India-Bangladesh relations.

One of the three projects jointly inaugurated by India and Bangladesh allows India to buy liquefied petroleum gas from Bangladesh for consumption in India’s northeastern state of Tripura. The LPG will be transported by Bangladeshi trucks to the Indian state cutting down transport times and costs. The second was the inauguration of a skill development centre that will provide basic as well as advanced training some 200-300 Bangladeshi youth on an annual basis for employment in the small and medium scale industry sectors.

The seven pacts signed included one on the terms for the use of the Chattogram and Mongla ports in Bangladesh for movement of goods to and from India. The agreement to enable this was signed in October last year. A second pact signed was for India to draw 1.82 cusecs (cubic seconds) of water from Bangladesh’s Feni river for use by India in Tripura state

India, Bangladesh sign seven pacts, hail ties as 'model good neighbourliness'
 
Bangladesh envoy says:"There has been so much criticism of Bangladesh because of alleged illegal immigration, but let me tell you that a person of my country would rather swim in the ocean and reach Italy instead of coming to India."

Politics of influx used by some parties in India: Bangladesh envoy
We are to be blamed here. Domestic politics is affecting our relations with Bangladesh. Already anti India sentiment is on a rise in Bangladesh.
Whatever we want to do , should be done quietly.
BJP is sabotaging our relations with neighbours. First 2015 Nepal blockade , then alleged interference in SL elections and now NRC
 
India-Bangladesh Border Fencing Incomplete Due To Bangladesh Border Guards’ Hostility, Reveals Govt’s Lok Sabha Reply

By IANS - Nov 20 2019, 4:24 pm
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A border fence between India and Bangladesh. (Shazia Rahman via Getty Images)

Fencing at various places along the India-Bangladesh border could not be completed due to numerous problems including objections by Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Tripura's Lok Sabha Member Pratima Bhoumik said on Wednesday (20 November) quoting Union Minister of State of Home Affairs Nityanand Rai.

Bhoumik said that in reply to her question in the Lok Sabha, the Central minister said that by physical fencing and technological solutions 1,880 km India-Bangladesh frontiers along four northeastern states -- Tripura (856 km), Meghalaya (443 km), Mizoram (318 km) and Assam (263 km) -- would be fenced.

"Out of 1,880 km Bangladesh border with India's four northeastern states, around 1,477 km has been covered by barbed wire fencing. Remaining around 403 km would be covered by hi-tech solutions (62 km) and physical fencing (341 km)," she told IANS over phone from Delhi.

"The fencing work could not be completed in all the bordering areas due to objections by BGB. Besides difficult terrain, short working season (longer monsoon period), land acquisition problem, opposition by a section of people are the other hurdles," Bhoumik said quoting Rai.

The union minister informed the parliament member that the government has been regularly monitoring the progress of fencing to ensure the completion of the work at the earliest.

Meanwhile, the Union Home Ministry in March had launched the third smart fencing project between India and Bangladesh in western Assam's Dhubri district.

Called BOLD-QIT (Border Electronically Dominated QRT Interception Technique), this is the third smart fence project launched under the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS) after two similar projects covering a 10-km stretch on the India-Pakistan border were launched last year.

A senior Border Security Force (BSF) official told IANS that the CIBMS involves deployment of a range of state-of-the-art surveillance technologies -- thermal imagers, infra-red and laser-based intruder alarms, aerostats for aerial surveillance, unattended ground sensors that can help detect intrusion bids, radars, sonar systems to secure riverine borders, fibre-optic sensors and a command and control system that receives data from all surveillance devices in real time.

"The signals from the various devices of the CIBMS would reach at Unified Command and Control Centre to enable the BSF monitor the border on real-time basis. The CIBMS enables round-the-clock surveillance in different weather conditions or even in duststorms, fog or rain," the BSF official said requesting anonymity.

He said that the CIBMS, also known as a virtual fence, would create an invisible electronic barrier on land, water and in the air.

"The CIBMS is designed to guard stretches where physical surveillance is extremely hard either due to inhospitable terrain or riverine stretches."

The BSF official said that besides barbed wire fencing and virtual fencing, flood lighting along the borders in West Bengal has been done on large stretches and some portions in Tripura.

India's five states including West Bengal (2,216.70 km) share 4,096.70 km borders with Bangladesh.

"Due to fencing and coordinated border patrolling by the BSF and BGB, various crimes including illegal trade and cross border movements of inimical elements along the frontiers have been reduced to a large extent," the official pointed out.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

India-Bangladesh Border Fencing Incomplete Due To Bangladesh Border Guards’ Hostility, Reveals Govt’s Lok Sabha Reply
 
180 Bangladeshis arrested while fleeing India, NRC listed among reasons

A senior West Bengal Police officer, who follows illegal immigration, said, along with the Bengaluru crackdown, Indian government’s decision to identify illegal residents through the NRC (National Register of Citizens) exercise, may have also influenced the retreat.

Nov 24, 2019 01:09
Snigdhendu Bhattacharya.
Hindustan Times, Kolkata
india-citizenship-assam_c7ac6930-f1b5-11e9-a269-0317b040ce03.jpg

NRC is also being cited as a reason for recent surge in number of Bangladeshis trying to flee India(AP Photo/Representative)

National Register of Citizens (NRC) and police crackdown on Bangladeshis living illegally in India, may have led to a surge in reverse migration, evidenced in the arrest of 180 Bangladeshis, caught while fleeing India in the last twenty days, said police.

Some of the arrested men had been living in India for five to 12 years and two of them were even carrying Indian citizenship documents. A Bangladesh police officer said while reverse migration was not at all rare, the number was unusually high.

Bangladesh border guards, who made the arrests between November 1 and 19, initially suspected it to be a case of infiltration from India but were surprised to find that most had families and properties in Bangladesh. All the arrested people were handed over to Mohespur police station in Jhenaidah district of Bangladesh, across West Bengal’s Nadia district.

“They said they went to work in India and returned because of unfavourable circumstances. In India, most of these people lived in Bengaluru,” said Rashedul Alam, officer-in-charge of Moheshpur police station.

Bengaluru police arrested 60 Bangladeshis in a recent crackdown and sent them to the border on Saturday to be repatriated.

A senior West Bengal Police officer, who follows illegal immigration, said, along with the Bengaluru crackdown, Indian government’s decision to identify illegal residents through the NRC (National Register of Citizens) exercise, may have also influenced the retreat.

“The fear of pan-India NRC possibly stopped them from moving to any other Indian state,” said the officer who did not want to be identified.

Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, a professor of political science and migration expert, also listed NRC as a possible cause.

“The arrest of 180 persons in 20 days from just one police station area is unusual. I think that the fear of citizenship screening exercise and India’s economic slowdown have both played a role in this,” Ray Chaudhury said.

The West Bengal BJP welcomed the news and said the “fear of NRC” had started to work and the illegal immigrants knew that they can’t be “protected by anyone”.

“Those in Bengal are still banking on Mamata Banerjee’s promise of stalling the NRC. They too will start returning to Bangladesh once they realise that Banerjee can do nothing,” said state unit president Dilip Ghosh.

“Half of the task of sending back infiltrators will be finished even before the actual process of NRC starts,” Ghosh added.

180 Bangladeshis arrested while fleeing India, NRC listed among reasons
 
Momen: Modi, Trudeau, Mahathir will join Mujib Year celebration

By Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan
Published at 06:48 pm; January 7th, 2020
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Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Their presence in the Mujib Year extravaganza has been confirmed by Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen

Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad will be among the world leaders joining the ‘Mujib Borsho,’ or Mujib Year, cerebration in Dhaka.

Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Tuesday confirmed the global dignitaries’ presence in the events marking the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Emerging from a meeting, of the sub-committee for celebration of Bangabandhu’s birth centenary, at the International Mother Language Institute, he told reporters that among the dignitaries who have confirmed their participation also include former Indian president Pranab Mukherjee, crown prince of United Arab Emirates Zayed Al Nahyan, Indian Congress President Sonia Gandhi and former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.

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Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen speaks at a meeting of sub-committee of celebration of the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at International Mother Language Institute on Tuesday, January 7, 2020 | PID

About the year-long celebration, the minister said there would be a special program on March 17, the birthday of Bangabandhu, and many other programs throughout the year.

Tuesday's meeting focused mainly on the event on March 17, he added.

About the attendance of the foreign dignitaries, Momen said that some have confirmed officially, while some verbally.

“We don’t want many people at the special program that will take place on March 17. We want selective people,” he said, adding that the names of those who will take part in the program on March 17 were yet to be finalised.

He said that all the dignitaries would not be in Bangladesh on one single day, rather they would come in phases to attend separate programs.

The foreign minister said that Bangladesh’s 77 missions have already undertaken 261 programs to celebrate the centenary in order to spread Bangabandhu’s ideals across the world.

He hoped that the Mujib Year celebration will brand Bangladesh as a land of opportunity and vibrant economy.

Celebration in Pakistan will be big

The foreign minister on Tuesday also informed that Bangabandhu’s birth centenary will be celebrated in Pakistan in a big way.

As part of the celebration, a huge mural of Bangabandhu will be unveiled at the high commission in Islamabad, he said.

Asked why, Momen said: “It is because the people of Pakistan are already saying to Imran Khan that in the next 10 years, Pakistan does not need to be like Switzerland, rather we are happy if we can be like Bangladesh.”

“We want to project these things there [in Pakistan] in a big way,” he added.

To a question, the minister said that it would be decided later as to who would inaugurate the celebration in Pakistan.

He also said that the new high commission in Pakistan that is being constructed would be the largest among all Bangladeshi missions around the world.

“…16 or 20 acres of land. It’s a huge thing. This is the largest,” Momen confirmed.

Momen: Modi, Trudeau, Mahathir will join Mujib Year celebration