Tuna export case - Lakshadweep

Context

CBI has booked Lakshadweep MP Mohammed Faizal P.P for allegedly colluding with a Colombo-based company to cheat fishermen in Lakshadweep.

About

What is the case?

According to the CBI, some public servants of Lakshadweep Co-operative Marketing Federation (LCMF) in collusion with Faizal caused loss to LCMF by not following the requisite tender process and other formalities in theexport of tuna fish to a Sri Lankan company.

Lakshadweep Co-operative Marketing Federation (LCMF):

LCMF, which was established in 1966, is the apex society of all cooperative supply & marketing societies in Lakshadweep.
The federation also acts as the nodal agency of the Lakshadweep Administration in the marketing of agricultural products (copra) and fishery products (mass tuna).

Tuna:

Tuna and tuna-like species include approximately 40 species occurring in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans and in the Mediterranean Sea.
Tuna species account for 20 percent of the value of all marine capture fisheries and over eight percent of all globally traded seafood.

About Lakshadweep:

The name Lakshadweep in Malayalam and Sanskrit means ‘a hundred thousand islands’. ”
India’s smallest Union Territory Lakshadweep is an archipelago consisting of 36 islands with an area of 32 sq km.
It is a uni-district Union Territory and comprises of 12 atolls, three reefs, five submerged banks and ten inhabited islands.
There are three main group of islands:
Amindivi Islands
Laccadive Islands
Minicoy Island.
Amindivi Islands are the northernmost while the Minicoy Island is the southernmost.
All are tiny islands of coral origin (Atoll) and are surrounded by fringing reefs.
The Capital is Kavaratti and it is also the principal town of the UT.
All Islands are 220 to 440 km away from the coastal city of Kochi in Kerala, in the emerald Arabian Sea.