Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

St Martin’s Island

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: St Martin’s Island

Why in the News?

The ousted Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina claimed she could have stayed in power if she had given up St. Martin’s Island and parts of the Bay of Bengal to the United States.

About St Martin’s Island

  • St. Martin’s Island is located in the northeastern region of the Bay of Bengal, near the maritime boundary between Bangladesh and Myanmar.
  • It lies about 9 kilometers south of the Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf peninsula in Bangladesh.
  • The island is approximately 7.3 km long and is mostly flat, with an elevation of about 3.6 meters above mean sea level.
  • It is Bangladesh’s only coral island and is surrounded by coral reefs that extend 10-15 km to the west-northwest of the island.
  • Historical Background:
    • The island was originally part of the Teknaf peninsula but gradually submerged into the sea around 5,000 years ago.
    • It resurfaced approximately 450 years ago.
    • Arab merchants were among the first settlers in the 18th century. They named it “Jazira” and later “Narikel Jinjira” (Coconut Island).
    • In 1900, British India annexed the island, and it became known as St. Martin’s Island, named after a Deputy Commissioner of Chittagong.

Strategic importance:

  • Near the Strait of Malacca: Close to one of the world’s busiest maritime routes, making it strategically important for military oversight.It offers potential for monitoring maritime activities, including strategic interests of global powers.
  • Border with Myanmar: Proximity to Myanmar adds significance in regional security dynamics.

Other significance for Bangladesh:

  • It is part of Bangladesh’s EEZ, rich in marine resources like fish, oil, and gas. Also a key tourist destination.
  • It is important for biodiversity, with coral reefs and diverse marine life.

PYQ:

[2023] Consider the following pairs:

Area of conflict mentioned in news: Country where it is located

1.Donbas: Syria

2.Kachin: Ethiopia

3.Tigray: North Yemen

How many of the above pairs are correctly matched?

(a) Only one

(b) Only two

(c) All three

(d) None

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

How India needs to deal with the new Bangladesh?  

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Mains level: Implication of Military Coup on India Bangladesh relation

Why in the News?

India will require significant political and diplomatic acumen to navigate the fallout from Sheikh Hasina’s fall, which could destabilize and potentially reshape the geopolitics of the subcontinent.

Why Hasina’s fall was not a surprise?

  • Long-standing Discontent: Widespread protests against Sheikh Hasina’s government had been brewing over issues like a controversial quota system for government jobs, indicating significant public discontent.
  • Authoritarian Drift: Hasina’s government has been accused of suppressing opposition and civil society through measures like the Digital Security Act, which has been used to arrest critics and journalists.
  • Historical Context: Since gaining independence in 1971, Bangladesh has experienced several military coups, political assassinations, and periods of military rule, including the killing of Hasina’s father, Mujibur Rahman, in 1975.

Five Challenges Beyond 1971

  • Engagement with Opposition: Due to prevailing political uncertainity, India need to distance itself from Hasina and engage with her opponents to maintain credibility and influence in Bangladesh.
  • Managing Regional Rivalries: India needs to prepare for potential exploitation of the situation by Pakistan and China, which may seek to influence the new government against Indian interests.
  • Historical Narratives: India needs to navigate the complex historical narratives surrounding the 1971 liberation of Bangladesh, recognizing that many in Bangladesh do not share the same interpretation.
  • Economic Stability: Ensuring economic stabilization in Bangladesh will be crucial, requiring collaboration with regional partners to prevent extremism and maintain stability.
  • Recognition of Local Agency: India must acknowledge that Bangladesh has its own political dynamics and agency, which cannot be solely dictated by Indian interests or actions.

What India must prepare for now? (Way forward)

  • Diplomatic Strategy: India needs to develop a proactive diplomatic strategy to engage with the new government in Bangladesh while avoiding perceptions of interference.
  • Security Concerns: India must be vigilant about border security and the potential resurgence of anti-India activities, especially if the new government leans towards Pakistan or China.
  • Economic Engagement: Strengthening economic ties and leveraging people-to-people connections will be essential for maintaining a positive relationship with Bangladesh, regardless of political changes.
  • Learning from Past Experiences: India should draw lessons from its past experiences with political transitions in the region, such as in Afghanistan, to navigate the current situation effectively.
  • Collaborative Approach: Working with international partners, including the US and Gulf nations, will be important to address the challenges posed by the political shift in Bangladesh and to ensure regional stability.

Mains PYQ: 

Q Critically examine the compulsions which prompted India to play a decisive role in the emergence of Bangladesh. (2013)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

On the student protests in Bangladesh    

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Bordering states of India with Bangladesh

Mains level: Initiatives related to 'Strengthening Ties and Empowering Governance'

Why in the News? 

At least 130 people have died in clashes during student protests over government job quotas in Bangladesh.

Why have students in Bangladesh taken to the streets?

  • Opposition to Quota System: Students are protesting against the quota system for government jobs, specifically the 30% reserved for freedom fighters and their descendants, which they believe limits merit-based opportunities.
  • Reversal of Quota Reforms: The protests intensified after the Supreme Court restored the quota system, reversing the previous decision to abolish it. Students demand a more balanced and inclusive quota system.

Why Is the 30% quota for Freedom fighters and their descendants an emotive matter for the Awami League?

  • Legacy of Sheikh Mujib: The quota system was introduced by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and continuing it is seen as fulfilling his legacy and honouring the sacrifices of freedom fighters.
  • Political Significance: The Awami League views the quota as a means to reinforce support within the bureaucracy and maintain political loyalty, linking it closely to the party’s historical and ideological narrative.

How did the protests turn violent?

  • The violence escalated when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina labeled protesters as “razakars” or traitors, which enraged students and led to violent clashes with the police and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
  • The situation deteriorated to the point where the military had to be deployed to control the unrest, further intensifying the violence and confrontation between protesters and authorities.

Have the Quotas Been Misused?

  • Allegations of Abuse: There have been claims that the quota system has been misused, with reservations extended to party operatives and not just deserving freedom fighters’ descendants.
  • Dilution and Extension: The quota system, initially meant for freedom fighters and war survivors, has been criticized for being extended to broader categories over time, leading to concerns about fairness and effective utilization.

India’s recent Initiatives – ‘Strengthening Ties and Empowering Governance’

  • Economic Cooperation: India and Bangladesh agreed to strengthen trade and investment linkages, including the early commencement of negotiations for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
  • Capacity Building for Civil Servants: India has been providing training and capacity-building programs for Bangladeshi civil servants through the National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG).
  • Development Assistance: India is the largest development partner for Bangladesh, having extended approximately $8 billion in Lines of Credit (LOC) over the past eight years for infrastructure development in sectors such as roads, railways, and shipping.

Way forward: 

  • Balanced Approach: The Bangladesh government should consider a transparent and balanced quota reform that addresses both merit-based and reservation needs.
  • Monitoring and Accountability: Establishing mechanisms to monitor the implementation of quotas and prevent misuse is crucial.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

India- Bangladesh Bilateral Relations   

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Bordering Indian states with Bangladesh

Mains level: India-Bangladesh Relations and the Teesta Water Dispute

Why in the news? 

Shortly after Hasina commenced her two-day state visit to India, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar convened with her to discuss several bilateral matters.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Visit to India

Purpose of Visit: To boost bilateral ties between India and Bangladesh.

  • Sheikh Hasina will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Meetings with President Droupadi Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar.
  • Bilateral cooperation in security, trade, commerce, energy, connectivity, science and technology, defence, and maritime affairs. Potential agreements in various sectors to enhance cooperation.

India-Bangladesh Relations and the Teesta Water Dispute

Bilateral Relations: 

  • Strategic Importance: Bangladesh is a key partner under India’s “Neighbourhood First” policy.
  • Trade: Bangladesh is India’s largest trade partner in South Asia. India is the second biggest trade partner of Bangladesh in Asia.
  • Connectivity: The Maitri Setu bridge over river Feni in Tripura and the Chilahati-Haldibari rail link are notable projects.
  • Development Partnership: Bangladesh is India’s largest development partner with significant commitments under the Line of Credit.
  • Border Cooperation: Active cooperation on police matters, anti-corruption activities, combating illicit drug trafficking, fake currency, and human trafficking.

Teesta Water Dispute:

  • Controversy: The sharing of Teesta River water has been a contentious issue between India and Bangladesh, affecting bilateral relations.
  • Current Status: Discussions and negotiations are ongoing to reach a mutually acceptable agreement.

Way Forward

  • Enhanced Bilateral Cooperation: Continue to strengthen ties through regular high-level visits and dialogues.
  • Resolution of Teesta Dispute: Focus on finding a fair and sustainable solution to the Teesta water-sharing issue to improve relations.
  • Economic Integration: Expand trade and investment opportunities to boost economic ties.
  • Infrastructure Development: Further develop connectivity projects to enhance trade and people-to-people exchanges.
  • Security Cooperation: Strengthen cooperation on security issues, including counter-terrorism and border management.
  • Cultural and Educational Exchanges: Promote cultural and educational exchanges to build stronger people-to-people ties.

Mains PYQ:

Q Critically examine the compulsions which prompted India to play a decisive role in the emergence of Bangladesh.(UPSC IAS/2013)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s Elections: Concerns for India

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: NA

Mains level: Bangladesh's Elections

Bangladesh

Central Idea

  • In recent months, Western nations, including the US, UK, and EU have been urging Bangladesh to hold free, fair, and participatory elections.
  • These calls have been accompanied by pressure on the Sheikh Hasina government to step down and allow a neutral caretaker administration to oversee the upcoming parliamentary elections in January.
  • While the US has eased its stance under Indian intervention, the EU continues to exert pressure.

This article explores the intricate dynamics of Bangladesh’s political landscape, the potential consequences of fair elections, and the global interests at stake.

Fair Elections vs. Radical Islamists

  • Opposition Demands: The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) demands elections under a caretaker government, which the government has rejected.
  • Potential Outcome: With the BNP unlikely to participate, the elections may result in a one-sided contest favoring the Awami League, returning Sheikh Hasina to power for the fourth time.
  • Anti-Incumbency: After 15 years in power, the Awami League faces significant anti-incumbency, exacerbated by record-high inflation and economic challenges.
  • Economic Crisis: Falling forex reserves, currency depreciation, and mounting external debt have created a looming debt crisis.
  • Chinese Loans: Much of the infrastructure development relies on high-interest loans from China.

Authoritarianism and Islamist Influence

  • Authoritarian Practices: The Awami League’s authoritarian measures, including arrests and harassment of opposition leaders, have fueled resentment among the masses.
  • Corruption and Nepotism: Perceived corruption and nepotism within the Awami League have widened the gap between the government and the impoverished population.
  • Islamist Influence: The Awami League’s encouragement of Islamist groups like Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh has created a toxic environment within the ruling party.
  • Radicalization: Islamist organizations, through religious schools and mosques, have radicalized a significant portion of the population, especially the youth.
  • Islamist Opposition: The Islamist parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami, Hefazat, and Islami Oikyo Jote, now fill the opposition space.
  • Political Analyst’s Perspective: Political analysts argue that the Awami League’s crackdown on the BNP has inadvertently strengthened Islamist parties, which seek to implement strict Sharia laws and turn Bangladesh into an Islamic state.

Potential Outcomes of Equitable Elections

  • Rise of Jihad: Fair and equitable elections may pave the way for radical Islamist parties to come to power.
  • Jamaat-e-Islami: Despite being banned from contesting elections, Jamaat nominees may run as Independents or on tickets from other parties, potentially leading to their victory.
  • Radicalists Victory: Political observers suggest that non-partisan elections would likely result in Islamist parties sweeping the polls and gaining power.
  • Impact on India: The rise of Islamists in Bangladesh could negatively affect India, potentially aligning Bangladesh with Pakistan and China, and posing a threat to India’s interests.
  • Global Concerns: An Islamist-controlled Bangladesh could become a breeding ground for jihadis and a potential failed state, posing a danger to global security.

World’s Interest in the Election Process

  • Global Implications: Given the far-reaching consequences of Islamist rule in Bangladesh, the world has a vested interest in allowing the election process to proceed with limited interference.
  • Focus on Future Actions: While the elections may be flawed or unfair, the priority should be to ensure that after returning to power, the Awami League commits to keeping China at bay, curbing Islamist forces, allowing a responsible and secular opposition to thrive, and cleansing the party of Islamist elements.
  • Securing Bangladesh’s Future: Striking a balance between a flawed elections and securing Bangladesh’s democratic and secular future is essential for the world’s stability and security.

Conclusion

  • The upcoming elections in Bangladesh present a complex dilemma for both the nation and the world.
  • While free and fair elections could bring radical Islamists to power, their absence could lead to continued authoritarianism.
  • Striking the right balance and securing Bangladesh’s future as a democratic and secular nation is paramount to global stability and peace.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Akhaura-Agartala Rail Link

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Akhaura-Agartala Rail Link

Mains level: Not Much

Akhaura-Agartala Rail Link

Central Idea

  • The Akhaura-Agartala rail connection has been launched. After nearly seven and a half decades, Bangladesh and northeastern India are set to re-establish rail connectivity through Tripura.

Akhaura-Agartala Rail Link

  • This rail link stretches over 12.24 km, with a 6.78 km dual gauge rail line in Bangladesh and 5.46 km in Tripura.
  • Akhaura junction, located in Bangladesh’s Brahmanbaria district, has historical ties with India’s northeastern region, dating back to the colonial era.
  • The connection was originally constructed in the late 19th century to cater to Assam’s tea industry’s demand for access to the Chittagong port.
  • The project gained momentum in 2010 when then-PM Manmohan Singh signed an agreement to rebuild the rail link during PM Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Delhi.

Akhaura-Agartala Rail Link

Significance of the project

  • Multilevel connectivity: Akhaura is currently well-connected by rail, river, and road to several industrial areas in Bangladesh, including Dhaka, Chittagong, and Sylhet.
  • NE connectivity: The rail link to Agartala is expected to enhance connections between India’s northeast and Chittagong, facilitating the transportation of goods.
  • Shortened Routes: The Akhaura link has the potential to significantly reduce travel time and distance for trains travelling to Tripura, southern Assam, Mizoram, Kolkata, and the rest of India, compared to the longer route via Guwahati and Jalpaiguri stations.
  • Unique Event: This event is unique as it marks the first direct rail connection between Akhaura and Agartala, with the first trains anticipated to run between Nishchintapur and Gangasagar stations.

Commercial benefits

  • Trade Expansion: The rail link is expected to boost India-Bangladesh trade in various sectors, including agriculture products, tea, sugar, construction items, iron and steel, and consumer goods, while also fostering people-to-people relationships.
  • Expanded Connectivity: The Akhaura-Agartala rail route is seen as a significant initiative to enhance India’s connectivity with Southeast Asian regions, holding potential for regional economic growth.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

In news: Maitree Super Thermal Power Project

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Maitree Super Thermal Power Project

Mains level: Not Much

maitree

Central Idea

  • Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL), a state-owned engineering firm, achieved a major milestone in Bangladesh.
  • The 660-MW Unit-2 of the 1,320-MW Maitree Super Thermal Power Project (STPP) was successfully synchronized with the electricity grid in Bangladesh.

Maitree Super Thermal Power Project

  • Location: The Maitree STPP is a 1,320-MW power plant situated at Rampal, Mongla, Bagerhat, Bangladesh.
  • Joint Venture: BHEL is responsible for setting up the power plant, which is a 50:50 joint venture between the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and NTPC Ltd.
  • Infrastructure Priority: The project serves as a symbol of successful cooperation between India and Bangladesh and is a priority infrastructure development initiative for Bangladesh.
  • Objective: The primary goal of the project is to establish a reliable and cost-effective base-load power production system in Bangladesh.

BHEL’s Technological Prowess and Global Leadership:

  • The successful synchronisation of the 660-MW Unit-2 underscores BHEL’s expertise and technological prowess in the power sector.
  • This accomplishment further solidifies BHEL’s position as a leading global player in providing dependable and sustainable energy solutions.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

India-Bangladesh Relations: The Golden Chapter

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: NA

Mains level: India-Bangladesh Relations, Significance for India and New avenues of cooperation.

Bangladesh

Central Idea

  • In recent years, Bangladesh-India relations have entered the Golden Chapter in their relations. Setting the seal on this bilateral bonhomie, The Prime Minister of Bangladesh has been invited by the Indian Prime Minister to attend the G20 Summit as a special guest. Bangladesh is the only South Asian country to be on India’s guest list. India’s invitation to Bangladesh as its guest speaks volumes of the high priority the country accords its immediate eastern neighbor and ‘best friend’ in the neighborhood’.

Crack Prelims 2023! Talk to our Rankers

India-Bangladesh ties: An organic transformation

  • India’s links with Bangladesh are civilization, cultural, social and economic.
  • There is much that unites the two countries – a shared history and common heritage, linguistic and cultural ties, and passion for music, literature and the arts.
  • It is also worth recalling that India shares its longest border of 4,096.7 kilometres with Bangladesh, which is also the fifth-longest border in the contemporary world.
  • With the onset of economic liberalization in South Asia, they forged greater bilateral engagement and trade.

Bangladesh

In Depth: Why Bangladesh is cardinally important to India?

  1. India’s largest trading partner in South Asia
  • Bangladesh emerged as India’s largest trading partner: In 2021-22, Bangladesh emerged as India’s largest trading partner in South Asia and India is Bangladesh’s second-largest trading partner and its largest export market in Asia. Despite the pandemic, bilateral trade has grown at an unprecedented rate of 14 per cent
  • Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement: The two countries are also preparing to sign the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, for substantial enhancement of trade and commercial partnerships between the two countries.
  1. Gateway for India’s Northeast
  • Strategic location: Efforts have been made in recent years by both Bangladesh and India to improve connectivity between Bangladesh and India’s Northeast, which is geographically located between West Bengal and landlocked Northeastern states.
  • Initiatives to Improve Connectivity: Initiatives such as inviting India to use Chattogram and Mongla ports, adding new ports and protocol routes to the shared inland waterway network, constructing the Maitri and Padma Setu bridges, and the upcoming Akhaura-Agartala rail line, aim to provide better trade and transport connectivity. The Mitali Express has also been operationalized for bi-weekly journeys between New Jalpaiguri and Dhaka.
  • Important for stability and security issues: Bangladesh has been an outstanding partner of India on security issues, especially with its zero-tolerance attitude towards terrorism. On several occasions, Bangladesh has arrested and handed over insurgents from the separatist militant groups in the Northeast (United Liberation Front of Asom) to India.
  • A central pillar in India’s Neighbourhood First and Act East Policies
  • Bay of Bengal’s Increasing Strategic Significance: The increasing strategic significance of the Bay of Bengal, heightened by China’s rising and assertive presence in this maritime space has led India to bolster relations with the Bay littorals to ensure its pre-eminence in the Bay, which it considers to be a primary area of interest.
  • Important  for India’s Eastern Neighborhood Policy: Furthermore, as its western front remains troubled, India is increasingly trying to build stronger relations with its eastern neighbourhood to realise its Indo-Pacific aspirations.
  • As china trying to make inroads, India Reviving and Cultivating Cooperation: As China also tries to make inroads into Bangladesh to gain a stronger foothold in the Bay region, India has felt an added impetus to nurture its relationship with the country, reviving age-old bonds and cultivating new avenues for cooperation.
  • India’s Vaccine Maitri Initiative For example: In the pandemic, India prioritised Bangladesh and supplied 10.3 crore vaccine doses to the country, making it the largest recipient of its Vaccine Maitri initiative. The gesture was generously reciprocated, by providing of

Bangladesh

Key Areas of Cooperation on India’s G20 Agenda

  1. Climate change and disaster management
  • Green Development, Climate Finance and LiFE’: As the name suggests, the segment is devoted to developing environmental consciousness and understanding the impact of climate change with a particular focus towards not only climate finance and technology, but also ensuring just energy transitions for developing nations across the world.
  • For instance: Both countries agreed to cooperate on climate change with particular attention to the Sundarban area which is facing challenges due to climate-induced sea level rise.
  • Disaster risk reduction: Both India and Bangladesh experience frequent disasters such as cyclones originating from the turbulent Bay of Bengal. Consequently, the two countries signed an MoU on Disaster Management in 2021, to mitigate this transnational threat.
  1. Transition to renewable energy
  • Energy transition and cooperation: As energy transitions are an important issue in India’s G20 mandate, recently, Bangladesh announced its target of generating 40 percent of power from clean energy by 2041. India-Bangladesh have increased cooperation in the energy sector.
  • Projects for instance: With projects such as the Friendship Pipeline and Maitree Super Thermal Power Project, and agreed to enhance cooperation in energy efficiency and clean energy, including biofuels.
  • Cyber security
  • Cyber security cooperation: Cyber security is an intrinsic aspect of Digital Public Infrastructures (DPI’s) and also happens to be one of the areas in which India-Bangladesh have agreed to cooperate.
  • Joining hands to enhance AI and cyber security: In June 2022, both countries decided to expand their strategic partnership to enhance Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cyber security.

Way ahead: Forging better multilateralism

  • Within G20, a priority for India is to promote reformed multilateralism which cultivates accountable, inclusive, just, equitable and representative multipolar international systems, fit for addressing contemporary challenges.
  • As one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, Bangladesh will become even more important for India in future.
  • In many of the multilateral platforms in India’s neighbourhood (an area India seeks to influence), Bangladesh is also a member, for e.g., SAARC, BIMSTEC, and IORA.
  • The country’s support is, therefore, necessary, if India’s G20 aspiration is to find a reflection in regional multilateral platforms.

Bangladesh

Conclusion

  • As India tries to shape the global agenda through G20 it needs Bangladesh’s support to translate many of these ideas into action in its neighbourhood. This will lend further credibility to its presidency and in the long run, some of these nascent areas of cooperation may add pages to the “Golden Chapter” in India-Bangladesh relations.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Private: India-Bangla Trade, now set for CEPA boost

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: CEPA

Mains level: Bilateral trade agreements

cepa

India and Bangladesh will soon commence negotiations on a Bilateral Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

Glimpse of bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh

  • In 2021-22, Bangladesh has emerged as the largest trade partner for India in South Asia and the fourth largest destination for Indian exports worldwide.
  • India is Bangladesh’s second biggest trade partner, and its largest export market in Asia.
  • Despite Covid-19 related disruptions, bilateral trade grew at an unprecedented rate of almost 44 per cent from $10.78 billion in 2020-21 to $18.13 billion in 2021-22.
  • India’s main exports to Bangladesh are raw cotton, non-retail pure cotton yarn, and electricity, and its main imports from the country are pure vegetable oils, non-knit men’s suits, and textile scraps.

What is CEPA?

  • The partnership agreement or cooperation agreement is more comprehensive than an Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
  • CECA/CEPA also looks into the regulatory aspect of trade and encompasses an agreement covering the regulatory issues.
  • CECA has the widest coverage. CEPA covers negotiation on the trade in services and investment and other areas of economic partnership.
  • It may even consider negotiation in areas such as trade facilitation and customs cooperation, competition, and IPR.
  • India has signed CEPAs with South Korea and Japan.

CEPA objectives

  • While informal talks on CEPA have been happening since 2018, officials said that the pandemic has brought urgency.
  • Chinese investments were an initial trigger for India, but New Delhi and Dhaka want to step up the pace following the economic shock faced by the two economies.
  • The CEPA is likely to focus on trade in goods, services, and investment, with a key objective being the reduction of the trade gap between the two countries.
  • As Bangladesh prepares to graduate into a developing nation by 2026 — after which it may no longer qualify for trade benefits that it currently enjoys as a least-developed country — it is keen to clinch the CEPA in a year.

What are the existing frameworks?

The current institutional frameworks for trade and investment include:

  • During the visit of Prime Minister Modi to Bangladesh in June 2015, the bilateral trade agreement between the two countries was renewed for a period of five years with a provision for auto renewal.
  • Under the provisions of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), Bangladesh extends preferential tariffs to Indian exports of products outside the ‘sensitive list’ of 993 items.
  • In 2011, India announced duty-free, quota-free access to Bangladesh for all tariff lines except tobacco and alcohol.
  • An Agreement on Promotion and Protection of Investments has been in force since 2011.
  • Joint Interpretative Notes to the agreement were signed during the visit of the Indian Finance Minister to Bangladesh in October 2017.
  • To facilitate trade and transit through inland waterways, a Protocol on Inland Waterways Trade and Transit (PIWTT) has been in place since 1972. It was renewed in 2015.
  • Direct sea movement of containerized/ bulk/ dry cargo began after the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Coastal Shipping in June 2015.
  • MoUs were signed in 2015 on the use of the Chittagong and Mongla Ports for Movement of Goods to and from India.
  • The MoU on Border Haats on the India-Bangladesh border was renewed in April 2017 during the visit of Prime Minister Hasina to India. Currently, four Border Haats — two each in Meghalaya (Kalaichar and Balat) and Tripura (Srinagar and Kamalasagar) — are functional.

Back2Basics: Types of Trade Agreements

(1) Free Trade Agreement

  • A FTA is a pact between two or more nations to reduce barriers to imports and exports among them.
  • Under a free trade policy, goods and services can be bought and sold across international borders with little or no government tariffs, quotas, subsidies, or prohibitions to inhibit their exchange.
  • The concept of free trade is the opposite of trade protectionism or economic isolationism.

(2) Preferential Trade Agreement

  • In this type of agreement, two or more partners give preferential right of entry to certain products.
  • This is done by reducing duties on an agreed number of tariff lines.
  • Here a positive list is maintained i.e. the list of the products on which the two partners have agreed to provide preferential access.
  • Tariff may even be reduced to zero for some products even in a PTA.
  • India signed a PTA with Afghanistan.

(3) Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

Discussed above.

(4) Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement

  • CECA generally cover negotiation on trade tariff and Tariff rate quotas (TRQs) rates only.
  • It is not as comprehensive as CEPA.
  • India has signed CECA with Malaysia.

(5) Framework Agreement

  • Framework agreement primarily defines the scope and provisions of orientation of the potential agreement between the trading partners.
  • It provides for some new area of discussions and set the period for future liberalisation.
  • India has previously signed framework agreements with the ASEAN, Japan etc.

(6) Early Harvest Scheme

  • An Early Harvest Scheme (EHS) is a precursor to an FTA/CECA/CEPA between two trading partners. For example, early harvest scheme of RCEP has been rolled out.
  • At this stage, the negotiating countries identify certain products for tariff liberalization pending the conclusion of actual FTA negotiations.
  • An Early Harvest Scheme is thus a step towards enhanced engagement and confidence building.

 

UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Bangladesh favours early solution for Teesta Dispute

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Teesta River

Mains level: India-Bangladesh Relations

India and Bangladesh should resolve all bilateral issues, including the differences over the waters of the Teesta, at an early date, said Bangladesh PM on her visit to India.

What is the news?

  • Bangladeshi PM is on a visit to India.
  • Both ministers discussed the long-standing disputes over Teesta river water sharing.
  • The two sides shared 54 rivers that required both nations to work together and share “environmental responsibility” in areas such as the Sundarbans.

About Teesta River

  • Teesta River is a 315 km long river that rises in the eastern Himalayas, flows through the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal through Bangladesh and enters the Bay of Bengal.
  • It is a tributary of the Brahmaputra (known as Jamuna in Bangladesh), flowing through India and Bangladesh.
  • It originates in the Himalayas near Chunthang, Sikkim and flows to the south through West Bengal before entering Bangladesh.
  • Originally, it continued southward to empty directly into the Padma River but around 1787 the river changed its course to flow eastward to join the Jamuna river.
  • The Teesta Barrage dam helps to provide irrigation for the plains between the upper Padma and the Jamuna.

What is the dispute about?

  • The point of contention between India and Bangladesh is mainly the lean season flow in the Teesta draining into Bangladesh.
  • The river covers nearly the entire floodplains of Sikkim while draining 2,800 sq km of Bangladesh, governing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
  • For West Bengal, Teesta is equally important, considered the lifeline of half-a-dozen districts in North Bengal.
  • Bangladesh has sought an “equitable” distribution of Teesta waters from India, on the lines of the Ganga Water Treaty of 1996, but to no avail.
  • The failure to ink a deal had its fallout on the country’s politics, putting the ruling party of PM Sheikh Hasina in a spot.

Q.The hydrological linkages between India and Bangladesh are a product of geography and a matter of shared history. Discuss this statement in line with the Teesta water sharing dispute.

The deal

  • Following a half-hearted deal in 1983, when a nearly equal division of water was proposed, the countries hit a roadblock. The transient agreement could not be implemented.
  • Talks resumed after the Awami League returned to power in 2008 and the former Indian PM Manmohan Singh visited Dhaka in 2011.
  • In 2015, PM Modi’s visit to Dhaka generated more ebullient lines: deliberations were underway involving all the stakeholders to conclude the agreement as soon as possible.

Issues from the Indian side

  • It remains an unfinished project and one of the key stakeholders — West Bengal CM is yet to endorse the deal.
  • Her objection is connected to “global warming. Many of the glaciers on the Teesta basin have retreated.
  • The importance of the flow and the seasonal variation of this river is felt during the lean season (from October to April/May) as the average flow is about 500 million cubic metres (MCM) per month.
  • The CM opposed an arrangement in 2011, by which India would get 42.5% and Bangladesh 37.5% of the water during the lean season, and the plan was shelved.

Why does this deal matters?

  • India and Bangladesh have resolved border problems through the Land Boundary Agreement of 2015.
  • However, both nations have locked horns over the sharing of multiple rivers that define the borders and impact lives and livelihoods on both sides.

 

UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

What is the Kushiyara River Treaty?

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Kushiyara River

Mains level: Read the attached story

Kushiyara

For the first time in 26 years, India and Bangladesh agreed to share the waters of a significant transboundary river, the Kushiyara, while negotiations over a long-delayed agreement to share the Teesta River’s waters, which are politically sensitive are still ongoing.

India-Bangla water disputes: A backgrounder

  • The Teesta River and the Ganges River dispute are the two main long-standing water conflicts between India and Bangladesh.
  • Both rivers are important supplies of water for fishermen, farmers, and boatmen in both nations.
  • Since the sacred river flows from India to Bangladesh, the Ganga river dispute has been a source of contention between the two countries for the past 35 years.
  • There hasn’t been a long-term solution for sharing water offered despite several rounds of bilateral negotiations failing.
  • In order to establish a water sharing arrangement for the following 30 years, a treaty was signed in 1996. This deal is about to expire.

What is the Kushiyara River Treaty?

  • The first such deal since the 1996 signing of the Ganga water treaty, India and Bangladesh reached an interim agreement on water sharing for the Kushiyara River.
  • India withdrew its objection to withdrawal of Kushiyara’s waters by Bangladesh through the Rahimpur Canal.
  • Over the last century, the flow of the Barak river has changed in such a way that the bulk of the river’s water flows into Kushiyara while the rest goes into Surma.
  • The agreement is aimed at addressing part of the problem that the changing nature of the river has posed before Bangladesh as it unleashes floods during the monsoon.
  • It goes dry during the winter when demand of water goes up because of a crop cycle in Sylhet.

Terms of the treaty

  • Under this MoU, Bangladesh will be able to withdraw 153 cusecs (cubic feet per second) of water from the Kushiyara out of the approximately 2,500 cusecs of water that is there in the river during the winter season.
  • The agreement addresses Bangladesh’s concern over water supply along the river, during the winter months but flood control in the basin of Kushiyara is expected to require much more work.

How will Bangladesh use the water?

  • The water of Kushiyara will be channelled through the Rahimpur Canal project in Sylhet.
  • The eight km long canal is the only supplier of water from the Kushiyara to the region and Bangladesh has built a pump house and other facilities for withdrawal of water that can now be utilised.

Benefits to Bangladesh

  • It is generally understood that approximately 10,000 hectares of land and millions of people will benefit from the water that will flow through a network of canals in Sylhet.
  • It will benefit the farmers involved in Boro rice, which is basically the rice cultivated during the dry season of December to February and harvested in early summer.
  • Bangladesh has been complaining that the Boro rice cultivation in the region had been suffering as India did not allow it to withdraw the required water from the Kushiyara.

Why is the water from the Kushiyara so important for Rahimpur Canal?

  • The water of the Kushiyara has been used for centuries in Sylhet’s subdivisions like the Zakiganj, Kanaighat and Beanibazar areas.
  • But Bangladesh has witnessed that the flow and volume of water in the canal has reduced during the lean season.
  • The utility of the river and the canal during the lean/winter season had gone down, affecting cultivation of rice as well as a wide variety of vegetables for which Sylhet is famous.

What was India’s objection to the Rahimpur Canal?

  • India objected to the clearing and dredging of canal.
  • It claimed that the dyke and other infrastructure interfered in border security as Kushiyara itself forms part of the border between the two sides.
  • However, the agreement indicates that the economic benefits possible from the river outweighed the security

What are the hurdles to the Teesta agreement?

  • The Kushiyara agreement is relatively smaller in scale in comparison to Teesta that involves West Bengal, which has problems with the proposal.
  • The Kushiyara agreement did not require a nod from any of the States like Assam from which the Barak emerges and branches into Kushiyara and Surma.

 

UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

India Bangladesh Relations

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: NA

Mains level: bilateral ties

bangladeshContext

  • Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina’s four-day visit to India to boost bilateral ties.

India-Bangladesh ties background

  • India’s links with Bangladesh are civilization, cultural, social and economic.
  • There is much that unites the two countries – a shared history and common heritage, linguistic and cultural ties, passion for music, literature and the arts.
  • India was one of the first countries, along with Bhutan, to recognise Bangladesh as a sovereign state on 6 December 1971.
  • It is also worth recalling that India shares its longest border of 4,096.7 kilometres with Bangladesh, which is also the fifth-longest border in the contemporary world.

bangladeshTrade between two

  • CEPA: Trade will be a focal point during Ms. Hasina’s visit as the two countries gear up to sign a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
  • Bangladesh dependency: Bangladesh imports critical industrial raw material from India on which its exports are reliant.
  • Leveraging Indian support: Bangladesh also could improve several manufacturing industries by leveraging Indian expertise in service sectors.

bangladeshConnectivity

  • IMT highway: Bangladesh has expressed its interest in joining the India-Myanmar-Thailand highway project.
  • Waterway: India-Bangladesh bilateral waterway trade will get boosted as India can now use the Mongla and Chittagong ports.
  • Logistics: India’s Northeast and Bangladesh is important for bilateral cooperation. Currently, three express trains and international bus services operate between Indian and Bangladesh.

Key data to remember

Bangladesh is India’s sixth largest trade partner with bilateral trade rising from $2.4 billion in 2009 to $10.8 billion in 2020-21.

Regional geopolitics

  • Chinese influence: Chinese inroads into the neighbourhood have been a cause of worry for India. China has been actively pursuing bilateral ties with Bangladesh. Bangladesh had successfully approached China for a mega project to enhance Teesta river water flow.
  • Strategic location: From the perspective of India’s Northeast, Bangladesh is India’s most strategic neighbour, whom New Delhi cannot ever afford to ignore.
  • Cooperation needed: India’s dream of ‘Act East Policy’ can only be materialized with the helping hands of Dhaka.
  • Gateway to northeast: The bridge ‘Maitri Setu’ has been built over the Feni River which flows between the Indian boundary in Tripura State and Bangladesh. It is set to become the ‘Gateway of North East’ with access to Chittagong Port of Bangladesh, which is just 80 kms from Sabroom.

Way forward

  • The future will present itself with an abundance of opportunities to help the two countries to reach a new plane of bilateral relations higher than ever before.
  • Both nations should play their diplomatic cards with more maturity and pragmatism, keeping the regional aspirations and nuances of both countries in mind.
  • A judicious aggregation of regional expectations on both sides of the border will help in achieving their mutual national objectives.
  • To make the recent gains irreversible, both countries need to continue working on the three Cs — cooperation, collaboration, and consolidation.

Conclusion

  • For India it will take more than cosy relations with one particular government to have long-term stable relations with its most trusted friend in the neighbourhood.

Mains question

Q. Do you think Bangladesh is most trusted friend in the neighbourhood? Discuss bilateral relations between two in terms of trade, connectivity and geopolitics.

UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

India, Bangladesh discuss River Water Sharing issues

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Rivers mentioned

Mains level: India-Bangladesh Relations

India and Bangladesh discussed a wide range of River Water Sharing issues related to the major common rivers such as the Ganga, Teesta and several others during the 38th meeting of the Joint River Commission (JRC).

Rivers between India and Bangladesh

  • Overall, India and Bangladesh have 54 transboundary rivers between them, all of which are part of the drainage system of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin.
  • The Padma (the Ganga), the Jamuna (the Brahmaputra) and the Meghna (the Barak) and their tributaries are integral in maintaining food and water security in Bangladesh.
  • In most of these cases, Bangladesh is the lower riparian.
  • This causes concern in Bangladesh that India—being both the upper riparian and first to develop the water resources—can have far more disproportionate control over the rivers.
  • Compounded by the lack of transparent data regarding trans-boundary rivers, such concern can lead to a more serious conflict between the two otherwise friendly neighbours.

Genesis of the disputes

  • The issues between India and Bangladesh regarding water resource allotment can be traced to the time Bangladesh was still East Pakistan.
  • In 1961, India began construction of the Farakka Barrage—which was to be operational by April 1975—to divert a portion of the dry-season flow and increase the navigability of Kolkata port.
  • When India began its preliminary planning for the project in 1950-51, Pakistan immediately expressed concerns over the potential effect of the project on East Pakistan.

Moves for disputes resolution: Joint River Commission

  • Soon after the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the Joint River Commission was formed between India and Bangladesh in 1972.
  • In a joint declaration issued on 16 May 1974, the PM of Bangladesh and India acknowledged the need for the flow augmentation of the Ganga in the lean season to meet the requirements of both countries.

Often in news: Teesta River Dispute

  • The Bangladesh government has been insistent on sealing the Teesta Waters Agreement, which has eluded settlement so far.
  • Teesta River is a 315 km long river that rises in the eastern Himalayas, flows through the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal through Bangladesh and enters the Bay of Bengal.
  • It is a tributary of the Brahmaputra (known as Jamuna in Bangladesh), flowing through India and Bangladesh.
  • It originates in the Himalayas near Chunthang, Sikkim and flows to the south through West Bengal before entering Bangladesh.
  • Originally, it continued southward to empty directly into the Padma River but around 1787 the river changed its course to flow eastward to join the Jamuna river.
  • The Teesta Barrage dam helps to provide irrigation for the plains between the upper Padma and the Jamuna.

What is the dispute about?

  • The point of contention between India and Bangladesh is mainly the lean season flow in the Teesta draining into Bangladesh.
  • The river covers nearly the entire floodplains of Sikkim while draining 2,800 sq km of Bangladesh, governing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
  • For West Bengal, Teesta is equally important, considered the lifeline of half-a-dozen districts in North Bengal.
  • Bangladesh has sought an “equitable” distribution of Teesta waters from India, on the lines of the Ganga Water Treaty of 1996, but to no avail.
  • The failure to ink a deal had its fallout on the country’s politics, putting the ruling party of PM Sheikh Hasina in a spot.

Q.The hydrological linkages between India and Bangladesh are a product of geography and a matter of shared history. Discuss this statement in line with the Teesta water-sharing dispute.

The deal

  • Following a half-hearted deal in 1983, when a nearly equal division of water was proposed, the countries hit a roadblock. The transient agreement could not be implemented.
  • Talks resumed after the Awami League returned to power in 2008 and the former Indian PM Manmohan Singh visited Dhaka in 2011.
  • In 2015, PM Modi’s visit to Dhaka generated more ebullient lines: deliberations were underway involving all the stakeholders to conclude the agreement as soon as possible.

Issues from the Indian side

  • It remains an unfinished project and one of the key stakeholders — West Bengal CM is yet to endorse the deal.
  • Her objection is connected to “global warming. Many of the glaciers on the Teesta basin have retreated.
  • The importance of the flow and the seasonal variation of this river is felt during the lean season (from October to April/May) as the average flow is about 500 million cubic metres (MCM) per month.
  • The CM opposed an arrangement in 2011, by which India would get 42.5% and Bangladesh 37.5% of the water during the lean season, and the plan was shelved.

Why does this deal matters?

  • India and Bangladesh have resolved border problems through the Land Boundary Agreement of 2015.
  • However, both nations have locked horns over the sharing of multiple rivers that define the borders and impact lives and livelihoods on both sides.

 

UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

India, Bangladesh, Pakistan: What east can teach west

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not much

Mains level: Paper 2- India-Bangladesh ties

Context

The bilateral relationship between India and Bangladesh dominated by endless contentions at the turn of the millennium has transformed into a very productive partnership.

Contrast between India’s relations with Bangladesh and Pakistan

  • The persistence of cross-border terrorism, the conflict over Kashmir, the militarisation of the frontier, little connectivity, poor trade relations and no formal inter-governmental negotiations paint a bleak picture of the India-Pak border.
  • The inability of successive generations of Indian and Pakistani leaders to bring a closure to Partition in the west makes the talk of a “100-year war” credible.
  • The only trend that can counter this pessimism is the good news from India’s eastern frontier with Bangladesh.
  • In contrast to the talk of a 100-year war between India and Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have proclaimed a “sonali adhyay” or “golden chapter” in bilateral relations.
  • While the unresolved land and maritime territorial disputes constitute one of the main problems in India’s relations with Pakistan, their resolution with Bangladesh transformed the context of bilateral relations.
  • For both Delhi and Dhaka, the reinvention of the bilateral relationship has been one of the most significant successes of their recent foreign policies

Rebuilding the Bangladesh-India ties after 2010

  • The work on rebuilding ties began in earnest in 2010, when Sheikh Hasina came to India after taking charge of Bangladesh as prime minister for the second time in 2009.
  • Addressing bilateral problems: Both sides embarked on an extraordinary effort to address most bilateral problems—including border settlement, river water sharing, cross-border terrorism, market access to Bangladeshi goods, and connectivity.
  • The land boundary deal got parliamentary approval in 2015 in India.
  • India also accepted the award of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on settling the maritime boundary dispute between Delhi and Dhaka. 
  • Security cooperation: Cooperation on cross-border terrorism that began a couple of years earlier helped build much-needed political trust between the two national security establishments.
  • Connectivity: On the connectivity front, we have seen a substantive movement towards reopening the border that was largely shut down after the 1965 war between India and Pakistan.
  • Trans-boundary bus services, reopening of railway lines, and the revitalisation of waterways are restoring connectivity in the eastern subcontinent that was severed.
  • Bilateral trade: Bilateral trade volumes have grown by leaps and bounds in recent years touching nearly $16 billion last year.
  • Bangladesh is one of India’s top export markets.
  •  India and Bangladesh have also developed inter-connected power grids facilitating Dhaka’s purchase of power from India.
  • It currently buys about 1200 MW of power from India and an additional 1500 MW is in the pipeline.
  • Development of the northeastern India: Today the northeastern states have realised the immense benefits of deeper economic engagement with Bangladesh — none of them more important than ending the geographic isolation of the region.
  • Assam today is at the forefront of imagining a bolder agenda for deepening economic ties with Bangladesh.
  • Peace and prosperity in the region: For India, the expansive partnership with Bangladesh has significantly eased its security challenges and laid the basis for peace and prosperity in the eastern subcontinent.
  • For Bangladesh, discarding the temptation to balance India and embark on a cooperative strategy has allowed Dhaka to focus on its economic growth and lift itself in the regional and global hierarchy.

Way forward

  • Consolidating the gains: Rather than regret the unfortunate dynamic on the western frontier and bemoan Pakistan’s reluctance to let the SAARC become a vehicle for regional cooperation, Delhi should focus on consolidating the “golden moment” in the east.
  • The issues that need resolution are protecting the rights of minorities, sharing the waters of more than 50 rivers, promoting cross-border investments, managing one of the longest borders in the world, facilitating trade and preventing illegal migration, countering forces of religious extremism, promoting maritime security in the Bay of Bengal, expanding defence cooperation, and mitigating climate change in the shared regional environment to name a few.
  • Solving problems and tending to the relationship must necessarily be a continuous effort rather than episodic.

Conclusion

Nor can Delhi and Dhaka take each other for granted and let domestic politics overwhelm the logic of bilateral cooperation. The 75th anniversary of independence offers Delhi and Dhaka a special opportunity to elevate the ambition for their bilateral partnership.

UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

India-Bangladesh River Disputes

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Read the attached story

Mains level: India-Bangladesh

India and Bangladesh are likely to ink at least one major river agreement later this month.

It is gauged that India has agreed to offer Bangladesh a package on river waters-related deals that will be considered a significant advancement in terms of sharing of river resources with Dhaka.

Why in news?

  • There is a strong possibility that an agreement on the River Kushiyara that flows from Assam into Bangladesh is part of one such agreement.
  • This river got its fame in recent Assam floods.
  • Water sharing is considered a sensitive subject given the fact that it often takes political meaning.

Rivers between India and Bangladesh

  • Overall, India and Bangladesh have 54 transboundary rivers between them, all of which are part of the drainage system of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin.
  • The Padma (the Ganga), the Jamuna (the Brahmaputra) and the Meghna (the Barak) and their tributaries are integral in maintaining food and water security in Bangladesh.
  • In most of these cases, Bangladesh is the lower riparian.
  • This causes concern in Bangladesh that India—being both the upper riparian and first to develop the water resources—can have far more disproportionate control over the rivers.
  • Compounded by the lack of transparent data regarding trans-boundary rivers, such concern can lead to a more serious conflict between the two otherwise friendly neighbours.

Genesis of the disputes

  • The issues between India and Bangladesh regarding water resource allotment can be traced to the time Bangladesh was still East Pakistan.
  • In 1961, India began construction of the Farakka Barrage—which was to be operational by April 1975—to divert a portion of the dry-season flow and increase the navigability of Kolkata port.
  • When India began its preliminary planning for the project in 1950-51, Pakistan immediately expressed concerns over the potential effect of the project on East Pakistan.

Moves for disputes resolution: Joint River Commission

  • Soon after the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the Joint River Commission was formed between India and Bangladesh in 1972.
  • In a joint declaration issued on 16 May 1974, the PM of Bangladesh and India acknowledged the need for the flow augmentation of the Ganga in the lean season to meet the requirements of both countries.

Often in news: Teesta River Dispute

  • The Bangladesh government has been insistent on sealing the Teesta Waters Agreement, which has eluded settlement so far.
  • Teesta River is a 315 km long river that rises in the eastern Himalayas, flows through the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal through Bangladesh and enters the Bay of Bengal.
  • It is a tributary of the Brahmaputra (known as Jamuna in Bangladesh), flowing through India and Bangladesh.
  • It originates in the Himalayas near Chunthang, Sikkim and flows to the south through West Bengal before entering Bangladesh.
  • Originally, it continued southward to empty directly into the Padma River but around 1787 the river changed its course to flow eastward to join the Jamuna river.
  • The Teesta Barrage dam helps to provide irrigation for the plains between the upper Padma and the Jamuna.

What is the dispute about?

  • The point of contention between India and Bangladesh is mainly the lean season flow in the Teesta draining into Bangladesh.
  • The river covers nearly the entire floodplains of Sikkim while draining 2,800 sq km of Bangladesh, governing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
  • For West Bengal, Teesta is equally important, considered the lifeline of half-a-dozen districts in North Bengal.
  • Bangladesh has sought an “equitable” distribution of Teesta waters from India, on the lines of the Ganga Water Treaty of 1996, but to no avail.
  • The failure to ink a deal had its fallout on the country’s politics, putting the ruling party of PM Sheikh Hasina in a spot.

Q.The hydrological linkages between India and Bangladesh are a product of geography and a matter of shared history. Discuss this statement in line with the Teesta water sharing dispute.

The deal

  • Following a half-hearted deal in 1983, when a nearly equal division of water was proposed, the countries hit a roadblock. The transient agreement could not be implemented.
  • Talks resumed after the Awami League returned to power in 2008 and the former Indian PM Manmohan Singh visited Dhaka in 2011.
  • In 2015, PM Modi’s visit to Dhaka generated more ebullient lines: deliberations were underway involving all the stakeholders to conclude the agreement as soon as possible.

Issues from the Indian side

  • It remains an unfinished project and one of the key stakeholders — West Bengal CM is yet to endorse the deal.
  • Her objection is connected to “global warming. Many of the glaciers on the Teesta basin have retreated.
  • The importance of the flow and the seasonal variation of this river is felt during the lean season (from October to April/May) as the average flow is about 500 million cubic metres (MCM) per month.
  • The CM opposed an arrangement in 2011, by which India would get 42.5% and Bangladesh 37.5% of the water during the lean season, and the plan was shelved.

Why does this deal matters?

  • India and Bangladesh have resolved border problems through the Land Boundary Agreement of 2015.
  • However, both nations have locked horns over the sharing of multiple rivers that define the borders and impact lives and livelihoods on both sides.

 

UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

India Bangladesh Relations

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Railway links mentioned

Mains level: India-Bangladesh connectivity

Two years after they were stopped due to the onset of the pandemic, passenger train services between India and Bangladesh resumed with the Bandhan Express setting off from Kolkata for Khulna and the Maitree Express starting its run from Dhaka for Kolkata.

History of Rail Connectivity

  • The Bandhan Express was resumed by rebooting a long-forgotten rail link between Kolkata and the industrial hub of Khulna, the third-largest city of Bangladesh.
  • In 1965, this route was served by the Barisal Express, which was stopped due to the India-Pakistan war.
  • The Modi government along with the Sheikh Hasina regime restarted that with Bandhan in 2017.
  • The Bandhan Express was the second train to be flagged off after the introduction of Maitree Express between Kolkata and Dhaka Cantonment in April, 2008.
  • It covers the distance between Kolkata and Khulna via Petrapole and Benapole border route to cater to the demands of the people from both the countries.
  • The Bandhan Express was resumed in 2017 by rebooting a long-forgotten rail link between Kolkata and the industrial hub of Khulna.

Beyond passenger travel

  • The governments of both the countries have been working towards strengthening the rail link between them, and not just through passenger trains.
  • In August 2021, the two sides started regular movement of freight trains between the newly-restored link between Haldibari in India and Chilahati in Bangladesh.
  • The Haldibari-Chilahati rail link between India and the then East Pakistan was also operational till 1965 and stopped due to the war.
  • This was part of the broad gauge main route from Kolkata to Siliguri at the time of Partition.
  • The two sides envisage at least 20 freight trains to cross the border per month on this link.

Rail infrastructure

  • Once part of a single, seamless railway network under British rule, trains continued to pass between the two countries even after the Partition.
  • The infrastructure to connect the two sides through railways was, therefore, largely present.
  • Policymakers on both sides viewed this as an opportunity to deepen diplomatic ties using cross-border movements of goods and passengers.
  • Five rail links have so far been rebooted between India and Bangladesh:

Petrapole (India)-Benapole (Bangladesh), Gede (India)- Darshana (Bangladesh), Singhabad (India)-Rohanpur (Bangladesh), Radhikapur (India)-Birol (Bangladesh) and the Haldibari-Chilahati link

 

UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Bangladesh offers Chittagong Port to India

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Chittagong Port

Mains level: India-Bangladesh connectivity

In a major development in India-Bangladesh ties, India has now gained access to the crucial Chittagong Port after it was offered by Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina.

About Chittagong Port

  • The Chittagong/Chattogram Port is the main seaport of Bangladesh.
  • It is located in the port city of Chittagong and on the banks of the Karnaphuli River,
  • The port handles eighty percent of Bangladesh’s export-import trade, and has been used by India, Nepal and Bhutan for transshipment.
  • According to Lloyd’s, it ranked as the 58th busiest container port in the world in 2019. The port is one of the oldest in the world.
  • Chittagong Port is now being developed and modernized with Chinese investment and help.
  • It was widely believed that China will retain the right to use this port according to its plans and needs.

Significance of the port

  • The use of Chattogram port was made possible under an agreement that allows the use of Chattogram and Mongla ports as transhipment hubs.
  • The port is significance for north-eastern states for enhancing connectivity between the neighboring countries.
  • This will reduce the distance, time and cost of logistics for transporting goods.
  • Currently, the road route between West Bengal to the northeast covers a distance of over 1,200 km.

Some of the benefits India hopes from this new and shorter route are:

  • An additional connectivity route that’s economical and environment-friendly
  • States like Tripura, Assam and Meghalaya to get access to a port for transportation of goods
  • Lend a fillip to multi-modal connectivity between India and Bangladesh
  • Ease stress on supply chains that have been disrupted by the pandemic
  • Important bridge for India to reach Southeast Asia, East Asia and beyond

Benefits for Bangladesh

  • Fresh investment flow in the logistics sector
  • New trade routes are expected to generate employment and give a fillip to transport, finance and insurance.
  • Generate revenue by way of administrative and port-related fees
  • Lead to economic transformation of cities such as Cumilla, Tamabil and Akhaura as well.

Conclusion

  • India has settled the four-decade-old land boundary issue and also showing positive attitude towards Teesta water sharing issue.
  • At this moment, it is normal that Bangladesh would show some liberality towards use of ports.

UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Land Boundary Agreement

Mains level: India-Bangladesh Relations

Union Home Minister has said that the Northeast States will be linked by road and railway to Bangladesh in a year or two under the historic Land Boundary Agreement (LBA).

Land Boundary Agreement (LBA)

  • India and Bangladesh have signed the LBA in 2014 to ensure proper connectivity in the region.
  • The operationalization of LBA lays the way for the exchange of 162 enclaves under the control of either country as per the 1974 pact.
  • Under the Agreement, 111 border enclaves will be transferred to Bangladesh in exchange for 51 that will become part of India.
  • The agreement settles an old land boundary dispute which dates back to colonial times as India transfers 111 border enclaves to Bangladesh in exchange for 51 enclaves.
  • It also settles the question of citizenship for over 50,000 people residing under these enclaves.

Why was such an agreement needed?

  • India and Bangladesh share a 4,096 km land boundary covering West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
  • This is the largest among the international boundaries that India shares with its neighbors.
  • On this boundary, some 50,000-100,000 people reside in so-called Chitmahals or Indo-Bangladeshi enclaves.
  • There are 102 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh and 71 Bangladeshi ones inside India.
  • Inside those enclaves are also 28 counter-enclaves and one counter-counter-enclave, called Dahala Khagrabari.

The inception of the agreement

  • For the first time, a vision to solve this issue had been enshrined in the Indira-Mujib pact of 1972.
  • Accordingly, the India-Bangladesh LBA was signed between the two countries in 1974.
  • However, this agreement need ratification from the parliaments of both countries as it involved the exchange of the territories.
  • While Bangladesh had ratified it as back as 1974 only, it was not ratified by the Indian parliament till 2014.
  • The 119th Amendment Bill 2013 sought to ratify the land boundary agreement between the two countries.

Key features of the LBA

  • The LBA envisages a transfer of 111 Indian enclaves to Bangladesh in return for 51 enclaves to India.
  • The area transferred to India is less than that transferred by India to Bangladesh. In totality, India incurs a net loss in terms of area occupancy.
  • This remained a major concern of opposition from the north-eastern affected states and west Bengal.
  • Also, most of the area concerned is occupied by the tribals of the North-Eastern states and hence the swapping takes away their land rights leaving them more vulnerable.
  • Current Status of the Constitution (119th Amendment) Bill has been passed by the Parliament of India on 7th May 2015.
  • While India will gain 510 acres of land, ten thousand acres of land will notionally go to Bangladesh.
  • This legislation will redraw India’s boundary with Bangladesh by exchanging enclaves in Assam, West Bengal, Tripura and Meghalaya.

Implications of the Agreement

  • It will secure the long-stranded boundary and enable to curb the illegal migration, smuggling and criminal acts across the border.
  • It would help those stateless citizens by granting them citizenship from their respective countries. It would help settle the boundary dispute at several points in Meghalaya, Tripura, Assam, and West Bengal.
  • It would improve the access to underdeveloped north-eastern states and would further enhance the developmental works in the region.
  • It would help to increase the connectivity with south-east Asia as part of India’s North-eastern policy.

 

UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

India-Bangladesh Relations

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not much

Mains level: Paper 2- India-Bangladesh relations

The article highlights the need for Indian leaders to respect the sentiments of Bangladesh by avoiding adverse comments during elections and recognition of Bangladesh’s importance for India.

 Diplomacy with Bangladesh

  • Long-standing bilateral problems: As a neighbour nearly surrounded on all territorial sides by India, there are the inevitable bilateral problems of long duration.
  • Such problems include a perennially favourable balance of trade for India, drought and flood in the 54 transboundary rivers flowing from India to Bangladesh, and the smuggling of goods and vulnerable human beings across the approximately 4,100 kilometre land border.
  • Cultural ties with India: There are several sections who regard their Bengali roots and traditions as being of equal validity as their religious affiliation, and treasure the linguistic and cultural ties with adjacent India.
  • India’s expectations: For India’s attentions and support, India’s expectations are that a neighbour will keep India’s concerns in mind when devising and pursuing its policies.

Steps taken to consolidate the bilateral ties

  • Bangladesh has successfully dealt with Muslim fundamentalist terrorists.
  • Bangladesh has also controlled the Northeast militant movements sheltering in Bangladesh.
  • This has facilitated the pacification of India’s Northeast.
  • Bangladesh facilitated a considerable degree of connectivity between India and its Northeast by land, river and the use of Bangladeshi ports.
  • Indian investments in Bangladesh have been encouraged.
  • There are at least 100,000 Indian nationals now living and working in that country.
  • For economic integration along with free movement of commerce and capital, the movement of persons on the lines of Nepal and Bhutan will have to be considered.

Consider the question “To a certain degree both India and Bangladesh depend on each other for security and stability. In light of this, take an overview of the consolidation of the bilateral ties between the two countries and discuss the issues that need to be addressed between the two countries.”

Conclusion

Responsible individuals on both sides of the border, whether in government or the Opposition, must be actively discouraged from words and actions detrimental to the consolidation of the existing cordiality.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Currency swap between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Currency Swap

Mains level: Bangladesh economic growth

Bangladesh’s central bank has approved a $200 million currency swap facility to Sri Lanka.

Practice question for mains:

Q. What are Currency Swaps? Discuss the efficacy of Currency Swap Agreements for liberalizing bilateral trade.

What is a Currency Swap?

  • In this context, a currency swap is effectively a loan that Bangladesh will give to Sri Lanka in dollars, with an agreement that the debt will be repaid with interest in Sri Lankan rupees.
  • For Sri Lanka, this is cheaper than borrowing from the market, and a lifeline as is it struggles to maintain adequate forex reserves even as repayment of its external debts looms.
  • The period of the currency swap will be specified in the agreement.

A helping hand for SL

  • Bangladesh Bank, the central bank, has in principle approved a $200 million currency swap agreement with Sri Lanka.
  • Dhaka decided to extend the facility after a request by Sri Lankan PM Mahinda Rajapaksa to Bangladesh’s PM Sheikh Hasina.
  • It will help Colombo tide over its foreign exchange crisis, according to media reports from Bangladesh, quoting the bank’s spokesman.
  • Sri Lanka, staring at an external debt repayment schedule of $4.05 million this year, is in urgent need of foreign exchange.

An unusual move

  • Bangladesh has not been viewed so far as a provider of financial assistance to other countries.
  • It has been among the most impoverished countries of the world, and still receives billions of dollars in financial aid.
  • But over the last two decades, its economy has pulled itself up literally by the bootstraps, and in 2020, was the fastest growing in South Asia.
  • Bangladesh’s economy grew by 5.2 percent in 2020 and is expected to grow by 6.8 percent in 2021.
  • The country has managed to pull millions out of poverty. Its per capita income just overtook India’s.

A break in monopoly

  • This may be the first time that Bangladesh is extending a helping hand to another country, so this is a landmark of sorts.
  • It is also the first time that Sri Lanka is borrowing from a SAARC country other than India.
  • The presumption was that only India, as the regional group’s largest economy, could do this.
  • The Bangladesh-Sri Lanka arrangement shows that is no longer valid.

Why didn’t SL approach India?

  • Last year, it requested for a $1 billion credit swap, and separately, a moratorium on debts that the country has to repay to India.
  • But India-Sri Lanka relations have been tense over Colombo’s decision to cancel a valued container terminal project at Colombo Port.
  • India put off the decision, but Colombo no longer has the luxury of time.

Is SL in a crisis?

  • With the tourism industry destroyed since the 2019 Easter attacks, Sri Lanka had lost one of its top foreign exchange pullers even before the pandemic.
  • The tea and garment industries have also been hit by the pandemic affecting exports.
  • Remittances increased in 2020, but are not sufficient to pull Sri Lanka out of its crisis.
  • The country is already deep in debt to China. According to media reports, Sri Lanka owes China up to $5 billion.

What about the previous swap facility that India gave Sri Lanka?

  • Last July, the RBI did extend a $400 million credit swap facility to Sri Lanka, which the Central Bank of Sri Lanka settled in February. The arrangement was not extended.
  • RBI has a framework under which it can offer credit swap facilities to SAARC countries within an overall corpus of $2 billion.
  • According to RBI, the SAARC currency swap facility came into operation in November 2012 with the aim of providing to smaller countries in the region.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Teesta Water Sharing Deal

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Teesta River

Mains level: Teesta dispute

PM while on his tour of Bangladesh assured his best to ink the long-awaited deal over the Teesta and other common rivers. On at least two occasions—2011 and 2017—Bangladesh and India came close to signing a deal on the Teesta.

Teesta River

  • Teesta River is a 315 km long river that rises in the eastern Himalayas, flows through the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal through Bangladesh and enters the Bay of Bengal.
  • It is a tributary of the Brahmaputra (known as Jamuna in Bangladesh), flowing through India and Bangladesh.
  • It originates in the Himalayas near Chunthang, Sikkim and flows to the south through West Bengal before entering Bangladesh.
  • Originally, it continued southward to empty directly into the Padma River but around 1787 the river changed its course to flow eastward to join the Jamuna river.
  • The Teesta Barrage dam helps to provide irrigation for the plains between the upper Padma and the Jamuna.

What is the dispute about?

  • The point of contention between India and Bangladesh is mainly the lean season flow in the Teesta draining into Bangladesh.
  • The river covers nearly the entire floodplains of Sikkim while draining 2,800 sq km of Bangladesh, governing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
  • For West Bengal, Teesta is equally important, considered the lifeline of half-a-dozen districts in North Bengal.
  • Bangladesh has sought an “equitable” distribution of Teesta waters from India, on the lines of the Ganga Water Treaty of 1996, but to no avail.
  • The failure to ink a deal had its fallout on the country’s politics, putting the ruling party of PM Sheikh Hasina in a spot.

The hydrological linkages between India and Bangladesh are a product of geography and a matter of shared history. Discuss this statement in line with the Teesta water sharing dispute.

The deal

  • Following a half-hearted deal in 1983, when a nearly equal division of water was proposed, the countries hit a roadblock. The transient agreement could not be implemented.
  • Talks resumed after the Awami League returned to power in 2008 and the former Indian PM Manmohan Singh visited Dhaka in 2011.
  • In 2015, PM Modi’s visit to Dhaka generated more ebullient lines: deliberations were underway involving all the stakeholders to conclude the agreement as soon as possible.

Issues from the Indian side

  • It remains an unfinished project and one of the key stakeholders — West Bengal CM is yet to endorse the deal.
  • Her objection is connected to “global warming. Many of the glaciers on the Teesta basin have retreated.
  • The importance of the flow and the seasonal variation of this river is felt during the lean season (from October to April/May) as the average flow is about 500 million cubic metres (MCM) per month.
  • The CM opposed an arrangement in 2011, by which India would get 42.5% and Bangladesh 37.5% of the water during the lean season, and the plan was shelved.

Why does it matter?

  • India witnessed a surge in the insurgency in the northeast during the rule of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) from 2001 to 2005.
  • Bangladesh allegedly sheltered insurgents engaged in anti-India activities, and nearly all the Home Ministry-level talks ended without agreement, and India had to increase the security budget for the northeast.
  • In a couple of years of assuming office in 2008, the Awami League targeted insurgent camps and handed over the rebels to India.
  • As India’s security establishment heaved a sigh of relief, the relationship improved on multiple fronts.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Enhancing the Indo-Bangladesh cooperation

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not much

Mains level: Paper 2- India-Bangladesh relations in 50 years

The article highlights the areas of cooperations and issues between the India and Bangladesh as it celebrates the golden jubilee of its independence from Pakistan.

New era of cooperation

  • In the last decade, India-Bangladesh relations have warmed up, entering a new era of cooperation.
  • These ties have moved beyond historical and cultural ties to become more assimilated in the areas of trade, connectivity, energy, and defence.
  • Bangladesh and India have achieved the rare feat of solving their border issues peacefully by ratifying the historic Land Boundary Agreement in 2015.
  • The Bangladesh government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has uprooted anti-India insurgency elements from its borders.

Bilateral trade and tourism

  • Bangladesh today is India’s biggest trading partner in South Asia with exports to Bangladesh in FY 2018-19 at $9.21 billion and imports at $1.04 billion.
  • India has offered duty free access to multiple Bangladeshi products.
  • While India has given duty-free access to a number of Bangladeshi goods, its physical enormity precludes circumstances that could have Bangladesh enhance the quantum of exports.
  • Trade could be more balanced if non-tariff barriers from the Indian side could be removed.
  • Bangladeshis make up a large portion of tourists in India with one in every five tourists being a Bangladeshi.
  • Bangladesh accounts for more than 35% of India’s international medical patients and contributes more than 50% of India’s revenue from medical tourism.

Cooperation on development

  • India extended three lines of credit to Bangladesh in recent years amounting to $8 billion for the construction of roads, railways, bridges, and ports.
  • However, in eight years until 2019, only 51% of the first $800 million line of credit has been utilised.
  • Barely any amount from the next two lines of credit worth $6.5 billion has been mobilised.
  • This has been mostly due to red-tapism from India’s end, and slow project implementation on Bangladesh’s end.

Connectivity

  • Connectivity between the two countries has greatly improved.
  • A direct bus service between Kolkata and Agartala runs a route distance of 500 km, as compared to the 1,650 km if it ran through the Chicken’s Neck to remain within India.
  • There are three passenger and freight railway services running between the two countries, with two more routes on their way to be restored.
  • The inauguration of the Chilahati-Haldibari railway link has been a significant move in enhancing connectivity between the countries.
  • Recently, a 1.9 kilometre long bridge, the Maitri Setu, was inaugurated connecting Sabroom in India with Ramgarh in Bangladesh.
  • Bangladesh allows the shipment of goods from its various ports.
  • This allows landlocked Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura to access open water routes through the Chattogram and Mongla ports.

Issues

  • Despite the remarkable progress, the unresolved Teesta water sharing issue looms large.
  • While smuggling needs to be dealt with firmly, it is not acceptable for Bangladeshis that rather than apprehending people trying to make an illegal entry into India, the BSF has been shooting them.
  • Indian government’s proposal to implement the National Register of Citizens across the whole of India reflects poorly on India-Bangladesh relations.

Way forward

  • India-Bangladesh relations have been gaining positive momentum over the last decade.
  • As the larger country, the onus is on India to be generous enough to let the water flow and ensure that people are not killed on the border for cattle.

Consider the question “As Bangladesh celebrates the golden jubilee of its independence, it is also time for celebrating the enduring Indo-Bangladesh ties despite hiccups that have sometimes disturbed the waters. In light of this, examine the areas of cooperation and issues between the two countries.

Conclusion

To make the recent gains irreversible, both countries need to continue working on the three Cs — cooperation, collaboration, and consolidation


Source:

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/remove-the-wedges-in-india-bangladesh-ties/article34163863.ece

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-bangladesh-relations-narendra-modi-visit-7245361/

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Gandhi Peace Prize

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Gandhi Peace Prize

Mains level: NA

The Culture Ministry has announced that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the late Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said Al Said, would be awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize for 2020 and 2019 respectively.

Note the features of the award such as prize, the composition of jury etc.

Gandhi Peace Prize

  • The International Gandhi Peace Prize, named after Mahatma Gandhi, is awarded annually by the Government of India.
  • As a tribute to the ideals espoused by Gandhi, the GoI launched the International Gandhi Peace Prize in 1995 on the occasion of the 125th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
  • This is an annual award given to individuals and institutions for their contributions towards social, economic and political transformation through non-violence and other Gandhian methods.

Its features

  • The award carries ₹1 crore (US$140,000) in cash, convertible in any currency in the world, a plaque and a citation.
  • It is open to all persons regardless of nationality, race, creed or gender.
  • A jury consisting of the PM of India, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the Chief Justice of India, Speaker of the Lok Sabha and one other eminent person decides the awardees each year.
  • Ordinarily, only proposals coming from competent persons invited to nominate are considered.
  • However, a proposal is not taken as invalid for consideration by the jury merely on the ground of not having emanated from competent persons.

Information about the awardees

(1) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-1975)

  • The Prize recognizes the immense and unparalleled contribution of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in inspiring the liberation of Bangladesh.
  • It acknowledges the contribution in bringing stability to a nation born out of strife, laying the foundation for the close and fraternal relations between India and Bangladesh and promoting peace and non-violence in the Indian subcontinent.

(2)Sultan Qaboos Bin Said (1940-2020)

  • Sultan Qaboos was a visionary leader whose twin policy of moderation and mediation in addressing international issues won him praise and respect across the globe.
  • He played an important role in supporting peace efforts in various regional disputes and conflicts. H.M. Sultan Qaboos was the architect of the special ties between India and Oman.
  • He had studied in India and always maintained a special relationship with India.
  • Under his leadership, India and Oman became strategic partners and our mutually beneficial, comprehensive partnership strengthened and scaled newer heights.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

[pib] Maitri Setu between India and Bangladesh

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Maitri Bridge

Mains level: Recent trends in India-Bangladesh ties

PM will inaugurate ‘Maitri Setu’ between India and Bangladesh tomorrow.

Maitri Setu

  • The bridge ‘Maitri Setu’ has been built over the Feni River which flows between the Indian boundary in Tripura State and Bangladesh.
  • The 1.9 Km long bridge joins Sabroom in India with Ramgarh in Bangladesh.
  • The construction was taken up by the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd.

Try this PYQ:

Q. Recently, which of the following States has explored the possibility of constructing an artificial inland port to be connected to the sea by a long navigational channel?

(a) Andhra Pradesh

(b) Chhattisgarh

(c) Karnataka

(d) Rajasthan

Significance of the bridge

  • With this inauguration, Tripura is set to become the ‘Gateway of North East’ with access to Chittagong Port of Bangladesh, which is just 80 kms from Sabroom.
  • The name ‘Maitri Setu’ symbolizes growing bilateral relations and friendly ties between India and Bangladesh.

About Feni River

  • Feni is a river in southeastern Bangladesh and Tripura.
  • It is a trans-boundary river with an ongoing dispute about water rights.
  • It originates in the South Tripura district and flows through Sabroom town and then enters Bangladesh.
  • The question of sharing the waters of the river between India and Pakistan was first discussed in 1958.

Other associated projects

Sabroom Check Post

  • PM will lay the foundation stone for setting up an Integrated Check Post at Sabroom.
  • It will help ease the movement of goods and passengers between the two countries provide new market opportunities for products of North-East states and assist the seamless movement of passengers to and from India and Bangladesh.
  • The project is being taken up by the Land Ports Authority of India.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Friend and neighbour: India-Bangladesh relations

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not Much

Mains level: Recent trends in India-Bangladesh ties

India must strengthen ties with Bangladesh and appreciate Sheikh Hasina’s challenges

Virtual summit between India and Bangladesh

  • The virtual summit was conducted recently between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina.
  • There was a discussion on issues ranging from the violent border incidents to the COVID-19 fight, demonstrates their desire to reboot India-Bangladesh ties that have faced challenges in recent months.
  • PM Modi called Bangladesh a “major pillar” in India’s neighbourhood first policy, while Ms. Hasina invited him to visit Bangladesh in March for the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of its independence.
  • It is a key opportunity for India, which had played a major role in Bangladesh’s liberation in 1971, to revive the relations and address the issues adversely affecting the partnership.

Importance of India-Bangladesh relationship

  • Bangladesh and India are at a historic juncture of diplomacy embedded in a rich matrix of history, religion, culture, language and kinship.

(1) ‘Blue Economy’ programme’ –

  • Both countries are looking at strengthening economic cooperation through joint investments and cooperation under the ‘Blue Economy’ programme.
  • The programme entails synergized efforts of littoral states in the exploration of hydrocarbons, marine resources, deep-sea fishing, preservation of marine ecology and disaster management.
  • The industry in India needs to look for opportunities for collaboration in defence, such as in military hardware, space technology, technical assistance, exchange of experience, and development of sea infrastructure.

(2) India’s Act East Policy

  • Connectivity offers a game-changing opportunity for India and Bangladesh. This is pivotal to India’s connectivity with its north-eastern region and with countries of ASEAN.
  • This is particularly important in the context of both the Make in India initiative as well as India’s Act East Policy.
  • The two countries also see themselves converging around a lot of commonalities, not just as neighbours battling the scourge of terrorism, but as leading economic partners.
  • In terms of diplomacy in the South Asian region, both countries have had identical views.
  • From how organizations such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) should be going forward in promoting cooperation among its member nations to economic growth.

Challenges in India-Bangladesh relations

(1) Violent border incidents

  • Despite the friendship remaining solid, the border has been sensitive.
  • At least 25 Bangladeshis were killed in the first six months of this year along the border by Indian forces, according to a rights watchdog.

(2) Sharing of River Waters

  • The Teesta water dispute between West Bengal and Bangladesh remains unresolved.

(3) The Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens, which Ms Hasina called “unnecessary”, have created a negative impression about India.

(4) China’s economic footprint is growing

  • China is making deep inroads into Bangladesh by ramping up infrastructure investments and expanding economic cooperation.
  • Bangladesh is overwhelmingly dependent on China for military hardware.
  • Since 2010, India approved three Lines of Credit to Bangladesh of $7.362 billion to finance development projects. But, just $442 million have been disbursed until December 2018.

Way Forward

  • It is imperative for India to bolster ties with this all-weather friend, and there may not be a better time to do so than when Bangladesh is to celebrate the golden jubilee of its independence.
  • India should support Bangladesh’s fight against radical elements. India should also not allow the ideological inclinations of the ruling party to spoil the historic relationship between the two countries.
  • New Delhi should take a broader view of the changing scenario and growing competition in South Asia, and reach out to Dhaka with an open mind.
  • There is much room for course correction in Delhi and to shift the focus from legacy issues to future possibilities.

Practice Question: Discuss the importance of India-Bangladesh relations and various challenges affecting the relations between the two countries. How they can be addressed?

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

[pib] Haldibari – Chilahati Rail Link

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: About the railway line

Mains level: Recent trends in India-Bangladesh ties

Ours and Bangladeshi PM has jointly inaugurated a railway link between Haldibari in India and Chilahati in Bangladesh.

Examine the opportunities and challenges in the adoption PPP model by the Indian Railways.

Haldibari – Chilahati Rail Link

  • This rail link being made functional is the 5th rail link between India and Bangladesh.
  • It was operational till 1965. This was part of the Broad Gauge main route from Kolkata to Siliguri during partition.
  • Trains travelling to Assam and North Bengal continued to travel through the then East Pakistan territory even after partition.
  • For example, a train from Sealdah to Siliguri used to enter East Pakistan territory from Darshana and exit using the Haldibari – Chilahati link.
  • However, the war of 1965 effectively cut off all the railway links between India and the then East Pakistan.
  • So on the Eastern Sector of India partition of the railways thus happened in 1965.  So the importance of the reopening of this rail link can be well imagined.

A British-era legacy

  • The railway network of India and Bangladesh are mostly inherited from British Era Indian Railways.
  • After partition in 1947, 7 rail links were operational between India and the then East Pakistan (up to 1965). Presently, there are 4 operational rail links between India and Bangladesh.
  • They are, Petrapole (India) – Benapole (Bangladesh),  Gede (India) – Darshana (Bangladesh), Singhabad (India)-Rohanpur (Bangladesh),  Radhikapur (India)–Birol (Bangladesh).

Benefits offered by the rail

  • The rail link will be beneficial for transit into Bangladesh from Assam and West Bengal.
  • It will enhance rail network access to the main ports, dry ports, and land borders to support the growth in regional trade and to encourage economic and social development of the region.
  • Common people and businessman of both countries will be able to reap the benefit of both goods and passenger traffic, once passenger trains are planned in this route.
  • With this new link coming into operation,  tourists from Bangladesh will be able to visit places like Darjeeling, Sikkim, Dooars apart from countries like Nepal, Bhutan etc easily.
  • Economic activities of these South Asian countries will also be benefitted from this new rail link.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Opportunities for India in Bangladesh’s economic success

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: BBIN, SAARC

Mains level: Paper 2- Economic progress of Bangladesh and its implications for the subcontinent

Bangladesh is expected to cross India in terms per capita income. This speaks volumes about the achievements of Bangladesh when contrasted with Pakistan. At the same time, it has several implications for the region. The elaborates on such implications.

What other countries can learn from Bangladesh

  • The International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook published recently predicts that Bangladesh’s per capita GDP will overtake that of India this year.
  • The projected difference is rather small — $1,888 to $1,877 — and unlikely to last beyond this year.
  • International development institutions are convinced that the rest of the subcontinent and developing countries around the world can learn much from Dhaka’s experience — the so-called “Bangladesh model”.

5 Implications for the region

1) Rising global interest in the subcontinent

  • Rapid and sustained economic growth in Bangladesh has begun to alter the world’s perception of the subcontinent.
  • India and Pakistan dominated the region and other countries were considered small.
  • But Bangladesh was far from being small, demographically it’s  the eighth-largest nation in the world.
  • The economic rise of Bangladesh is changing some of that.

2) Changing economic weights of Bangladesh and Pakistan

  • This year, Bangladesh’s GDP is expected to reach about $320 billion.
  • The IMF did not have the 2020 numbers from Pakistan to report but in 2019, Pakistan’s economy was at $275 billion.
  • The IMF suggests that Pakistan’s economy will contract further this year.
  • Bangladesh has controlled its population growth and Pakistan has not.
  • Dhaka has a grip over its inflation and Islamabad does not.
  • There is no question that Pakistan’s negative geopolitical weight in the world will endure.
  • But Bangladesh’s growing economic muscle will help Dhaka steadily accumulate geopolitical salience in the years ahead.

3) Accelerate regional integration

  • Bangladesh’s economic growth can accelerate regional integration in the eastern subcontinent.
  • The region’s prospects for a collective economic advance are rather dim.
  • Due to Pakistan’s opposition to economic cooperation with India and its support for cross-border terror, the main regional forum for the subcontinent, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), is dormant.
  • Instead of merely praying for the revival of Saarc, Delhi could usefully focus on the BBIN.
  • BBIN is sub-regional forum among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal, activated in the middle of last decade — has not advanced fast enough.
  • It is time for Delhi and Dhaka to take a fresh look at the forum and find ways to widen the scope and pace of BBIN activity.
  • Meanwhile, there is growing interest in Bhutan and Nepal for economic integration with Bangladesh.

4) Increasing importance of Bangladesh in geopolitics of Indo-Pacific

  • The economic success of Bangladesh is drawing attention from a range of countries in East Asia, including China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore.
  • The US, which traditionally focused on India and Pakistan, has woken up to the possibilities in Bangladesh.
  • Bangladesh does not want to get into the fight between Beijing and Washington, but the great power wooing of Dhaka is bound to intensify in the new geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific.

5) Development of India’s eastern and north-eastern states could accelerate

  • Bangladesh’s economy is now one-and-a-half times as large as that of West Bengal; better integration between the two would provide a huge boost for eastern India.
  • Also, connectivity between India’s landlocked Northeast and Bangladesh would provide a boost to the development of north-eastern states.
  • Delhi and Dhaka are eager to promote greater cooperation, but there has been little political enthusiasm in Kolkata.
  • In Assam, the issue of migration continues to impose major political constraints.

Way forward

  • Parliamentary approval of the boundary settlement in 2015, despite the opposition, was a step in the right direction from India.
  • So was the acceptance of the 2014 international arbitration award on the maritime boundary dispute between India and Bangladesh.
  • But the positive dynamic surrounding the bilateral relationship acquired a negative tone in the second amidst the poisonous rhetoric in India around the Citizenship Amendment Act.
  • There is much room for course correction in Delhi and to shift the focus from legacy issues to future possibilities.

Conclusion

Both the countries need to jointly develop and pursue with Dhaka an ambitious framework for shared prosperity.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

China twist in Teesta Challenge

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Teesta River

Mains level: Recent trends in India-Bangladesh ties

Bangladesh is discussing an almost $1 billion loan from China for a comprehensive management and restoration project on the Teesta river. These discussions with China come at a time when India is particularly wary about China following the standoff in Ladakh.

Try this question from our AWE initiative:

Teesta River has become an important factor in India – Bangladesh relations. What are the hindrances in successful implementation of river water sharing agreement and what are its possible implications on India-Bangladesh relations? What could be the possible solutions?

Teesta Project

  • The project is aimed at managing the river basin efficiently, controlling floods, and tackling the water crisis in summers.
  • India and Bangladesh have been engaged in a long-standing dispute over water-sharing in the Teesta.

How has the Teesta dispute progressed?

  • The two countries were on the verge of signing a water-sharing pact in September 2011, when PM Manmohan Singh was going to visit Bangladesh.
  • But, West Bengal CM objected to it, and the deal was scuttled.
  • After the regime change in 2014, the government hoped that it could reach a “fair solution” on the Teesta through cooperation between central and state governments.
  • Five years later, the Teesta issue remains unresolved.

Trends in India’s relationship with Bangladesh

  • New Delhi has had a robust relationship with Dhaka, carefully cultivated since 2008, especially with the Sheikh Hasina government at the helm.
  • Security: India has benefited from its security ties with Bangladesh, whose crackdown against anti-India outfits has helped the Indian government maintain peace in the eastern and Northeast states.
  • Trade: Bangladesh has benefited from its economic and development partnership. Bangladesh is India’s biggest trade partner in South Asia.
  • Bilateral trade has grown steadily over the last decade: India’s exports to Bangladesh in 2018-19 stood at $9.21 billion, and imports from Bangladesh at $1.04 billion.
  • Visas:India also grants 15 to 20 lakh visas every year to Bangladesh nationals for medical treatment, tourism, work, and just entertainment.

Recent irritants in ties

  • There have been recent irritants in the relationship.
  • These include the proposed countrywide National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed in December last year.
  • Bangladesh had insisted that while the CAA and the proposed nationwide NRC were “internal matters” of India, the CAA move were “not necessary”.

Chinese affinity with Bangladesh

  • China is the biggest trading partner of Bangladesh and is the foremost source of imports.
  • In 2019, the trade between the two countries was $18 billion and the imports from China commanded the lion’s share. The trade is heavily in favour of China.
  • Recently, China declared zero duty on 97% of imports from Bangladesh. The concession flowed from China’s duty-free, quota-free programme for the Least Developed Countries.
  • This move has been widely welcomed in Bangladesh, with the expectation that Bangladesh exports to China will increase.
  • China has promised around $30 billion worth of financial assistance to Bangladesh.
  • Additionally, Bangladesh’s strong defence ties with China make the situation complicated. China is the biggest arms supplier to Bangladesh and it has been a legacy issue — after its liberation.
  • Recently, Bangladesh purchased two Ming class submarines from China.

India’s engagement post CAA

  • Over the last five months, India and Bangladesh have cooperated on pandemic-related moves.
  • Hasina supported Modi’s call for a regional emergency fund for fighting Covid-19 and declared a contribution of $1.5 million in March 2020. India has also provided medical aid to Bangladesh.
  • The two countries have also cooperated in railways, with India giving 10 locomotives to Bangladesh.
  • The first trial run for trans-shipment of Indian cargo through Bangladesh to Northeast states under a pact on the use of Chittagong and Mongla ports took place in July.
  • Bangladesh gave its readiness to collaborate in the development of a Covid-19 vaccine, including its trial, and looks forward to early, affordable availability of the vaccine when ready.

Among other issues

  • The two sides agreed that Implementation of projects should be done in a timely manner and that greater attention is required to development projects in Bangladesh under the Indian Lines of Credit.
  • Bangladesh sought the return of the Tablighi Jamaat members impacted by the lockdown in India.
  • Bangladesh requested for the urgent reopening of visa issuance from the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, particularly since many Bangladeshi patients need to visit India.
  • India was also requested to reopen travel through Benapole-Petrapole land port which has been halted by the West Bengal government in the wake of the pandemic.

Way forward

  • While the Teesta project is important and urgent from India’s point of view, it will be difficult to address it before the West Bengal elections due next year.
  • What Delhi can do is to address other issues of concern, which too are challenging.
  • Now, the test will be if India can implement all its assurances in a time-bound manner.
  • Or else, the latent anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh, which has been revived after India’s CAA -NRC push can permanently damage the historic ties.

Back2Basics: Teesta Water Dispute

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

[pib] New ports and routes added under the Protocol on Inland Water Transit between India and Bangladesh

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Protocol on Inland Water Transit

Mains level: India's north-east connectivity through Bangladesh

India and Bangladesh have opened a new chapter in regional connectivity by expanding the scope of inland water transport mechanism that would enable to boost trade in the region.

Note all the ports mentioned in the newscard and the image. Also, keep a tab on river systems of North east India.

What is the news?

  • The Standing Committee on the Protocol and the Shipping Secretary level Talks are the institutional arrangements to discuss and make the Protocol more effective.
  • During the latest discussions key decisions were taken on the extension of protocol routes, the inclusion of new routes and declaration of new Ports of Call to facilitate trade between the two countries.

New routes

The number of Indo Bangladesh Protocol (IBP) routes is being increased from 8 to 10 and new locations are also added to the existing routes: –

1) Inclusion of Sonamura- Daudkhandi stretch of Gumti river (93 Km) as IBP route:

  • It will improve the connectivity of Tripura and adjoining States with Indian and Bangladesh`s economic centres and will help the hinterland of both the countries.

2) Rajshahi-Dhulian-Rajshahi Routes and its extension up to Aricha (270 km)

  • It will help the augmentation of infrastructure in Bangladesh as it would reduce the transportation cost of stone chips/aggregate to northern part of Bangladesh through this route. It will also decongest the Land Custom Stations on both sides.

Ports of Call

  • Port of call means an intermediate stop for a ship on its scheduled journey for cargo operation or taking on supplies or fuel.
  • The following are existing Ports of Call in the two countries on Indo-Bangladesh Protocol (IBP) route:
India Kolkata Haldia Pandu Karimganj Silghat Dhubri
Bangladesh Narayanganj Khulna Mongla Sirajganj Ashuganj Pangaon
  • Newly added: Two more extended Ports of Call have been added
  • Inclusion of Jogigopha in India and Bahadurabad in Bangladesh as new Port of Call will provide connectivity to Meghalaya, Assam and Bhutan.

About the Protocol on Inland Water Transit

  • Bangladesh and India have a long-standing and time-tested Protocol on Transit and Trade through inland waterways of both countries.
  • This Protocol, which was first signed in 1972 (immediately after independence of Bangladesh), is a reflection of shared history and friendship between the two countries.
  • It was last renewed in 2015 for five years with a provision for its automatic renewal for a further period of five years giving long term assurance to various stakeholders.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

Bangladesh fares better

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not much.

Mains level: Paper 2-Bangladesh-India relations issue-illegal migrants, relations after passage of CAA.

Content

In the last decade, on a range of social development indicators, Bangladesh has fared better than India. So it is highly unlikely that Bangladeshis would want to leave their cherished homeland for India.

Comparison with Bangladesh on the development indicators

  • Growth rate: This year Bangladesh’s economic growth rate has surpassed India.
  • Social development indicators: In the last decade, on a range of social development indicators, from infant mortality to immunisation, Bangladesh has fared better.
  • India lagging behind the neighbours in quality of life: Undoubtedly, since economic liberalisation, Indians have grown much richer than Bangladeshis, but in terms of quality of life our neighbour largely outshines us.
    • India trails across several (not all) composite indices from the latest Global Hunger Index to the Gender Development Index.
    • Even on the 2019 World Happiness Index, Bangladeshis score better.
    • While, technically, on the Human Development Index, Bangladesh scores marginally less, this is largely because the index merges income and non-income parameters.

How India’s neighbour forged ahead in social development?

  • Dissolving the inequality and bridging the social and gender distances: In the case of Bangladesh, the most prominent factor has been-
    • Removing inequality: The country’s ability to dissolve inequalities through sustained investment in public services and-
    • Bridging the social distance: The bridging of social and gender distances.
  • Development in Healthcare: Till the Eighties, Indians lived longer than most South Asians.
    • But now, despite being poorer, an average Bangladeshi female child at birth can expect to live for four years more.
    • Fewer Bangladeshi children also die before their fifth birthday.
    • Community clinics: The formula for this success has been relatively simple. Since 2009, the government has constructed well-stocked “community clinics” in every third village.
    • Home delivery of medicines: For four decades, committed cadres of government health workers have delivered medicines and family planning to women in the comfort of their homes.
  • Achievement in Education: On the education front, even though India has a demographic dividend, Bangladesh has achieved a marginal advantage in youth literacy.
    • Further, across income quintiles, Bangladeshi girls have higher educational attainments than boys.
    • Free textbooks: The government provides free textbooks in the government, non-government (NGO) and madrassa-run schools promptly at the start of the academic year, without the chronic delays which plague India.
    • The greater proportion of expenditure on educations: Economist Jean Drèze has aptly described India as amongst the world champions in social underspending. In contrast, Bangladesh despite being a poorer neighbour since the Nineties has spent a greater proportion of government expenditure on education and healthcare.
    • The fruits of these sustained investments have reaped rich dividends.
  • Nutrition: On the nutrition front too, Bangladesh fares better.
    • Thirty-three per cent of Bangladeshi children are underweight compared to India’s 36 per cent as per the demographic health surveys.
    • Similarly, a greater proportion of Indian children are also stunted.
    • Further, the inequality between wealth quintiles is starker in India.
    • A few years ago, the Bangladeshi government, with the help of NGOs, hired a unique cadre of “Pushti Apas” (nutrition sisters) who went door-to-door in their social endeavours.
    • Unlike the Indian Poshan Abhiyan’s focus on vegetarian foods, they did not shy away from teaching mothers to feed growing infants a balanced diet with mashed fish, meat and eggs.
  • Sanitation: Even at the turn of the millennium, at least 80 per cent of Bangladeshi homes had toilets, even if rudimentary.
    • By 2016, 96 per cent of households and 80 per cent of schools in had proper sanitation.
    • Apart from the typical Islamic emphasis on hygiene, local governments not only provide cement rings for free to poor families but they also regularly spread messages through community group discussions, mosques, mass media and schools.
    • Local entrepreneurs have also ensured that with the innovation of plastic pans, the cheapest toilets cost less than Chinese mobile phones.
  • Women empowerment: Bangladeshi women are also increasingly assertive.
    • The 2006 World Bank Survey on Gender Norms found a growing trend of “educational hypogamy”.
    • In sharp contrast to India’s decline, Bangladeshi women also have higher labour force participation.

Contrast

  • In comparison, India is grappling with the worst unemployment levels in 45 years and sinking economic growth rates. Government ministers should pull up their own socks, instead. Berating our neighbours with the false bogey of illegal immigrants, in light of the Citizenship Amendment Act, is nothing but an unjustifiable distraction. Instead, it would be far wiser for the Indian government to humbly learn the recipe of South Asian success to improve the lives of citizens from the impressive “Shonar Bangla”.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

Foreign Policy Watch: India-Bangladesh

[pib] Exercise SAMPRITI-IX

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Exercise SAMPRITI

Mains level: India-Bangladesh Strategic Relations

As part of the ongoing Indo-Bangladesh defence cooperation, a joint military training exercise SAMPRITI-IX is being conducted in Meghalaya.

Exercise SAMPRITI

  • It is an important bilateral defence cooperation endeavour between India and Bangladesh and will be the ninth edition of the exercise which is hosted alternately by both countries.
  • During the joint military exercise SAMPRITI-IX, a Command Post Exercise (CPX) and a Field Training Exercise (FTX) will be conducted.
  • For both the CPX and FTX, a scenario where both nations are working together in a Counter-Terrorism environment will be simulated under the UN Charter.
  • The FTX curriculum is progressively planned where the participants will initially get familiar with each other’s organizational structure and tactical drills.
  • The training will culminate with a final validation exercise in which troops of both armies will jointly practice a Counter Terrorist Operation in a controlled and simulated environment.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now

 

India’s links with Bangladesh are civilisational, cultural, social and economic. There is much that unites the two countries – a shared history and common heritage, linguistic and cultural ties, passion for music, literature and the arts. The two nations were strong allies during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. However, they developed different Cold War alliances in the late 1970s and 80s. With the onset of economic liberalization in South Asia, they forged greater bilateral engagement and trade. The historic Ganges Water Sharing Treaty was concluded in 1996. India and Bangladesh are close strategic partners in counter-terrorism. They are also the largest trading partners in South Asia.Two-way trade is estimated to be over US $7 billion.

Backgrounder

A chronology of key events:

1947 – British colonial rule over India ends. A largely Muslim state comprising East and West Pakistan is established, either side of India. The two provinces are separated from each other by more than 1,500 km of Indian territory.

Indian Tank during the war

 

1949 – The Awami League is established to campaign for East Pakistan’s autonomy from West Pakistan.

1970 – The Awami League, under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, wins an overwhelming election victory in East Pakistan. The government in West Pakistan refuses to recognise the results, leading to rioting. Cyclone hits East Pakistan – up to 500,000 people are killed.

Independence

 

Bangladeshi premier Sheikh Mujibur Rahman pictured in 1972
source

1971 – Sheikh Mujib arrested and taken to West Pakistan. In exile, Awami League leaders proclaim the independence of the province of East Pakistan on 26th March. The new country is called Bangladesh. Just under 10 million Bangladeshis flee to India as troops from West Pakistan are defeated with Indian assistance.

1972 – Sheikh Mujib returns, becomes prime minister. He begins a programme of nationalising key industries in an attempt to improve living standards, but with little success.

1974 – Severe floods devastate much of the grain crop, leading to an estimated 28,000 deaths. A national state of emergency is declared as political unrest grows.

Bangladeshi leader Ziaur Rahman pictured in 1980
source

1975 – Sheikh Mujib becomes president of Bangladesh. The political situation worsens. He is assassinated in a military coup in August. Martial law is imposed.

1976 – The military ban trade unions.

1977 – General Ziaur Rahman assumes the presidency. Islam is adopted in the constitution.

1979 – Martial law is lifted following elections, which Zia’s Bangladesh National Party (BNP) wins.

1981 – Zia is assassinated during abortive military coup. He is succeeded by Abdus Sattar.

Ershad era

1982 – General Ershad assumes power in army coup. He suspends the constitution and political parties.

1983 – Limited political activity is permitted. Ershad becomes president.

Bangladeshi leader Hussain Muhammad Ershad
source

1986 – Parliamentary and presidential elections. Ershad elected to a five-year term. He lifts martial law and reinstates the constitution.

1987 – State of emergency declared after opposition demonstrations and strikes.

1988 – Islam becomes state religion. Floods cover up to three-quarters of the country. Tens of millions are made homeless.

1990 – Ershad steps down following mass protests.

1991 – Ershad convicted and jailed for corruption and illegal possession of weapons. Begum Khaleda Zia, widow of President Zia Rahman, becomes prime minister. Constitution is changed to render the position of president ceremonial. The prime minister now has primary executive power. Cyclonic tidal wave kills up to 138,000.

Awami League returns

1996 – Two sets of elections eventually see the Awami League win power, with Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, becoming prime minister.

1997 – Ershad is released from prison. The opposition BNP begins campaign of strikes against the government.

1998 – Two-thirds of the country devastated by the worst floods ever. Fifteen former army officers sentenced to death for involvement in assassination of President Mujib in 1975.

Garment factory in Ashulia, Bangladesh

2000 September – Sheikh Hasina criticises military regimes in a UN speech, prompting Pakistani leader General Musharraf to cancel talks with her. Relations strained further by row over leaked Pakistani report on 1971 war of independence.

2000 December – Bangladesh expels Pakistani diplomat for comments on the 1971 war. The diplomat had put the number of dead at 26,000, whereas Bangladesh says nearly three million were killed.

2001 April – Seven killed in bomb blast at a Bengali New Year concert in Dhaka. Sixteen Indian and three Bangladeshi soldiers killed in their worst border clashes.

General view of Dhaka, with slum area seen on left

2001 April – High Court confirms death sentences on 12 ex-army officers for killing Mujib. Only four are in custody.

2001 July – Hasina steps down, hands power to caretaker authority, becoming the first prime minister in the country’s history to complete a five-year term.

Coalition government

2001 September – At least eight people are killed and hundreds injured as two bombs explode at an election rally in south-western Bangladesh.

2001 October – Hasina loses at polls to Khaleda Zia’s Nationalist Party and its three coalition partners.

Ramadan prayers outside National Mosque of Bangladesh

2002 July – Pakistani President Musharraf visits; expresses regret over excesses carried out by Pakistan during 1971 war of independence.

2004 Opposition calls 21 general strikes over the course of the year as part of a campaign to oust the government.

2004 May – Parliament amends constitution to reserve 45 seats for female MPs.

2004 August – Grenade attack on opposition Awami League rally in Dhaka kills 22 people. Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina survives the attack.

2006 February – Opposition Awami League ends year-long parliamentary boycott.

Political crisis

Bangladesh opposition protesters, 2006

2006 October – Violent protests over government’s choice of a caretaker administration to take over when Premier Zia completes her term at the end of the month. President Ahmed steps in and assumes caretaker role for period leading to elections due in January 2007.

2006 November – A 14-party opposition alliance led by the Awami League campaigns for controversial election officials to be removed. Chief election commissioner MA Aziz steps aside.

2006 December – Election date set at 22 January. Awami alliance says it will boycott the polls. Awami leader Sheikh Hasina accuses President Ahmed of favouring her rival. Blockade aimed at derailing parliamentary elections paralyses much of the country.

2007 January – A state of emergency is declared amid violence in the election run-up. President Ahmed postpones the poll. Fakhruddin Ahmed heads a caretaker administration.

2007 March – Six Islamist militants convicted of countrywide bomb attacks in 2005 are hanged. They include the leaders of Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.

2007 April – Sheikh Hasina is charged with murder. Begum Khaleda Zia is under virtual house arrest. Several other politicians are held in an anti-corruption drive.

2007 August – Government imposes a curfew on Dhaka and five other cities amid violent clashes between police and students demanding an end to emergency rule.

2008 June – Sheikh Hasina is temporarily freed to get medical treatment in the US.

2008 August – Local elections take place, seen as a big step towards restoring democracy. Candidates backed by the Awami League perform strongly.

2008 November – The authorities say general elections will be held on 18 December. Sheikh Hasina returns to lead her party in the poll.

Awami League win

2008 December – General elections: Awami League captures more than 250 of 300 seats in parliament. Sheikh Hasina is sworn in as prime minister in January.

2009 February – Around 74 people, mainly army officers, are killed in a mutiny in Dhaka by border guards unhappy with pay and conditions. Police arrest some 700 guards. A further 1,000 guards are detained in May.

2009 October – The government bans the local branch of the global Islamist organisation Hizb-ut Tahrir, saying it poses a threat to peace.

2010 January – Five former army officers are executed for the 1975 murder of founding PM Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

2012 May-June – Key figures from the main Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, including leader Motiur Rahman Nizami, are charged with war crimes by a government tribunal investigating alleged collaboration with Pakistan during the 1971 independence struggle.

2012 October – Muslim rioters attack Buddhist villages and shrines in south-east Bangladesh after an image said to show a burnt Koran was posted on Facebook. The government denounces the attacks as “premeditated and deliberate acts of communal violence against a minority”.

2013 January – War crimes tribunal sentences prominent Muslim cleric Abul Kalam Azad to death for crimes against humanity during the 1971 independence war. He was tried in absentia, as he had fled abroad.

2013 April – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vetoes Islamist bill to outlaw criticism of Islam.

2013 May – European retailers promise to sign an accord to improve safety conditions in factories after a garment factory building collapsed in April, killing more than 1,100 people. Worker protests close hundreds of factories and extract a government pledge to raise the minimum wage and make it easier to form unions.

Jamaat-e-Islami trials

2013 July – At least two people are killed as police clash with thousands of protesters after the conviction of Ghulam Azam, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, for war crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence. Ghulam Azam dies in October 2014.

2013 December – Supreme Court upholds death sentence on Islamist leader Abdul Kader Mullah of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, who was convicted in February of crimes against humanity during the 1971 war of independence.

2014 January – Opposition BNP boycotts parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina returns for third term in office.

2014 October – Jamaat-e-Islami Leader Motiur Rahman Nizami and another leading figure, Mir Quasem Ali, found guilty of war crimes during independence war in 1971.

2015 February – Court sentences another senior Jamaat-e-Islami figure, Abdus Subhan, to death for war crimes committed during independence war in 1971.

2015 May – Bangladesh bans Islamist militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team, which claims responsibility for killing and assaulting several pro-secular public figures.

2015 November – Threats to Christians and Shia Muslims challenge government view that two years of attacks on pro-secular public figures are the work of a violent faction of the opposition Jaamat-e-Islami party, after the Islamic State armed group claims responsibility for attack on Shia mosque. Jamaat-e-Islami senior figures Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury executed on war crimes charges dating back to 1971.

2016 July – The Islamic State group claims an attack on a cafe in Dhaka’s diplomatic quarter in which 20 hostages, including 18 foreigners, are killed but the government rejects the claim saying the militant group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen was responsible.

2016 September – Business tycoon and senior leader of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, Mir Quasem Ali, is executed for war crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence.

Why Bangladesh is important to India’s north east?

    • Bangala

Ports – The nearest port for the Northeast is Kolkata. Kolkata is 1500 km from Aizawl and Agartala. Not just the distance, the route passes through multiple states and through a lot of mountains. Imagine dragging a heavy machinery through this long, narrow road. This makes trade and manufacturing very hard in the Northeast. Every product that is either produced in Northeast or needed in northeast has to be carried through that one road through Siliguri. On the other hand, Chittagong port is only 200km from Tripura and passes through the mostly flat land. A major Bangladeshi railway junction Akhaura is just 10 km from Agartala.

Migration – Major cities in India’s northeast are quite close to the rural hinterland of Bangladesh. For many rural Banglas, it is easy to find jobs in these cities than in Dhaka or Chittagong. Thus, there is a massive migration that is rapidly impacting the demographics of the Northeast. Many tribes feel marginalized in their own territory. India needs Bangladeshi government’s help to arrest the endless flow of migrants.

Separatism – Tripura alone shares 850km of border with Bangladesh. Other states like Mizoram share long borders too [a total of 4000+ km of shared borders between Northeast India and Bangladesh]. Given the long and unpatrolled borders, the separatists and troublemakers in this region easily escape to Bangladesh. It is hard to fight the separatism as long as the separatists have such an easy escape hatch. India needs Bangladesh’s help in patrolling the borders and also bring the fugitives to justice.

Food movement – Eastern side of Bangladesh is quite fertile and produces a lot of rice. This can be easily be moved to Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur rather than dragging the food from West Bengal through the Siliguri corridor or air lifting them.

Risk of Chicken neck – Currently the Siliguri corridor remains the only link between the Northeast and the rest of India. Any problem there – terrorist attacks, natural disasters, etc. – would completely cut off India from the 7 states of North east. Bangaldesh help would reduce that risk substantially

Major irritants with Bangladesh

Boundary Dispute

India’s land border with Bangladesh as per the Ministry of Defence is 4351 km. running through five states, viz., West Bengal (2217kms), Assam (262 kms), Meghalaya (443kms), Tripura (856 kms) and Mizoram (318 kms), including nearly 781 kms of riverine border. The border traverses through 25 districts.

The border is used as a route for smuggling livestock, food items, medicines and drugs from India to Bangladesh. Moreover, illegal immigrants from Bangladesh cross the border to India in search of improving their lives. Because of a large number of illegal immigrants crossing from Bangladesh into India, a controversial shoot-on-sight policy has been enforced by the Indian border patrols.

This policy was initiated with reports of violence between the illegal migrants and Indian soldiers. The border has also witnessed occasional skirmishes between the Indian Border Security Force and the Border Guards Bangladesh, most notably in 2001.

The killing of Bangladeshi nationals by Border Security Force (BSF) has become a major irritant between the two countries in the recent past. It has evoked strong public sentiments in Bangladesh. According to a report of Bangladesh Human Rights Watch organization Odhikar, BSF has, from January 1, 2001 to March 31, 2012, killed 907 Bangladeshis. Bangladesh wants no time lost in stopping these killings.

Further the Agreement on the demarcation of Land Boundary between Bangladesh and India and related matters had been signed in May 1974 between the two great statesmen, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Smt. Indira Gandhi. This comprehensive agreement was intended to resolve all lingering and vexing problems that history had bequeathed on the two nations.  But it has not full filled by both Governments.

During the State visit of the Prime Minister to Bangladesh in September 2011, a “Protocol to the Agreement between the Government of India and the Government of Bangladesh Concerning the Demarcation of the Land Boundary Between India and Bangladesh and Related Matters (LBA)” was signed. It settles the long outstanding land boundary issues related to un-demarcated segment of 6.1 Kms; territories in adverse possession; and exchange of enclaves. The Cabinet has, on 13 February 2013, approved the draft of a Constitution (Amendment) Bill for implementing the India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) 1974 and the Protocol to LBA signed in 2011.

The Protocol envisages that 111 Indian Enclaves in Bangladesh and 51 Bangladesh Enclaves in India, as per the jointly verified cadastral enclave maps, shall be exchanged. As per Article 3 of the LBA 1974, when the Enclaves are transferred, people living in these areas shall be given the right of staying on where they are as nationals of the State to which the areas are transferred.

Maritime border 

While  Bangladesh,  having  concave coastlines,  delimits  its  sea  border southward  from  the  edge  of  its  land boundary,  India  stretches  its  claim southeast  wards,  covering  around thousands  of  miles  in  the  Bay  of  Bengal.

Due  to  competing  claims  of  the  two countries,  delimitation  of  the  sea boundary  and  determining  Bangladesh’s exclusive  economic  zones  have  remained unresolved.  Moreover, in terms  of determining the continental shelf, the presence of the Andamans and Nicobar Islands puts India, in a  favourable position.

Territorial Waters

The issue of demarcating territorial waters led to serious differences between the two countries. Questions  of ownership over a new born island known as South Talpatty in Bangladesh and New Moore/ Purbasha in  India  spotted  by  a satellite picture in 1975 in  the estuary of Haribhanga  River  on  the  border  of  the two  countries  has  been  a  source  of contention since its discovery.

In order to settle the above dispute  Bangladesh proposed sending a joint Indo‐Bangladesh team to determine the flow of channels of the  river  on  the  basis  of  existing International  Law  of  the  Sea.  But  the Indian  counterpart  sent  forces  to establish  claims  by  stationing  naval troops on  the island in 1981. After initial resentment  by  Bangladesh,  India  agreed to resolve the issue through negotiations.

Illegal Migration

Illegal migration is one of the bones of the contention of these two countries, Since the 1971 war of independence that created the state of Bangladesh, millions of Bangladeshi immigrants (the vast majority of them illegal) have poured into neighboring India.

While the Indian government has tried to deport some of these immigrants, the sheer number of them, as well as the porous border between the two countries, has made such an enterprise impossible. It is difficult to assess how many illegal immigrants are currently residing in India. Consider that in 1971, during the civil war in neighboring East Pakistan (the former name of Bangladesh), at least 10-million Bangladeshis poured into West Bengal in India
Illegal migration appears in the eastern and north-eastern parts of the country from neighbouring Bangladesh, threat to India’s internal security, from Bangladesh is impacted on communal, political, social and economic tensions and conflicts in several areas of the northeast of India.

The most affected states are West Bengal, Assam, Megalaya, Nagaland, Bihar, and Tripura, although migrants “have spread too far off states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Delhi.”  Although the exact figure is not known, it is estimated that there are about 15-20 million Bangladeshis staying illegally in India.

The National Investigation Agency has found links with Pakistan in rackets engaged in printing and smuggling fake currency into India. NIA sources said fake currency was now being smuggled into the border with Bangladesh has gaps at some points and immigrants cross into India on foot through the breaks in the fence.

Some also swim across rivers on the border to reach India. The National Investigation Agency has found links with Pakistan in rackets India through its porous border with Bangladesh. Malda district in West Bengal is a key transit point for counterfeiters.

Once they reach India, immigrants obtain fake documents through local agents.  Political leaders in parts of West Bengal were also involved in endorsing fake documents such as ration cards for illegal immigrants.

This unfettered illegal migration impacts on national security and socio-economic stability. Intelligence inputs indicate that the Inter Service Intelligence Agency (ISI) of Pakistan is utilizing these migrants as conduits to ferry in terrorists and arms into India. Counterfeit Indian currency with its origins in Bangladesh has flooded border areas, crippling in these parts.

Vote bank politics in Assam is the one of obstacle to control illegal migration from Bangladesh, led to communal violence between indigenous Bodos and Muslims (migrants from Bangladesh) in 2012.

The illegal Bangladeshi immigrants have not only changed the demography and disturbed the ecology of the north-east but have also encouraged them to exercise their political rights in India as citizens. It has been one of the key reasons for the rise of insurgent groups in the north-east as some of the insurgent groups like Assam Gana Sangram Parishad started, and got support of the masses, because of the issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh. At the same time the immigration laws (Illegal Migrants [Determined by Tribunal] (IMDT) Act 1983) followed in Assam has aided illegal immigrants’ settling in the north-east easy.

 Security concerns

Insurgency has been playing the role in straining relations of India with Bangladesh. Northeast India has been facing insurgency since 1956 due to feelings of ethnic separatism among its inhabitants.

ISI is operating from Bangladesh, supporting the insurgents in the North east India. National Liberation of Tripura (NLFT), Liberation Front of Assam(ULFA) and National Democratic Front of  Bodoland (NDFM) are major insurgent groups in Northeast India. There are some rumours that ULFA has several lucrative income generating Projects in Bangladesh to sustain its insurgency activities in India.

Drug Trafficking

Bangladesh is increasingly being used as a transit point by drug dealers and the drug mafia,  which  dispatches  heroin  and opium  from  Burma,  and  other  countries of  the  golden  triangle,  to  different destinations.

As  a  result,  Bangladesh’s Department  of  Narcotics  Control  has  come  under  the  scanner  several  times  and  invited  criticism. Bangladesh  has  become the  prime  transit  route  for  trafficking heroin  to  Europe  from  Southeast Asia, according  to  a  report  from  the International  Narcotics  Control  Board  (INCB)  2007  annual  report.

INCB  notes  that  the  most  common methods and routes for smuggling heroin into  Bangladesh  are  by  courier  from Pakistan,  commercial  vehicles  and  trains from India, and via sea through the Bay of Bengal  or  overland  by  truck  or  public transport from Burma.

Trade and Investment

Bangladesh is an important trading partner for India. The two-way trade in FY 2011-2012 was US$5.242 billion with India’s exports to Bangladesh accounting for US$4.743 billion and imports US$0.498 million.

The trade deficit with India is frequently highlighted by Bangladesh as a major contentious issue. Trade deficit for Bangladesh is more than $4 billion.  For long, Bangladesh has been urging India to reduce this gap by lifting the tariff barriers as they were a major impediment to the growth of Bangladesh’s exports to India. Responding to Bangladesh’s concern, in November 2011, India granted duty free access to all products, except 10 tobacco and liquor items from Bangladesh which amounts 30% of Bangladesh export.

As much as 98 per cent of Bangladesh products now enjoy zero duty benefits in the Indian market. Bangladesh’s exports to India are expected to cross $1 billion in 2012.

However, Bangladesh is now urging India to remove all non-tariff barriers (NBTs) as it views NTBs as the major obstacles to its export growth. Some of these barriers are: laboratory test for every consignment of food products, cosmetics, and leather and textile products; delay in getting test results; imposition of state tax; packaging requirement, anti-dumping and countervailing duties; inadequate infrastructure facilities such as warehousing, trans-shipment yard, parking yard and; connecting roads at land customs stations of India.

To encourage exports from Bangladesh, India must move proactively to provide facilities of customs and testing at the border check posts.
Besides, removal of non-tariff barriers should be accompanied by tariff reforms since the opportunity cost of non-tariff barriers is very high.

A Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) International report says: “In 2010, value of unexplored market was more than 48 per cent of total value of India- Bangladesh trade and potential saving, which is a proxy for cost of non-tariff barriers, is more than seven per cent of total value of Indo-Bangla trade”.

India is also encouraging investments in Bangladesh. In this regard, a Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement have been signed between the two countries. The agreement is expected to increase Indian investment in Bangladesh.
Transit

India has been urging Bangladesh to provide rail and road transit to connect with its north-eastern states. Technically speaking, the issue of transit was resolved in 1972 when both sides agreed on a mutually beneficial arrangement for the use of their waterways, railways and roadways for commerce between two countries and for passage of goods to places in one country through the territory of the other. Inland water transit has been functional, but the rail and road transit is still waiting to be operational.

Bangladesh’s initial reluctance to granting India rail and road transit was on the grounds that transit facility once given was difficult to take back and such a facility may encourage terrorism and insurgency.
Other concerns included damage to the roads and bridges in Bangladesh by the increased traffic flow from the Indian side.
The reason for delay was that Bangladesh’s infrastructure was not yet prepared to take the load of the increased traffic that will follow with the granting of transit to India. Addressing Bangladesh’s concern, India provided a credit line of $1billion to Bangladesh for development of infrastructure projects. But the credit line could not be used to its potential because of the strict conditions India imposed, to the effect that 85 per cent of the raw materials for the road projects has to be procured from India, on the ground that it produces all the materials necessary.

Bangladesh has countered by claiming it too has the necessary raw materials. It could earn $44 million per annum for first five years if it grants transit to India. From the sixth year, earnings would be around $500 million, which could rise to $1 billion.  Transit would not only boost connectivity between the two countries, but also offer opportunities for regional connectivity and help Bangladesh develop Chittagong port into a regional hub.

The  Chittagong  port  can  become  a modern  busy  port  like  Singapore  and  China  serving  the  SAARC  countries.  Huge  foreign  investment  may  be attracted by Bangladesh and  finally, a throbbing  service  sector like banks, insurance, hotels, rest houses, petrol pumps etc. may develop around the Transcontinental roads and railways.

There  is  an  estimate  of  direct economic  gain  from  transit  fees.  It ranges from  500  crore  taka  to  4,666 crore taka.  The  mutual  transit will  also give Bangladesh  a  much  shorter  route  to China and an initiative to link Chinese province  of  Yunan with  Seven Sisters of  India,  Myanmar,  Thailand  and Bangladesh.

Water –sharing:

We share 54 trans-boundary rivers, big and small.

Some of the major water sharing disputes

Ganga river dispute

In 1996, the sharing of the Ganga waters was successfully agreed upon between the two nations. However, the major area of dispute has been India’s construction and operation of the Farakka Barrage to increase water supply to the river Hooghly.

Bangladesh complains that it does not get a fair share of the water in the dry season and some of its areas get flooded when India releases excess waters during the monsoons.

Teesta River dispute

Teesta originates in Sikkim, flows through West Bengal in India before entering Bangladesh. It merges with the Brahmaputra River (or Jamuna when it enters Bangladesh). The river is important for both Bangladesh and India for its agricultural use.

Teesta river agreement timeline

In 1983, India and Bangladesh had agreed into an ad hoc sharing of the water during the dry season (October to April) with an allocation of 36 per cent for Bangladesh and 39 per cent for India, leaving 25 per cent to be decided later. But this deal has remained pending for more than 2 decades.

As per an agreement of 2011 the two sides had agreed to share the river’s water 50:50, the same as the 1996 Ganges water-sharing pact between the neighbors. This agreement was not signed due to opposition from chief minister of West Bengal.

Tipaimukh Hydro-Electric power Project

Bangladesh has been demanding to stop the construction of the Tipaimukh Hydro-Electric Power Project on the Barak River on the eastern edge of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh says that the massive dam will disrupt the seasonal rhythm of the river and have an Adverse effect on downstream agriculture, fisheries and ecology of the region. Indian government has assured Bangladesh that it will not take any unilateral decision on the Tipaimukh Hydro-Electric Power Project which may adversely affect Bangladesh.

Chinese Engagement with Bangladesh

Bangladesh and China has decade-long diplomatic ties. 2015 marked the 40th year of their relationship. China is the largest trading partner of Bangladesh in current times with the two-way trade accounting for about US$12 billion in 2014. China is contributing largely to ongoing infrastructural development in Bangladesh.

The growing security and military relations between the two countries in recent days is taking place much to the chagrin of New Delhi. Beijing’s current initiative for setting up financial institutions including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is likely to create new opportunities for Bangladesh in accessing funds for infrastructure development.

Bangladesh’s renewed interest in ocean economy in the Bay of Bengal in the context of UN approved delineation of maritime boundary over the Bay, it needs to engage with technologically and financially sound partners like China, Japan, the United States and South Korea, among others.

Engagement with China may prove to be most important economic relation for Bangladesh considering China’s growing and developed economy and international clout. However, Dhaka needs to balance its relations between New Delhi and Beijing for its own interest.

In fine, India in its current focus on neighbourhood prosperity is going to foster an enduring bilateral relationship with Bangladesh, as perceived from the ongoing engagements between New Delhi and Dhaka. Both countries are on the right track for building rapport in spheres of bilateral importance; however, the deep-seated disputes like that of water-sharing needs to be addressed for good for a better tomorrow.

Recent Developments

Land Boundary Agreement

Brief history:

After the partition of India in 1947, Rangpur was joined to East Pakistan, and Cooch Behar district was merged in 1949 with India. The desire to “de-enclave” most of the enclaves was manifested in a 1958 agreement between Jawaharlal Nehru and Feroz Khan Noon, the respective Prime Ministers, for an exchange between India and Pakistan without considering loss or gain of territory.

But the matter then worked into a Supreme Court case in India, and the Supreme Court ruled that a constitutional amendment was required to transfer the land. So the ninth amendment was introduced to facilitate the implementation of the agreement.

The amendment could not be passed because of an objection to transfer of southern Berubari enclave. Because of India’s deteriorated relations with Pakistan, the issue remained unsolved. With that agreement not ratified, negotiations restarted after East Pakistan became independent as Bangladesh in 1971 following the Bangladesh Liberation War

Attempts have been made to arrive at a comprehensive settlement of the land boundary between India and Bangladesh (the erstwhile East Pakistan) since 1947. The Nehru-Noon Agreement of 1958 and the Agreement Concerning the Demarcation of the Land Boundary between India and Bangladesh and Related Matters of 1974 (referred to as 1974 LBA) sought to find a solution to the complex nature of the border demarcation involved.

However, three outstanding issues pertaining to an un-demarcated land boundary of approximately 6.1 km, exchange of enclaves and adverse possessions remained unsettled.

The list of enclaves was prepared in 1997 by both nations. Two Joint Boundary Working Groups was formed to work out the details of enclaves in 2001. The joint census was carried out it May 2007.

The Protocol (referred to as the 2011 Protocol) to the 1974 LBA, signed on 6th September 2011 during the visit of the Prime Minister to Bangladesh, paves the way for a settlement of the outstanding land boundary issues between the two countries. The both nations announced an intention to swap 162 enclaves, giving residents a choice of nationality.

Indian Parliament in May 2015 passed the constitutional amendment bill regarding the land boundary agreement with Bangladesh. The Lower House, showing rare unanimity, passed the Constitution (119th Amendment) Bill to allow the operationalisation of the 1974 India-Bangladesh Land Boundary agreement.

Major features of agreement: 

A settled boundary is an essential prerequisite for effective cross-border cooperation. It reduces friction, helps neighbours consolidate mutually beneficial exchanges and promotes confidence in building better relations.

The 2011 Protocol ensures that the India-Bangladesh boundary is permanently settled with no more differences in interpretation, regardless of the government in power.

  • The 2011 Protocol results in a fixed demarcated boundary in all the un-demarcated segments, exchange of 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh with 51 Bangladesh enclaves in India and a resolution of all adversely possessed areas.
  • In the exchange of enclaves, India transfers 111 enclaves with a total area of 17,160.63 acres to Bangladesh, while Bangladesh would transfer 51 enclaves with an area of 7,110.02 acres to India.
  • While on paper, the exchange of enclaves between India and Bangladesh may seem like a loss of Indian land to Bangladesh, the actual scenario is quite different as the enclaves are located deep inside the territory of both countries and there has been no physical access to them from either country.
  • Each country will now begin to administer enclaves on its territory and enclave citizens will be able to choose where they want to live and which nationality they would prefer.
  • In reality, the exchange of enclaves denotes only a notional exchange of land as the Protocol converts a de facto reality into a de jure situation.

The inhabitants in the enclaves could not enjoy full legal rights as citizens of either India or Bangladesh and infrastructure facilities such as electricity, schools and health services were deficient.
Further, due to lack of access to these areas by the law and order enforcing agencies and weak property rights, certain enclaves became hot beds of criminal activities.

Major advantages of land boundary agreement: 

 These are as follows:

The exchange of enclaves will mitigate major humanitarian problems as the residents in the enclaves and others on their behalf had often complained of the absence of basic amenities and facilities the settlement of Adverse Possessions will lead to tranquility and peace along the border it represents a permanent solution to a decades old issue the newly demarcated boundaries are a fixed boundary, thereby adding to certainty regarding the future
a settled boundary reduces friction, helps neighbours consolidate mutually beneficial exchanges and promotes confidence in building better relations.

It paves the way for closer engagement and mutually beneficial relations between India and Bangladesh and the region; this also helps on issues of strategic concern, including security cooperation and denial of sanctuary to elements inimical to India. While land will be exchanged, the Protocol does not envisage the displacement of populations; the Protocol ensures that the India-Bangladesh boundary is permanently settled and there should be no more differences in interpretation, regardless of the government in power.

This deal would also revive the moribund South Asia Growth Quadrangle (SAGQ), comprising India’s north east, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.

Indo-Bangladesh Maritime Boundary Dispute

    • [​IMG]

 

In a landmark judgment, the Hague-based Permanent Court of Attribution (PCA) has awarded Bangladesh an area of 19,467 sq km, four-fifth of the total area of 25,602 sq km disputed maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal with India on July 7.

The UN Tribunal’s award has clearly delineated the course of maritime boundary line between India and Bangladesh in the territorial sea, Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf within and beyond 200 nautical miles (nm). Now, Bangladesh’s maritime boundary has been extended by 118,813 sq comprising 12 nm of territorial sea and an EEZ extending up to 200 nm into the high seas.

In addition, the ruling acknowledged Bangladesh’s sovereign rights of undersea resources in the continental shelf extending as far as 345 nm in the high seas, taking Chittagong coast as the base line. The verdict has been broadly accepted by both the countries as a positive development for further consolidation of friendly relations especially given the geo-strategic/political significance of greater Indian Ocean region and South Asian sub-region.

Security and Economic implications for India

  • Some are of the scholars’ opinion that the ruling could provide force for the new Indian government to ratify the Land Boundary Agreement and reach an understanding on sharing the waters of the Teesta river with Bangladesh.
  • The verdict would contribute towards establishing strategic partnerships among the nations sharing borders in the Bay.
  • The award is expected to have positive impact on emerging multilateral forum like BIMSTEC. It may be noted that India has already settled its maritime borders with Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand. Similarly, Bangladesh’s maritime issues with Myanmar are resolved.
  • The PCA award assumes strategic significance against the backdrop of China’s close ties with Bangladesh and its growing interests and activities in the Bay region for which India is worried. Now the settlement of maritime disputes between India and Bangladesh may have a restraining influence on the expansionist designs of China.
  • Both the countries have accepted the award as it will open the door for exploration of oil and gas in the Bay—the site of huge energy reserves.
  • The verdict has recognised India’s sovereignty over New Moore island and received nearly 6000 sq km of the contested zone where the island had once existed.
  • India’s discovery of natural gas in 2006 took place in a creek which is situated about 50 km south of the mouth of the Hariabhanga river within the contested zone. The lingering maritime dispute stood in the way of exploration of hydrocarbons in the Bay region. Such as in December, 2013, Australian firm Santos withdrew from two sea-blocks citing security and maritime dispute with Bangladesh.
  • Now India’s policy makers could chalk out a long-term strategy for the economic development of the Bay region. To realise its goals, New Delhi may forge bilateral or multilateral partnerships under the framework of sub-regional grouping like BIMSTEC

Implication for Bangladesh

The award has huge economic significance for a small state like Bangladesh. It has cleared the obstacles for Dhaka to open up its waters for foreign firms to explore and exploit hydrocarbons in the Bay. So long, Bangladesh’s maritime dispute with India is believed to have deterred many international petroleum companies to invest in the sea-blocks previously offered by it.

The United Nations Convention of Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) gives a nation 12 nm of territorial control and ensures sovereign rights to explore, exploit and manage natural resources with 200 nm of EEZ.

The economic prospects of the Bay region have increased enormously after Myanmar and India discovered huge natural gas deposits beneath the sea. It is reported that Myanmar discovered 7 trillion cubic feet of hydrocarbon deposits in the region. This was followed by India’s discovery of another 100 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This prompted Bangladesh—a nation with limited resource base and high demand of energy,to search for offshore energy resources.

In 2008, Bangladesh government divided its claimed territorial sea and EEZ into 28 sea-blocks and leased them to multinational companies to meet its growing energy needs.But Bangladesh was eventually compelled to suspend exploration as both India and Myanmar objected to it.Successive discoveries of massive natural gas have made the delimitation of maritime boundary all the more significant.

  • Economically, Bangladesh is a major gainer. Now, Dhaka is in a position to invite foreign companies to explore oil and gas resources in its maritime zones.
  • It would definitely help Bangladesh to compensate gas shortages in its gas turbine-run industries and plants and contribute to the country’s economic development.
  • India’s ONGC stands a good chance to win lucrative contracts in Bangladeshi offshore gas and oil fields.
  • The verdict is also good news for millions of fishermen in both the countries. The amicable settlement has opened up vast sea areas which were not available to them in the last four decades.
  • Moreover, both the countries could enhance cooperation in the conservation of the rich bio-diversity of the Sunder bans.
  • By clearly delineating the maritime boundary between the two nations, the verdict could help boosting coastal and maritime security in the region. Before the award, both India and Bangladesh could not undertake cooperative measures due to the vexed problem. The verdict has now cleared the hurdles of strengthening security in the maritime front.
  • Furthermore, precise demarcation of maritime boundary would assist in preventing the cases of transgression by fishermen of both countries. The PCA award is really a “win-win” situation for both the countries, as described by the Bangladesh foreign minister, if they follow it up with concrete action.

3. Growing radicalism in Bangladesh

Background

In last 2 years many secularist have been heckled to death in Bangladesh.In 2010, the government of Bangladesh, headed by the secularist Awami League established a war crime tribunal to investigate war crimes perpetrated during Bangladesh’s bloody 1971 Liberation war from Pakistan. In February 2013, Abdul Qadeer Molla, a leader of the Bangladeshi Jamaat-e-Islami party (a small Islamist party within the opposition coalition) was sentenced to life imprisonment by the tribunal.

The sentence was condemned by Bangladesh’s secularist bloggers and writers, who helped organize the Shahbagh Protest in response, calling for the death penalty for Molla. The protestors quickly expanded their demands to include outlawing the Jamaat-e-Islami party itself for its role in the 1971 war.

Shortly after the first Shahbag protests, counter-demonstrations, which quickly degenerated into violence, were organized by Islamist groups. Islamist leaders denounced the war crimes tribunal as political and called for an end to the prosecution of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, instead they demanded the death penalty for secularist bloggers, denouncing them as “atheists” and accusing them of Blasphemy.

According to many Experts the hostility directed toward Bloggers by Islamists is due primarily to the bloggers’ growing political influence in Bangladesh, which represents a major obstacle to the Islamist goal of a religious state.

Though there were occasional attacks on secularists prior to the 2013 Shahbag protests, the frequency of attacks has increased since.

In 2014, a group calling itself “Defenders of Islam” published a “hit list” of 84 Bangladeshis, mostly secularists, of whom nine have already reportedly been killed and others attacked Responsibility for many of the attacks has been claimed by Ansarullah Bangla Team a group which according to police has links with both the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami and with Al Qaida. The group has since been banned by the government. Other attacks appear to have been perpetrated by more obscure groups.

How much is politics responsible for this situation?

The killing campaign in Bangladesh is fuelled by the bitter war between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, and her opponents on the Right — former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s BNP, and its sometime ally, the Jamaat.

Headed into the 2014 elections, the BNP had paralysed the country with weeks of protests, demanding that power be handed over to a neutral caretaker government. The Awami League government, though, held fast, leading the opposition to boycott the elections.

In 2013, meanwhile, the now-iconic Shahbag protests broke out, with young people demanding the death penalty for Jamaat-e-Islami leaders held guilty of 1971 war crimes. In essence, these twin crises pushed the organised right wing out of the political arena, creating a political vacuum. Though the Bangladeshi police and security services have proved effective at containing terrorism, crushing the once-feared Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami, the fear now is that the political vacuum could be capitalised on by jihadists.

The best way of preventing that would be to revive competitive political life in Bangladesh, but the political system remains log jammed, with no end in sight to the Awami League-BNP stand-off.

Significance of these Killing for Bangladesh

  • Bangladesh has always prided itself for its religious tolerance and secularism. In fact, the country is a shining example of Islam and democracy coexisting. However, all that is changing quickly with the rise of religious fundamentalism in the country.
  • The Islamist fundamentalists, apart from targeting minorities, have targeted all those who have commented on religion and who are fighting for their right to the freedom of expression. These Killings are threat to democracy as freedom of expression is one of the very basic tenet of Democracy.
  • The killings Prove that the Islamlist are not just against the minority community but anyone even a Muslim who do not subscribe to their salafist ideology thus most of their victims are liberal Muslims.
  • These killings are leading to  growing sense of fear and insecurity; people in Bangladesh are living under the threat of Terrorism  Moreover, the lukewarm response of the government has only emboldened the radical elements belonging to the Hardline Islamist groups such as ABT and JMB.
  • The persistent failure of the Bangladesh Government and the international community to better protect threatened thinkers has created a climate of fear and direct threat to free thought in the country.
  • The spate of ideological murders is an assault on Bangladesh’s secular principles and ideas.

Way Forward

Bangladesh is facing an existential crisis today and unless the government takes steps to launch an all-out attack on the members of AMT and JMB, the situation may spiral out of control. It is also surprising that, except for opprobrium in international newspapers on the growing intolerance in the country, many countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and even neighboring India have remained silent over the issue.

It is time that they exert pressure on the Bangladeshi government to act against the perpetrators of these crimes. The government should also realize by not acting against these perpetrators, the groups will be further emboldened to carry out more such attacks against the secular forces. T

he day is not far when these groups are likely to be exploited by terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and the Islamic State, for not only gaining a toehold in the region, but also an opportunity to radicalize the youth of the country. Before it’s too late, the government must launch an all out attack on these fundamental groups, lest the country fall into an abyss of violence, which would completely destroy the secular character of Bangladesh.

4. BBIN Motor Vehicle Agreement

Introduction

India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh signed a landmark Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA) for the Regulation of Passenger, Personnel and Cargo Vehicular Traffic among the four South Asian neighbours in Thimpu, Bhutan. BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal) agreement is a complementary instrument to the existing transport agreements or arrangements at the bilateral levels that the contracting parties will continue to honor.

What will be the benefits of BBIN?

  • It Will promote safe, economical efficient and environmentally sound road transport in the sub-region
  • Will further help each country in creating an institutional mechanism for regional integration.
  • BBIN countries will be benefited by mutual cross border movement of passenger and goods for overall economic development of the region.
  • Will further promote our cooperation in trade and commerce apart from further cementing our age old cultural ties
  • Enhance regional connectivity.
  • Expand people-to-people contact, trade, and economic exchanges between our countries.
  • Transforming transport corridors into economic corridors could potentially increase intraregional trade within South Asia by almost 60% and with the rest of the world by over 30%
  • A new sub-group in world – BBIN! Regional strength.

What are the challenges ahead?

Building and upgrading roads, railways and waterways infrastructure energy Grids, communications and air links to ensure smooth cross border flow of goods, services, capital, technology and people.

Internal Security concerns

  • Illegal migration
  • Smuggling, etc.
  • Timely implementation of further steps to be taken.
  • Trade facilitation at Land border
  • Multi-modal transport facility
  • Customs system can be shared – this will save time by avoiding duplication

Bhutan has some reservations related to tourism as they want to strictly maintain culture and everything else of the Himalayas as per their own norms including Gross Happiness Index

What more can BBIN do?

Bhutan and Nepal can generate more power and sell to India and Bangladesh

It is not anymore a socialist hangup of exploitation by one country of other. It is mutual growth through co-operation.

Is India planning something similar with other countries?

A major breakthrough has been achieved between India-Myanmar and Thailand. Three nations have agreed to develop a similar framework motor vehicle agreement on the lines of draft SAARC Motor vehicle agreement.

Secretary level discussions were successfully concluded in Bengaluru this month andconsensus has been reached on the text of Agreement. 

On conclusion of this Agreement, our sub-region will get access to the larger ASEAN marketthrough seamless passenger and cargo movement.

Areas of cooperation between India and Bangladesh under Sheika Hasina Government

  • India’s relations with Bangladesh have certainly witnessed a significant upswing over the past decade, some persistent challenges notwithstanding. Bilateral trade has risen to $7 million. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been cracking down on hardline elements, and has provided India with logistical assistance, for instance in setting up the Paltana plant in Tripura. Sheikh Hasina, after being elected in December 2009 as Prime Minister, used her huge majority in Parliament to launch two initiatives.
  • One was eradication of terrorism from the country, and the other was the trial of the 1971 war criminals for crime against humanity. One Jamaat senior leader has been executed, their mentor Golam Azam has been sentenced to life and cases against others are proceeding. This trial, which was long demanded by the freedom fighters, has set back both the Jamaat and BNP.
  • On the terrorism front Sheikh Hasina has scored unprecedented success. Indian insurgents like the ULFA, NSCN (I/M) and others have been rooted out of this country, and Islamic terrorists and extremists have been hit hard. Apart from Bangladesh India has been the greatest beneficiary of the Sheikh Hasina government’s action against terrorism.
  • From October 2013, India started exporting 500 megawatts of electricity a day to Bangladesh over a period of 35 years
  •  Last year the Indian Parliament, unanimously passed the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) as its 100th Constitutional amendment, thereby resolving all 68-year old border disputes since the end of the British Raj. The bill was pending ratification since the 1974 Mujib-Indira accords.
  • Resolution of maritime dispute through UNCLOS PCA in favour of Bangladesh and India not re-appealing it.
  • Easing of Visa regime to provide 5 year multiple entry visas to minors below 13 and elderly above 65.
  • Bangladesh allowed India to ferry food and grains to the landlocked North east using its territory and infrastructure.
  •  During the PM modi visit India extended a US$2 billion line of credit to Bangladesh & pledged US$5 billion worth of investments. As per the agreements, India’s Reliance Power agreed to invest US$3 billion to set up a 3,000 MW LNG-based power plant (which is the single largest foreign investment ever made in Bangladesh) & Adani Power will be setting up a 1600 MW coal-fired power plant at a cost of US$1.5 billion.
  • Power agreement and internet service: Prime Ministers of India and Bangladesh commissioned international gateway of internet service in Agartala and supply of 100MW power to Bangladesh from Tripura.

Under it India will supply 100 megawatt (MW) of electricity in return for 10 Gigabits per second Internet bandwidth.

100MW power will be supplied from Suryamaninagar grid to the grid in Commilla of southeast Bangladesh.

India is already supplying 500 MW of power to Bangladesh through the Bahrampur-Bheramara interconnection.

North eastern region will get benefit of 10GBPS internet bandwidth from Bangladesh’s submarine cable station at Cox Bazar

  • 15-km railway connectivity link between Agartala and Akhaura in Brahmanbaria district of Bangladesh is to be completed in 2017. Akhaura has a rail link to Chittagong too. Once the Agartala-Akhaura railway link is ready, goods brought to Chittagong port can be carried by rail directly to Agartala.
  • Both countries are also implementing BBIN motor vehical agreement which allows vehicles to enter each other’s territory and does away with trans-shipment of goods from one country’s truck to another at the border, a time consuming and costly process.
  • “Agreement on Coastal Shipping”: India and Bangladesh signed the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), to operationalize the “Agreement on Coastal Shipping” signed between the two countries in June, 2015.

Salient points about the SOP are

  •  The Standard Operating Procedure will pave the way to promote coastal shipping between India and Bangladesh and would enhance bilateral trade between the two countries by bringing down the cost of transportation of EXIM cargo.
  • The SOP contains provisions which stipulate that India and Bangladesh shall render same treatment to the other country’s vessels as it would have done to its national vessels used in international sea transportation.
  • The two sides have also agreed upon the use of vessels of River Sea Vessel (RSV) category for Indo-Bangladesh coastal shipping.
  • Joint patrolling in Sudarbans and combined military exercise Operation SAMPRITI.
  • The two ways trade is $7 billion. The trade is set to go at $10 billion by 2018 through ports.
  • India is second in import destination for Bangladesh. Bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh stood at USD 6.6 billion in 2013-14 with India’s exports at USD 6.1 billion and imports from Bangladesh at USD 462 million, representing more than double the value of USD 2.7 billion five years ago

The following steps should be taken to improve relation between India and Bangladesh.

a) Agreement on water sharing should be given priority. Early resolution of the Teesta issue is necessary.
b) Security cooperation between the two countries has been good. But there is need for institutionalizing this cooperation so that it does not remain restricted to the tenure of a particular government in either country. In this regard, a beginning could be made by signing the bilateral extradition treaty.
c) Connectivity should be given top most priority. Both the countries should work together to operationalise it.
d) There is need for addressing the issue of illegal migration. In this regard innovative measures should be taken to resolve the problem, being extra careful to ensure that illegal migrants do not acquire voting rights and Indian nationality.
e) People-to-people contact needs to be encouraged; hence liberal visa system should be put in place.
f) Trade relationship has improved significantly between the two countries. India has provided zero duty access of Bangladeshi products thereby addressing the tariff related issue to a great extent. The two countries should now consider an agreement on non-tariff barriers.
g) Indian investment should be encouraged in Bangladesh through visits of trade delegations, trade fairs, and bilateral assurances on protection of the interests of potential investors.
h) Progress can be made by cooperating on common challenges like disaster management, food and energy security.
i) Greater involvement of people and wider public debate on foreign policy issues will discourage conspiracy theories and distrust.
j) A greater level of people-to-people contact should be encouraged.
k) Implement the no-firing policy fully. Ensure accountability to ensure that the image of India as an enemy ceases to exist.
l) Fencing needs to be completed speedily and monitored effectively.This would create misgivings but also ensure that Bangladesh knows that India means business. The state governments and the Indian border forces seem receptive to such an idea
m) India and Bangladesh need to strengthen their military ties. They are being revived after a long gap but much more can be done in terms of increasing visits, contacts at various level as well as by selling military hardware. Apart from initiating joint exercises, India should consider the China model of gifting hardware in the initial instance, and offer technical expertise that Bangladeshi military is in need of. They have to be weaned away from Pakistan and China. There can be no overnight successes but sustained efforts are essential.

Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

JOIN THE COMMUNITY

Join us across Social Media platforms.

💥Mentorship New Batch Launch
💥Mentorship New Batch Launch