential, but India may (and should) not be averse to putting up the additional funds.
Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar on 3 May 2008, causing heavy damage in the densely populated, rice-farming delta of the Irrawaddy Division. There were reports that more than 200,000 people were dead or missing, in the worst recorded natural disaster in Myanmar’s history. UN estimates projected that as many as one million people were left homeless. In the immediate days following the disaster, the military regime complicated recovery efforts by delaying the entry of planes delivering medicine, food, and other supplies. A US naval task force carrying much-needed relief supplies, helicopters and other vehicles as well as manpower was denied permission, based on fears that it could be a prelude to a military invasion. Indian leaders sent condolence messages and rushed urgently needed relief and medical supplies to the affected areas, using two naval ships from Port Blair.
High-level military-to-military contacts began in 2000. In January, Indian Army Chief General Ved Prakash Malik paid a two-day visit to Myanmar. This was followed by the reciprocal visit by his Myanmar counterpart, General Maung Aye, to the northeast Indian city of Shillong. In the aftermath of these meetings, India began to provide non-lethal military support to Myanmar troops along the border. Most of the Myanmar troops' uniforms and other combat gear originated from India, as were the leased helicopters Myanmar needed to counter the ethnic insurgents operating from sanctuaries along both sides of the border.
Since the initial exchange of visits, there has been a steady flow of high level visits from both sides. Junta chief, General Than Shwe, visited India In 2004, followed in December 2006 by the third-highest ranking officer in Myanmar's military hierarchy, General Thura Shwe Mann. The latter toured the National Defense Academy in Khadakvasla and the Tata Motors plant in Pune, which manufactures vehicles for India’s military.
After the relatively small-scale pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988, China stepped in with enhanced military aid, enabling Myanmar's army to expand to some 500,000 men, the second-largest standing army in South east Asia. Indian military is also concerned about China modernizing the naval bases at Hanggyi, Cocos, Akyab,, Mergui and the port at Kyauk Phuy. The situations seems to have become an unequal triangular relationship, where one party seems to be reaping all the benefits.
the same Bangladesh who have fougt deadly civil war to get away from yourself?
in the east 
