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New Delhi [India]September 5 (ANI): Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will arrive in India on Monday for a four-day visit.
Top priorities are enhancing defense cooperation, expanding regional connectivity initiatives, and building stability in South Asia. All eyes are on Hasina’s first visit since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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During the visit, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh will meet with President Durupadimurmu and Vice President Jagdeep Danhar. She will also hold a bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Foreign Minister S Jaishankar will visit Prime Minister Hasina during her visit to New Delhi. Hasina may also visit Ajmer Sharif.
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The upcoming visit will be her first since the bilateral relationship between the two countries will enter its 50th anniversary in 2021.
Last year was also the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence and the 100th birthday of the country’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Prime Minister Modi to visit Bangladesh in 2021. Maitri Diwas celebrations are held in 20 capitals around the world including Delhi and Dhaka. Since 2015, the two prime ministers have met 12 times.
In addition to reviving multiple connectivity initiatives over the past few years, India and Bangladesh have also sought to create regional cooperation models. The Akhaura-Agartala rail line will reopen soon and Agartala and Chittagong are expected to be connected by air within a few weeks.
It is expected that during Hasina’s visit to China, the two sides will sign an agreement on the temporary sharing of water resources in the Kushiya River.
The Bangladeshi prime minister is also likely to travel to Ajmer in Rajasthan to visit the Darga of the revered Sufi saint Munuddin Chishti.
Last month, India and Bangladesh finalized the text of an agreement on temporary sharing of river water.
The text of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was finalized at the 38th Ministerial Meeting of the India-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Committee (JRC) in Delhi on August 25. The committee was established in 1972 as a bilateral mechanism to resolve issues of common interest on common rivers. Bangladesh is an important partner under India’s “Good Neighborhood First” policy. The cooperation covers various fields such as security, commerce, power and energy, transportation interconnection, science and technology, national defense, rivers, and maritime affairs. Bangladesh is now India’s largest trading partner in South Asia. Bilateral trade has grown from $9 billion to $18 billion over the past five years. Bangladesh has become India’s fourth largest export destination, growing by more than 66% from $9.69 billion in 2020-21 to $16.15 billion in 2021-22. Supply of essential commodities to Bangladesh when overland trade is disrupted during COVID.
The two countries were able to make progress on important connectivity initiatives despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Recent achievements between the two countries include the opening of the Mitali express for passenger trains from New Jalpaiguri to Dhaka in June 2022 using the Chilahati-Haldibari cross-border railway line.
In addition, under the agreement on the use of Chittagong and Mongla ports, three rounds of trial operations have been conducted for cargoes entering and leaving India via Chittagong and Mongla ports.
Bangladesh is India’s largest development partner and nearly a quarter of the Government of India’s (GoI) commitments under the GoI Line of Credit (LoC) are made to Bangladesh. Contracts have surpassed the milestone of $2 billion, and total spend has exceeded $1 billion.
Bilateral development assistance projects cover a wide range of fields including railways, roads and transport, power generation and transmission, inland waterways, ports and shipping, economic zones, information and communication technology, petrochemicals, renewable energy, waste management and aviation. A project aimed at improving connectivity.
India has always been a medical centre for Bangladeshi nationals. Of the 280,000 visas issued in 2021, 230,000 are medical visas. Bangladesh is currently India’s largest visa business globally. A total of 1.363 million visas were issued in 2019. (ANI)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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