Hasina-Modi summit: Dhaka to raise critical issues

The long-unresolved Teesta water-sharing issue is expected to come into prominence as usual when Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her counterpart Narendra Modi will hold a virtual bilateral summit on Thursday, a day after Bangladesh’s Victory Day, officials said.

This will be Hasina’s first virtual summit with any prime minister of foreign countries during the pandemic.

The draft of the Teesta water-sharing agreement was completed in 2011. But the deal has remained pending due to the disagreement made by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Apart from Teesta water-sharing issue, Dhaka will highlight some other long-pending critical issues such as implementing Ganges-Padma Barrage, cooperation in basin-wide water management, irrigation, and hydropower involving Nepal and Bhutan, and slow-progress of projects under the concessional line of credit (LoC) in the summit, according to the officials.

Dhaka will also seek to bury concerns over India’s plans for a National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which led to massive protests in Dhaka last year ahead of Modi’s visit in Bangladesh, which was subsequently cancelled. Several ministerial visits to India from Bangladesh were also cancelled.

The summit will also see several agreements being signed, many of which are still being negotiated.

An agreement may be signed at the earliest withdrawal of 153 cusecs of water by Bangladesh through the Intake Channel (Rahimpur Khal) and 100 cusecs by Indian from the common stretch of the Kushiyara River.

Connectivity and infrastructure projects such as short-distance bus service between border towns, increase the frequency of Dhaka-Darshana-Kolkata train service, setting up Khan Jahan Ali Airport at Mongla as a regional airport, resumption of an inland shipping route between Godagari and Bhagabangola (Rajshahi, Bangladesh and Murshidabad, India) will come into the discussion.

“The two neighboring countries will chalk out plans to take the bilateral relations to the next level, expanding the areas of cooperation with several engagements in days to come,” said an official.

Hasina and Modi held the last bilateral talks in New Delhi on October 5 last year. The Indian premier was scheduled to visit this year to join the birth centenary celebration of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman but the trip was cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic.