Why in news?  For the first time, India is constructing “permanent vertical bunkers” to station BSF troops at Sir Creek and ‘Harami Nalla’ marshy area along the India-Pakistan International Border in Gujarat

Highlights

• The Union Home Ministry construction of eight multi-storeyed bunkers cum observation posts in this area along the Bhuj sector in view of the constant infiltration of Pakistani fishermen and fishing boats in the area

About Sir Creek

• Originally Ban Ganga, is a tidal estuary in the uninhabited marshlands of the Indus River Delta
• Location : Border between India and Pakistan.
• The creek flows into the Arabian Sea and separates Gujarat state in India from Sindh province in Pakistan

Geography:

• It is home to flamingoes and other migratory birds.
• Two channels, the Harami Nala and Bondho Dhoro, are of specific concern to India for preventing infiltration and illegal activities.
• It offers immense economic gain a region is rich in oil and gas below the sea bed, and control over the creek would have a huge bearing on the energy potential of each nation

thalweg principle

• Boundary can only be fixed in the middle of the navigable channel, which meant that it has been divided between Sindh and Kutch, and thereby India and Pakistan.
• India supports its stance by citing the thalweg doctrine in international law
• If thalweg principle applied to the current channel, Pakistan and India would both lose small amounts of wetland territory that were historically part of their provinces