Bangladesh

Manmohan Singh arrived in Dhaka on Tuesday on a two-day trip, accompanied by the minister for external affairs and four chief ministers of the bordering states. He is reciprocating the visit of prime minister Sheikh Hasina to India in January last year. Indian water resources minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and West-Bengal chief minister, who were in the list of the entourage of the Indian prime minister, did not come as Mamata was apparently testy over the proposed modalities of the Teesta water sharing. The prime ministers had one-on-one meeting before and after the official talks on the Day-1 of his tour. After the meeting, both the prime ministers signed framework agreement on cooperation for development, and witnessed signing of one protocol, addendum of one protocol and eight memoranda of understanding. However, following strong opposition from West-Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Bangladesh and India could not sign the agreements on Teesta and Feni water sharing. Manmohan ...

The AGP president Chandra Mohan Patowary said that people of Assam would "oppose tooth and nail" any move by India's central government in New Delhi to give away even "an inch of land" of Bangladesh, even if such an initiative was endorsed by the State Government headed by Gogoi. The AGP – a regional party – staged a protest demonstration in Guwahati on Monday, denouncing the purported move by New Delhi to strike a swap-deal with Dhaka to resolve the issues related land boundary. Patowary said that any such a move on the part of the governments in the centre and the state could lead to serious turmoil in Assam. Even the BJP – the principal opposition party in Indian parliament – strongly opposed New Delhi's purported plan to strike an exchange agreement with Dhaka to settle the issues related to enclaves and adversely possessed land between Bangladesh and India. Pradyut Bora, the general secretary of the BJP's state unit in Assam, said that the par...