NEW DELHI, Mar 27: India and Bangladesh on Saturday signed five Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) to further enhance bilateral ties between the two nations during Prime Minister Narendra Modi delegation-level meeting with his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina.
Modi is on a two-day visit to the neighbouring country as the chief guest at Bangladesh’s national day celebrations and the centenary of the “father of the nation” Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
After emerging from the meeting, Modi tweeted, “Had a productive meeting with PM Sheikh Hasina.”
The foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said Commerce and connectivity, cooperation and water resources, security, defence, power and energy, new areas like Artificial Intelligence, environment, societal application of nuclear energy formed part of the discussion between the two prime ministers.
“A significant part of our third line of credit will go to civil nuclear cooperation. Transmission lines of Ruppur Nuclear Power Plant will be developed by Indian companies under the line of credit. Value of these transmission lines will be worth over $1 billion,” Shringla said.
“There’s very active collaboration and cooperation among India, Bangladesh, Nepal & Bhutan under BBIM group. We spoke about Motor Vehicle Agreement that is in fairly advanced stage. We want to take it further. We’re facilitating Bangladeshi exports to both these countries via India,” he said.
As a symbol of stronger friendly ties between the two countries, “PM Modi and PM Hasina decided to celebrate December 6, the day on which India formally recognized Bangladesh, as ‘Maitri Diwas,'” Shringla said after the Modi-Hasina meet.
Sheikh Hasina presented a gold & a silver coin released on the occasion of the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to Modi. She also handed over a silver coin released on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s Independence.
Modi in turn handed over a representational item as a symbol of India’s gift of 1.2 million COVID vaccine doses and a representational key of 109 life-saving ambulances to Sheikh Hasina.
(Manas Dasgupta)