Which of the following are the objectives of SAARC? 1. To promote the welfare of the peoples of South Asia and to improve the quality of life 2. To promote and strengthen collective self-reliance among the countries of South Asia 3. To contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another's problems 4. To work towards ending cross-border terrorism Select the correct answer using the code given below:

Correct — B, 1, 2 and 3 only. Article I of the SAARC Charter, signed at Dhaka on 8 December 1985, lists eight objectives, and the first three statements are three of them almost word for word: to promote the welfare of the peoples of South Asia and to improve their quality of life; to promote and strengthen collective self-reliance among the countries of South Asia; and to contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another's problems. Ending cross-border terrorism is not among them — the word does not appear in the Charter at all. SAARC does address terrorism, but through a separate instrument, the SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism agreed at Kathmandu in 1987 and its Additional Protocol of 2004.

• (a)1 and 2 only — Drops the third statement, which is Article I(d) of the Charter in almost the same words — contributing to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another's problems.
• (c)1, 2, 3 and 4 — Adds the terrorism statement to three genuine Charter objectives. Counter-terrorism came to SAARC through a convention two years after the Charter, not through Article I.
• (d)3 and 4 only — Discards the two objectives the Charter opens with — welfare and quality of life, and collective self-reliance — and keeps the one item that is not a Charter objective.

SAARC was founded by seven states at the first summit in Dhaka in December 1985 — Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — with Afghanistan joining in 2007. Its Charter is short: Article I lists the objectives, Article II the principles, and the rest sets out the machinery of summits, a Council of Ministers of foreign ministers, a Standing Committee of foreign secretaries and a Secretariat at Kathmandu. Article II is the clause that shapes everything else, since it bars the association from being a substitute for bilateral dealings and rests cooperation on sovereign equality and non-interference.

The trap is that statement 4 sounds like something SAARC ought to want, and India has certainly pressed the point inside the grouping. But an objectives question is a text question: Article I's eight clauses are about welfare, growth, self-reliance, mutual trust, collaboration, links with other developing countries, common positions in international forums, and cooperation with like-minded organisations. Terrorism is dealt with in a separate convention, and the Charter's own Article II keeps contentious bilateral issues off the agenda, which is a large part of why the association has stalled — no summit has been held since the eighteenth, at Kathmandu in 2014, the nineteenth at Islamabad having been called off in 2016.

• The SAARC Charter was signed at the first summit, Dhaka, 8 December 1985, by seven states; Afghanistan became the eighth member in 2007.
• Article I lists eight objectives, opening with the welfare and quality of life of the peoples of South Asia.
• Collective self-reliance and mutual trust and appreciation of one another's problems are the third and fourth of those eight.
• Terrorism is handled by the SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism, 1987, and its Additional Protocol of 2004, not by the Charter.
• Article II bars bilateral and contentious issues from SAARC deliberations and makes cooperation a complement to bilateral dealings rather than a substitute.

• Reading a desirable aim into a treaty's objectives clause because it sounds like something the body should pursue.
• Dating the association from 1983, which is when the Foreign Ministers' declaration in New Delhi was signed, rather than 1985.
• Counting Afghanistan among the founders.

Asked as a code item quoting three Charter objectives almost verbatim and adding one plausible outsider, so the examiner is testing whether you have read Article I.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Where is the Secretariat of SAARC located?

  • (a)Dhaka
  • (b)Kathmandu
  • (c)Colombo
  • (d)New Delhi

  Answer(b) Kathmandu — the Secretariat was established there in 1987, two years after the Charter was signed at Dhaka.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which country joined SAARC as its eighth member?

  • (a)Myanmar
  • (b)Afghanistan
  • (c)Mauritius
  • (d)China

  Answer(b) Afghanistan — admitted in 2007; Myanmar, Mauritius and China are observers, not members.