By Our Reporter bimst-ecThe government has decided to host the meeting of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) to be held in Nepal next year. A meeting of the Council of Ministers held Friday afternoon took the decision to this effect. Meanwhile, BIMSTEC General Secretary SumithNakandala, who was in Nepal this week, called on PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Monday. During the meeting held at the PM’s residence in Baluwatar, the two discussed the preparations made to hold the summit and the agenda to be discussed in the Summit. TheBIMISTEC has seven members: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Since the third BIMSTEC Summit that was held in Myanmar in March, 2014, Nepal has assumed the chairmanship of the inter-regional bloc aimed at enhancing the technical and economic cooperation among its member-states. The decision of the government to host the BIMSTEC Summit is believed to be taken at the suggestion of the Indian government as India intends to weaken SAARC because it does not want Pakistan as its member. When there has not been any progress to hold the 19th SAARC Summit postponed abruptly a year ago, preparations have already been underway to hold the BIMSTEC Summit. As India has given more importance to BIMSTEC than to SAARC, it is likely that the SAARC created in 1985 will become dysfunctional. And India that wants to dominate South Asia will be responsible for the fall of SAARC. Now as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal have governments loyal to the Indian establishment, India is gearing up its plan to make BIMSTEC more powerful than SAARC in the region with a sole intention of omitting Pakistan from the bloc of South Asian nations.