Articles

Bangladesh has celebrated its forty years of liberation from Pakistan on 16 December2011. Anniversaries are very important in personal as well as collective life because it provides an opportunity to think about the time gone by and an opportunity to set new aspirations for the coming time. This becomes particularly important in the life of a nation state where 40 are considered quite young and has to go a long way. The Bangladesh government has begun planning to set an agenda of a “Digital Bangladesh” by 2021 the year when it will be celebrating 50^th anniversary.

When Sheikh Hasina’s government in Dhaka reciprocated in almost full measure to Indian overtures by apprehending and repatriating important Indian insurgent leaders billeting in her country, the doors opened not only for improved bilateral cooperation, but also for a basis that could present itself as a substratum for proximate military ties. Indeed, India had already set it as an agenda during the caretaker regime period when the Bangladesh army virtually governed the country, and the visit of the Bangladesh army chief, Gen.

The conclusion of Indian Prime Minister’s two day visit to Dhaka has offered an opportunity to scholars, analysts and academicians to debate and discuss about future direction of India-Bangladesh relationship. Success and failure of the visit is measured in terms of whether this has further widened and deepened bilateral ties after Mrs. Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Delhi in January 2010. The excitement and apprehensions were discussed at a forum where young Indian and Bangladesh professionals gathered for almost 10 days.

Prime Minister’s visit to Bangladesh from September 6th to 7th was a once in a life time opportunity to place India-Bangladesh ties on an irreversibly upward trajectory. The imperative for seizing this opportunity at the earliest arises from the fact that the term of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government, which shares this sentiment, runs out in only a little more than two years and Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh National Party which may well replace it has historically not been well disposed towards India.

All is not well with the minorities in Bangladesh, especially the Hindus. One of the major election planks of the Awami League (AL) during the last general elections of 2008 was its assurance of securing the rights of the minorities of Bangladesh and of ensuring their safety. Such an election promise offered hope to the Hindus after a long period of persecution and discrimination under the BNP-Jamaat regime and they voted en-masse for the Awami League and in certain areas even actively worked for its victory.

Sheikh Hasina's four day state visit to India from January 10-13 has set the seal on the process of an upgradation of India-Bangladesh ties.

He belongs to the 1968 batch of the Kerala cadre and retired as chief of the Intelligence Bureau in January 2005.

Mr. Doval, who belongs to Garhwal, has outstanding credentials as an operations man. He made his name as a field operative in the Mizoram insurgency where he broke rebel leader Ladenga's hold over his private army. In 1989, he lead an IB team along with the Punjab police and National Security Guards in Operation Black Thunder to evacuate terrorists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar.