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A thaw in relations with Bangladesh with other possibilities arising.
Sorry, but honestly why we have to give away our land, taken in 50k people to secure the border? Couldn't we have secured the border without this agreement?
This is just the beginning of the usual islamic salami slicing techniques and more demands will surface asking other indulgences from the "big" brother. They are very keen to grab more than their share of the teesta waters, for a start. They will manipulate everything through control over the land access corridor bangladesh is so very reluctant to give India for her access to the NE states.
Could we not buy this land from bangladesh?? After the war, which idiot in the MEA/MOD not have the foresight to obtain a permanent access corridor?? It would have been child's play to gain the access then. After all the IAS dopes are paid and trained to think strategically.
chetak wrote:
Could we not buy this land from bangladesh?? After the war, which idiot in the MEA/MOD not have the foresight to obtain a permanent access corridor?? It would have been child's play to gain the access then. After all the IAS dopes are paid and trained to think strategically.
Because acquiring land even within India is so easy, right? And what price would you pay for these 17,000 acres and uprooting 50k people? And pray for what reason? If we had any love for land, we should uproot all illegal Bangladeshis in India and the land freed would be multiple orders of what we're speaking of here.
In one stroke Modi has cleared historical baggage, nixed one of China's key ports in its String of Pearls strategy (Chittagong) and opened up Bangladesh to India's direct exports (vs going through Singapore).
Mamata is crucial for both the LBA and Teesta pacts to see the light of day. Modi has taken a leaf out of former PM I K Gujral's book because the Ganga waters treaty, signed between India and a previous Hasina government was done with West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu at the helm. Modi is putting his cooperative federalism concept to work here.
Mamata cannot back the Teesta agreement until she shows a plan for north Bengal in place. She also cannot do it until the state elections in 2016. Until then, though, she and Modi are playing a very complex political tango where both have high stakes — Modi needs support in Rajya Sabha for his legislations and Mamata needs financial assistance and a leg up as she tries to regain the "bhadralok" vote in Bengal by delivering on investment, industry and infrastructure before the elections.
Mamata had been a guest of Hasina's at the Februray 21 Language Day celebrations here where she had publicly stated that she would push both pacts. Hasina who has had an on-again-off-again relationship with Mamata, has decided to take her at her word, because the ultimate guarantor is Modi.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief Khaleda Zia is set to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday afternoon, signifying a shift in the main Bangladeshi opposition party's approach towards India.
The former Bangladesh prime minister, known for her strident anti-India posturing, welcomed Modi's visit and even thanked him for ratifying the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement which paved the way for swap of more than 160 enclaves between the two countries.
This marked a significant departure from her stand in 2010, when she accused her arch-rival, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, of "selling out to India" after Dhaka clinched its biggest ever trade deal with New Delhi.
The BNP leader also refrained from meeting President Pranab Mukherjee when he visited Bangladesh in March 2013. It was Mukherjee’s first visit to a foreign country after becoming President.
chetak wrote:
Could we not buy this land from bangladesh?? After the war, which idiot in the MEA/MOD not have the foresight to obtain a permanent access corridor?? It would have been child's play to gain the access then. After all the IAS dopes are paid and trained to think strategically.
Because acquiring land even within India is so easy, right? And what price would you pay for these 17,000 acres and uprooting 50k people? And pray for what reason? If we had any love for land, we should uproot all illegal Bangladeshis in India and the land freed would be multiple orders of what we're speaking of here.
In one stroke Modi has cleared historical baggage, nixed one of China's key ports in its String of Pearls strategy (Chittagong) and opened up Bangladesh to India's direct exports (vs going through Singapore).
Hold on, you got it all backwards because I was not clear.
I was talking about trying to buying land for the access corridor through bangladesh to the NE states from India.
Nothing much has been achieved by this enclave land transfer. We have lost land in the bargain, they will continue to infiltrate because the BGs consider India as their lebensraum, make no mistake.
chetak wrote:
In one stroke Modi has cleared historical baggage, nixed one of China's key ports in its String of Pearls strategy (Chittagong) and opened up Bangladesh to India's direct exports (vs going through Singapore).
From giving defense contracts, now we have started giving away our land for such deals?
The Indo-Bangla borders are now clearly demarcated post-transfer. Triple layered mesh, electric floodlit fencing is finally possible. Previously, you'd have to follow the torturous contours of the enclaves. Fencing alone a smooth contour would mean leaving those Indian on the bangla side. Now they're part of BD and so it doesn't matter.
Also, long-awaited transit rights (in all but name) are at hand. A shared access corridor from CHT port to Tripura and Mizoram would be the icing n the cake.
I'd wait to see progress on war footing on the fencing and security side before declaring the deal a success.
Seriously, Chinese have grabbed a 100 times more territory from India without any formal agreements -- As the professor from Trantor University says, this boundary demarcation allows fencing and any other arrangements necessary to keep out paki and bangla jihadis out of Indian territory, which will become an issue if another BNP-like regime wins an election in Bangladesh. Small steps of progress towards securing unsecured boundaries.
Last edited by Tuvaluan on 07 Jun 2015 19:15, edited 1 time in total.
There are two challenges ahead. How to solve the issue of illegal immigration without disrupting the economic engagement and to have a plan B if an Islamist regime under most likely Khaleda Zia comes to power. This will require superior skills than what has been achieved so far.
I assume the first song is Bangladesh national song. Very pleasant song. Wish one fine day Bangladesh will wake up from its Tamas and turn Aaryam, Bhaaratam, Dharmam!
I see my bro enjoying the sangeet as much as I am doing
Dhaka: Bangladesh and India will fix the transit fees as per WTO rules in exchange for facilitating connectivity for India's land-locked northeastern states, Finance Minister AMA Muhith has said.
"During the visit of the Indian Prime Minister, the issue (transit fee) was discussed...the two countries will now finalise the arrangement over the fees in line with the WTO rules," Muhith said on Sunday.
Buoyed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's maiden visit during which "history" was made by inking the long-pending land boundary agreement, Bangladesh now looks forward to resolving the crucial Teesta water-sharing issue soon.
Readymade clothing exporters have written a letter to the Indian government seeking allocation of a piece of land in three months for building a warehouse there. http://bdnews24.com/economy/2015/06/14/ ... -warehouse
A Bangladesh Readymade Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association delegation led by its President Atiqul Islam handed over the letter to Indian High Commissioner Pankaj Saran on Sunday.
The Bangladesh business leaders sought 50 acres of land for the warehouse to export readymade apparels to the neighbour at their meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent Dhaka visit.
Modi assured them of considering the matter.
Islam told bdnews24.com that a formal proposal had been submitted based on the assurance of the Indian prime minister.
As per the proposal, BGMEA and Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association will build the warehouse and distribution centre by forming a company to supply RMG products to India.
Though the business leaders had sought 50 acres of land, the letter has not mentioned anything about land size.
It says clothing exporters are ready to invest $25 million for setting up the warehouse and distribution centre.
They also wish to set up 1,000 retail stores across India to display and sell Bangladesh garments, it adds.
Islam expects the Bangladesh government to provide financial assistance for the venture.
He hopes they will find a $1 billion market in India in next several years.
Khaleda Zia was left unsettled by the questions Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked her during their first meeting in Dhaka, an Awami League leader has claimed.
Ruling party MP Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim told Parliament on Sunday that the BNP chief had gone over to him to complain.
“Narendra Modi asked her three questions. He asked why she cancelled her meeting with India’s President Pranab Mukherjee and who was enforcing a shutdown that day?”
“She said the shutdown was called by the alliance she leads.
“He said ‘members of your cabinet were involved in the move to deliver arms to Indian separatists by attempting to dock them at Chittagong port’. Khaleda had no answer to that.”
“His third question was about the Burdwan blast and how there was evidence linking Khaleda’s allies to the incident. Khaleda couldn’t come up with an answer,” Selim further claimed.
The BNP chief has not said much about her discussion with Modi at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel, except that it was ‘satisfactory.’
She, however, told Indian news portal ‘The Sunday Guardian’ that the Bangladesh government had “tried whatever they could to see to it that the meeting did not happen”.
Selim cited media reports over the Khaleda-Modi meeting where the BNP chief reportedly complained that there was “no democracy” in Bangladesh.
“India supports democracy in Bangladesh,” he said. “[It] is determined to root out fundamentalism and terrorism.
Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha's four-member bench on Tuesday confirmed the death penalty for the 67-year old former commander of Al-Badr, the militia raised by Pakistan to crush the Bengali struggle for independence.
It elicited jubilation and relief among war veterans and supporters of war crimes trial who had pushed for maximum penalty for Mujahid who unleashed his 'angels of death' on his own people in 1971.
But those who suffered Mujahid's brutality were certain no punishment was good enough for the Jamaat leader.
This is the first time a politician who served as a minister is going to be executed for war crimes in Bangladesh.
Mujahid, the social welfare minister in Khaleda Zia’s BNP-Jamaat coalition cabinet, planned and executed mass murders including those of intellectuals, scientists, academics and journalists during the war to abort Bangladesh’s birth.
The war crimes tribunal ordered him—in his mid-20s in 1971—to walk the gallows on July 17, 2013 for the massacre of the intellectuals and involvement in the murder and torture of Hindus.
haleda Zia was left unsettled by the questions Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked her during their first meeting in Dhaka, an Awami League leader has claimed.
Ruling party MP Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim told Parliament on Sunday that the BNP chief had gone over to him to complain.
“Narendra Modi asked her three questions. He asked why she cancelled her meeting with India’s President Pranab Mukherjee and who was enforcing a shutdown that day?”
“She said the shutdown was called by the alliance she leads.
“He said ‘members of your cabinet were involved in the move to deliver arms to Indian separatists by attempting to dock them at Chittagong port’. Khaleda had no answer to that.”
“His third question was about the Burdwan blast and how there was evidence linking Khaleda’s allies to the incident. Khaleda couldn’t come up with an answer,” Selim further claimed.
The BNP chief has not said much about her discussion with Modi at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel, except that it was ‘satisfactory.’
She, however, told Indian news portal ‘The Sunday Guardian’ that the Bangladesh government had “tried whatever they could to see to it that the meeting did not happen”.
Selim cited media reports over the Khaleda-Modi meeting where the BNP chief reportedly complained that there was “no democracy” in Bangladesh.
“India supports democracy in Bangladesh,” he said. “[It] is determined to root out fundamentalism and terrorism.
My pranams to NaMo. We really have found the right man after the years of darkness!
arun wrote:Mohammadden majority country and member of Mohammadden religion based grouping of countries the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation formerly Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), Chad, bans Mohammadden religion mandated garment for women, the Burqua aka Burka.
Is the OIC going to raise a stink for one of their own members banning the Mohammadden religion mandated garment for women, the Burqua aka Burka, on the eve of the start of the Mohammadden holy month of Ramazan aka Ramadan?:
Apparently Mohammadden majority Chad was the second country on the African Continent to ban the burka / burqua for security reasons. The first country on the African Continent to ban the burka / burqua for security reasons was Congo-Brazzaville, an Abrahamic country like Chad though with a Christist majority:
Illegal Mohammadden immigrants from Bangladesh who have forced themselves upon Myanmar now seek to also impose alien Mohammadden practices on their reluctant host’s resulting in a Myanmarese counter reaction.
Monks belonging to Myanmar’s principal Buddhist religion call for a ban of Mohammadden religion mandated dress for women:
AGARTALA: The process of laying 15.054 km long railway tracks to connect Agartala with Akhaura in Bangladesh will be completed by 2017.
A team comprising technical experts of IRCON, representatives of state government and Indian High Commission in Dhaka visited the sites of laying the tracks, Chief Engineer of NF Railway Harpal Singh said.
Of the 15.054 km track, five km would be on Indian side and the rest ten km would be in Bangladesh.
NEW DELHI: Haridaspur is a dot on the map of West Bengal, about 200 km from Kolkata but its status as an inland port and proximity to the Bangladesh border have made it much more prominent of late. A surge of visitors to India from across the border has led to Bangladesh becoming the top country of origin for tourists to the country.
As a result, Haridaspur was the No. 3 port of entry for April and May, accounting for 11% of all tourists to the country.
NEW DELHI: Haridaspur is a dot on the map of West Bengal, about 200 km from Kolkata but its status as an inland port and proximity to the Bangladesh border have made it much more prominent of late. A surge of visitors to India from across the border has led to Bangladesh becoming the top country of origin for tourists to the country.
As a result, Haridaspur was the No. 3 port of entry for April and May, accounting for 11% of all tourists to the country.
11% of all tourists to India is a huge number. How do we know these "tourists" go back?
That song is also the "national song" of Indian Bengal or west bengal as we call it. It stirs the soul of a bengali - east or west. Tagore is the only poet in the world to have penned national songs of 2 countries!
Indian envoy in Dhaka says New Delhi would like to be a “partner” of Bangladesh in realising its development dreams to become a middle-income country by 2021.
“That is why when the prime minister (Narendra Modi) came, we called the joint declaration ‘new generation, new direction’, this is going to be India’s policy towards Bangladesh in the coming years,” Pankaj Saran said.
He was speaking at a discussion at the Parliament building on Sunday.
...
...
“This relationship is one of the most important relationships which India has with any country in the world,” he said.
“We would like to push this relationship to even greater heights and greater sector of cooperation”.
He referred Modi’s ‘journey hasn't ended, journey has just begun’ comment, and said this spirit would be the “guidance in every single area of our life whether it is in terms of economy, politics, security, trade, water, and power".
That song is also the "national song" of Indian Bengal or west bengal as we call it. It stirs the soul of a bengali - east or west. Tagore is the only poet in the world to have penned national songs of 2 countries!
Make it three. Shri Lankan National Anthem was also penned by Tagore. I know it is a pleasant surprise.........I felt the same way .
Indian envoy in Dhaka says New Delhi would like to be a “partner” of Bangladesh in realising its development dreams to become a middle-income country by 2021.
This is remarkable for Kissinger's basket case. Poor old K hasn't been right on too much.
Primary school enrollment, life expectancy, poverty reduction, social cohesion indices are far higher than in Pakistan and in some cases much better than in India. The karmic principle holds: the dispossessed, disenfrancised and brutalised of Pakistan can now watch Pakistanis do to each other what they did to 'Bengalis'. Modi's India is doing the right thing in paying much more attention to Bangladesh and treating Pakistan at a correct level more appropriate for its terminal dysfunction.
There remains the issue of repatriation of Bangladeshi illegal migrants and also of ensuring political rights of Hindus in Bangladesh. A start can be made in the former by educating Indians in the security value of paying living wages to Indian labour rather than cut rate wages to Bangladeshis, who are in India not because Bangladesh is poor but because Indians employ them.
He said the price of cows had gone up by 40 percent over the past six months because of India's move, and they had been forced to close two processing units.
OT but IMHO the way to permanently stop cow slaughter in India is to address its economics. For that it is not enough just to build 'Gaushalas' and tell the cow/ calf owner that "if you don't want to keep the cow/ calf, give it to us and we shall keep it in a 'Gaushala'". This what many state Govts and Hindu/ Jain organizations are doing, and it is a necessary step. But, in the next step, the cow/ calf owner has to be paid the market price equal to what a butcher will pay him, and then the cow/ calf has to be housed in a 'Gaushala'. Otherwise there will always be an economic incentive for market sale, smuggling, and slaughter.
This will take tons of money, and cannot be done by Govt alone. The bulk of the money will have to be raised by Hindu/ Jain organizations on a continuous basis. Perhaps something on the lines of what the Ekal Vidyalaya has done - "sponsor one cow for a year in a 'Gaushala' for x amount".
Official talks on Myanmar-India-Bangla pipeline to start soon -
The three countries reached an agreement in 2005 but the Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh government withdrew from the project after India refused to accept its three additional conditions
See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/busine ... tart-soon/
Official talks on the much-delayed India-Bangladesh-Myanmar gas pipeline will start soon, said Bangladesh Deputy High Commissioner to India, Salahuddin Noman Chowdhury at an event here on Thursday.
First mooted in 1997 by Mohona Holdings Limited of Bangladesh, the 900-km pipeline was to source natural gas from Myanmar, through Bangladesh, for supply into India. It was meant to deliver 5 billion cubic meters of gas from the Swe field in Southern Myanmar.
The three countries reached an agreement in 2005 but the Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh government withdrew from the project after India refused to accept its three additional conditions. On her return as Prime Minister in 2010, Sheikh Hasina gave her approval to pursue the project. By then, Myanmar was disinterested in the project as it had signed an MOU with China for a 2,388 km pipeline from Kyakphu in Myanmar to China’s Yunnan province.
With renewal of talks Myanmar’s estimated 90 trillion cubic feet gas reserves will be available for meeting India’s energy needs. The project was re-evaluated recently during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh as cooperation between the three countries has improved.
Weeks after signing of an agreement by New Delhi and Dhaka on telecommunication links, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) on Saturday announced that work will start next week to operationalise the system.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has upgraded its rating for Bangladesh, in a move that should make it easier for local entrepreneurs and banks to secure credit, the country's central bank governor said on Sunday.
Atiur Rahman said the decision was made at a meeting of the Swiss Export Credit Agency last week, which he attended.
He said the OECD, an international group that promotes policies aimed at improving the economic and social well-bring of people around the world, had raised its country rating for Bangladesh by one notch to 5 from 6.
The decision reflected the resilience of Bangladesh economy, which has delivered strong growth for over a decade despite political upheaval and weak external demand, Atiur told Reuters.
The upgrade puts Bangladesh on a higher rating than neighboring countries such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar and Mongolia in the OECD country classification, though behind India.
It also means the OECD now categorises Bangladesh as a new frontier market, rather than a nation highly dependent on development aid.
Atiur said the upgrade could encourage international lenders to take part in investment projects in Bangladesh including in infrastructure, textiles and apparel, pharmaceuticals and leather sectors.
The World Bank last week upgraded Bangladesh, Kenya, Myanmar, and Tajikistan to lower middle income countries from a previous classification of least developed countries.
A joint India-Bangladesh team of mountaineers have scaled the 7,135 metre high Mt. Nun in Punjab Himalaya under Jammu and Kashmir, a release said on Friday.
The Mountaineering Association of Krishnanagar (MAK) from West Bengal and adventure club “Keokradong” based in Dhaka took part in the expedition.
The team summated on July 7, said a message received from the overall expedition leader Basanta Singha Roy.
Besides Singha Roy, who earlier climbed Mt. Everest and Kangchenhunga, other summiteers were Riffat Hasan of Bangladesh and Biswanath Saha, Rohit Majumder, Kaushik Biswas and Ashim Kumar Mondal of MAK.
The three-member team from Keokradong of Bangladesh also include its group leader Muntasir Mamoon Imran and Salma Khatun.
All the expedition members are in good health and would be returning to Kolkata soon via New Delhi, the message said.
This was second such joint mountaineering venture by MAK and Keokradong.
In 2006, they had jointly climbed the 6,187-metre Mt. Rubalkang in Garhwal Himalayas.
With the field survey in the Indian and Bangladeshi enclaves ending on Thursday, not a single enclave dweller has expressed willingness to go to Bangladesh. On the other hand, at least 1,027 residents of Indian enclaves in Bangladesh have sought to settle in India.
While Cooch Behar MP Renuka Sinha said about 15,000 enclave dwellers were earlier expected to return to India, the actual number is only 1,027.
After opening a direct bus route between Tripura and Bangladesh, the Centre has stepped in to lay a direct rail link between the land-locked state and Dhaka. Top sources told HT that Prime Minister Narendra Modi stepped in to remove bottlenecks in the project.
The government will build a 15-km-long broad gauge rail line from Agartala to Akhaura, a city in south-east Bangladesh, which will give India’s northeastern states a key link to Chittagong ports and large markets in Sylhet and Dhaka.
The plan had almost come to a standstill after the Tripura government expressed its inability to pump state funds for the project. But after meetings between Modi and chief minister Manik Sarkar, the Indian Railways have decided to bear the cost.
“After its preliminary survey, the railways had told us to bear `350 crore for land acquisition. We put our foot down. Now the railways have made a revised plan, whereby the entire rail line would be constructed on pillars—like the Delhi metro—above ground. The requirement of land and its cost will now be significantly low,” Sarkar told HT.
Currently, Bangladesh’s lone rail link with India passes through Kolkata. The British-era rail corridor between Agartala and Dhaka was snapped after Partition in 1947.
Sarkar is also hopeful for an early resumption of train services. “This Bangladesh government has never objected to any development plan that involves Tripura. Sheikh Hasina has a soft corner for Tripura,” said Sarkar.
NEW DELHI: With the exchange of enclaves along the India-Bangladesh border set to get over by July 31, a high-level delegation of the neighbouring country's border guarding force BGB is set to arrive here next month.
The visit assumes significance as this will be the first official Bangladeshi team to arrive after the historic Land Boundary Agreement has been put on ground and its basic formalities are expected to get over this month-end.
The delegation led by Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Director General Maj Gen Aziz Ahmed is slated to arrive here on August 2 as part of the bi-annual Directors General (DsG) level talks with their counterparts Border Security Force (BSF).
"The BGB delegation will be here for six days between September 2-7. A joint record of discussions will also be signed at the end of discussions between the two sides which will surely include new issues emerging out after the historic signing of the LBA between the two countries," a senior official said.
The Indian side will be led by BSF DG Devendra Kumar Pathak along with senior officials of the Union Home Ministry, External Affairs Ministry and those from other law enforcement agencies.
New Delhi, July 19: India and Bangladesh have run into an unexpected stumbling block threatening to trip the implementation of their historic land boundary agreement (LBA) sealed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Dhaka visit last month - untraced land records.
Senior Indian and Bangladesh officials confirmed last week that the nations are struggling to trace records of ownership of land in enclaves that will be exchanged under the agreement that has helped India settle its longest land boundary.
Under the pact, an estimated 52,000 people living in these enclaves chose by last Friday to stay where they are as a part of a new country or shift home to retain their current nationality, the officials said.
But without land records, the residents of these enclaves may struggle to sell their land while moving, or to claim legitimacy over their tracts of land, the officials conceded.
