[🇧🇩] Indo-Bangla Relation: India's Regional Ambition, Geopolitical Reality, and Strategic Options For Bangladesh

[Bilal9]

Indian firm to upgrade Mongla port

Egis India Consulting Engineers Private Limited has been appointed as consultant for a capacity building project worth Tk 6,014 crore at Mongla port, the second largest seaport in Bangladesh.

www.thedailystar.net

Indian firm to upgrade Mongla port
Agreement signed for the Tk 6,014cr project

View attachment 6416
Once the project is implemented, Mongla port will be able to handle 1,800 vessels and 50 lakh tonnes of cargo annually, according to the port authority, while the port's annual revenue is expected to increase by Tk 150 crore. Photo: Anisur Rahman

Egis India Consulting Engineers Private Limited has been appointed as consultant for a capacity building project worth Tk 6,014 crore at Mongla port, the second largest seaport in Bangladesh.

The Mongla Port Authority (MPA) and Egis India yesterday signed the related agreement, styled "Upgradation of Mongla port", at the Radisson Blu Dhaka Water Garden in the capital.

Of the estimated Tk 6,014 crore project, the government will finance Tk 1,555 crore from its own coffer while India will provide Tk 4,459 crore as assistance under its line of credit.

The project is scheduled to be complete by July 30, 2024.

The upgradation works include constructing a container terminal, handling and delivery yards, a residential complex and community facilities, marine workshop, multi-storey car lots, service jetty, and more.

Besides, the MPA will procure eight vessels to support port operations, such as loading and unloading goods from larger ships.

Once implemented, Mongla port will be able to handle 1,800 vessels, 50 lakh tonnes of cargo, 4 lakh twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEUs) containers and 10,000 vehicles annually, according to the MPA.

In addition, the port's annual revenue is expected to increase by Tk 150 crore while that of related customs and other agencies could grow by as much as Tk 3,000 crore.

Rear Admiral Mohammad Musa, chairman of the MPA, and Laurent Germain, chief executive officer of Egis India, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective parties.

Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury, the state minister for shipping, was present as chief guest while Pranay Verma, the Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, acted as a special guest.

Chowdhury said the seaport will achieve new heights in regards to handling import-export cargo once the upgradation work is complete.

"Mongla port will move closer to Chattogram port's capacity. Not just Bangladesh, but neighbouring nations will also benefit from the port," he added.

The shipping minister went on to say that the project will help expand business and employment opportunities in the country through enhanced multimodal connectivity.​

Useless project and money down the drain. India does not manufacture even one significant piece of container handling equipment (unlike China or other EU countries), so how they will "improve" container handling is beyond me.

And why this AL govt. awards projects to Indian firms is also questionable to me. The pedigree and experience of this Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury guy as a shipping minister was always open to debate, and now he has been proven to be "on the take" as well.

Look at the math. Tk 6,014 crore project and at an annual return in improvement of Tk. 150 crore. It will take roughly 40 years to pay this off to India with interest. Even that rate of return is questionable.

 

[Bilal9]

This is easily the most common view of India from Bangladesh, paid back in the same coin.

Until successive Indian govts. learn to respect a sovereign nation like Bangladesh in a mature manner, it will continue to be #IndiaOut, always.

We don't relish disrespecting a whole govt. but until things improve, populists in Bangladesh will continue to hold this opinion.
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View from Bangladesh: How Grateful is India?

One Bangladeshi writer laments how India disrespects his nation despite it being grateful for Delhi's help in his country's liberation war. "Our neighboring nation should have had a more mature attitude after all these years," he says.
By Ekram Kabir

I hope all of you remember how Mandira Bedi expressed her dissatisfaction on a show with Charu Sharma on SET Max TV when, to her displeasure, Bangladesh beat India. That was in 2007. God knows how many times she uttered the word "minnow" while talking about the Bangladesh team.

She was very rude, full of ridicule for Bangladesh's win. More than a billion viewers watched her anger as she fumed with jealousy against Bangladesh as if she was trying to say that it was okay to lose against anyone -- West Indies, Australia, England -- but NOT to BANGLADESH!

After all these years, I had the same feeling when I saw the news that Bangladesh was set to surpass India in terms of per capita GDP in 2020 as predicted by the International Monetary Fund and that it had come as a shock to many Indians. The IMF's latest World Economic Outlook report said: "Bangladesh's per capita GDP would rise to $1,887.97 at current prices at the end of this year, up 3.96% from $1,816.04 in 2019. India's per capita GDP would fall to $1,877 in 2020, a decline of 10.3%."

Some Indian media outlets have appreciated Bangladesh's progress, and have criticized their own government's policies. However, many others -- both on social and traditional media -- found this piece of information very hard to digest. Many were seen heartbroken regarding this.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also couldn't accept the fact, attacking the BJP government, saying: "Solid achievement of six years of BJP's hate-filled cultural nationalism -- Bangladesh set to overtake India."

Well, his mission seemed to have more to do with politics than Bangladesh's status as a "minnow," but the tinge of sadness in his mind was quite evident.

The reason I cited these two examples is because we in Bangladesh have a belief that India, the country that helped us during our Liberation War, still looks upon us as an unsuccessful nation. Millions of Indians tend to think that Bangladeshis will always remain in their backyard -- always dependent on them, Bangladesh will remain underdeveloped, and not much else can be expected from this nation.

This attitude pains me. I won't deny the fact that there's a strong anti-Indian sentiment running in the minds of many Bangladeshis, but no Bangladeshi considers India as a backward or unsuccessful country. We learn a lot from Indian culture, literature, politics, and history. And we quite often express our gratitude for their help in 1971.

However, we should always remember that Bangladesh is in no way in competition with any other nation. We rejoice in our success among ourselves and we feel sad in our own failures.

Since our independence, we have been giving more to India than we have taken. We contribute to the Indian economy in a big way.

Indians working in Bangladesh send an enormous amount of remittance to their country from ours. As of November 2019, a report said the total annual remittance inflow into India from Bangladesh had reached $16.67 billion.

If we look at the number of Bangladeshi patients seeking medical treatment in India, it will be clear how much India earns from us.

I don't have any current data, but I can cite a report released by the Indian government in 2017. The report said, one in three foreign patients in India was from Bangladesh. Of the 460,000 inbound patients in Indian hospitals, more than 165,000 were from Bangladesh. Bangladeshis had bought over $343 million worth of services.

There's more.

One report says that 60% of the buyers in West Bengal are from Bangladesh. Did you notice that West Bengal -- especially Kolkata -- markets during the last two Eids when the Covid-time travel restrictions were on? Their markets looked deserted.

Here in Bangladesh, the markets are normally flooded with Indian apparel during our Eids. Despite that fact, thousands of Bangladeshis still prefer to go to India for Eid shopping.

In 2017, an estimated 150,000 shoppers went to India. If the shoppers had bought goods worth at least $1,000 each, they would have ended up spending $1,170 crore. But many spend way more than that.

We are a market for many other Indian goods and products. The country earns enormously from selling these goods and products to 165 million Bangladeshis.

And this is how Bangladesh has always given more to India. Sometimes, we feel that we deserve to be praised by India but, instead, what we receive is high-pitched jealousy whenever we achieve something good.

We don't expect this from India, a country that should have become more mature in all these years.

Ekram Kabir is a yogi, a story-teller, and a communications professional. His other works can be found on ekramkabir.com.

 

[Saif]

Clearly "control" is at play here, not running ports.

Sea ports and Air ports are strategic assets. India wants to get a firm grip on Bangladesh by getting transit through Bangladesh and by controlling our ports. This way India manages to reduce our strategic value to China significantly.

 

[Saif]

Useless project and money down the drain. India does not manufacture even one significant piece of container handling equipment (unlike China or other EU countries), so how they will "improve" container handling is beyond me.

And why this AL govt. awards projects to Indian firms is also questionable to me. The pedigree and experience of this Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury guy as a shipping minister was always open to debate, and now he has been proven to be "on the take" as well.

Look at the math. Tk 6,014 crore project and at an annual return in improvement of Tk. 150 crore. It will take roughly 40 years to pay this off to India with interest. Even that rate of return is questionable.

We should have given the project to China instead of India. India with its subpar technology will end up making the Mongla port more inefficient in the name of improving it.

 

[Saif]

Teesta, connectivity to dominate talks

The Teesta development project, signing of the long pending Teesta water sharing deal, renewal of the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty signed in 1996 and connectivity of the...

www.newagebd.net

Teesta, connectivity to dominate talks
Staff Correspondent 20 June, 2024, 01:00

Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi

The Teesta development project, signing of the long pending Teesta water sharing deal, renewal of the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty signed in 1996 and connectivity of the north-eastern states of India through Bangladesh are likely to dominate the bilateral talks between Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi in June 22.

Foreign ministry officials have taken all preparations for the PM-level talks as Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to fly to New Delhi on June 21 on a two-day visit at the invitation of Narendra Modi, a second trip to India in less than 15 days after the Bharatiya Janata Party formed the government for the third consecutive term.

'Prime minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to leave Dhaka on Friday on a two-day bilateral visit to India at the invitation of her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and the bilateral talks between the two leaders as per schedule would be held on June 22, ' foreign ministry spokesperson and also director general of the Public Diplomacy wing Seheli Sabrin told New Age on Wednesday.

Asked about the meeting agenda, she said that officials were still working on it.

India has very recently expressed its willingness to support a mega development plan on the trans-boundary River Teesta inside Bangladesh, where China has already shown its interest and completed a survey for a $1 billion project.

Indian external affairs secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra conveyed the message during a courtesy call on foreign minister Hasan Mahmud at his Segunbagicha office in Dhaka in May, taking to the fore India's interest to counter China in its bordering area.

Vinay Mohan also paid a courtesy call on prime minister Sheikh Hasina at her office during the visit.

However, this would be Sheikh Hasina's first bilateral meeting with Narendra Modi after taking over as prime minister for the fourth consecutive term through the January 7 general election. She attended administering of the oath to Narendra Modi as prime minister of India for the third term running on June 9.

The Teesta development project as well as the water sharing of common rivers, including Teesta, and the renewal of the 30-year Ganges treaty expiring in 2026 would remain high on agenda besides India's issue of connectivity of the north-eastern states through Bangladesh, trade and defence partnership in the bilateral talks, according to officials concerned.

New Delhi has long been foot-dragging on the Teesta water-sharing treaty with Dhaka, adversely affecting the lives and livelihoods of the people in the Rangpur region.

Talking on the issue, a retired foreign secretary recently told New Age if India seriously takes the project to counter China, it may go ahead but may face the same situation of the other projects under the Indian line of credit that were not advancing at an expected pace, while a former diplomat said that Bangladesh should weigh both proposals and look into their terms to find a better one.

The Teesta becomes almost dry in the lean season due to the unilateral withdrawal of water upstream in India, while in monsoon, the common river overflows, causing frequent floods in Bangladesh as Indian authorities open floodgates of the Gajoldoba barrage to offload water pressure.

Biodiversity and agriculture in Bangladesh's northern districts have been seriously affected in the absence of any water-sharing treaty between the two countries.

After finalisation of the draft of the Teesta deal by the two sides, India backtracked on signing the treaty just hours before the arrival of then-Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh in Dhaka on September 6, 2011, on the plea that West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee objected to the agreement.

To read the rest of the news, please click on the link above.​

 

[Saif]

Hasina-Modi bilateral meet and expectations

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to start for Delhi on June 21, for Indo-Bangladesh bilateral summit meeting. This will be her second visit to Delhi within 11 days as she concluded her last trip to Delhi on June 10. According to diplomatic circles, such visit within such a short span of t

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Hasina-Modi bilateral meet and expectations
MOSTAFIZUR RAHMAN
Published :
Jun 19, 2024 21:24
Updated :
Jun 19, 2024 21:24

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to start for Delhi on June 21, for Indo-Bangladesh bilateral summit meeting. This will be her second visit to Delhi within 11 days as she concluded her last trip to Delhi on June 10.
According to diplomatic circles, such visit within such a short span of time is rare. Of course, this reflects the closeness of ties between the two neighbours which is often termed a 'unique' relationship.

However, people in general are eager to see what benefits Bangladesh can derive from such a strong bilateral relationship.

In her last three tenures since 2009, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina walked extra miles to strengthen ties with the biggest neighbour of the country. Transit and trans-shipment were provided, a band of insurgent leaders were handed over to India and tough stance was taken to ensure that Indian insurgents cannot use any part of Bangladesh as hideouts.

Once there was bold opposition among many Bangladeshis against providing India the transition and transshipment facilities, which have brought out a sea change in the transportation of goods and people between the two wings of India. But against all odds, Hasina took this phenomenal step.

However, it is widely believed that Indian political leadership has failed to reciprocate the very generous gesture of Bangladesh. The first example is its failure to ink the deal on the water sharing of Teesta River.

The deal was agreed by both sides and was supposed to be signed during the then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Dhaka in 2011.

But at the last minute, India backed out citing opposition from the West Bengal government. Despite promises that the deal would be concluded 'very soon', it remains unfulfilled till now and there is no sign of materialising it in the near future.

Next comes the issue of border killing. Every year a good number of Bangladeshi people are killed by the Birder Security Forces (BSF) of India.

In every bilateral meetings, the Indian leadership promised to put an end to such killing of unarmed civilians by the BSF. And on several occasions both sides agreed to stop the use of lethal weapons by the border guards, but to no avail.

In no other parts of the world, border guards of a country kill unarmed civilians of its neighbours.

The BSF claim that they are compelled to shoot when they themselves are attacked by 'criminal elements' from Bangladesh. It is no secret that crime like smuggling or human trafficking is not a one-sided affair.

People from both sides are involved in such criminal activities. Even involvement of border forces of either side is often revealed in several reports. In any case, killing of civilians is not acceptable. And it is a major barrier to creating a true and lasting friendship between the people of the two countries, who have a long history of shared struggle and prosperity.

It is widely believed that an appropriate step from Delhi's political leadership is enough to stop such border killings. India recently took some steps to resolve the age-old disputes that include signing of the Land Boundary Agreement and lifting of export ban on essential commodities like onion. But people of Bangladesh expect that Indian leadership will also go the extra mile for resolving issues like border killing and water sharing.

Let us hope that during the upcoming visit, there will be a significant outcome in this regard.​

 

[Saif]

PM’S India Visit: Defence, Teesta project, port likely to be on agenda

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s upcoming visit to New Delhi on June 21-22 will focus on some key issues in bilateral relations that have regional geopolitical significance.

www.thedailystar.net

PM'S India Visit: Defence, Teesta project, port likely to be on agenda
Both sides finalising several deals, MoUs, say diplomatic sources

File photo of PM Sheikh Hasina/PID

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's upcoming visit to New Delhi on June 21-22 will focus on some key issues in bilateral relations that have regional geopolitical significance.

Issues such as water, port and defence will be discussed, The Daily Star has learnt from diplomatic sources in Dhaka and New Delhi.

Fresh loans from India under a new framework will also be high on the agenda of the bilateral talks as Bangladesh grapples with a crunch in foreign currency reserves, they said.

Besides, the Myanmar crisis, especially the intense fighting in Rakhine State, will feature prominently during the delegation-level meeting between Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.

The Bangladesh premier is scheduled to reach New Delhi in the afternoon tomorrow. On June 22, she will hold the delegation-level meeting centring on a new phase in the bilateral relationship, a diplomat told The Daily Star yesterday.

The two countries are finalising several agreements and memorandums of understanding that may be signed during Hasina's tour of India.

TEESTA PROJECT

The issue of funding for the "Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project" will feature prominently in the talks, according to diplomatic sources in Dhaka and New Delhi.

The agreement was finalised in 2011, but could not be inked due to opposition from West Bengal.

The Economic Relations Division sought a $983.27 million loan from China to implement the Teesta project, which includes river dredging, setting up reservoirs and building townships along the river.

On October 13, 2022, then-Chinese ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming said his country was serious about implementing the project, but also had a sense of reluctance due to sensitive issues surrounding it.

During a visit to Dhaka on May 9, Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra told Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud that India was interested in financing the Teesta project.

On June 13, Hasina told the parliament that the government was considering a proposal for a detailed feasibility study for the Teesta project as China's evaluation pointed out that there was a lack of detailed proposals on land development and water navigation.

"Our government needs to know whether India would sign the Teesta water sharing agreement because the river restoration and management project would depend on this," said Faiz Ahmad, a former ambassador of Bangladesh to China.

India and China also can fund different components of the project, said Ahmad, also a former chair of the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies.

A diplomat in New Delhi said the two prime ministers will also discuss the renewal of the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty that was signed in 1996. The treaty is set to expire in 2026.

To be continued.............​