I sincerely hope that the destructive power witnessed in the Bay of Bengal will lead to a new culture of the power of prevention.

According to information received by the Special Rapporteur, some 81,000 homes in certain parts of India (Andra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Rajastan and Bengal) lack access to education services.

The committee, which I head, deliberated over three weeks of hearings, summoning senior representatives from the foreign and home ministries, as well as the government of the most affected state, West Bengal. On December 7, we unanimously recommended that the parliament ratify the constitutional amendment.

From Dhaka, Clinton made the short journey to India s West Bengal, where her host was the diminutive Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose election ended 34 years of Communist rule in the state. Assurances of US investment in Bengal s development flowed whether funds will actually follow remains to be seen.

One such corridor extends 800 kilometers from the Bay of Bengal across Burma to southern China. In addition to gas pipelines the first is scheduled to be completed this year it will include a high speed railroad and a highway from the Burmese coast to China s Yunnan province, offering China s remote interior provinces an outlet to the sea for the first time.

Burma s strategic importance reflects, first and foremost, its geographic location between India, China, Thailand, and Southeast Asia. Ringed in the north by the southern ridges of the Himalayas, to the east by foothills of dense teak forests, and to the west and south by the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean, Burma s geography has always shaped the country s history and politics.

Then there is the Bay of Bengal, where Chinese infrastructure investment is set to transform the backward Myanmar seaside town of Kyaukpyu and the surrounding region by tapping offshore gas fields and constructing a pipeline to Yunnan Province in southern China. These initiatives reflect not only China s voracious drive for natural resources and new trade routes, but also Myanmar s own plans to create a mini Singapore within its borders.