Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will go to New Delhi on December 18 for an important tour when three agreements between Bangladesh and India will be signed, including one on transfer of sentenced persons. The two other agreements going to be struck are: agreement on mutual legal assistance on criminal matters and agreement on combating international terrorism, organized crimes and illicit drug trafficking.
Bangladesh and India would sign three agreements during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India in December, Foreign Secretary Mohamed Mijarul Quayes said on Saturday. While briefing journalists on the outcome of the Indian foreign secretary’s meeting with the foreign ministry of Bangladesh, he said India has agreed to give Bangladesh railway transit to carry its products to Nepal.
Dhaka is planning to resume talks with New Delhi and Yangon on a tri-nation gas pipeline from Myanmar to India through Bangladesh but Delhi has reportedly scrapped its plan to take Myanmar gas as the Myanmar military junta has decided to sell to China most of the gas discovered near Bangladesh. Energy officials said the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has given permission to resume the negotiation with Delhi and Yangon on the pipeline to carry gas to India from Myanmar and the energy division had requested the foreign ministry to take necessary steps.
Bangla-desh has thanked co-hosts India and Sri Lanka for allowing them to play all their six group matches of the World Cup 2011 at home. ‘We are really grateful to them [India and Sri Lanka]. Without their co-operation it would not have been possible,’ AHM Mustafa Kamal, the president of the Bangladesh Cricket Board, said at a briefing on Wednesday.
Bangladesh has registered its objection with the United Nations to India’s claim over certain areas in the Bay of Bengal three months after a similar opposition lodged against Myanmar’s claim over sea waters. ‘We have submitted our objection to the maritime commission of the UN on October 29,’ Bangladesh’s permanent representative to the UN, MA Momen told New Age over telephone Monday evening. India submitted its claim on maritime boundary to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in May 2009, one month ahead of its deadline.
India will clash with Bangladesh in the opening match of the 2011 World Cup in Dhaka on February 19, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said on Monday. The first match takes place two days after the opening ceremony of the 14-nation showpiece at the same venue in Dhaka on February 17, according to the schedule released by the ICC here. The final of the 43-day tournament, being co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, will take place at the renovated Wankhede stadium in India’s financial capital of Mumbai on April 2.
Foreign minister Dipu Moni has said that settling the maritime boundary disputes with India and Myanmar is critical for Bangladesh's progress. She told reporters in Chandpur on Saturday, "Progress according to our development plans and ensuring best use of our limited resources absolutely requires retrieval of mineral resources from the sea." "It is critical that we settle sea boundary disputes with India and Myanmar."
Bangladesh will go to the United Nations arbitration for a resolution of its long-standing dispute with India and Myanmar over maritime boundary. Announcing the decision at a press briefing yesterday, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said the government has decided to take the matter up with the UN, as talks over the last 35 years could not settle it.
Bangladesh will be playing in Group B in the ICC world cup 2011 along with India, South Africa, England, West Indies, Ireland and Netherlands. An International Cricket Council Board meeting in Johannesburg today confirmed the groups for the One-Day cricket’s largest gala, reports a private television channel.
The government is expected to sign four agreements with India - an extradition treaty, a pact to provide mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, combating international terrorism, organised crime and illicit drug trafficking, an agreement for transfer of sentenced persons to stop border terrorism and a pact for handing over criminals from one signatory country to another.
