Bangladesh Prime Minister's Foreign Visits

[eastwatch]

The New Nation - Internet Edition

Hasina’s Kolkata visit dropped
Staff Reporter

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Kolkata programme has been dropped from the schedule of her India visit apprehending possible militant attacks, according to reliable source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The decision was taken as Delhi became worried about the security of Bangladesh Prime Minister's visit following Indian intelligence agencies' report about possible militant attack on Sheikh Hasina during her visit.

According to schedule of the visit which starts on January 10, Sheikh Hasina was due to visit Kolkata on January 13.

She was to visit Shantiniketan by helicopter in the morning and meet with West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya and the former chief minister Jyoti Boshu, now undergoing treatment at a private hospital at Salt Lake in that city.

Officials in the Foreign Ministry told reporters that they heard about it but would not confirm the matter of curtailed trip.

Earlier, a newspaper in Kolkata reported terrorist threat against Hasina's visit to the Indian state capital.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni yesterday expressed the hope that the state visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India would usher in a new era in Indo-Bangladesh relations and substantially widen and deepen the scope of cooperation between the two countries. She said this when the newly appointed

Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Rajeet Mitter called on her yesterday. It was the Indian High Commissioner's first meeting with the Foreign Minister.

Briefing reporters, the Indian High Commissioner said the people and government of India are eagerly waiting to receive Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in New Delhi, as she is scheduled to visit New Delhi from January 10.

He said that new areas of cooperation would be opened up through her visit.

'We're eagerly waiting for the visit," he said.

During his tenure, the Indian envoy said, he would try to strengthen the relations in all spheres for the benefit of the two peoples.

Asked about the Water Secretary-level talks on sharing of water of the Teesta River beginning today, he said, "Let them come and discuss it."

As close neighbours, Dr. Dipu Moni said, there is no option for the two countries but to work together to ensure peace and stability in the region.

Referring to the historic Ganges Water Treaty signed during the previous Awami League rule, she said, that the present government is also keen to open a new chapter of cooperation between the two countries on water related issues, said a foreign ministry source.

She said that Bangladesh would appreciate India's favorable response to further grant duty free access of Bangladeshi commodities to Indian market and removal of NTBs (Non-Tariff Barriers).

Dipu Moni said that the High commissioner of India would be given all necessary support and assistance during his tenure in the discharge of his duties.

 

[ironman]

India to extend $500 m credit line to Bangladesh​

A credit line of approximately $ 500 million may be the principal component of India’s reward for Bangladesh for the latter’s recent tacit cooperation in nabbing key Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives and leaders of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) last month.

India is likely to announce the credit line during Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s forthcoming visit to New Delhi.

Diplomatic sources said on Sunday that India would offer the credit line for several infrastructure development projects in Bangladesh. Besides offering a cheaper price for export of power to Bangladesh, India will provide soft loans to its eastern neighbour to set up a connecting grid for transmission of power.

Bangladesh is keen to buy up to 1200 MW of electricity from India by the middle of 2012. An agreement for transmission of 500 MW of power from India’s eastern grid to the neighbouring country may be inked during Hasina’s visit. According to sources, New Delhi has also agreed to provide Bangladesh with connectivity to Nepal and Bhutan through India.

Hasina’s visit
Hasina is expected to arrive in New Delhi on January 10. Her visit comes a few weeks after the tacit cooperation between Indian and Bangladeshi security agencies led to the arrest of key LeT operative Thadiyantavide Nazir—who is suspected to have been involved in the 2005 terrorist attacks at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore—his associate Shafaz Shamsuddin and five top ULFA leaders including its chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa.

Nazir and Shafaz were living in Bangladesh; so were the leaders of ULFA that was running a number of camps and training facilities there.

The two governments have not so far officially confirmed that the LeT operatives and the ULFA leaders were arrested in Bangladesh, as there is no extradition treaty between the two countries.

According to the official version of New Delhi, they were spotted by the Border Security Force (BSF) personnel near the Indo-Bangladesh border in Tripura and Meghalaya. Later, the Bangladeshi sleuths picked them up before being handed to the BSF, sources said. The arrests are seen in New Delhi as a significant milestone in bilateral cooperation on security and counter-terrorism measures that received a boost after the Awami League headed by Hasina came to power in Dhaka in December 2008.

The two countries are expected to ink three treaties to augment cooperation on security and combating terrorism, agreement on mutual legal assistance on criminal matters, treaty on transfer of sentenced persons and agreement on combating organised crime and illicit drug trafficking.

*Soft loans to set up connecting grid for power transmission

*B’desh keen to buy up to 1200 MW of electricity from India

*Agreement for transmission of 500 MW of power to be inked

*B’desh to get connectivity to Nepal and Bhutan through India

*Cooperation on security and combating terror to be augmented

 

[eastwatch]

PM's India-tour-matters discussed at cabinet meet: regional peace tops Delhi talks
Hasina pledges CHT uplift

PM's India-tour-matters discussed at cabinet meet: regional peace tops Delhi talks

The cabinet Wednesday discussed the upcoming India tour of Prime Minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina with regional peace and plenty on top of her agenda, apart from talks on major bilateral issues, reports UNB.

When she takes her trip to New Delhi on January 10, it happens to be Sheikh Hasina's maiden visit to India after assuming the office of Prime Minister with a vision of change following the December 29, 2008 polls.

Discussion points for her India tour were placed at the cabinet meeting. Ministers at the meeting placed their views for her fruitful talks in New Delhi that will deal with entire gamut of problems and prospects in bilateral cooperation between the two next-door neighbours in the changed context.

"The cabinet was informed that, during the upcoming India tour, discussions will be held with emphasis on regional peace and prosperity between the two neighbouring countries," Press Secretary to the PM Abul Kalam Azad told reporters in a briefing on the meeting held at the PMO with the Prime Minister in the chair.

Sheikh Hasina at the meeting asked the secretaries, the highest-ranking civil sevants, to work "cordially, sincerely and honestly to take decisions quickly".

Ministers, advisers to the Prime Minister and officials concerned from different ministries were present at the meeting.

The PM asked the top bureaucrats to act promptly in taking decisions so that the government could implement their desired plans and activities in due time.

Ministers in charge of different ministries placed their reports on functions of their ministries for the bygone 2008-09 fiscal year at the meeting.

The cabinet approved the previously signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Roads and Highways Department under the Communications Ministry and Expressway Corporation of Korea with retrospective effect.

Another report adds: PM Sheikh Hasina has expressed her government's strong commitment to ensure all necessary development of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).

The PM made the commitment while talking to cross-sections of people of Rangamati through videoconference from the Prime Minister's Office Wednesday.

Public representatives, government officials and civil-society members of the hill district talked to the PM.

Sheikh Hasina said the government is committed to developing further the infrastructure of the hill districts.

The PM mentioned government plan for setting up a full-fledged university in Rangamati to ensure higher education for all the people living in the hilly region.

"The university is being planned as a unique one in Bangladesh," the PM told her audience in the conference.

The PM also urged people of all castes and creeds, parties and religions to live in peace and harmony in the hilly areas.

Earlier, the PM talked to students of a Panchagarh school and cross-sections of people of Rajshahi.

Talking to students, the PM said the government had been strongly committed to ensuring timely distribution of textbooks as many students of poor families in the past suffered for want of textbooks.

The PM said the government did not only ensure timely book distribution but also the books have been put on government website.

While talking to PM, Meem, a student of class-I of the District Girls' School of Panchagarh, said, "Notun boi peye amar khub ananda hohcchhe (I am very glad to get new books)."

 

[Al-zakir]

Future of India-Bangladesh relations

INDO-BANGLA RELATIONS: An economically strong, secular and democratic Bangladesh is crucial for New Delhi and the rest of the region.
The domestic context in Bangladesh of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s major visit to India starting on Sunday.

Sheikh Hasina, who started her second term as Prime Minister of Bangladesh on January 6, 2009, is due to visit India from Sunday. This is her first visit to New Delhi during this term, and it is expected to be a significant one.

When Ms Hasina became Prime Minister in 1996 (she held office till 2001), her Awami League had a thin majority in Parliament, and her government had many limitations. She came to power after two decades that followed the bloody changeover of 1975. Despite those limitations, her government took some remarkable steps vis-À-vis India. Overall, it tried to reverse certain post-1975 political trends and to rejuvenate the pro-liberation spirit that was needed badly for a secular polity in a country that had seen the planned rehabilitation of the so-called 1947 spirit by a set of military and pseudo-democratic rulers.

During that tenure, the Awami League-led government signed the historic Ganga Water Treaty. It also paved the way for the return to India of thousands of Chakma refugees from Tripura with the signing of a landmark accord that ended decades of tribal insurgency in the border region. Then, it sent a firm signal to insurgents operating all across northeastern India, many of whom, as claimed by India, enjoyed sanctuary in Bangladesh. These steps were not easy to take, and indeed constituted a test of courage and conviction for the government.

This time, too, the government of the grand alliance led by the daughter of the slain founding father of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is not without its limitations. But its leadership is now more experienced. It won a landslide in the December 2008 elections, and secured a two-thirds-plus majority in Parliament. This enabled Ms Hasina’s government to amend the Constitution and bring about certain changes that it felt were needed to initiate a new journey that Bangladesh needs to undertake in order to get back on the right track.

Having achieved independence from Pakistan in the aftermath and as a consequence of the devastating war of 1971, Bangladesh did not get adequate time to consolidate itself and put itself on a firm democratic footing. India helped the Bengali freedom fighters to a great extent, and finally formed a joint military command after Pakistan attacked its soil. But that remarkable and historic achievement failed to deliver the expected outcome fully, probably due to a certain lack of alertness, a premature sense of euphoria or a misreading of the feelings of the forces that were defeated.

At the high-level meetings between Bangladesh and India over the next few days, particularly of the heads of governments, important bilateral aspects that will have a historical resonance are bound to come up. But the domestic context of the visit is unlikely to remain unnoticed.

Bangladesh is now ruled by secular democratic forces, known as the ‘pro-liberation’ forces. But the forces which opposed independence from Pakistan and which developed a solid economic foundation and organisational base over the past few decades, have now become quite alert and aggressive. They have been quickly joined by some elements — who were direct beneficiaries of the 1975 changeover and who ruled the country for 30 out of the 39 years of its political existence — and have unleashed a propaganda war.

The fundamentalists and the local versions of the Taliban do not want Bangladesh to remain friendly with India; to them India is “the enemy state.” But why is the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which is but a mixture of soft Islamists, fundamentalists and former communists, singing a similar tune?

When the national media projected the Prime Minister’s visit to India optimistically — as an opportunity to begin a new era and resolve certain outstanding issues — Begum Khaleda Zia, BNP chairperson and chief of the four-party rightist alliance in which the Jamaat-e-Islami plays a pivotal role, posed an open challenge to the government. She stated publicly that should Ms. Hasina conclude an honourable deal with India, she would be welcomed with garlands on her return. If, on the other hand, she failed to protect the ‘national interest,’ her path would be strewn with thorns.

This is an open challenge posed before the one-year-old government, which has ensured that the war criminals found guilty for their role during the liberation war against Pakistan face trial. The Supreme Court recently upheld the death sentence to the killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

There are several issues on the table in the context of Ms Hasina’s visit. It is all right to analyse them ahead of the summit, but it will be wrong to give the impression that any lack of progress in solving them in a single visit will constitute failure. To imply that even a meeting with the Indian leader could somehow lead to an eventual surrender of national interests is equally fallacious.

Post-1975, the definition of patriotism changed in Bangladesh. Originally, it was the Bengali freedom fighters and their local collaborators on the warfront who were called “patriots” along with the vast majority of people who helped to fight the war against the Pakistan Army. But the history of the independence struggle was re-written, rather distorted, by a set of military and pseudo-democratic rulers. Fortunately, Bangladesh now looks forward to removing the distortions as a younger generation of Bangladeshis seeks to know what really happened.

The Khaleda Zia-led combine, which will soon be under the command of her controversial son Tareq Rahman — he is now in London and faces multiple corruption charges — did not perhaps notice the changed national mood. As Ms Hasina prepared to go to New Delhi, the Leader of the Opposition chose to question the patriotism of even the people who belong to the ruling party, forgetting that patriotism is not the monopoly of any single group or party.

Whenever such a top-level meeting takes place, the mainstream media delve into history and recall India’s support to the cause of Bangladesh’s nationhood. It is yet another irritant Begum Zia and her alliance have been destined to suffer. It is a matter of history that India sheltered 100 million refugees from the former East Pakistan when the Pakistan Army began a genocidal war against unarmed civilians, and also extended significant support to Bangladesh’s war that finally culminated in the creation of a new country.

However, the historic relationship did not develop as it was meant to. Bangladesh faced its first shock in August 1975 with the assassination of Mujibur Rahman. With state power vested in the military and pseudo-democratic rulers for two decades, Bangladesh found a new ethos that practically negated the secular spirit of 1971. India, too, underwent transformation on multiple fronts. Therefore, while history provides a vital thrust, India and Bangladesh must practically resolve the issues that have confronted them, and seek to put their relations on a solid foundation.

Since India is a big neighbour, some psychological impact on both sides of the border is inevitable. When the post-1975 situation influenced a section of Bangladeshis to look back at the “spirit of 1947,” which actually ran counter to the spirit of the war of liberation, Dhaka-New Delhi relations faced many obstacles. While this was against the will of many Bangladeshis, the protagonists of the “spirit of 1947” did succeed in influencing a section that would strongly argue that the stumbling blocks were mainly India’s “intransigence, chauvinism and obduracy.”

Bangladesh covers a relatively small territory. But it has enormous potential and considerable strategic significance. Close relations with India to resolve all major irritants should be a key requirement for it to make a new beginning. Despite having been in office only for a year and despite the fact that the adversaries of the pro-liberation spirit are more powerful than ever before, the Sheikh Hasina government has shown considerable courage and conviction to free its soil from anti-India activity. Many would, therefore, hope for suitable reciprocal gestures to strengthen the polity.

An economically strong, secular and democratic Bangladesh is crucial for New Delhi and the rest of the region. A democratic and secular India, and Bangladesh, that has started its renewed march towards a stable democratic polity despite the muscle flexing by some extremists, should work together for a stable South Asia.

(The writer, who was involved in Bangladesh’s freedom struggle, can be reached at: hh1971@gmail.com)


The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Future of India-Bangladesh relations